I remember when carriers not just locked the phones, they also had custom firmwares filled with bloat and customized skins and even locking down features and all that shit. For example, I had a Sony Ericsson K700i and it had a disgustingly customized FW on it, and aside that it was ugly, I could only play MP3 files that I purchased through Vodafone. Sending them via bluetooth (or even with IR) didn’t work, the phone refused to play it back.

(Then of course I found out that Sony Ericssons were pretty moddable phones so I replaced the FW with an original one and that solved all my problems. For some reasons, the fact that I patched the FW with countless of VKP patches and even unlocking it with a patch, didn’t void my warranty so whenever I fucked up the FW beyond my abilities to repair it or simply bricked it, I just sent it to Vodafone and they fixed it.)

And they did this even when Android became a thing. (Though, it was a Vodafone branded phone so… it was sort of OK. (technically it was a Huawei though, also pretty moddable phone))

I assumed it meant using a separate device or software on the side

That’s what it is. I remember actually sideloading apps to my BlackBerry 10 devices (Z10 and Z30) (though it really wasn’t that long ago not to remember it…) using a PC with a Chrome based browser (though it worked on Firefox too with some minor fiddling) to push and install .bar files to the phone. That is what sideloading to me.

Now this term changed, so everything you install from a different source than the built-in appstore is called sideloading, which is ridiculous IMO.

for newcomers, maybe this is the best combo. Debian stable with KDE Plasma.

and even then, for me at least, the dialog that pops up is broken and lot of times the “Allow” button literally does nothing

With Termux on Android, it’s possible to install Debian in a proot environment.

More about this here: https://github.com/termux/proot-distro

I guess using this envirinment, it’s possible to set up your server to your needs.

One thing I don’t know is how to autostart Termux at boot, but there must be a way, “worst-case” a Tasker routine can do it. Also, another thing to considerate with this setup is Android’s memory management and to detect if your proot distro gets killed. But then again, maybe Tasker is good for that, too.

Good thing with this proot-distro thing is that it’s really easy and straightforward to set up, and basically you have a full Linux environment in your pocket. There are limitations, of course.

As for installing/flashing full Debian on an Android phone, let’s say it’s not possible. Your closest best bet would be Ubuntu Touch on a supported device.

honestly not sure

for a second I thought it’s some kind of bad dragon toy

There is a setting somewhere IIRC (or at least there was) where you can separate file browser processes from the “main” explorer.exe process so you can kill individual Explorer windows but not the whole environment.

No, I’m not recommending a distro for you

Don’t worry, everyone else does

Yeah, sure, a really nice thing.

They should open-source it, as they did with Calculator.

I liked the Earthbound way of random encounters.

Piken Chaprikash

Boulash Geef

adieu

like on porn sites

as someone, who could have been a professional classical guitar player, I am insulted.

so they are now pricey one-time/disposable phones

on mobile it’s just a huge pile of stinky shit anyway

nice

rule 34 when?