https://www.terracrypt.net/feeds/tags/dumbphones.xmlTag: dumbphones2026-03-01T20:46:16Zhttps://www.terracrypt.net/posts/the-smartest-dumbphone.htmlJonathan Fredericksonjonathan@terracrypt.net2025-11-11T10:00:00Z<p>Despite my last post, I got frustrated enough with my smartphone usage recently that as of today I'm using a flip phone. We'll see how long this lasts but so far I'm actually enjoying it.</p><p>But a sort of follow-up on my recent post, I suppose. I'm both a smartphone addict (which has me interested in using my phone less) and interested in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mobile/desktop_convergence">convergence</a> (which has me interested in using my phone more, in a sense). This feels like they would be in conflict, but I think there's actually a way in which it might not. This is such a specific and niche idea that I don't know if it actually appeals to anyone but me, but...</p><p>On a Linux phone, I think it might be possible to use multiseat sessions to simultaneously run both a mobile-focused environment on the phone screen/keypad (like <a href="https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Bananui">bananui</a>), and a separate fully-fledged desktop environment on an external display. On the go, you'd have a basic flip phone. Plug it into a dock, and you have a desktop computer!</p><p>You probably don't want the desktop environment and everything running on it to keep running/stay resident in RAM when undocked, which got me thinking about options to deal with that. To make sure things don't eat up CPU time unnecessarily, you could use cgroups to suspend all the processes related to the desktop side of things. If the phone has enough RAM and you carve out some for the desktop, that might be fine.</p><p>But if we want to get really crazy... I just ran across <a href="https://criu.org/Main_Page">CRIU</a>, which allows you to checkpoint running processes to disk and restore them later. It seems like checkpointing graphical applications currently isn't possible, but maybe someday? Or as a more heavyweight option, run a VM for the desktop session and suspend it to disk when unplugged? There's at least <a href="https://source.android.com/docs/core/virtualization">some precedent</a> for doing that on mobile phones.</p><p>The kind of hardware that you'd need to actually do this is so absurdly specific that it probably doesn't exist. You need a flip phone capable of docking via DisplayPort Alt-Mode, and an absurdly overpowered processor and overprovisioned RAM for what a flip phone normally needs. Has anyone made something like this? I have no clue.</p><p>Impractical? Probably. Fun? I think so. :)</p>https://www.terracrypt.net/posts/dumbphone-spam-filter.htmlJonathan Fredericksonjonathan@terracrypt.net2025-11-06T16:12:00Z<p>I'll admit it, I'm a smartphone addict. I've tried, as best I can, to avoid using the big adtech social media platforms in the last few years. But even a web browser is enough to suck me in several times a day for <em>hours</em> in total.</p><p>A while back, I bought a dumbphone - a Nokia 2780 Flip, to be exact. It's essentially a modern version of the flip phones many of us had back in the early 2000s. You get calls, texts, contacts, calendars, some <em>very</em> basic web browsing, and not much else. It runs on KaiOS, which is a mostly proprietary derivative of Firefox OS from years back, with the UI redesigned for flip phones.</p><p>It doesn't have a Matrix app (<a href="https://blog.bananahackers.net/farooqkz/saying-goodbye-to-kaios-and-to-chooj">despite the efforts of enthusiastic hackers</a>) so I'd be missing out on what I've been using as my primary messaging platform for a while. I think I could probably get by with that, only having SMS, phone calls, and email while on the go. But what has me dreading the possible switch is actually something else entirely.</p><p>Robocalls and spam callers have become an increasingly annoying problem lately, and simultaneously, smartphone platforms have actually gotten pretty good at blocking them. I personally use <a href="https://github.com/aj3423/SpamBlocker">SpamBlocker</a> because it's FOSS and very configurable, but Google and Apple now both have call screening features for those who want to go that route. It feels like a bit of an arms race between spammers and smartphone vendors.</p><p>KaiOS doesn't have anything like this. I'd be subject to the flood of spam calls that I've been somewhat successful at avoiding thus far. So it feels like there's a tradeoff here: do I switch, and deal with the annoyance of multiple daily spam calls? Or do I stick with a smartphone, and continue to get sucked into the anxiety rectangle? I wish there was a better choice!</p>