Welp, I re-installed Ubuntu on my laptop. Initially, it's confusing to me why. Is it my worries about having to maintain my system? I daily-drive Linux-based machines, but besides my server, I rarely have to go crazy with its more technical aspects. I use a GUI package manager for updates, and a GUI file manager for managing my data. If I had to use a terminal for something, it's almost always either SSH and Git for my server or troubleshooting cause' I fucked a thing up. That said, I could have just slapped in a desktop like KDE Plasma or COSMIC and called it a day. Other people have been vibing on easier Arch-based distros, like Endeavor and Garuda, after all. Is it my fears of me accidentally making Arch shit itself and die? From what I've heard from others, Arch isn't actually that bad with stability even as a rolling-release distribution, where you'd just have to not be stupid and make sure the updates apply properly. I almost don't trust myself with that as someone who just expects updates to work, but I imagine I could have learned how to ensure system stability. I think it might be because I'm considering treating my HP laptop as one of my main systems again. I've been using it sometimes even before I sold off my piece-of-shit Surface Go 2, and it's been a dependable little fella. Battery has been my only real dislike of it, with it otherwise more stable and powerful than the tablet for the shit I'd need to do (it can even run Gamecube emulation, in fact!). Plus, I only really bought the Surface due to the laptop not playing nicely with Linux, and clearly that's been resolved as of late (unlike with the Surface being a complete fuckslab even on Windows 11), and with an external drawing tablet (which is often cheaper than an official Microsoft stylus, by the way), I still have my on-the-go drawing! So, with the Spring Semester arriving soon, I'm not really interested in experimenting with Linux customization for the moment, and I'd rather start loving my silver little laptop again.
Also, I'm curious to see how LibreOffice compares to OnlyOffice, even as someone who does not need to switch. In terms of licensing, both are copyleft under GPL licensing. Very good for obvious reasons. I guess I could (perhaps rightly) complain about OnlyOffice getting into AI marketing bullshit on the website compared to LibreOffice being normal, but the software itself is still very competent and un-compromised. Another thing is that both have the Ribbon interface that I prefer. OnlyOffice has it by default, and LibreOffice lets you change to it during first startup. Their technical merits could be interesting to check out, though. They look very similar (waow, word processors are word processors), but it'd be interesting to see what LibreOffice has to offer in comparison nonetheless.
This week, I got new glasses! It's not much to talk about, but I've been loving how much more feminine its cat-eye style is compared to my old one, plus it still has a neutral black-and-bronze color scheme that fits with my usual style. I'm also getting in the habit of taking better care of these glasses than my old ones, since their lenses are the higher-quality, but more brittle glass. So, it means I have to make sure to put them in my case every night for once, lol.
Oops! I noticed that for some of my past entries, I have written down the past year of 2025, rather than this year which is 2026.
Anyways, recently, I've been reading some articles on the current state of the Internet from people like Joan Westenberg and Nyx Land, and it's gotten me even more interested in experiencing the pre-Web2 Internet than before. The blogosphere has been really fun to participate in, with all of you writing such neat articles to read and me having freedom over my web-space. As for the Imageboards and forums of old, I dearly hope to also get into them. I've already had good experiences reading through the forums of projects like Arch Linux, Krita, and Fedora especially compared to the circlejerk-infested shithole that. Reddit is. So, I imagine it'd be sweet to try out Imageboards and forums for public discussion, too. YellowTealPurple seems like a cozy place for creatives like me, and AGPchan would be nice for chatting with edgier trans peeps.
As for how the Internet underwent platform decay, it's been shocking to see how broken it had been in the first place. (Side note: Not sure why I prefer that term rather than "enshittification," lol; I fucking cuss like a piss-soaked sailor @w@) Nyx Land's article in particular has me thinking about just how poorly the Internet had adapted from being a network for large organizations to being one of the most popular ways of communication. Shitty protocols like IPv4 (which for instance, dedicated an entire Class A block of TL million addresses to just fucking loopback!) have made web hosting difficult to learn and get into after the 1990s, but the decentralized Internet relied on people being able to easily host. Then, tech companies who were coasting off their infinite money glitch (aka, hype and venture capital) and robust anti-piracy whaleshit were easily able to pull in users, starving out the decentralized web almost entirely and later decaying themselves in order to maximize profit. Frankly, I'm not sure how much of the Internet will survive over the coming years, then. Data loss is just inevitable, with so many companies participating in I'd imagine that data hoarders will save our shit (god bless them), and networking itself has been too useful for people to just ditch (especially with the dark web thriving and us being able to fend off the clanker horde so far), but shit's certainly gonna be lost forever (certainly, no one's gonna be saving all that worthless Youtube content). I hope, then, that we at least save enough for the 22nd century to appreciate and learn from.
Yesterday, for a moment, it was snowing over in my mom's place! It didn't last long, with the snow melting away after a few hours (sadge), but it was still so majestic to see. Over here in Arizona, it doesn't snow very often, with southern parts not snowing at all and staying relatively warm. So, the winter would usually just look almost the same as the Spring and Fall, but with the weather being cold. That time, though, the houses and land were coated in bright, fluffy snow, and it was cozy to see at least while it lasted.
Also, I should stop procrastinating and use my college notes to make an online Linux guide, lol. I have been vibing during Winter break, but it'd be nice to instead take on another web project, especially since my personal web-space is already finished and only needs minor design tweaks at most, and I need to keep practicing my webdev skills.
Maybe I should also try using my Python skills to make a GTK app. Even as someone who isn't really into coding with that language (since I haven't really decided what I wanna do with it yet), it'd be nice to see what I can make with it, especially since fairly complex GNOME apps have actually been made with it.
While scrolling through Fedi, I came across a re-uploaded video by @anemone@ebiverse.social (a cool peep with funny political memes and cute shreemp), which was originally from a gaming Youtube channel during the early-2010s (judging by the style of rough-but-charming sketches, along with footage from gameplay trailers and stolen art lol). The narrator was addressing the audience about why they play video games, but rather than just answer that "it's a hobby," he goes on about how he feels home while gaming. I've personally have felt so much comfort while gaming, too, from helping older siblings beat Melee to solving seriously clever puzzles on Portal, so I fully relate to this feeling home while gaming. However, he elaborates upon this in the stupidest way possible. He goes on to complain about people disliking how he wanted to save everybody as a video game character, then about the "American Dream," which he defines as having a menial 9-to-5 job, 2.5 kids, a house, a divorce, and college debt. He claims that video games will provide far richer life experiences than life ever could, where he would "visit more worlds" than a traveler, and where he wouldn't consider himself a virgin as someone who has saved so many video-game women. ...My wigga, they're just interactive stories. You solved difficult puzzles and sometimes with quick reaction times and vibrant world-building, but that doesn't mean that you did anything for the real-world itself. You especially aren't above the non-gamers who still participate in society, even as hurtful as the backlash against nerd culture was before the 2010s.
In general, that video represents so much of the problems with the early-2010s online culture we used to have. To begin, the "American Dream" that the narrator ranted on is a perfectly decent lifestyle on a material level. How delusional were we all were that we thought that a stable lifestyle where we could afford college education, a house, and family was a bad thing? The misery of menial work and college debt will continue to be an issue until we adopt worker-first economics and free education on all levels, and for now, that "worthless" degree has helped people at least avoid working in a meat factory they'll later be shredded in or starving from homelessness. Work and college by themselves are not a misery. Plus, there's been a lot of fellow people us Americans have either invaded or persecuted, then oppressed, who would give up every single thing they have for that very same lifestyle. Another thing is that video games by themselves are not actual life experiences. Like I said, they're just interactive stories, and stories by themselves have no real-world impact for others we care about. If you aren't vibing with friends or partners, you aren't making personal connections. If you aren't inspiring others to take action, you aren't helping to save others. You especially aren't "saving the world" or "meeting so many women" by only just consuming video games. Above all, this all just represents why I've been so cynical with Youtube and maybe even most Youtubers now. The only really charming things about this video were the sketches in it. Everything else is literally game-trailer footage, Powerpoint slides, or stolen art that one Googled for. There's nothing to learn about that video besides learning that someone is a loser, and there's no entertainment value besides a hate-watch with a "take a shot" challenge. In general, I hate how the early-2010s and earlier were infested with complaining about the middle-class lifestyle we could've just improved upon and now want back, and I'm at least glad that aspect of our online culture is now dead and thrown deep into a landfill.
P.S.: Once again, I hope you all are doing well, able to gradually work your way out of something awful, or getting some help. Things are continuing to get rocky with the AI bubble further ballooning, the U.S. controlling the future of our fellow Venezuelans, and the far-right continuing to gain ground in many countries. It just sucks so much how our leaders have chosen the pipe dream of an AGI dystopia over our long-term stability, and how many of our neighbors chose to be bigots, online addicts, and scammers instead of taking cooperative, inclusive action. I only hope we fight hellishly enough over the coming decades to manage and get something better even after all this.
Lately, I've been thinking about how far I can go when it comes to digital minimalism. When I had no proper Internet access while visiting mom's place with siblings (due to KaiOS being shit), I've been losing the urge to watch the Youtube videos that I used to crave, and I've been writing these journals and even an article in lieu of staring at unfunny memes on Fedi. Even when I switched to a smartphone again, I was only using Youtube to download tutorials and check out music Xerf Xpec shared, and while I was still attached to Fedi (due to it not having other social media's shittiest aspects), I was mainly having close chats with online friends and popping in music while doing some chores. So, in a way, my iPad became a journaling machine, and my phone became an iPod.
Now, I am thinking about where to go next. First, when it comes to sexual activities, I've been thinking about getting more adventurous with them, such as with toys and drawing NSFW comics, rather than just popping in a booru and fapping. That has been fairly boring for me, especially when it just involves laying in bed, and sexuality can be more creative and artistic than that. Next, I want to save up for the Minimal phone. Although I will need some smartphone-exclusive apps that its Android OS offers, such as Cisco Duo and Bank of America, I've heard of how e-ink devices like the Minimal phone dissuade smartphones' more addictive elements, especially video and the use of color in malvertising/clickbait. Plus, it has a QWERTY keypad, making for SMS texting that's actually efficient and not a pain in the ass. I personally find that fascinating, since most other minimalist devices take away essential functionality like people can somehow still live with just calling and very occasional texting. Instead, I'd be assured that I can keep any apps I truly need while still avoiding addictions like YouTube and TikTok. Another thing, I want to change the way I use Fedi. Though it is fine by itself, I have realized that accounts like Richard Stallman's, The Oatmeal's, and Joan Westenberg's, which mainly serve to share longer articles on other websites, have been some of my best uses of that platform. So, I've been feeling that maybe the original purpose of social media, or at least its intended purpose, was to be an outlet to share each others' blog-posts, where we could have engaged with new ideas in others' websites, rather than screamed at sound-bites to find something to do-ish online. Instead, well, you know how that shit went. To be blunt, we should have expected pie-in-the-sky creeps like Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and later Sam Altman and their oversized forums to fuck up our society and pretend we're gonna be like The Jetsons or some shit. Anyways, I want to fully express my ideas, and do so by sharing my long-form, proper posts to others rather than spouting out fragmentary paragraphs that inevitably will get buried in the sea of memes I stole or boasts about fucking yo momma. Plus, I want to find and read as many people's cool blogging and art websites as possible. So many of you are really cozy writers. It's clear you aren't just making a blog just because you were watching a video/read a post about "missing the 2000s internet" and feeling guilty with your Twitter/Youtube addiction. You often convey your feelings effectively, and I learn at least a little bit about what you're interested in. Keep it up! I will also make sure to keep on reading, too.
P.S.: I think in general, I'm becoming the hippie I've always aspired to be as a kid. Where I was once guilty about not liking the onions in my spaghetti or the ketchup near my fries, I've now been happy to try various kinds of vegetable dishes and wait until dinner to eat. Where I once got tired after a few minutes of walking during road trips, I've been enjoying biking for multiple minutes to reach somewhere and riding with others in public buses. Where I used to gawk over "the next biggest gadget" on tech blogs, I now try to adopt open-source/libre software whenever possible, and I find that I'm moreso interested in what often indie-developed, non-profit software can do rather than what is in expensive, near-elitist hardware. To sum things up, as I've grown, my habits are shifting from being like the middle-class, lazy suburban kid I grew up as and more like the environmental advocates and backyard engineers that I admired in the books, videos, and documentaries I enjoyed.
Apparently, my Note 4 is working again. A while ago, while I was just watching videos while charging it, it crashed. Afterward, it would bootloop, with only the recovery properly working. Initially, I believed that its Lineage OS install went bad, so I tried factory resetting it, and when that didn't work, I tried re-installing Lineage OS through the image on its SD card. It continued to bootloop, so I thought the phone needed its stock firmware again. During that time, however, I was using a Nokia flip phone, which had no option for me to enable a hotspot at all. So, with its shitty, outdated browser and its limiting keypad, I had to painstakingly download Odin (the firmware flashing tool for Smasnug phones), then the firmware on that phone, all while it was overheating and on the edge of dying. This was just a 2GB file. Somehow, I was able to get the firmware and Odin downloaded, though. Still, even after multiple successful firmware flashing attempts, I would only get as far as booting it to recovery, and the phone continued to bootloop. I tried researching the issue online, and I tried to wipe the cache as suggested by one XDA forum post about it. It continued to bootloop. I found on one iFixit thread that a bad battery, especially one with voltage issues, causes bootlooping. I don't have a spare battery for it. Yesterday, though, I was curious about how the phone will do using a fast charger. Finally, the phone booted up, and I was able to get it to the home screen. I was also able to find that when I unplug the fast charger, the phone dies and bootloops again, confirming that the battery indeed was cack.
Overall, it was a relief that the phone was working again. For the past six months or even longer, my Pixel 4a's battery was dying, breaking the outer shell and eventually the screen along with it. So, I was scrambling to find another phone to buy, and I bought this Note 4 thinking that I could just flash a custom ROM for it and have a phone on the cheap. Yet, even after multiple days of trying to root it, tracking down shady sites for different firmware that could make rooting more successful, having to install Windows on a spare laptop, then another spare laptop after I crashed out and broke that other laptop's hard disk, finding out that I needed the IMEI number, struggling to unlock the bootloader, flash TWRP, and install Lineage OS again, and learning I also needed to flash the modem, ... only its cellular data worked. After even more research about APN settings, then comparing its diagnostics to my Pixel 4a's diagnostics, and re-reading on the XDA page what the Lineage OS ROM didn't support, I found out that my Note 4 lacked VoLTE. VoLTE is basically the technology behind 4G talk and text, and all US carriers shut down 3G. Unless I wanted to use the completely dead Android 6 Marshmallow, that phone isn't a phone anymore. What. The. Fuck. So, later on, I considered auctions, which I all lost since so many others had more to spend, then older Google phones, where I figured that they will eventually develop worse battery issues than the Pixel 4a I have now, and eventually modern feature phones, which I thought I would adapt to. I've been interested in a more balanced online life anyways, and I thought that the Nokia 2720 V Flip I bought would only be limited in terms of lacking Android. I was wrong; KaiOS is limited in all the wrong ways. First, it didn't support SD cards larger than 32GB like it's from the 2000s, so I had to harvest the card my New 3DS (which did support these larger SD cards) had. Second, the default music player also didn't support FLAC files, and most of my music collection is FLAC files. I tried other music players, which were even shittier (one made the music glitch out whenever I just close the phone, and one didn't order the tracks properly when the proper track order was right in the name). I then settled with getting the lossy files I did have and just popping them in for now. Third, keypad texting really was as slow as I thought. My family often uses text for communication, but it'd take minutes for me to text with it even remotely as efficiently as with a normal touch keyboard, and even with KaiOS' voice-to-text, it would take multiple repeated key-presses to fix errors I made. Most importantly, KaiOS itself was shit and a shining beacon of phone hardware not being the issue with online addiction. There's so many fucking ads, even for some fully offline apps like the music player, and the app selection is a manure-filled dumpster-fire, with almost everything being shovelware not even the clueless iPad kids would fawn over, while actually important things like alternative web browsers (such as Firefox), alternative chat apps (like XMPP or Whatsapp), and such being completely absent from there. So, the only real option is either Google services, which is really just a few services, or the built-in web browser, which works like shit for many websites and is more outdated than a Mississippian's views on black people. Ultimately, I was able to settle with a Galaxy S7, which is still fairly limited (Android 8 Oreo, broken hotspot) but has served my needs highly effectively (fast enough for basic web browsing, real keyboard enables effective texting and online search), and the Note 4 working again means I can just find it a non-fried battery, then sell it to those who want a retro phone to tinker with.
So I couldn't get a hotspot working for my phone. Whenever I tried to turn it on, it kept blocking me, saying that I need to upgrade the phone plan to get hotspots. However, it worked just fine on my old Pixel 4a, and when I checked the My Verizon app, it said that my mom did have hotspots enabled. Most likely, something with the phone, which is a Galaxy S7, is being wonky with mom's 5G phone plan.
Still, things were smooth sailing compared to when I was using the Nokia flip phone. Besides the Galaxy S7's Android obviously having much better app support that could take advantage of my cellular data, unlike with the Nokia's KaiOS being just an outdated web browser and shovelware games, the Galaxy's touchscreen was much easier to use for me, especially for texting and the Internet, than the Nokia's keypad. As a result, I was able to get back in touch with my XMPP frens, and I was able to download the apps I needed during my visit to mom's house.
Another thing is that mom has a desktop PC in a spare room. It used to be mine when I bought it at a thrift store for $35, where I wanted to use it as a home-theater PC, then a web server. However, I didn't care for watching things on the TV, and I found VPSes to be a better fit for me. Meanwhile, it was fast enough for PS2 and Gamecube emulation, and especially the light browsing and office work that mom does, so I decided that she would make better use of it.
Recently, I wanted to help upgrade it to Windows 11, since Windows 10 was now unsupported. Technically, this PC doesn't meet the Windows 11 requirements (like, it was just one Intel generation away and they don't wanna support it), but just use Rufus to make your install media and check off some boxes to remove the bullshit. I then formatted the hard drive I put in it (surprisingly, it was a while ago that I put it in, and just now realized the reason the PC wasn't seeing it was because it needed to be formatted lol), then copied the PC's files in it. Still, I was amazed by just how well it all worked. The install was speedy (around 25 minutes or so, I believe), since it didn't have to stop for updates at all, and since it especially didn't fucking pester me with dialogs. Even further, I just needed to download some drivers and program installers on my phone and move them over to the PC to complete the upgrade. Overall, this PC setup had the potential to go downhill, but in reality, I managed things quite easily.
So, while visiting mom's house for the holiday, I had to switch phones yet again, this time to an old Galaxy S7 that mom had around her house. The Nokia 2720 V, even though it has cellular data, just didn't let me make a hotspot. What the fuck!? I need my hotspot. Shittons of places don't offer Wi-Fi, but cell towers are almost everywhere. Moreover, my mom did not wanna continue having to deal with the mess of getting Wi-Fi in her town, so she and the rest of us family are settling on cellular. So, the only real option for internet is the shitty KaiOS browser on it, where not only do I have to deal with the limited keypad that was only designed for short messages for family (and apparently Twitter, too! I hate Twitter lol, but it's neat how it was initially designed for keypad phones), a shitton of sites, like my instance, eBay, and literally anything with Anubis, didn't work properly or at all. Also also, no, the Kai Store is a non-option. It's full of shitware no one needs, yet nothing one actually would wanna use. Basically, it was no longer a good fit for me, even as someone who adores the dumbphone lifestyle and only needed my phone to be a phone.
As a result, while I was also trying to find another phone around the house (since mom had spare smartphones), I was scrambling around to give the Note 4 I brought its stock software back, since it worked with VoLTE (meaning it could be a real phone again) and could make a hotspot. However, earlier on, I seemed to have accidentally fried something in the phone, since no matter how many times I tried to flash the stock software with Odin, it would only want to boot to recovery or download mode, with it always bootlooping otherwise. After some research, I found this iFixit thread which suggested the battery was at fault for causing the bootlooping, yet I did not have spare Samsung batteries with me. For now, it's deaded until I fix it, and I will have to put it in storage until I get it a new battery (or parts phone) and see what saves it.
Today, however, while trying to sort through the boxes and cabinets in the house, I found both a Galaxy S23 Ultra and Galaxy S7! The S23 Ultra needs fixing for now, but the Galaxy S7 is a perfect fit for me. Now (as of writing this entry), I just need to find a SIM ejector so I can make it my main phone, then give it a screen protector so the screen won't get fucked in an accident. Still, though, living without Internet was pretty cozy, even as someone who deliberately chooses to use it as properly as possible (no algorithms, falling for ragebait, or getting addicted to gachashit). The holidays are always the best time of year to not only vibe with close family members, but also to be creative and either do a project, draw, or just write like I'm doing right now. No Internet made all this even easier.
P.S.: Besides Eggs-and-Pee-Pee (aka XMPP for chatting with close online friends), downloading media for offline entertainment, and Wafrn for sharing my artworks and writings (not browsing through it), I'll likely continue to not be in the Internet lololol. The Internet is still great when you avoid the corporate bullshit, but not being in the Internet whenever possible is also nice, and it's better to have more production than consumption (heck, I'm even starting to think that was the thing that made us both initially love the old Internet and hate the new Internet). Plus, I can just shut off registration for my instance and or get someone to moderate it while I'm gone in the meantime. After all, the best Fedi admins are those who love Fedi but don't actually fuck with it much, and the shitty ones hate Fedi but are addicted to it like crack-cocaine X3.
P.P.S.: haiii ra1n and valerie!!! Hope I didn't worry you two too much. Just was gone for around two days while I tried to get a hotspot
So, things are surprisingly less of a clusterfuck than I thought. I still accidentally missed some smaller assignments while trying to work on the final projects I had, and I'm still feeling fried after grinding to complete the Final Presentation on my Automation class. Still, I got things managed to an okay-ish degree. I still got time for my other finals assignments, and I don't really feel like I'm bullshitting myself either since I currently have been fired up by it being finals week. Afterwards, I'm so damn excited for winter break. I will have more time for not only my personal web-space and hobbies, but also I'm planning to adapt the notes I've taken during my Linux classes into a static website for newbies to peruse in. It's mainly just for fun, cause' I wanna try making a website again instead of just maintaining one, but I also feel that it's good to have something that will at least be much more useful for fellow Linux newbies than the ShatGPT-generated clankershit and abandoned forum threads flooding searchpages lately. For now, though, I will make sure to power through to the end, cause' as bleak as many aspects of the future are, it's still worth chasing.
As someone who's unfamiliar with Noam Chomsky and his works, I found this video to be helpful for having a basic idea of his politics. Until now, I really only heard of him being hated by right-libertarians like Luke Smith for really weird reasons, or him being labeled as a shitlib, MSM shill, or Epstein Island visitor without context. After watching this, I'm more familiar with how he's one of the few leftist intellectuals who was able to have mainstream influence even as someone who criticized how the media labelled Pol Pot's Kampuchea was genocidal before hard evidence came out, how the US only intervened in the Bosnian War when inaction became politically inconvenient, and how he's a firm free-speech absolutist even when it came to worse people. It's also interesting to hear actual criticisms of him, where his personal beliefs are still in-line with the mainstream (such as desiring a two-state solution for Palestine and being fine with Jeffrey Epstein) and how he doesn't really advocate for leftist action, instead of just insults. As a result, I was better able to understand what he specifically did, instead of continuing to wonder what others' deal with him was.
Another interesting thing was that this video also serves to criticize how mainstream media used to have essentially a monopoly on information. Mainstream media often criticizes the Internet for how fast information spreads, even when it often is low-quality dogshit like hate speech or 1600s ideas that are marketed as "wevowutionawy" or "smawt." So, it's interesting to see him point out how the Internet actually allows once-framed leftist positions to gain ground and average citizens to document atrocities that would have been inconvenient towards the west. For instance, he has brought up how the true nature of Israel's genocide in Gaza would never have been documented, due to publications' firm support towards Zionism, and how one no longer needs the support of mainstream news to become popular. Honestly, even as someone who despises the current state of the Internet, where a few corporations have complete ownership over the online social spaces people hang out in, I tend to agree with this. As much as the algorithms in these spaces often pushes corporate or bigoted speech that succeeded from maximizing engagement, there's still a lot of people who will bypass these filters and express what's right.
So, after a long while trying all sorts of wacky shit, I finally got the Galaxy Note 4 working, ... at least to the best of its ability. Trying to get started at all was frickin' tough, honestly. Verizon locked the bootloader, so trying to put anything else besides the highly outdated Android 6 (especially on TouchWiz) would flat-out not work, and rooting the device to bypass this would just fail. It didn't help that I had to install Windows on a spare laptop, since almost every custom ROM guide assumes I'm on Windows (I'm not cause' fuck you, Bill Gates). What I had to do for things to finally work was install the KitKat (Android 4.4.4) factory ROM according to this guide by jrkruse of XDA forums, then run its scripts. However, it was much much smoother sailing from this point forward. KingoRoot actually succeeded this time, and although the "Replace with SuperSu" script did nothing, by that point, the bootloader was finally unlocked. I then proceeded to install the Marshmallow (Android 6) factory ROM which I thought was pointless at the time (though would prove invaluable later on), then flash Team Win Recovery Project (TWRP) which was extremely easy for me in comparison, then install the Lineage OS build for my phone like I've always wanted. However, even while almost everything worked, when I tried to settle in after putting in the screen protector, case, and SIM adapter I ordered (always use a screen protector and case), I found that talk and text didn't work. Even worse, after some research, I learned that I needed to backup the EFS partition, which is crucial for getting the IMEI number required for cellular, but I wasn't told I should have done that. So, I had to flash the factory ROM again this time in a rush, but that rush made me forget that I should have taken the SD card out from earlier, so I was confused as to why the factory ROM kept booting to an error even when I flashed it over and over. Then, LineageOS seemed to not boot correctly after all that, which I found was because the Kitkat factory ROM missed some crucial things the Marshmallow factory ROM had and LineageOS needed, so I had to install the Kitkat factory ROM then the Marshmallow factory ROM, then backup the EFS partition like a good girl, then finally realize that LineageOS still did not have cellular. However, this time, I also found online that flashing just the original Modem partition is also needed, but getting it and flashing it was easy. Finally, after initial hiccups from that, cellular worked, ... or so I thought. Data worked fine, and I had the IMEI this time, but talk and text, the two most essential functions for a phone, just didn't. I tried dialing *#*#4636#*#* for diagnostics, but switching the preferred cellular technologies didn't work at all. I couldn't change the APN settings which I heard was needed cause' Verizon hates me, but I found that my Pixel 4a still worked well even with the same APN settings. Finally, I dialed *#*#4636#*#* on my Pixel 4a this time, and I found that "Voice Network Type" showed up as LTE, while it stated "Unknown" on my Galaxy Note 4, and when I did some research, I discovered that it was short for VoLTE, which my custom ROM just did not support, alongside almost every Smasnug custom ROM due to Smasnug using a proprietary implementation of it.
Indeed, nothing has to be obsolete. The tech industry is right that you have to update your software and firmware, and Linux and custom ROMs let you do that alongside letting you still be able to keep older hardware that you still find works well or that you still depend upon. However, this whole clusterfuck has re-affirmed to me the exact reasons I've been disillusioned with Android. It's not that the software itself is proprietary shitware as long as it's used the right way. GrapheneOS, I feel, represents every reason why Android can be better than iOS, with not only its open nature and smooth functionality, but its commitment to privacy and security for users. It's just that both the manufacturers who make Android phones and the carriers who provide cellular for Android phones fucking need to be murdered in a siege. Fuck you, Verizon, for locking down phones that would have stayed useful to users through custom ROMs. Fuck you, Smasnug, for not only abandoning repairability, storage expandability, and practicality through the headphone jack just to copy only the bad parts of Apple, but also for locking down your phones with shitware like TouchWiz. Anyways, boomers were right about phone bad. Live in the woods naked and with a 2000s Thinkpad by your side, but try not to mail your state University special presents and instead just be a weird Youtuber with sus politics.
I recently ordered a Galaxy Note 4, and it's been quite tough to try and install a custom ROM on it. Its stock config of Android 6 and Touchwiz is seriously outdated, so I can't use that. Plus, rooting, the first step for installing a custom ROM, is such a pain, where almost every XDA guide either expects you to already know how to do it or recommends KingoRoot or KingRoot, which have absolutely not worked well for me. Still, I really hope to get this working. It's one of Samsung's last great phones, with not only great specs for the time and the powerful S Pen for artists, but also a headphone jack, MicroSD card, and even a removable battery! It's just that Samsung itself sucks, so the hardware needs to be saved from obsolesence. :P