RCS is a pile of garbage for many reasons. On Android, it’s locked behind Google’s proprietary, privacy-invasive Messages app, and there is no API for third-party RCS clients (like with SMS). The encryption is also implemented in that proprietary client, offering no transparency and meaning that it’s probably backdoored. No one should ever trust encryption software if its source code isn’t public. People should use actual private messengers like Signal, with open source applications available for all platforms, as well as all of the features you mentioned. The only thing it obviously lacks is SMS fallback, but it’s really unnecessary, because Wi-Fi or cell data are literally available everywhere nowadays.

Just use Signal. It’s private and secure, available on every platform (including desktop), you can send photos, voice messages and all kinds of other files.

macOS doesn’t support some basic ways of rendering text and colors. I see iTerm as strictly necessary if you are serious about using the Terminal on a Mac.

It seems like you’re using the standard macOS Terminal. It has all kinds of issues with many terminal applications. I recommend switching to iTerm2. You can install it with a simple brew install --cask iterm2

You can actually unlock LUKS from another machine over SSH: https://www.cyberciti.biz/security/how-to-unlock-luks-using-dropbear-ssh-keys-remotely-in-linux/

I’m pretty happy with this solution

Just want to mention that TrueNAS is FOSS and unRAID is not. And I wouldn’t necessarily say that unRAID is much easier.

• Home Assistant
  There’s no fucking way I’m using a cloud service to control parts of my home, that just feels so wrong to me on so many levels

• Nextcloud
  There’s no way I’m saving my files on someone else’s computer (the Cloud). Even with encryption, it’s expensive. Hard drives are cheap. Put them in a server, install Nextcloud and you have your private, cheap, independent cloud service.

• Immich (currently migrating to Ente) for my photos

• Jellyfin + arr Stack
  I’m not paying $100/month for 5 different streaming services to have access to all the content I like.

• Navidrome for my (pirated) music

• Audiobookshelf for audiobooks and podcasts

• Pi-Hole with Unbound set up as a recursive resolver, cause why should I trust someone else with DNS?

I also self-host Matrix or Revolt servers as well as game servers for me and my friends, because it’s much cheaper than getting VPS or a hosted option, and I already have this server that I use for a bunch of other stuff, so I can also just use it for that.

That’s great

Does Google Fi allow for OEM unlocking (to install a custom ROM)?

Calyx is pretty insecure by default, it removes some default AOSP security features and is very slow to push security patches. And it doesn’t include any of the GrapheneOS security features like hardened SELinux, a hardened kernel, secure app spawning, hardened Chromium browser and WebView or hardware-based integrity attestation. It also uses a very flawed Google Play services implementation (microG) which requires root and has worse app compatibility.

Using a device with no vendor-provided firmware security patches doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. Also, the Pixel 8a gets 7 years of updates. That’s plenty of time, and most people get a new phone after a much shorter time.

Bruh I’m just casually asking, what’s wrong with that question

What Magisk modules do you need to use?

GrapheneOS has so many advantages over Lineage, there’s no reason to use Lineage on a Pixel

Yeah I remember the OnePlus One like 10 years ago, it was genuinely a nice phone

I haven’t tried OxygenOS, but I used Oppo’s ColorOS (which is basically the same thing; there are only a few minor differences, since OnePlus is a subsidiary of Oppo) and it was terrible. The entire OS felt like a buggy mess, and the battery life was terrible because of all the garbage running in the background. I spent an entire weekend removing all the bloatware, but the experience still sucked. That was 2 years ago, after my iPhone XS broke, and I just needed a new phone quickly. My carrier had a deal at the time, where I got the Oppo phone almost for free (very small direct payment, no monthly payments), so I took it. After about a month, I just couldn’t stand it anymore and returned the phone. Then I bought a Google Pixel 6 Pro, flashed GrapheneOS on it, and it’s been great ever since. I’m never using a Chinese phone again. A friend showed me his Xiaomi phone and said that it’s basically unusable with the stock ROM. Phone manufacturers should really stop messing with the goddamn OS, they always manage to turn it into a giant pile of shit. I’ll definitely stick with (preferably degoogled) operating systems that are as close to AOSP as possible, like GrapheneOS.

Both are great. Unraid makes things really easy with their Community Apps feature. On the technical side, I prefer TrueNAS Scale because it’s based on Debian, whereas Unraid is based on Slackware Linux. TrueNAS Scale is fully FOSS, whereas big parts of Unraid are proprietary. But there are more guides and tutorials for Unraid, as it seems to be the more popular option. If you’re going to install Unraid, definitely check out Spaceinvader One on YouTube, he’s got some awesome videos on the topic.

Unraid would be my first suggestion as well. But if you prefer something FOSS, check out TrueNAS Scale. (It is important that you go with TrueNAS Scale, not Core. TrueNAS Core is the continuation of the former FreeNAS, which is based on FreeBSD. Since it’s not a Linux system, it doesn’t support Docker. TrueNAS Scale is based on Debian Linux and much closer to Unraid, it has full support for KVM Virtualization and Docker containers.)

I can already smell the buggy, privacy-invasive Chinese ROM with terrible UX