Android 16 QPR1 is a big deal for #GrapheneOS. All of the major desktop mode features will be available in this version. A lot of it is available as developer options for an early preview on GrapheneOS but will be fully production ready by the time we have A16 QPR1. This will allow a Desktop experience for users. Modern Pixels can then dock their device and use a mouse and keyboard to navigate the UI. image A functional desktop mode is huge, but it is a stepping stone towards a far greater feature target for us: A Desktop OS VM manager. One OS feature (the Linux terminal app) already provides a Linux command line using a Debian virtual machine. Ideally, we would want to move away from a non-hardened desktop distribution like Debian, which the upstream uses, and have something an ARM build of secureblue, securecore or even a gold target for Windows 11 ARM for superior app compatibility. Here you can see desktop operating system apps within a freeform window over the standard GrapheneOS applications. There are many unique setups and software choices if we can further develop this: View quoted note → Gaining desktop functionality and including being able to run GUI Windows and desktop Linux applications via hardware accelerated virtualization will then lead to further innovative features, including: 1) Running a specific app or an entire profile via GrapheneOS virtual machines seamlessly integrated into the OS. 2) Running Windows or desktop Linux applications with desktop mode + USB-C DisplayPort alt mode on the Pixel 8 and later. 3) Create an amnesiac virtualized environment nested within the OS user that could be plausibly deniable. There are also a few massive targets that would take a lot of work and wouldn't be seen yet, but worth considering. For example, Android provides Chromium's layer-1 sandbox as an OS feature available to be used by any app via isolatedProcess. It would be fantastic to move this to virtualization using microdroid. It'd be a large project, but have a very high impact for browsers, like per-site virtual machine instances. That would provide security above Tor Browser and comparable to Microsoft Edge's deprecated Application Guard feature that ran Edge in an isolated virtual machine but at a more seamless and useable scale. Since isolatedProcess is an OS API, it'd benefit all Chromium-based browsers and other apps using it rather than being specific to Vanadium. That'd be a difficult project but we can consider it as a future large feature on the same scale as our sandboxed Google Play feature. This would make many apps get a large security boost.
Final's avatar Final
LibreOffice Calc in #GrapheneOS Debian VM running on an external display in the launcher with 'freeform windows in external display' switched on: image
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The Pixel 8 and later is far more secure than the 7th generation and earlier because ARMv9 hardware security features like hardware memory tagging are available and the OS uses them. It's a huge difference but not something people would see with their own eyes. The 9 is slightly better than the 8 but not in a huge jump like 7 to 8 is.
Final's avatar Final
Android 16 QPR1 is a big deal for #GrapheneOS. All of the major desktop mode features will be available in this version. A lot of it is available as developer options for an early preview on GrapheneOS but will be fully production ready by the time we have A16 QPR1. This will allow a Desktop experience for users. Modern Pixels can then dock their device and use a mouse and keyboard to navigate the UI. image A functional desktop mode is huge, but it is a stepping stone towards a far greater feature target for us: A Desktop OS VM manager. One OS feature (the Linux terminal app) already provides a Linux command line using a Debian virtual machine. Ideally, we would want to move away from a non-hardened desktop distribution like Debian, which the upstream uses, and have something an ARM build of secureblue, securecore or even a gold target for Windows 11 ARM for superior app compatibility. Here you can see desktop operating system apps within a freeform window over the standard GrapheneOS applications. There are many unique setups and software choices if we can further develop this: View quoted note → View quoted note → Gaining desktop functionality and including being able to run GUI Windows and desktop Linux applications via hardware accelerated virtualization will then lead to further innovative features, including: 1) Running a specific app or an entire profile via GrapheneOS virtual machines seamlessly integrated into the OS. 2) Running Windows or desktop Linux applications with desktop mode + USB-C DisplayPort alt mode on the Pixel 8 and later. 3) Create an amnesiac virtualized environment nested within the OS user that could be plausibly deniable. There are also a few massive targets that would take a lot of work and wouldn't be seen yet, but worth considering. For example, Android provides Chromium's layer-1 sandbox as an OS feature available to be used by any app via isolatedProcess. It would be fantastic to move this to virtualization using microdroid. It'd be a large project, but have a very high impact for browsers, like per-site virtual machine instances. That would provide security above Tor Browser and comparable to Microsoft Edge's deprecated Application Guard feature that ran Edge in an isolated virtual machine but at a more seamless and useable scale. Since isolatedProcess is an OS API, it'd benefit all Chromium-based browsers and other apps using it rather than being specific to Vanadium. That'd be a difficult project but we can consider it as a future large feature on the same scale as our sandboxed Google Play feature. This would make many apps get a large security boost.
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Any USB-C dock or cable that works with displayport alt mode will do. A docking station is useful if you wanted to plug in USB peripherals like keyboards and mice, but they can be done through Bluetooth accessories if you wanted.
This will probably be what makes me upgrade from my Pixel 6a. My Graphene device does pretty much everything I need on a day to day outside of work. Only occasionally do I need a keyboard and bigger screen to work with documents etc, which is why I keep a Thinkpad. Exciting! View quoted note →
I don't think I'd be the person to ask. My impression would be you would need to port the entire Android runtime and have all the available APIs for apps, have full support for all of the hardware supported devices use and more. For virtualization a hypervisor would need to be built if an existing solution doesn't work out. There's probably a lot more I'm missing. Exiting Linux is an extremely far future wish and I think the team would prefer these projects to mature first. I'm also not a microkernel developer so there's countless details I think I would likely be missing out... I'd be more interested to see a deliverable high-security daily driver desktop operating system with a microkernel with app sandboxing, permission controls, exploit mitigations etc. Disposable VMs would be something the project would look at when making a VM manager. Running apps in GrapheneOS VMs would be part of that idea.
Thank you for all the information. Looking forward to all the progress in the space.
I would love to be able to run Tails.net . Especially with the Persistent Storage feature
Update: A16 QPR1 stock still keeps Desktop as a developer feature rather than production :( BUT, it is far more functional.
If you have seen the latest news, we are now working on that. Because of how big the changes are there won't be a release immediately. Pixel 10 can start once there's production ready builds, which may take some weeks for the whole thing to come through.