The only thing I was missing without Google was push notifications. And that works out of the box on my /e/ OS FP5. It provides the same API as GSF, but with a different, anonymous push service. I doubt that there will ever be a workaround for Google Pay, because you need the intersection of a well-known company and low level device integration for that to work. And as you say, it’s not a big deal. The Graphene OS guys were pretty smug for a long while about how superior their sandboxed-GSF approach is, but look how that worked out for them. MicroG was always the right idea and if it can’t be done with MicroG it isn’t worth doing (on Android).

I don’t disagree that there was drama, I disagree about who was (always) the side fanning the flames. Systemd made divisiveness the core of its marketing strategy. Early on LP personally set the tone by calling out people and distros not using his software as Luddites. And that was back when systemd actually was still a buggy mess. And to this day, in threads like this you will see detractors explain the reason why they’re still opting out or have in the past, while (some of the) proponents will insult people opting out as backwards idiots who “don’t want to learn new things” or irrational haters. 🤷

No, it’s just something systemd proponents claim to shit on alternatives and their users.

Sure, I dislike systemd or at least some of its components and how they’re designed, and I find the vocal systemd proponents (especially those that still find the need to be vocal about it in 2025) to be some of the most annoying people in the entire Linux community. But I use it on some systems and it works fine for the most part. Hate is a strong word for a software choice.

I’m relatively happy with my FP5 at the moment, but the Nokia N900 was the best phone (i.e. the one I was happiest with at the time) I ever had. I might still be using it if the Javascript-infested modern web hadn’t tanked its performance. It’s also probably the most successful Linux phone of all time.

What I wouldn’t give for an N900 with a modern SoC, AMOLED display and 50% larger in exchange for 50% slimmer… I’d even keep the resistive touch plus stylus, screw multi-touch if I could have that back! Desktop apps and desktop versions of websites were entirely usable with the stylus, even on a tiny screen like that. No comparison to my current fat-fingering links even on mobile layouts on huge 5"+ screens. 🤷 Thanks, Steve Jobs.

And the window-management was also brilliant and unsurpassed on any mobile device ever since… And this was at a time when Android didn’t have copy-paste yet and could open only one app at a time.

At my workplace all the devs are on either Mac OS or Linux, with Mac OS being more common among Web/PHP guys and Linux among the backend devs (like me). As it turns out, given the choice, nobody actually prefers Windows. I’m still baffled by Mac OS being so common, though, at least among devs.

This works because our whole IT infrastructure is designed to be accessible via the web-browser, most of it even without VPN, via two-factor authenticated single-sign-on, most of it self-hosted (all except Teams, which obviously also needs its own authentication). This gives people the freedom to run whatever OS they like on their computers and set it up themselves, with the only requirement being to use FDE with a strong password and regularly do backups to the remote storage. We’re also allowed (if not encouraged) to use the laptops for private stuff and get to keep them when they’re replaced.

And as far as I can tell IT problems because of this diverse environment are surprisingly minimal and mostly with those aforementioned web services.