Only 2 problems I have with Graphene personally is the need to give Google money, which the irony is just too much, and no option for rooting. Otherwise it seems like a pretty good OS overall. In the meantime, while I wait for those options to be more flexible so I can have full control, I just use a rooted lineage os with all the extra Google stuff (ntp, DNS, etc) stripped and replaced with my own self hosted systems.
I guess there's actually nothing stopping you from rooting: you say "nope" when they ask you to confirm re-locking the bootloader, and then do the usual shenanigans with patching and flashing boot partition.
However, it makes graphene a whole lot less grapheny since you can't re-lock the bootloader anymore (except if you sign modified stuff yourself and let vb know of your key, which sounds like too much of a hustle), which means you don't really need a pixel and graphene except for a few unique features mb.
Only 2 problems I have with Graphene personally is the need to give Google money, which the irony is just too much, and no option for rooting. Otherwise it seems like a pretty good OS overall. In the meantime, while I wait for those options to be more flexible so I can have full control, I just use a rooted lineage os with all the extra Google stuff (ntp, DNS, etc) stripped and replaced with my own self hosted systems.
I guess there's actually nothing stopping you from rooting: you say "nope" when they ask you to confirm re-locking the bootloader, and then do the usual shenanigans with patching and flashing boot partition.
However, it makes graphene a whole lot less grapheny since you can't re-lock the bootloader anymore (except if you sign modified stuff yourself and let vb know of your key, which sounds like too much of a hustle), which means you don't really need a pixel and graphene except for a few unique features mb.