That is a lovely analysis for this lowly thread of mine. Thanks again.
Thing is, I don't trust my modem. Just on principle. It's nonlibre software.
I'll reread your posts in a while.
Unfortunately Google is hell-bent on restricting the platform instead of opening it up
Right. The very thing I want adb for is, among other things, to install apps which Google arbitrarily declared obsolete (the api version declaration, I believe it is). I believe many good apps on F-Droid are uninstallable because of that. "This app is incompatible with your device" -- no, you declared that it is.
And sadly -- though that doesn't seem to be Google's fault -- it still doesn't seem possible to compile Android apps on Android, so I can't just get sources, change the manifest, and recompile them and install them myself, to escape that.
But that's for another thread.