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The libhybris situation is a pretty miserable compromise. You land on an old, busted Android kernel, with a userland that mostly works. It exists only because t
by subway 9y ago
The libhybris situation is a pretty miserable compromise. You land on an old, busted Android kernel, with a userland that mostly works. It exists only because the major SoC vendors have no motivation to support a chip after they've shipped a BSP that successfully builds and makes the hardware occasionally provide the desired features.
(Apologies for being a bit harsh; I've wasted a ton of time recently hacking on Allwinner and Amlogic chips)
- maheart 9y agoThe libhybris situation for the time being is "good enough". Sony last year announced their intention to "mainline" their Xperia devices (their main phone brand)[1]. This could eventually mean running Android on the latest mainline kernel, and perhaps even GNU/Linux[2]. [1] https://developer.sonymobile.com/2016/02/17/work-on-the-mainline-kernel-for-open-xperia-devices/ https://developer.sonymobile.com/2016/02/17/work-on-the-main... [2] Jolla (developers of SailfishOS, a real-Linux-on-mobile OS) announced in February that they are partnering with Sony to bring SailfishOS to the Xperia X (https://jolla.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Sony_Jolla_press_release_MWC2017_FINAL.pdf?x12599 https://jolla.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Sony_Jolla_pres...), which should hopefully be out this month. It's taken a long time, but real-Linux-on-the-mobile is getting closer.
- Brakenshire 9y agoCredit to Sony for this work. They seem to have almost exactly the right emphasis for me - good cameras, expandable storage, and open devices.
- c8g 9y agowhat do you mean by real-Linux-on-mobile OS? isn't Android a mobile os running linux? I hope you meant real-GNU /Linux-on-mobileOS note: "Android is running Linux" is certified by Linus Torvalds
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoLinus has a vested interest in taking credit for the most prolific mobile platform. I don't think there is any common sense in the 'Android is Linux' argument beyond that though. As a software platform, it isn't even remotely similar.
- johannesburgel 9y agoAndroid is an operating system built on top of the Linux kernel project. "Android is not Linux but ${DISTRIBUTION} is" is just stupid, operating systems simply cannot be compared to a kernel.
- pjmlp 9y agoNot quite right, NDK applications are constrained in what they can touch and many syscalls have been removed.
- jacquesm 9y agoWhat does Linus have to do with it?
- c8g 9y agojust to mention what I am saying is not just my opinion.
- jacquesm 9y agoThat's not how it works though. Linux is a kernel, and Linus has all the right in the world to make that claim. It doesn't in any way strengthen your argument though because of the different userland. You are comparing apples (operating systems) with oranges (kernels).
- c8g 9y agosorry that I created confusion. I tried to tell that his "real-Linux" (kernel) already exists (I don't know if he meant (in another comment, he said that he meant userland) userland e.g gnu, freedesktop.org etc by "real-Linux")