7 ms·

One thing I'd really like to see Google try and fix is upstream kernel support for the phone platforms. Right now there's no chance for an open-source project l

One thing I'd really like to see Google try and fix is upstream kernel support for the phone platforms. Right now there's no chance for an open-source project like LineageOS to be able to support all devices properly when each and every single device is stuck on an old kernel often with a bunch of important CVEs unpatched. It's as if Ubuntu needed to do independent development for each and every laptop. Without something like that buying an Android phone is a mine field of various states of broken software provided by phone manufacturers. It's like trying to buy a consumer wifi router without the knowledge that if it's supported by OpenWRT you can just ignore whatever broken software the particular manufacturer put into it and will never support going forward. The first rule of hardware is that hardware makers can't do software and Google seems to have mostly given up.

pjmlp 9y ago
The irony being that in 2018 most new devices are being released with Nougat, with eventual update to Oreo, if at all. Why? Nougat devices don't require Treble certification.
- eslaught 9y ago
  Hasn't this been a thing since forever on Android? People are always lamenting that uptake of the newest version (or newest 2 versions) is slow. Do you actually have evidence that the uptake of this specific version is slow? Otherwise I don't see any reason to believe this is out of the ordinary for Android. I remember when it took forever to go from Donut to Eclair on my T-mobile MyTouch device... when the newest version was already Froyo.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Yes, the evolution on dashboard, currently at 1.1% about two months away from Google I/O, probably one of the lowest numbers so far. https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
    - viraptor 9y ago
      They'll have to move at some point. If the transition is painful/long, so be it. The affected companies is why we're in this mess in the first place. Now Google enforces the new rules about the platform compatibility, so let's see how it plays out.
      - pjmlp 9y ago
        There is no enforcement being made by Google, OEMs get to decide if they ship any kind of updates, even with Treble.
        viraptor 9y ago
        The enforcement is in Treble. The first OEM to embrace it will be able to advertise as more up to date than competition. One is all it will take...
        RussianCow 9y ago
        > The first OEM to embrace it will be able to advertise as more up to date than competition. Except I don't know how much this will matter, given that the average user doesn't know or care about any of this stuff.
        viraptor 9y ago
        We're at the point where not much matters anyway. The phones we have are amazing. Sure, it doesn't make much difference, but it's a selling point. Other advertised features which don't matter to most users: the notch, AR, full size display, active display on edges, assistant updates, AMOLED, app privilege restrictions, curved displays, ... They're all good for advertisement and gimmicks. They may improve the phone a little bit. They're not needed and almost everybody cares only because they were advertised. (If they care at all)
        pjmlp 9y ago
        It is not. Treble does not require OEMs to push updates. This has been clearly explained on the ADB Podcast and nowhere to be seen on the certification requirements.
- ehsankia 9y ago
  So then how is it Google's fault? They introduced a way to sold this, and now manufacturers are the ones holding back...
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Google already has a few contracts in place for validating OEMs access to their services. They just keep "forgetting" to include updates on the requirements clauses.
    - tomkarlo 9y ago
      There's a predefined window for when a device can be certified for release with a particular Android OS version. I don't know what the current window is, but devices that are shipping now (Q1) likely got certified some time last year in Q3 or Q4, well within the window for N. It's significantly harder to enforce things like update requirements after a phone ships - for one thing, it's not entirely up to the OEM in many cases, it also depends on getting carriers to certify the upgrade.
      - pjmlp 9y ago
        Right now in Germany, the majority of supermarket handsets are still being sold with 4.4 and 5.0, without further updates.
        tomkarlo 9y ago
        Once a device is certified, a manufacturer can keep selling it indefinitely, I believe... and/or those may not be actually Google certified devices. (Especially with very low end / no-name handsets.) When I referred to "shipping" devices, I meant new devices coming to market.
bri3d 9y ago
https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/treble https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/treble This is Google's attempt to do this, in a sense, but as the sibling post points out, vendors are so resistant to adoption that it's just slowing Oreo uptake. And yes, Treble just abstracts the framework from the kernel - but it requires a much more modern baseline and the common HAL interface should make kernel front-porting much easier and therefore allow manufacturers to ship less broken kernels.
- pedrocr 9y ago
  That's only a way to get shiny new Google stuff over the supplier's extremely crappy base that will be even less likely to ever get upgraded. The fact that people point it out every time I mention the mess we're really in shows how it's a step back because it takes weight off the issue.
  - bri3d 9y ago
    I see what you're saying - that having a common HAL interface will allow Google to ship newer Android over the same broken kernels. However, the base requirements for the Treble kernel and certification require a level of quality beyond what most manufacturer kernels currently offer, so I think it's at least a step forward before it's a step back.
    - pedrocr 9y ago
      My point is that if it's indeed a small step forward, which is highly debatable, it's a huge step back from actually solving the underlying issue. Lenovo doesn't ship a half broken Linux kernel every time they release a new model. New stuff just gets rolled into upstream and then hardware gets support for close to forever. I bought an Android phone 4 months ago, selected specifically to be supported by LineageOS and in the top 20 in terms of usage. As it turns out support will not be added to the next Android version because specific kernel support would be needed and there's just no reasonable way of achieving it.
      - 9y ago
_sdegutis 9y ago
> "when each and every single device is stuck on an old kernel often with a bunch of important CVEs unpatched" As an iPhone user, I've heard about how one of the benefits of Android is that it's built on OSS, so that if you wanted to have a fully secure phone, you could just download the latest kernel and patches and software and install it yourself. Is this actually possible for Android users?
- kuschku 9y ago
  Phone manufacturers always buy the drivers from chip manufacturers, and under closed licenses. The source is rarely ever published, you can't download the kernel patches and do anything. Often you'll wait months or years to get the kernel the manufacturer used, and it will have been so old that none of the drivers will work on a recent linux kernel anymore at all. The situation isn't exactly great. And torvalds believes it to be more important to talk nice to these companies than to enforce the GPL, so nothing's been moving in the past decade at all.
  - piracykills 9y ago
    Yeah, the only hope we've got is to move to a more Windows-style driver model, which is what Treble attempts to do, abstracting the HAL from the kernel and application software. This is already shipping in Android O and new devices on O or P must be Treble certified to ship Play Store, so we should see this improved greatly in upcoming devices.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      If only OEMs weren't the ones expected to do Treble updates....
      - piracykills 9y ago
        If they are fully compatible it means community updates can work better too - not needing to worry about the HAL as much. Yes, Google might need to take one more step of saying "and we ship the security updates" before the average user benefits - but that can be done down the line if the situation merits it. Developers and power users will be able to take advantage of it even sooner. A single codebase for LineageOS? Yes please!
limeblack 9y ago
> Right now there's no chance for an open-source project like LineageOS to be able to support all devices properly when each and every single device is stuck on an old kernel often with a bunch of important CVEs unpatched. No even if this was fixed it still wouldn't be possible. For those outside of this US a fix would helpful, but a fix really wouldn't be that simple. For those in the US most phones bought by major carriers have both locked boot loaders and are locked to a specific network. The Pixel being sold by Verizon has a locked bootloader despite it being Google's own branded phone.
- pedrocr 9y ago
  That's only a problem if you choose to make it one. I buy my phones unlocked from retailers and ignore the carriers.
  - michaelmrose 9y ago
    It would be simpler just to tell OEMS that they can't distribute computers where the user is locked out of the machine. Safety oriented exemptions may be reasonable but it needs to directly speak to consumer devices first and foremost.
izacus 9y ago
There are two issues here really: 1.) Android kernel patches are pretty extensive and Linux folks (understandably) don't want to integrate several of them. Some powersaving things, binder and a few others are pretty Android specific and very intrusive, so the mainline kernel folks don't want to accept them in the current form. I doubt there's a business payback of rearchitecting the core of the OS just to mainline those patches. 2.) SoC manufacturers refuse to opensource drivers and refuse to support their chips for longer than a year or two. Treble should help a bit with OS updates/LineageOS but at the end of the day, you're at the mercy of the guy building your sillicon. And currently they have all the leverage since there's practically no market competition.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  Actually the baseline patches are perfectly fine and most of them are integrated (in staging) already. Only cpu governor is not and it is not really required. What is not is obtuse patches of chipset manufacturers. These are really low quality...

pjmlp 9y ago

The irony being that in 2018 most new devices are being released with Nougat, with eventual update to Oreo, if at all. Why? Nougat devices don't require Treble certification.

eslaught 9y ago
Hasn't this been a thing since forever on Android? People are always lamenting that uptake of the newest version (or newest 2 versions) is slow. Do you actually have evidence that the uptake of this specific version is slow? Otherwise I don't see any reason to believe this is out of the ordinary for Android. I remember when it took forever to go from Donut to Eclair on my T-mobile MyTouch device... when the newest version was already Froyo.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Yes, the evolution on dashboard, currently at 1.1% about two months away from Google I/O, probably one of the lowest numbers so far. https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
  - viraptor 9y ago
    They'll have to move at some point. If the transition is painful/long, so be it. The affected companies is why we're in this mess in the first place. Now Google enforces the new rules about the platform compatibility, so let's see how it plays out.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      There is no enforcement being made by Google, OEMs get to decide if they ship any kind of updates, even with Treble.
      - viraptor 9y ago
        The enforcement is in Treble. The first OEM to embrace it will be able to advertise as more up to date than competition. One is all it will take...
        RussianCow 9y ago
        > The first OEM to embrace it will be able to advertise as more up to date than competition. Except I don't know how much this will matter, given that the average user doesn't know or care about any of this stuff.
        viraptor 9y ago
        We're at the point where not much matters anyway. The phones we have are amazing. Sure, it doesn't make much difference, but it's a selling point. Other advertised features which don't matter to most users: the notch, AR, full size display, active display on edges, assistant updates, AMOLED, app privilege restrictions, curved displays, ... They're all good for advertisement and gimmicks. They may improve the phone a little bit. They're not needed and almost everybody cares only because they were advertised. (If they care at all)
        pjmlp 9y ago
        It is not. Treble does not require OEMs to push updates. This has been clearly explained on the ADB Podcast and nowhere to be seen on the certification requirements.
ehsankia 9y ago
So then how is it Google's fault? They introduced a way to sold this, and now manufacturers are the ones holding back...
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Google already has a few contracts in place for validating OEMs access to their services. They just keep "forgetting" to include updates on the requirements clauses.
  - tomkarlo 9y ago
    There's a predefined window for when a device can be certified for release with a particular Android OS version. I don't know what the current window is, but devices that are shipping now (Q1) likely got certified some time last year in Q3 or Q4, well within the window for N. It's significantly harder to enforce things like update requirements after a phone ships - for one thing, it's not entirely up to the OEM in many cases, it also depends on getting carriers to certify the upgrade.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      Right now in Germany, the majority of supermarket handsets are still being sold with 4.4 and 5.0, without further updates.
      - tomkarlo 9y ago
        Once a device is certified, a manufacturer can keep selling it indefinitely, I believe... and/or those may not be actually Google certified devices. (Especially with very low end / no-name handsets.) When I referred to "shipping" devices, I meant new devices coming to market.

bri3d 9y ago

https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/treble https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/treble This is Google's attempt to do this, in a sense, but as the sibling post points out, vendors are so resistant to adoption that it's just slowing Oreo uptake. And yes, Treble just abstracts the framework from the kernel - but it requires a much more modern baseline and the common HAL interface should make kernel front-porting much easier and therefore allow manufacturers to ship less broken kernels.

pedrocr 9y ago
That's only a way to get shiny new Google stuff over the supplier's extremely crappy base that will be even less likely to ever get upgraded. The fact that people point it out every time I mention the mess we're really in shows how it's a step back because it takes weight off the issue.
- bri3d 9y ago
  I see what you're saying - that having a common HAL interface will allow Google to ship newer Android over the same broken kernels. However, the base requirements for the Treble kernel and certification require a level of quality beyond what most manufacturer kernels currently offer, so I think it's at least a step forward before it's a step back.
  - pedrocr 9y ago
    My point is that if it's indeed a small step forward, which is highly debatable, it's a huge step back from actually solving the underlying issue. Lenovo doesn't ship a half broken Linux kernel every time they release a new model. New stuff just gets rolled into upstream and then hardware gets support for close to forever. I bought an Android phone 4 months ago, selected specifically to be supported by LineageOS and in the top 20 in terms of usage. As it turns out support will not be added to the next Android version because specific kernel support would be needed and there's just no reasonable way of achieving it.
    - 9y ago

_sdegutis 9y ago

> "when each and every single device is stuck on an old kernel often with a bunch of important CVEs unpatched" As an iPhone user, I've heard about how one of the benefits of Android is that it's built on OSS, so that if you wanted to have a fully secure phone, you could just download the latest kernel and patches and software and install it yourself. Is this actually possible for Android users?

kuschku 9y ago
Phone manufacturers always buy the drivers from chip manufacturers, and under closed licenses. The source is rarely ever published, you can't download the kernel patches and do anything. Often you'll wait months or years to get the kernel the manufacturer used, and it will have been so old that none of the drivers will work on a recent linux kernel anymore at all. The situation isn't exactly great. And torvalds believes it to be more important to talk nice to these companies than to enforce the GPL, so nothing's been moving in the past decade at all.
- piracykills 9y ago
  Yeah, the only hope we've got is to move to a more Windows-style driver model, which is what Treble attempts to do, abstracting the HAL from the kernel and application software. This is already shipping in Android O and new devices on O or P must be Treble certified to ship Play Store, so we should see this improved greatly in upcoming devices.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    If only OEMs weren't the ones expected to do Treble updates....
    - piracykills 9y ago
      If they are fully compatible it means community updates can work better too - not needing to worry about the HAL as much. Yes, Google might need to take one more step of saying "and we ship the security updates" before the average user benefits - but that can be done down the line if the situation merits it. Developers and power users will be able to take advantage of it even sooner. A single codebase for LineageOS? Yes please!

limeblack 9y ago

> Right now there's no chance for an open-source project like LineageOS to be able to support all devices properly when each and every single device is stuck on an old kernel often with a bunch of important CVEs unpatched. No even if this was fixed it still wouldn't be possible. For those outside of this US a fix would helpful, but a fix really wouldn't be that simple. For those in the US most phones bought by major carriers have both locked boot loaders and are locked to a specific network. The Pixel being sold by Verizon has a locked bootloader despite it being Google's own branded phone.

pedrocr 9y ago
That's only a problem if you choose to make it one. I buy my phones unlocked from retailers and ignore the carriers.
- michaelmrose 9y ago
  It would be simpler just to tell OEMS that they can't distribute computers where the user is locked out of the machine. Safety oriented exemptions may be reasonable but it needs to directly speak to consumer devices first and foremost.

izacus 9y ago

There are two issues here really: 1.) Android kernel patches are pretty extensive and Linux folks (understandably) don't want to integrate several of them. Some powersaving things, binder and a few others are pretty Android specific and very intrusive, so the mainline kernel folks don't want to accept them in the current form. I doubt there's a business payback of rearchitecting the core of the OS just to mainline those patches. 2.) SoC manufacturers refuse to opensource drivers and refuse to support their chips for longer than a year or two. Treble should help a bit with OS updates/LineageOS but at the end of the day, you're at the mercy of the guy building your sillicon. And currently they have all the leverage since there's practically no market competition.

AstralStorm 9y ago
Actually the baseline patches are perfectly fine and most of them are integrated (in staging) already. Only cpu governor is not and it is not really required. What is not is obtuse patches of chipset manufacturers. These are really low quality...