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If I'm not mistaken, LineageOS support is good but not good enough. Vulnerabilities in the higher level Android system will be fixed, but updates to the kernel

If I'm not mistaken, LineageOS support is good but not good enough. Vulnerabilities in the higher level Android system will be fixed, but updates to the kernel must be provided by the vendor on many (most? all?) devices.

heavyset_go 6y ago
This is true. Most Android devices run forked kernels supplied by manufacturers. Once the manufacturers stop updating the kernel, the device is stuck using the old kernel forever. I have several phones running LineageOS that I use as remotes for my TVs, and they'll never see a kernel beyond the 3.x fork the manufacturers released 5+ years ago. This issue is indicative of the larger problem ARM SoCs pose to consumers: manufacturers choose not to design ARM boards with SBSA-like features[1] because it's cheaper to do so. While x86 machines have enumerable buses for hardware discovery, as well as ACPI support, ARM SoCs don't. As a result, mainline Linux kernels won't boot on them, they require a kernel fork, and a kernel fork must be maintained. Manufacturers have no incentive to maintain that fork for more than a year or two. As ARM SoCs take over what are considered general purpose computing devices, like laptops, devices that we once thought of as being upgradable, software-wise, suddenly aren't. Apple's M1 Macs are an example of this. To get Linux running on them is a massive undertaking, and running Linux on them in the long-term means relying on a third party to build and maintain M1-specific images in perpetuity, because the SoCs can't run the generic ARM images that ARM servers can run. There are mitigations against this problem in Linux, like Device Tree[2] support, but that is only one small part of the big[2] undertaking when it comes to porting Linux to ARM SoCs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Base_System_Architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Base_System_Architectur... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_tree [3] https://elinux.org/images/a/ad/Arm-soc-checklist.pdf https://elinux.org/images/a/ad/Arm-soc-checklist.pdf

heavyset_go 6y ago

This is true. Most Android devices run forked kernels supplied by manufacturers. Once the manufacturers stop updating the kernel, the device is stuck using the old kernel forever. I have several phones running LineageOS that I use as remotes for my TVs, and they'll never see a kernel beyond the 3.x fork the manufacturers released 5+ years ago. This issue is indicative of the larger problem ARM SoCs pose to consumers: manufacturers choose not to design ARM boards with SBSA-like features[1] because it's cheaper to do so. While x86 machines have enumerable buses for hardware discovery, as well as ACPI support, ARM SoCs don't. As a result, mainline Linux kernels won't boot on them, they require a kernel fork, and a kernel fork must be maintained. Manufacturers have no incentive to maintain that fork for more than a year or two. As ARM SoCs take over what are considered general purpose computing devices, like laptops, devices that we once thought of as being upgradable, software-wise, suddenly aren't. Apple's M1 Macs are an example of this. To get Linux running on them is a massive undertaking, and running Linux on them in the long-term means relying on a third party to build and maintain M1-specific images in perpetuity, because the SoCs can't run the generic ARM images that ARM servers can run. There are mitigations against this problem in Linux, like Device Tree[2] support, but that is only one small part of the big[2] undertaking when it comes to porting Linux to ARM SoCs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Base_System_Architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Base_System_Architectur... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_tree [3] https://elinux.org/images/a/ad/Arm-soc-checklist.pdf https://elinux.org/images/a/ad/Arm-soc-checklist.pdf