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It's also not even true as the author admits: iOS 1.0 and OS X shared the same kernel, most libraries, and even many drivers. Does anyone think that a Linux dis
by nexuist 5y ago
It's also not even true as the author admits: iOS 1.0 and OS X shared the same kernel, most libraries, and even many drivers. Does anyone think that a Linux distro without audio drivers is a completely different operating system from a Linux distro with audio drivers?
- boomboomsubban 5y agoMost people don't really consider Android "Linux" despite having the same kernel and many libraries in common.
- EvilEy3 5y agoBecause muh libc and it's not using some obscure barely working DE.
- edgyquant 5y agoI think it’s because to most people Linux = GNU/Linux
- dividedbyzero 5y agoI'd be surprised if there were more than a tiny tiny minority of people who even know what you're talking about
- opan 5y agoGNU/Linux as a term is often used for precisely these situations. It evokes the image of something like Debian or Arch on a desktop or server. Very distinct from Android. I can use a terminal on Android and use a few familiar tools, but the same is true of macOS.
- edgyquant 5y agoThe type of people who are likely to hold the opinion that Android isn’t a real Linux definitely do, which is what we’re discussing here.
- Cloudef 5y agoI actually have written bionic -> glibc compatibility layer. https://github.com/Cloudef/android2gnulinux https://github.com/Cloudef/android2gnulinux If it's a native binary, there's good chance you can run it with this. JNI/Java stuff is mostly unity and even that's very proof of concept.
- dvfjsdhgfv 5y agoThank you, it looks very interesting.
- otabdeveloper4 5y agoCall me back when you can compile a Linux program to run on Android. Shouldn't that be the deciding yardstick for OS compatibility?
- hiccuphippo 5y agoInstall one of those chroot apps that give you a distro's package manager on it and then you can. I once did to compile a Qt program on arm. Just install the gcc package and compile away. It was way easier than trying to set up cross-compilation in my Linux box at the time.
- otabdeveloper4 5y agoYou can also install a VM on MacOS and compile Linux apps, too. Does that make MacOS a Linux?
- simondotau 5y agoYes, but surely most people would see the family resemblance between the binary distributions of Mint and Raspbian, for example.
- 1cvmask 5y agoI always did. In fact there were other linux based distros for different form factors including mobile. One was the LiMo (linux mobile) foundation.
- pjmlp 5y agoWhat libraries? https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis Anything that isn't Android specific on that list, works in any OS with a ISO C or ISO C++ compiler. Then there is the Java/Kotlin userspace. Anything not part of those APIs is considered private API, and Android is free to just kill the application. https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-7.0-changes#ndk https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-... Then we have the regular Linux drivers that are considered legacy since Android 8. > HALs expressed in HAL interface definition language (HIDL) or Android interface definition language (AIDL). These HALs replace both conventional and legacy HALs used in earlier versions of Android. In a Binderized HAL, the Android framework and HALs communicate with each other using binder inter-process communication (IPC) calls. All devices launching with Android 8.0 or later must support binderized HALs only. https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/hal-types https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/hal-types Many like to think Android's usage of the Linux kernel matters, while the hard reality is that ART can be deployed on top of Fuchsia, and 99% of Android applications will keep on running without changes, probably recompiling might be required for the NDK parts, that is all.