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Wasn't the whole point of Project Treble to abstract the OS from the low level using a HAL so that most of Android could be updated even if the low-level was st

Wasn't the whole point of Project Treble to abstract the OS from the low level using a HAL so that most of Android could be updated even if the low-level was stuck?

prettyStandard 5y ago
Yeah... Maybe that's why another person in this thread had such an easy time flashing a 3rd party OS using the WebUSB installer and not even opening the terminal. +1 points for Google for cool stuff like Project Treble (gotta keep techies on board) -99 points for Google for abandoning Flagship devices for 99% of users that techies might have sold to family and friends.
- AndrewDucker 5y ago
  If it's so easy, then I don't understand why they don't just have a high level OS version that they can make available across all of their devices? How much overhead can there really be? (I really would like to understand better.)
  - phh 5y ago
    I actually do just that: https://twitter.com/phhusson/status/1447824974396497924 https://twitter.com/phhusson/status/1447824974396497924 My oldest supported device is Pixel 1 (released in 2016): https://twitter.com/phhusson/status/1454155975515152387 https://twitter.com/phhusson/status/1454155975515152387 I'm pretty much alone, and do it in my spare time. So, it's fairly easy to do. Actually, Google do provide some GSIs: https://developer.android.com/topic/generic-system-image/releases https://developer.android.com/topic/generic-system-image/rel... But they are unusable as daily driver on the majority of devices. Many (I'd say most) devices simply won't boot, most devices would have no in-call audio, there wouldn't be VoLTE on any device, backlight control would be broken on many devices, etc. etc. Google doesn't do it because they have no incentive in doing that.
phh 5y ago
Now HALs are indeed properly abstracted. What does Google do with that? They actually use that, to deprecate devices FASTER than ever. How? Well, now that the HALs are perfectly formalized, they can say "Okay, a device launched with Android 8, used audio HAL 2.0, while Android 9-launched devices use audio HAL 3.0. We support Android for 3 upgrades, so for Android 12, we can REMOVE the whole code supporting Audio HAL 2.0". While before that, Google couldn't really know what code to remove or not, because they couldn't really know what was used. So yes, Project Treble, in current Google's implementation, Project Treble turns out to obsolete things even faster than before, and in Google's new Treblish certification plans, I see no place for Fairphones or nVidia Shield with real long-term support. So, overall, IMO, Project Treble net result is pretty close to 0 (it does have some positive aspects, not just the negatives I just said). My hope is that some company would appear to lack this gap. Because thanks to Treble, it is actually possible to make reasonable long-term support, by making the code that Google removed to bring back support.

Wasn't the whole point of Project Treble to abstract the OS from the low level using a HAL so that most of Android could be updated even if the low-level was stuck?

prettyStandard 5y ago

Yeah... Maybe that's why another person in this thread had such an easy time flashing a 3rd party OS using the WebUSB installer and not even opening the terminal. +1 points for Google for cool stuff like Project Treble (gotta keep techies on board) -99 points for Google for abandoning Flagship devices for 99% of users that techies might have sold to family and friends.

AndrewDucker 5y ago
If it's so easy, then I don't understand why they don't just have a high level OS version that they can make available across all of their devices? How much overhead can there really be? (I really would like to understand better.)
- phh 5y ago
  I actually do just that: https://twitter.com/phhusson/status/1447824974396497924 https://twitter.com/phhusson/status/1447824974396497924 My oldest supported device is Pixel 1 (released in 2016): https://twitter.com/phhusson/status/1454155975515152387 https://twitter.com/phhusson/status/1454155975515152387 I'm pretty much alone, and do it in my spare time. So, it's fairly easy to do. Actually, Google do provide some GSIs: https://developer.android.com/topic/generic-system-image/releases https://developer.android.com/topic/generic-system-image/rel... But they are unusable as daily driver on the majority of devices. Many (I'd say most) devices simply won't boot, most devices would have no in-call audio, there wouldn't be VoLTE on any device, backlight control would be broken on many devices, etc. etc. Google doesn't do it because they have no incentive in doing that.

phh 5y ago

Now HALs are indeed properly abstracted. What does Google do with that? They actually use that, to deprecate devices FASTER than ever. How? Well, now that the HALs are perfectly formalized, they can say "Okay, a device launched with Android 8, used audio HAL 2.0, while Android 9-launched devices use audio HAL 3.0. We support Android for 3 upgrades, so for Android 12, we can REMOVE the whole code supporting Audio HAL 2.0". While before that, Google couldn't really know what code to remove or not, because they couldn't really know what was used. So yes, Project Treble, in current Google's implementation, Project Treble turns out to obsolete things even faster than before, and in Google's new Treblish certification plans, I see no place for Fairphones or nVidia Shield with real long-term support. So, overall, IMO, Project Treble net result is pretty close to 0 (it does have some positive aspects, not just the negatives I just said). My hope is that some company would appear to lack this gap. Because thanks to Treble, it is actually possible to make reasonable long-term support, by making the code that Google removed to bring back support.