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Googler opinions are my own. At least they fixed this with the pixel 6 with a 5 year upgrade plan.

by kyrra 5y ago

jiggawatts 5y ago
I gave my 6-year old iPhone to elderly relatives and it still gets security upgrades. Google “upgraded” to less than any other mainstream computing platform. Windows gets about 10 years of security updates for each major version, up to 15 if you pay extra.
- cogman10 5y ago
  And that is just for the OS itself. Hardware wise, you can easily pull out 20 years or longer simply by constantly bumping up the OS version.
mdoms 5y ago
No. Google is the operating system vendor. They either fix this with all Android phones or they haven't fixed anything at all.
- Andrex 5y ago
  They've been at it for years, but it's been a difficult problem to solve. Tangible progress has been made in the last 2 or so OS updates, however. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/06/talkin-treble-how-android-engineers-are-winning-the-war-on-fragmentation/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/06/talkin-treble-how-an... https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/12/qualcomm-promises-three-years-of-android-updates-for-its-entire-soc-lineup/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/12/qualcomm-promises-th... https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/07/android-10-has-the-fastest-update-rate-ever-hits-16-of-users-in-10-months/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/07/android-10-has-the-f...
- vetinari 5y ago
  Google is not operating system vendor for all Android phones. They release a generic template, other vendors then apply platform kits for the SoCs they use and they release the operating system for their devices. Google has no idea what it runs on, or what is needed to make it run on specific devices. It is the vendor's task. Mobile devices have no UEFI, no bus enumeration, so the OS image has to be taylored for each device. It is similar to Raspberry or Odroid or similar SBCs: althrough both are arm, you cannot use Ubuntu (or other disto) image intended for one on another.
  - jiggawatts 5y ago
    That’s the cause of the problem, not the excuse for it.
  - my123 5y ago
    (disclaimer: I work at Qualcomm) > Mobile devices have no UEFI Since the Snapdragon 835, Android devices with Qualcomm processors use UEFI all the way to the kernel. However, custom UEFI binaries aren't part of the boot flow, with an Android UEFI boot application running instead. > no bus enumeration It's device tree instead of ACPI, but apart from that the situation isn't _that_ different from PCs today. We aren't in the ATAGS era anymore. The reflashing interface nowadays is standardised through fastboot too. > so the OS image has to be taylored for each device Thankfully a lot of progress has been done on that. Since Treble, the BSP proper has been untied from Android releases. Since devices shipping with Android 12, a Google-built kernel with a stable kernel module ABI has been shipping (for a given major kernel + Android version release combo). This allows kernel security updates to be identical across the whole ecosystem. > althrough both are arm, you cannot use Ubuntu (or other disto) image intended for one on another That used to be true, but across the whole Android device fleet (even between SoC vendors) it's not true anymore. However, there's a catch still: there isn't a central update service. So while you might use a custom OS that way, you'll still need to update the vendor partitions (with the drivers, both kernel and user-mode ones) out of band in that scenario to get updates for those. More info on generic system images: https://developer.android.com/topic/generic-system-image https://developer.android.com/topic/generic-system-image. This mechanism allows to have universal Android images that work across all of the ecosystem, and can be used for GNU/Linux distributions on phones too if there's motivation to do so.
    - danielEM 5y ago
      Hey @my123 > However, there's a catch still: there isn't a central update service. So while you might use a custom OS that way, you'll still need to update the vendor partitions (with the drivers, both kernel and user-mode ones) out of band in that scenario to get updates for those. > This mechanism allows to have universal Android images that work across all of the ecosystem, and can be used for GNU/Linux distributions on phones too if there's motivation to do so. So assuming my bootloader is unlocked, have a GSI compliant phone, what is the remaining work I would need to have done in order to get it working under linux (and by working I mean all devices - including cameras and etc)?

Googler opinions are my own. At least they fixed this with the pixel 6 with a 5 year upgrade plan.

by kyrra 5y ago

Googler opinions are my own. At least they fixed this with the pixel 6 with a 5 year upgrade plan.

I gave my 6-year old iPhone to elderly relatives and it still gets security upgrades. Google “upgraded” to less than any other mainstream computing platform. Windows gets about 10 years of security updates for each major version, up to 15 if you pay extra.

cogman10 5y ago
And that is just for the OS itself. Hardware wise, you can easily pull out 20 years or longer simply by constantly bumping up the OS version.

mdoms 5y ago

No. Google is the operating system vendor. They either fix this with all Android phones or they haven't fixed anything at all.

Andrex 5y ago
They've been at it for years, but it's been a difficult problem to solve. Tangible progress has been made in the last 2 or so OS updates, however. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/06/talkin-treble-how-android-engineers-are-winning-the-war-on-fragmentation/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/06/talkin-treble-how-an... https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/12/qualcomm-promises-three-years-of-android-updates-for-its-entire-soc-lineup/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/12/qualcomm-promises-th... https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/07/android-10-has-the-fastest-update-rate-ever-hits-16-of-users-in-10-months/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/07/android-10-has-the-f...
vetinari 5y ago
Google is not operating system vendor for all Android phones. They release a generic template, other vendors then apply platform kits for the SoCs they use and they release the operating system for their devices. Google has no idea what it runs on, or what is needed to make it run on specific devices. It is the vendor's task. Mobile devices have no UEFI, no bus enumeration, so the OS image has to be taylored for each device. It is similar to Raspberry or Odroid or similar SBCs: althrough both are arm, you cannot use Ubuntu (or other disto) image intended for one on another.
- jiggawatts 5y ago
  That’s the cause of the problem, not the excuse for it.
- my123 5y ago
  (disclaimer: I work at Qualcomm) > Mobile devices have no UEFI Since the Snapdragon 835, Android devices with Qualcomm processors use UEFI all the way to the kernel. However, custom UEFI binaries aren't part of the boot flow, with an Android UEFI boot application running instead. > no bus enumeration It's device tree instead of ACPI, but apart from that the situation isn't _that_ different from PCs today. We aren't in the ATAGS era anymore. The reflashing interface nowadays is standardised through fastboot too. > so the OS image has to be taylored for each device Thankfully a lot of progress has been done on that. Since Treble, the BSP proper has been untied from Android releases. Since devices shipping with Android 12, a Google-built kernel with a stable kernel module ABI has been shipping (for a given major kernel + Android version release combo). This allows kernel security updates to be identical across the whole ecosystem. > althrough both are arm, you cannot use Ubuntu (or other disto) image intended for one on another That used to be true, but across the whole Android device fleet (even between SoC vendors) it's not true anymore. However, there's a catch still: there isn't a central update service. So while you might use a custom OS that way, you'll still need to update the vendor partitions (with the drivers, both kernel and user-mode ones) out of band in that scenario to get updates for those. More info on generic system images: https://developer.android.com/topic/generic-system-image https://developer.android.com/topic/generic-system-image. This mechanism allows to have universal Android images that work across all of the ecosystem, and can be used for GNU/Linux distributions on phones too if there's motivation to do so.
  - danielEM 5y ago
    Hey @my123 > However, there's a catch still: there isn't a central update service. So while you might use a custom OS that way, you'll still need to update the vendor partitions (with the drivers, both kernel and user-mode ones) out of band in that scenario to get updates for those. > This mechanism allows to have universal Android images that work across all of the ecosystem, and can be used for GNU/Linux distributions on phones too if there's motivation to do so. So assuming my bootloader is unlocked, have a GSI compliant phone, what is the remaining work I would need to have done in order to get it working under linux (and by working I mean all devices - including cameras and etc)?