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Not really. To run Linux mobile distros on regular Android phones, you need to have an Android base because essential features of these phones are implemented
by jraph 3y ago
Not really.
To run Linux mobile distros on regular Android phones, you need to have an Android base because essential features of these phones are implemented in closed source user space drivers that expect an Android system. You are basically stuck with the kernel your phone came with, plus some of its user space. That's what libhybris is for.
In practice, development of this is slow as far as I know, and you need someone to port your specific device to it so you can run linux distros on it. But distros maintainers are more or less focusing on the Pinephone and the Librem 5 now that devices not requiring such blobs.
As for running Android on the PinePhone, that's technically possible but in practice not much works AFAIK because people are focusing on the Linux mobile ecosystem instead.
> There is no "Android drops support for them". It's "Google drops support for them".
In which ways the distinction is useful? In any case, when your Android phone manufacturer drops support for your device, you are pretty much stuck on your heavily customized Linux kernel and your closed-source userspace drivers that expect this old kernel and its specific patches. They also expect the specific version of Android the phone comes with because Android may change APIs and drop features they are relying on. Porting to newer Android versions is not always impossible, but it's hard work.
The PinePhone I boot in 2020 runs the latest mainline kernel, which is the whole point of this kind of device.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libhybris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libhybris
- palata 3y agoSorry, I am not completely sure I understand the point you are trying to make. Yes, devices that work with the mainline kernel are better supported. Both for Android and for Mobile Linux. > In which ways the distinction is useful? Because people not making the distinction tend to conclude "you should move to a Mobile Linux instead". Which is completely wrong: while there are active Mobile Linux projects, there are active AOSP-based projects. Android, today, is completely functional without Google (I have been running a de-Googled ROM for 2 years). I played a lot with PostmarketOS, and while it is very cool, it is still very, very far from Android. Even more so if you don't run waydroid and hope for people to write good mobile apps with some kind of C++ cross-platform framework like Qt.
- jraph 3y ago> Android, today, is completely functional without Google I know, I have used microG and all that stuff. My point is that the way they are produced, Android phones are not built to last / be kept up to date. I don't believe it's a problem with AOSP proper, I could run the latest Android on a 12 year old intel tablet (difficult with 1G of RAM, but still). But that's because it can run a mainline Linux kernel when no Android phone currently can.
- palata 3y ago> My point is that the way they are produced, Android phones are not built to last / be kept up to date. Agreed, most Android phones are not built to last. Some are, though (I own a Fairphone, for instance). And some mainstream Android phones (talking Samsung and the likes) are maintained by custom ROMs like LineageOS. I mean GrapheneOS explicitly targets the Pixel line. Also projects like PostmarketOS have been mainlining many phones, I think. I would guess that this also benefits Android?
- jraph 3y agoFairphone does make impressive efforts toward this direction indeed. Their push towards more ethical manufacturing is also great. I which their phone didn't rely on proprietary drivers. > Also projects like PostmarketOS have been mainlining many phones There's only so much they can do, but if they manage to mainline Android phones, that's obviously great news for their owners, including if they want to stay on Android because this probably eases porting new versions a lot.