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IMO Android architecture does offer an advantage relative to vanilla Linux in the way that it creates a well-defined separation between kernel (+ drivers) and u

by chem83 2y ago

IMO Android architecture does offer an advantage relative to vanilla Linux in the way that it creates a well-defined separation between kernel (+ drivers) and user space development, somewhat fixing the OS fragmentation. It helps prevent users getting locked out of the latest version of the OS just because the device manufacturer didn't update their BSP. It's the reason why Samsung offers 5 years of device updates and Pixel offers 7 now. https://source.android.com/docs/core/architecture/kernel/generic-kernel-image https://source.android.com/docs/core/architecture/kernel/gen...

modeless 2y ago
ChromeOS was already guaranteeing 10 years of updates for every device. Has any Android phone ever gotten that many updates?
- moneywoes 2y ago
  Highest I could find is 6
  - mortos 2y ago
    The Pixel 8 is promised 7, which I believe is the highest of any phone.
    - nordsieck 2y ago
      I guess we'll see how things shake out. Unless something drastic changes, I'm sticking with Apple because of their demonstrated long-term support. Every phone since 2015 has been supported for 6-7 years. And that's actual support, not a "technically correct" mix of real support and security patches only. https://www.statista.com/chart/5824/ios-iphone-compatibility/ https://www.statista.com/chart/5824/ios-iphone-compatibility...
      - wasabinator 2y ago
        That's overlooking the fact that Apple does not release the full featureset of new iOS versions on older devices and as years pass the number of feature omissions increases.
        asadalt 2y ago
        which makes sense? like i can’t expect the new ai intelligence (a 3B model) will run at all on iPhone X
        youngtaff 2y ago
        There’s hardware dependencies for some of the ‘missing’ features and if the hardware’s not there then there’s not a lot the OS can do to support it
    - eliaspro 2y ago
      The Fairphone 5 will get 8 years of security updates: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/18020671537041-Fairphone-5-FAQ https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/180206715370...
      - 1oooqooq 2y ago
        it's laughable because i doubt they have any proof that Qualcomm will continue to deliver updates. fairphone is just a intermediary. they are using the long life Qualcomm parts, that only guarantee production and stock for x years. maybe with software updates by an intern. it definitely will not guarantee a new driver set compiling to a recent kernel if the old kernel must be upgraded for security or anything else. so it's kinda bold they promise that with out any disclaimer that they are just hopeful
    - fsflover 2y ago
      Librem 5 will get lifetime updates, because it runs mainline Linux without proprietary drivers.
    - oblio 2y ago
      > Availability of software and firmware updates > (a) > The latest available version of the firmware shall be made available for a minimum period of eight years after the placing on the market of the last unit of a certain product model, free of charge or at a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory cost. The latest available security update to the firmware shall be made available until at least eight years after the placing on the market of the last product of a certain product model, free of charge. (b) > Information on the minimum guaranteed availability of software and firmware updates, availability of spare parts and product support shall be indicated in the product information sheet as from Annex V of Regulation (EU) 2019/2013. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/2021/oj https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/2021/oj I can't find all of it, but part of it (Samsung also did the same thing) is triggered by EU environment protection directives.
    - bwat49 2y ago
      Samsung S24 has 7 years as well
    - kaba0 2y ago
      Google can’t even keep a project alive for that long, so let’s not jump ahead. We will see when they actually deliver.
      - nolist_policy 2y ago
        Um they already delivered, for example on 8 years of updates for past Chromebooks.
- chem83 2y ago
  That's likely due to contractual obligations with Google and the use of well-supported AMD/Intel hardware and BSP. Linux hardware / device architecture makes this difficult on Arm and the many silicon BSP providers and that's what the stable Kernel Module Interface that Android imposes helps with.
  - NewJazz 2y ago
    They've had arm Chromebooks with the same guarantees. Magically Qualcomm and Mediatek seem to be able to find their firmware and kernel sources when it comes to their laptop chips.
- eddythompson80 2y ago
  lol, no? The most I got from Sony and Samsung in 2012 and 2015 was 1-2 years. Which is when I generally stopped using Android. It was frustraing enough to read all the news about "Google releases new Andoid with (list of features)" then asking when is my Sony/Samsung is getting that? to hear "oh maybe in 4 or 6 months if you're lucky. Or download this random ROM from `appzworrier` on xdaforum. Surely they haven't put any malware in the ROM or you'll hear about it here". I did give it another shot in 2019 with a Pixel 4 phone then after 2 RMAs with battery issues (4-5 hours of battery) I went back to iPhone. Funny thing is in 2013 and 2016 I switched back to the old iPhone I had before the upgrad, I just updated them to the latest iOS version there was at the time. After the shitshow I had with google support in 2019 I just gave up.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - chem83 2y ago
    GKI didn't exist in 2012/2015, so it was very difficult and expensive for OEMs to support Android for longer. Apple could do so more easily because they control both hardware and software. Google introduced GKI and other related efforts/architectures to address this very problem, which is unique to Arm, Linux and the ecosystem around it. It's really silicon manufacturer's fault for not wanting to mainline and long-term support their BSP, not Google's.
    - msh 2y ago
      I would say it's both. Google could put support requirements in the gms certification
      - izacus 2y ago
        And how would that help when the major SoC manufacturer refuses to support their chipsets?
        bayindirh 2y ago
- zamadatix 2y ago
  The Nvidia shield vs other 1st party SoC devices running Android (e.g. from S devices with Samsung SoCs or Pixels with Google SoCs) goes to show the short lifespan of Android phone updates really has nothing to do with the underlying hardware or OS. Also the type of updates guaranteed for 10 years on ChromeOS are not the feature update type that require upgrading the actual OS, just security and bugfix patches.
  - londons_explore 2y ago
    ChromeOS updates are actual feature updates - for the 10 years of support, your device will be tip-of-tree and have all the features (except a few which are flagged-off, usually for business or performance reasons)
    - zamadatix 2y ago
      Yeah, you're right. I got a little separated from the comment chain here after writing about the Nvidia Shield and what it implies about phone lifecycles by conflating that story with talking to ChromeOS. While the Shield received major kernel version updates as recently as 2 years ago, going back to the actual comment discussion around the abstracted ChromeOS userspace vs firmware/kernel/driver layer ChromeOS does already drive feature updates of the upper segment of the OS for the full lifecycle without requiring the kernel updates seen in the Shield example. Good catch and thanks for the correction.
  - DCKing 2y ago
    The Shield TV has had an impressive support lifecycle for an Android device but it still falls well short of a 10 year support cycle. The Shield was released in May 2015 and its latest software update has an Android security patch level of April 2022 and was released November 2022. No more updates seem to be forthcoming. Notably, all Shield TVs today are vulnerable to remote code execution when displaying a malicious WebP image [0], a widespread issue uncovered last year. Apple released the Apple TV HD two months after the Shield TV, but it still receives the latest tvOS updates to this day and will be receiving this year's new tvOS 18 [1] [2]. It received a fix for that WebP issue the same day as supported Macs, iPhones and iPads did last September. Even the best Android device examples with good vendor support still seem to be falling short. The Shield TV is still capable streaming hardware in 2024 used by many people, but it's sitting there doing that while missing important security patches unbeknownst to the users. [0]: https://blog.isosceles.com/the-webp-0day/ https://blog.isosceles.com/the-webp-0day/ [1]: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/10/tvos-18-compatible-apple-tv-models/ https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/10/tvos-18-compatible-appl... [2]: To be fair it's the only Apple A8 device that receives support until today. The iPhone 6 with the same chip was launched mid 2014 and received its last update in early 2023.
- rchaud 2y ago
  "10 years of updates" for Google products is a bold claim. Will ChromeOS even exist in 2034, let alone run on 2024 hardware?
  - wiseowise 2y ago
    Why wouldn’t it? It might be rebranded as Android Desktop in the future or something, though.
gtirloni 2y ago
How's that even an issue in Linux? If anything, vanilla Linux users have way more power over their computing platform and are never locked out of anything.
- kccqzy 2y ago
  I think you've only experienced Linux on Intel/AMD, not Linux on ARM SOCs.
  - gtirloni 2y ago
    I'm looking at several ARM devices running Linux on my desk right now. What's your point?
- fooker 2y ago
  What is vanilla Linux though? If you're talking about something like Ubuntu, there's a tonne of work that goes into making sure it works with ..say.. a random three year old laptop with all the binary blobs in place. Try getting something like wifi or Bluetooth working on some weird ARM dev board and suddenly there's no vanilla Linux unless you're willing to write device drivers.
  - blackoil 2y ago
    That should be true for everything, if no one has written drivers for something it won't work. But once driver is added will it fail/updated for newer versions of Linux?
    - zamadatix 2y ago
      It depends on how open the particular drivers are implemented. E.g. over the last couple of years the Nvidia driver situation for cards from the last 3 generations has changed across pretty much all 3 major levels: 1. Originally you had to use the proprietary binary driver to get anything useful to happen with your card at all. Updating the kernel without updating this would more or less lead to having an expensive brick in your PC. Some Wi-Fi adapters fall into the "can't really be updated" category as well. A _LOT_ of ARM shit is like this. 2. nvidia-open came along (still beta for desktop cards at the moment) and it puts enough in the kernel that you can update the kernel without needing an updated binary driver for your card to function 3. nouveau/nvk have very recently started to come to a decently usable state (i.e. they have reclocking via GSP and somewhat usable graphics API coverage/efficiency) for an even more open driver stack which tracks system updates even better. If your binary blobs fall into 1/2 then long term upgrades can be anywhere from impossible to unreliable. If they fall into 2/3 they can be anywhere from somewhat reliable to "will be working longer than any sane person would still be trying to update the kernel on that device". E.g. the AMD 7750 is 12 years old but can run OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan via the latest AMDGPU driver in mainline mesa/kernel. LTS distros solve this by using LTS kernels and security patching them rather than requiring "actual" underlying OS updates during the version lifecycle.
tgma 2y ago
This is actually a legit context in which GNU and Linux distinction matters and improves readability. "vanilla Linux" is really referring to GNU.
- Zambyte 2y ago
  I actually don't understand the point they are trying to make at all, even from this lens. They say that by not using "vanilla Linux" there is a more well-defined seperation between kernel and user space development, when actually the exact opposite is true. By not using the vanilla Linux kernel, the kernel with Android pacthes is actually more coupled to the Android user space than other user spaces that traditionally run on Linux, like GNU or Alpine.
  - afiori 2y ago
    I believe they are talking more about the hardware abstraction layer, IIRC Android in recent years adopted a more stable interface for hardware drivers. To my understand in Linux most drivers are codeveloped with the kernel as it does not have a stable interface for drivers (one might say that it is a pro as it discourages proprietary drivers)
- anthk 2y ago
  Vanilla Linux is not even GNU unles you get Linux-Libre with is mostly FSF-sanctioned to push out every blob.
maven29 2y ago
https://www.engadget.com/samsung-pledges-seven-years-of-updates-for-s24-series-180844109.html https://www.engadget.com/samsung-pledges-seven-years-of-upda... Samsung offers 7 years of major version upgrades on their flagship lineup starting with the S24. It is not retraoctive, although their 5 year policy has been in place for 2021 devices. It's unlikely that they will offer security patches beyond that point and the mid-range segment still only gets 4/5 years. Chinese OEMs offer "major" upgrades for longer, however they achieve this by backporting both Android mainline and proprietary features to older versions of Android, along with security patches.
fowl2 2y ago
yes the beautiful advantage of having some super-forked kernel. the solution is to get everyone on the same kernel, which is then updatable - not hack together something that kinda works on top of a never updated snowflake
- cageface 2y ago
  The Linux kernel team has been hostile to binary drivers in the past. Is that not still the case?
  - Matl 2y ago
    Binary drivers are hostile, not the Linux kernel.
    - askonomm 2y ago
      Ok no problem, I'll just ideology to run things.
      - klabb3 2y ago
        You don’t have to go anywhere near ideological debate to argue against binary blobs in the OS. The blobs could be verbatim from Stallman himself and blessed in the holy waters of EFF, and they would still be bad for dozens of technical reasons.
  - vetinari 2y ago
    The linux kernel team understandably does not want to maintain overcomplicated shims, keep multiple versions of the same subsystem and debug opaque problems so some can keep their precious binaries secret. You keep the binaries, you get to maintain them and solve their problems. Seems fair.
    - cageface 2y ago
      Ok but this is also going to mean people are going to keep long lived forks, like Android, that do support binary drivers.
aixpert 2y ago
Another big advantage of Android is the implementation of intents (also compared to Apples new crippled intents API), which may turn out to become the deciding factor in the race towards the winning AI Agent OS, as it may enable AI to use programs programmatically
- chem83 2y ago
  Care to share what makes Android intents superior to what Apple announced on WWDC?
  - aixpert 2y ago
    if I'm not mistaken the Intent categories available now are only Books Browsers Cameras Document readers File management Journals Mail Photos Presentations Spreadsheets Whiteboards Word processors One hour 39 + 39 seconds in the demo
    - kaba0 2y ago
      I think the context of these were that these contexts were included in the trained model, so it can interact with this kind of “intents”. Ios has a very wide-reaching “intent” system, readily accessible from Shortcuts.
phh 2y ago
Both real-world and on-paper status are literally the exact opposite of what you're describing. As others have already mentioned, just stating the facts about long-term support: chromebooks have much longer support than Android devices. Both looking at the 99-percentile, the median, and the 1-percentile. Chromebooks don't get stupid bugs that require workarounds in userspace like: - BPF maps being broken because someone at Mediatek ran some proprietary static analyser and blindly pushed some fix - Camera only works properly in the OEM app - GL drivers are upgraded once every blood moon and very OEM has its custom GL version - Treble doesn't break because Samsung decided that mount loops were dangerously insecure at a time it wasn't required - You don't need to keep workarounds for mainline kernels that you can't upgrade, because Google/Android forbids you to upgrade your kernel [1] Android deprecates driver after 3 years [2], so vendor need to do a lot of work on a very frequent basis. As an OEM, I just want to do my (painful) contributions to mainline, and have them maintain it. Android actively hinders me from doing that. As an Android OS developer, I could go on and on and on about the stupid issues that Android kernels get that Chromebooks don't. All of those issues would happen just exactly the same on Fuchsia. I'm not saying ChromeOS' development method works for smartphones, it doesn't. I'm not saying it is desirable, I think it isn't (because it completely kills most innovation). But ChromeOS handles fragmentation better than Android on every single criteria you could imagine. [1] Google/Android added a bunch a new stupid policies that actually prevent me from upgrading kernels on deployed devices [2] Yes there is actual planned obsolescence nowadays in Android. It wasn't the case few years ago where obsolescence was accidental
- rob74 2y ago
  My personal (probably non-representative) experience with ChromeOS vs. Android: my ChromeOS device (a Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 2-in-1 Chromebook) tends to get extremely unresponsive (i.e. hangs itself up for minutes before responding again, or just spontaneously reboots) the longer it runs without being rebooted, to the point that I eventually have to hard reset it after about a week of on-and-off use. I basically only use the browser on it (but with lots of tabs open). This never happened to me on any of the many Android phones/tablets I had. Maybe it's some bug in how newer ChromeOS versions work on this by now pretty old device, but it's still annoying as hell...
oblio 2y ago
Close, but not quite. And guess who's triggered it, it's the usual suspect, the EU: > Availability of software and firmware updates > (a) > The latest available version of the firmware shall be made available for a minimum period of eight years after the placing on the market of the last unit of a certain product model, free of charge or at a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory cost. The latest available security update to the firmware shall be made available until at least eight years after the placing on the market of the last product of a certain product model, free of charge. (b) > Information on the minimum guaranteed availability of software and firmware updates, availability of spare parts and product support shall be indicated in the product information sheet as from Annex V of Regulation (EU) 2019/2013. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/2021/oj https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/2021/oj I can't find all of it, but part of it is triggered by EU environment protection directives.
pantalaimon 2y ago
> It helps prevent users getting locked out of the latest version of the OS just because the device manufacturer didn't update their BSP. Didn't Google push for mainline integration at some point to completely avoid the need for manufacturer specific BSPs?
account42 2y ago
> 5 years of device updates Is this supposed to be impressive? My current PC is over four years old and I'm in no rush to replace it. The same Linux distribution runs of decades old HW.
- kaba0 2y ago
  Does your PC include a bunch of noname random hardware, like gyroscopes, modems (which have legal requirements and there are only a handful to choose from, none of which has open-source drivers), etc?
dpratt 2y ago
I will start to believe the "7 years of updates" promise for Pixel phones when the first model that was released with this promise is approximately 7.5 years old. At that point, I may begin to reconsider my opinion. I fell prey to Google marketing when they released the very first Pixel model - I spent an exorbitant amount of money on it, only to have it utterly abandoned and deprecated, with support and updates dropped just over a year later. As in all things relating to anything stated by Google with respect to the privacy, availability or expected lifetime of a consumer product, the maxim is not even "trust but verify", it should be "distrust, watch carefully, and assume the worst".
- jsnell 2y ago
  As far as I can tell from contemporary sources, Pixel 1 launched with a promise of two years of major releases + one additional year of security updates [0]. This was in October 2016. They exceeded that, and actually did three years of major releases, and security updates for a couple of months longer than promised, with the last one in December 2019 [1]. Seems like they a) delivered more than initially promised, b) did not drop it just a year after release. How long a support period do you think they actually promised, and where did they promise it? [0] https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/10/19/pixel-pixel-xl-guaranteed-android-version-updates-least-2-years/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/10/19/pixel-pixel-xl-guar... [1] https://9to5google.com/2019/12/02/google-pixel-no-updates/ https://9to5google.com/2019/12/02/google-pixel-no-updates/

by chem83 2y ago

modeless 2y ago

ChromeOS was already guaranteeing 10 years of updates for every device. Has any Android phone ever gotten that many updates?

moneywoes 2y ago
Highest I could find is 6
- mortos 2y ago
  The Pixel 8 is promised 7, which I believe is the highest of any phone.
  - nordsieck 2y ago
    I guess we'll see how things shake out. Unless something drastic changes, I'm sticking with Apple because of their demonstrated long-term support. Every phone since 2015 has been supported for 6-7 years. And that's actual support, not a "technically correct" mix of real support and security patches only. https://www.statista.com/chart/5824/ios-iphone-compatibility/ https://www.statista.com/chart/5824/ios-iphone-compatibility...
    - wasabinator 2y ago
      That's overlooking the fact that Apple does not release the full featureset of new iOS versions on older devices and as years pass the number of feature omissions increases.
      - asadalt 2y ago
        which makes sense? like i can’t expect the new ai intelligence (a 3B model) will run at all on iPhone X
      - youngtaff 2y ago
        There’s hardware dependencies for some of the ‘missing’ features and if the hardware’s not there then there’s not a lot the OS can do to support it
  - eliaspro 2y ago
    The Fairphone 5 will get 8 years of security updates: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/18020671537041-Fairphone-5-FAQ https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/180206715370...
    - 1oooqooq 2y ago
      it's laughable because i doubt they have any proof that Qualcomm will continue to deliver updates. fairphone is just a intermediary. they are using the long life Qualcomm parts, that only guarantee production and stock for x years. maybe with software updates by an intern. it definitely will not guarantee a new driver set compiling to a recent kernel if the old kernel must be upgraded for security or anything else. so it's kinda bold they promise that with out any disclaimer that they are just hopeful
  - fsflover 2y ago
    Librem 5 will get lifetime updates, because it runs mainline Linux without proprietary drivers.
  - oblio 2y ago
    > Availability of software and firmware updates > (a) > The latest available version of the firmware shall be made available for a minimum period of eight years after the placing on the market of the last unit of a certain product model, free of charge or at a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory cost. The latest available security update to the firmware shall be made available until at least eight years after the placing on the market of the last product of a certain product model, free of charge. (b) > Information on the minimum guaranteed availability of software and firmware updates, availability of spare parts and product support shall be indicated in the product information sheet as from Annex V of Regulation (EU) 2019/2013. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/2021/oj https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/2021/oj I can't find all of it, but part of it (Samsung also did the same thing) is triggered by EU environment protection directives.
  - bwat49 2y ago
    Samsung S24 has 7 years as well
  - kaba0 2y ago
    Google can’t even keep a project alive for that long, so let’s not jump ahead. We will see when they actually deliver.
    - nolist_policy 2y ago
      Um they already delivered, for example on 8 years of updates for past Chromebooks.
chem83 2y ago
That's likely due to contractual obligations with Google and the use of well-supported AMD/Intel hardware and BSP. Linux hardware / device architecture makes this difficult on Arm and the many silicon BSP providers and that's what the stable Kernel Module Interface that Android imposes helps with.
- NewJazz 2y ago
  They've had arm Chromebooks with the same guarantees. Magically Qualcomm and Mediatek seem to be able to find their firmware and kernel sources when it comes to their laptop chips.
eddythompson80 2y ago
lol, no? The most I got from Sony and Samsung in 2012 and 2015 was 1-2 years. Which is when I generally stopped using Android. It was frustraing enough to read all the news about "Google releases new Andoid with (list of features)" then asking when is my Sony/Samsung is getting that? to hear "oh maybe in 4 or 6 months if you're lucky. Or download this random ROM from `appzworrier` on xdaforum. Surely they haven't put any malware in the ROM or you'll hear about it here". I did give it another shot in 2019 with a Pixel 4 phone then after 2 RMAs with battery issues (4-5 hours of battery) I went back to iPhone. Funny thing is in 2013 and 2016 I switched back to the old iPhone I had before the upgrad, I just updated them to the latest iOS version there was at the time. After the shitshow I had with google support in 2019 I just gave up.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- chem83 2y ago
  GKI didn't exist in 2012/2015, so it was very difficult and expensive for OEMs to support Android for longer. Apple could do so more easily because they control both hardware and software. Google introduced GKI and other related efforts/architectures to address this very problem, which is unique to Arm, Linux and the ecosystem around it. It's really silicon manufacturer's fault for not wanting to mainline and long-term support their BSP, not Google's.
  - msh 2y ago
    I would say it's both. Google could put support requirements in the gms certification
    - izacus 2y ago
      And how would that help when the major SoC manufacturer refuses to support their chipsets?
      - bayindirh 2y ago
zamadatix 2y ago
The Nvidia shield vs other 1st party SoC devices running Android (e.g. from S devices with Samsung SoCs or Pixels with Google SoCs) goes to show the short lifespan of Android phone updates really has nothing to do with the underlying hardware or OS. Also the type of updates guaranteed for 10 years on ChromeOS are not the feature update type that require upgrading the actual OS, just security and bugfix patches.
- londons_explore 2y ago
  ChromeOS updates are actual feature updates - for the 10 years of support, your device will be tip-of-tree and have all the features (except a few which are flagged-off, usually for business or performance reasons)
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    Yeah, you're right. I got a little separated from the comment chain here after writing about the Nvidia Shield and what it implies about phone lifecycles by conflating that story with talking to ChromeOS. While the Shield received major kernel version updates as recently as 2 years ago, going back to the actual comment discussion around the abstracted ChromeOS userspace vs firmware/kernel/driver layer ChromeOS does already drive feature updates of the upper segment of the OS for the full lifecycle without requiring the kernel updates seen in the Shield example. Good catch and thanks for the correction.
- DCKing 2y ago
  The Shield TV has had an impressive support lifecycle for an Android device but it still falls well short of a 10 year support cycle. The Shield was released in May 2015 and its latest software update has an Android security patch level of April 2022 and was released November 2022. No more updates seem to be forthcoming. Notably, all Shield TVs today are vulnerable to remote code execution when displaying a malicious WebP image [0], a widespread issue uncovered last year. Apple released the Apple TV HD two months after the Shield TV, but it still receives the latest tvOS updates to this day and will be receiving this year's new tvOS 18 [1] [2]. It received a fix for that WebP issue the same day as supported Macs, iPhones and iPads did last September. Even the best Android device examples with good vendor support still seem to be falling short. The Shield TV is still capable streaming hardware in 2024 used by many people, but it's sitting there doing that while missing important security patches unbeknownst to the users. [0]: https://blog.isosceles.com/the-webp-0day/ https://blog.isosceles.com/the-webp-0day/ [1]: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/10/tvos-18-compatible-apple-tv-models/ https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/10/tvos-18-compatible-appl... [2]: To be fair it's the only Apple A8 device that receives support until today. The iPhone 6 with the same chip was launched mid 2014 and received its last update in early 2023.
rchaud 2y ago
"10 years of updates" for Google products is a bold claim. Will ChromeOS even exist in 2034, let alone run on 2024 hardware?
- wiseowise 2y ago
  Why wouldn’t it? It might be rebranded as Android Desktop in the future or something, though.

gtirloni 2y ago

How's that even an issue in Linux? If anything, vanilla Linux users have way more power over their computing platform and are never locked out of anything.

kccqzy 2y ago
I think you've only experienced Linux on Intel/AMD, not Linux on ARM SOCs.
- gtirloni 2y ago
  I'm looking at several ARM devices running Linux on my desk right now. What's your point?
fooker 2y ago
What is vanilla Linux though? If you're talking about something like Ubuntu, there's a tonne of work that goes into making sure it works with ..say.. a random three year old laptop with all the binary blobs in place. Try getting something like wifi or Bluetooth working on some weird ARM dev board and suddenly there's no vanilla Linux unless you're willing to write device drivers.
- blackoil 2y ago
  That should be true for everything, if no one has written drivers for something it won't work. But once driver is added will it fail/updated for newer versions of Linux?
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    It depends on how open the particular drivers are implemented. E.g. over the last couple of years the Nvidia driver situation for cards from the last 3 generations has changed across pretty much all 3 major levels: 1. Originally you had to use the proprietary binary driver to get anything useful to happen with your card at all. Updating the kernel without updating this would more or less lead to having an expensive brick in your PC. Some Wi-Fi adapters fall into the "can't really be updated" category as well. A _LOT_ of ARM shit is like this. 2. nvidia-open came along (still beta for desktop cards at the moment) and it puts enough in the kernel that you can update the kernel without needing an updated binary driver for your card to function 3. nouveau/nvk have very recently started to come to a decently usable state (i.e. they have reclocking via GSP and somewhat usable graphics API coverage/efficiency) for an even more open driver stack which tracks system updates even better. If your binary blobs fall into 1/2 then long term upgrades can be anywhere from impossible to unreliable. If they fall into 2/3 they can be anywhere from somewhat reliable to "will be working longer than any sane person would still be trying to update the kernel on that device". E.g. the AMD 7750 is 12 years old but can run OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan via the latest AMDGPU driver in mainline mesa/kernel. LTS distros solve this by using LTS kernels and security patching them rather than requiring "actual" underlying OS updates during the version lifecycle.

tgma 2y ago

This is actually a legit context in which GNU and Linux distinction matters and improves readability. "vanilla Linux" is really referring to GNU.

Zambyte 2y ago
I actually don't understand the point they are trying to make at all, even from this lens. They say that by not using "vanilla Linux" there is a more well-defined seperation between kernel and user space development, when actually the exact opposite is true. By not using the vanilla Linux kernel, the kernel with Android pacthes is actually more coupled to the Android user space than other user spaces that traditionally run on Linux, like GNU or Alpine.
- afiori 2y ago
  I believe they are talking more about the hardware abstraction layer, IIRC Android in recent years adopted a more stable interface for hardware drivers. To my understand in Linux most drivers are codeveloped with the kernel as it does not have a stable interface for drivers (one might say that it is a pro as it discourages proprietary drivers)
anthk 2y ago
Vanilla Linux is not even GNU unles you get Linux-Libre with is mostly FSF-sanctioned to push out every blob.

maven29 2y ago

https://www.engadget.com/samsung-pledges-seven-years-of-updates-for-s24-series-180844109.html https://www.engadget.com/samsung-pledges-seven-years-of-upda... Samsung offers 7 years of major version upgrades on their flagship lineup starting with the S24. It is not retraoctive, although their 5 year policy has been in place for 2021 devices. It's unlikely that they will offer security patches beyond that point and the mid-range segment still only gets 4/5 years. Chinese OEMs offer "major" upgrades for longer, however they achieve this by backporting both Android mainline and proprietary features to older versions of Android, along with security patches.

fowl2 2y ago

yes the beautiful advantage of having some super-forked kernel. the solution is to get everyone on the same kernel, which is then updatable - not hack together something that kinda works on top of a never updated snowflake

cageface 2y ago
The Linux kernel team has been hostile to binary drivers in the past. Is that not still the case?
- Matl 2y ago
  Binary drivers are hostile, not the Linux kernel.
  - askonomm 2y ago
    Ok no problem, I'll just ideology to run things.
    - klabb3 2y ago
      You don’t have to go anywhere near ideological debate to argue against binary blobs in the OS. The blobs could be verbatim from Stallman himself and blessed in the holy waters of EFF, and they would still be bad for dozens of technical reasons.
- vetinari 2y ago
  The linux kernel team understandably does not want to maintain overcomplicated shims, keep multiple versions of the same subsystem and debug opaque problems so some can keep their precious binaries secret. You keep the binaries, you get to maintain them and solve their problems. Seems fair.
  - cageface 2y ago
    Ok but this is also going to mean people are going to keep long lived forks, like Android, that do support binary drivers.

aixpert 2y ago

Another big advantage of Android is the implementation of intents (also compared to Apples new crippled intents API), which may turn out to become the deciding factor in the race towards the winning AI Agent OS, as it may enable AI to use programs programmatically

chem83 2y ago
Care to share what makes Android intents superior to what Apple announced on WWDC?
- aixpert 2y ago
  if I'm not mistaken the Intent categories available now are only Books Browsers Cameras Document readers File management Journals Mail Photos Presentations Spreadsheets Whiteboards Word processors One hour 39 + 39 seconds in the demo
  - kaba0 2y ago
    I think the context of these were that these contexts were included in the trained model, so it can interact with this kind of “intents”. Ios has a very wide-reaching “intent” system, readily accessible from Shortcuts.

phh 2y ago

Both real-world and on-paper status are literally the exact opposite of what you're describing. As others have already mentioned, just stating the facts about long-term support: chromebooks have much longer support than Android devices. Both looking at the 99-percentile, the median, and the 1-percentile. Chromebooks don't get stupid bugs that require workarounds in userspace like: - BPF maps being broken because someone at Mediatek ran some proprietary static analyser and blindly pushed some fix - Camera only works properly in the OEM app - GL drivers are upgraded once every blood moon and very OEM has its custom GL version - Treble doesn't break because Samsung decided that mount loops were dangerously insecure at a time it wasn't required - You don't need to keep workarounds for mainline kernels that you can't upgrade, because Google/Android forbids you to upgrade your kernel [1] Android deprecates driver after 3 years [2], so vendor need to do a lot of work on a very frequent basis. As an OEM, I just want to do my (painful) contributions to mainline, and have them maintain it. Android actively hinders me from doing that. As an Android OS developer, I could go on and on and on about the stupid issues that Android kernels get that Chromebooks don't. All of those issues would happen just exactly the same on Fuchsia. I'm not saying ChromeOS' development method works for smartphones, it doesn't. I'm not saying it is desirable, I think it isn't (because it completely kills most innovation). But ChromeOS handles fragmentation better than Android on every single criteria you could imagine. [1] Google/Android added a bunch a new stupid policies that actually prevent me from upgrading kernels on deployed devices [2] Yes there is actual planned obsolescence nowadays in Android. It wasn't the case few years ago where obsolescence was accidental

rob74 2y ago
My personal (probably non-representative) experience with ChromeOS vs. Android: my ChromeOS device (a Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 2-in-1 Chromebook) tends to get extremely unresponsive (i.e. hangs itself up for minutes before responding again, or just spontaneously reboots) the longer it runs without being rebooted, to the point that I eventually have to hard reset it after about a week of on-and-off use. I basically only use the browser on it (but with lots of tabs open). This never happened to me on any of the many Android phones/tablets I had. Maybe it's some bug in how newer ChromeOS versions work on this by now pretty old device, but it's still annoying as hell...

oblio 2y ago

Close, but not quite. And guess who's triggered it, it's the usual suspect, the EU: > Availability of software and firmware updates > (a) > The latest available version of the firmware shall be made available for a minimum period of eight years after the placing on the market of the last unit of a certain product model, free of charge or at a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory cost. The latest available security update to the firmware shall be made available until at least eight years after the placing on the market of the last product of a certain product model, free of charge. (b) > Information on the minimum guaranteed availability of software and firmware updates, availability of spare parts and product support shall be indicated in the product information sheet as from Annex V of Regulation (EU) 2019/2013. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/2021/oj https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/2021/oj I can't find all of it, but part of it is triggered by EU environment protection directives.

pantalaimon 2y ago

> It helps prevent users getting locked out of the latest version of the OS just because the device manufacturer didn't update their BSP. Didn't Google push for mainline integration at some point to completely avoid the need for manufacturer specific BSPs?

account42 2y ago

> 5 years of device updates Is this supposed to be impressive? My current PC is over four years old and I'm in no rush to replace it. The same Linux distribution runs of decades old HW.

kaba0 2y ago
Does your PC include a bunch of noname random hardware, like gyroscopes, modems (which have legal requirements and there are only a handful to choose from, none of which has open-source drivers), etc?

dpratt 2y ago

I will start to believe the "7 years of updates" promise for Pixel phones when the first model that was released with this promise is approximately 7.5 years old. At that point, I may begin to reconsider my opinion. I fell prey to Google marketing when they released the very first Pixel model - I spent an exorbitant amount of money on it, only to have it utterly abandoned and deprecated, with support and updates dropped just over a year later. As in all things relating to anything stated by Google with respect to the privacy, availability or expected lifetime of a consumer product, the maxim is not even "trust but verify", it should be "distrust, watch carefully, and assume the worst".

jsnell 2y ago
As far as I can tell from contemporary sources, Pixel 1 launched with a promise of two years of major releases + one additional year of security updates [0]. This was in October 2016. They exceeded that, and actually did three years of major releases, and security updates for a couple of months longer than promised, with the last one in December 2019 [1]. Seems like they a) delivered more than initially promised, b) did not drop it just a year after release. How long a support period do you think they actually promised, and where did they promise it? [0] https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/10/19/pixel-pixel-xl-guaranteed-android-version-updates-least-2-years/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/10/19/pixel-pixel-xl-guar... [1] https://9to5google.com/2019/12/02/google-pixel-no-updates/ https://9to5google.com/2019/12/02/google-pixel-no-updates/