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I think the concept is similar, a hypervisor-based trusted execution environment which is isolated from both other VMs and the parallel guest/"main" kernel. The

by bri3d 2y ago

I think the concept is similar, a hypervisor-based trusted execution environment which is isolated from both other VMs and the parallel guest/"main" kernel. The Apple environment seems more like a Secure World / TEE, with a single supervisor running multiple trusted applications, versus Google's implementation, which revolves around fully isolated VMs running their own time slicing (in many cases, even running Microdroid). Although, of course a lot of this comes down to semantics about what you call the "hypervisor." I'm not sure what Google actually use pKVMs for, though - certainly stuff that Apple handle through Exclaves like the camera icon is still just in "privileged" userland in Android (the camera icon, specifically, is PrivacyDotViewController in SystemUI).

transpute 2y ago
> not sure what Google actually use pKVMs for Android 16 and last week's Pixel Android 15 update (behind developer options) includes pKVM Debian Linux Terminal "app", https://www.zdnet.com/article/your-android-phone-will-run-debian-linux-soon-like-some-pixels-already-can/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/your-android-phone-will-run-de... Pixel 8+ can drive external displays via USB-c DisplayPort, so it should eventually be possible to use pKVM + Pixel 8+ with a keyboard-video-mouse dock as a desktop.
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  Funnily enough, Samsung already had this for a while on their phones (with Ubuntu rather than Debian), but they have since stopped experimenting with that. I think the desktop docking system will probably be something like a ChromeOS VM rather than normal Linux. Using dev mode so that Termux is no longer needed for running Linux tools would be nice, though.
jeroenhd 2y ago
Google has some documentation about their virtualisation setup: https://source.android.com/docs/core/virtualization https://source.android.com/docs/core/virtualization From what I've read, I interpret it as pKVMs being intended to work like ARM's TrustZone, except without the dependency for paying bank to ARM and early-boot initialisation shenanigans. The way AVF exposes large parts of the Android API will allow future Android versions to be rewritten into many small modules all running in a QubesOS-like hypervisor setup without rewriting them from the ground up. I don't think that's implemented at the moment, though, or if this is only intended for a few specific Android components.

by bri3d 2y ago

transpute 2y ago

> not sure what Google actually use pKVMs for Android 16 and last week's Pixel Android 15 update (behind developer options) includes pKVM Debian Linux Terminal "app", https://www.zdnet.com/article/your-android-phone-will-run-debian-linux-soon-like-some-pixels-already-can/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/your-android-phone-will-run-de... Pixel 8+ can drive external displays via USB-c DisplayPort, so it should eventually be possible to use pKVM + Pixel 8+ with a keyboard-video-mouse dock as a desktop.

jeroenhd 2y ago
Funnily enough, Samsung already had this for a while on their phones (with Ubuntu rather than Debian), but they have since stopped experimenting with that. I think the desktop docking system will probably be something like a ChromeOS VM rather than normal Linux. Using dev mode so that Termux is no longer needed for running Linux tools would be nice, though.

jeroenhd 2y ago

Google has some documentation about their virtualisation setup: https://source.android.com/docs/core/virtualization https://source.android.com/docs/core/virtualization From what I've read, I interpret it as pKVMs being intended to work like ARM's TrustZone, except without the dependency for paying bank to ARM and early-boot initialisation shenanigans. The way AVF exposes large parts of the Android API will allow future Android versions to be rewritten into many small modules all running in a QubesOS-like hypervisor setup without rewriting them from the ground up. I don't think that's implemented at the moment, though, or if this is only intended for a few specific Android components.