3 ms·

With immutable distros (see bootc or systemd-sysupgrade) the operating system itself is also only just a read only file system. Does that count as ROM too?

• throawayonthe 3mo ago
  it's a term used for historical reasons, nobody is claiming it's accurately describing some technical property
  • preisschild 3mo ago
    Might as well just use the term "Android distr(o|ibution)" whenever talking about it. I think its also more self-explanatory vs "Android ROM" if you never heard of them before.
  • grapheneos 3mo ago
    In the context of GrapheneOS, ROM means read-only memory. GrapheneOS does security research on hardware and firmware where the term ROM is useful and very relevant to security. There are multiple ROMs used on devices including the boot ROM loading, verifying and running the SoC boot firmware from the SSD. Most people aren't exposed to the Android modding communities where the term ROM is used to mean Android-based OS. It's confusing to the general public including technical people. It misleads people about what it is and directly leads to misconceptions which we keep needing to address. It's best to avoid using inaccurate terminology which creates unnecessary misconceptions. There isn't a good reason to insist on using it. We would appreciate if Roblox fixed their documentation to avoid using it.