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This looks great. It's often overlooked, but Android devices are really low system administration high availability Linux systems. That they work as well as th

This looks great. It's often overlooked, but Android devices are really low system administration high availability Linux systems. That they work as well as they do is kind of crazy, and a lot of it is down to the application packaging and isolation mechanism. This Canonical stuff is going to generate a lot of noise, but it is the way forward. Ultimately between this, containerization and virtualization, we're witnessing the death of the whole dll concept long after dll-hell became a thing.

rst 12y ago
Android apps update frequently, but core system components (where you'd expect dependency problems and tricky compatibility issues to crop up) update hardly at all, so it's not clear that it's a model to follow.
- izacus 12y ago
  What does vendor not deciding to update a device have to do with an actual software mechanism of applying patches?
  - Alupis 12y ago
    Even "vendors" that do update frequently like Cyanogenmod, it's usually a flash over the existing rom, not a delta or single package update. That would be tough to do with a server environment unless every server had exactly the same base (a la BSD's)
dingaling 12y ago
> Android devices are really low system administration high availability Linux systems Low maintenance partially because they are functionally very limited ( much of what the kernel and userspace can do is locked-out) and partially because the mission-critical stuff lives in seldom-updated firmware. High availability... Given how often 'reboot your phone' or ' clear the app data' is given as advice? I just don't see many parallels with server environments.
- Florin_Andrei 12y ago
  Anything can be low-maintenance as long as you can keep users' fingers far, far away from the system's guts.
  - collyw 12y ago
    My desktop (Mint) stays up a lot longer than my phone usually, and I poke about in the guts when its needed.
    - Florin_Andrei 12y ago
      Yeah, but probably you're not a... um... "user".
      - collyw 12y ago
        A developer is not a user?
- lrem 12y ago
  I have never cleared app data and seldom reboot, neither in Nexus nor Cyanogen, despite beta-testing a lot of stuff. I just asked my wife, she never did these things on Motorola's and Sony's "roms". Are you sure that these events are that popular?
  - dmix 12y ago
    Clearing user or app data is not required when doing OTA updates on Android. The partitions that get updating are completely separate from user data. This myth keeps spreading for some reason though... The only time user data gets wiped is when unlocking the bootloader which is a very valid security feature in order to prevent bootkits and data theft. It gives big clear warnings to backup your data before doing so.
  - drdaeman 12y ago
    This is a "works for me"-type response. Mine Samsung S4 mini reboots by itself once in a few days. Hadn't bothered to catch the reasons. And it surely knows how to hang itself for half a minute when doing large app updates or otherwise IO-heavy operations.
xorcist 12y ago
Android updating doesn't work at all, for any reasonable definition of to work that is applicable in the server space. Pretty much every device out there has multiple known security holes and they're not getting updated.
- cryptoz 12y ago
  If you're going to count every derivative of AOSP Android, to make a fair comparison you'll also have to count every for single distro that is based on Ubuntu - how frequently do they all get kernel updates, etc? Yes, the Android ecosystem has an update problem. But that problem is largely due to external companies and not a technical limitation of Android.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    I think he's talking about the literal update mechanism on your phone. It's usually a literal flash over the existing rom, not a delta or single packages like most linux distros enjoy.
    - dmix 12y ago
      Which is false because Android OTA fully supports delta updates.
      - Alupis 12y ago
        That's not always true. Most ROMS update by first downloading, then flashing the entire rom with the new version. And most OTA updates kill your root if you have it because they reset the entire system partition back to factory state, not just the updated part.
        dmix 12y ago
        CyanogenMod OTA updates preserve root... because the OTA image contains root access and SuperSU. So what OTA updates do you mean? If you mean stock Android updates removing root access...then that is exactly the expected behavior. Root is considered a security hazard and not supported by ASOP. As it should be. I find it hilarious when people who use ROMs complain about how hard it is to modify the OS then complain about lack of security updates in the same thread. Bootloader locks and read-only filesystems are there for a very good reason.
sp332 12y ago
Android has a completely different userspace from desktop or server Linux distros. They only share a kernel, which means package management techniques aren't going to transfer directly.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
andyidsinga 12y ago
hmmm.. I'm not sure I would call android devices high availability - they're pretty good, but I suspect the 9s of availability is much less than the average system admin's notion of high availability. /beingargumentative :)
_pmf_ 12y ago
> It's often overlooked, but Android devices are really low system administration high availability Linux systems. By all conceivable notions, no.
- rbanffy 12y ago
  Why do you say so? My devices restart for system updates and that's pretty much it.
  - collyw 12y ago
    My Andorid, (not an especially powerful one) feels like old versions of Windows. Leave it one for a few days and it gets sluggish, and needs a reboot. And now its almost 2 years old, all the new updates (Google maps for example) are getting really slow most of the time - unless I have just rebooted. Don't get that on my Linux desktops.
    - rbanffy 12y ago
      Slow with every new update only means the software is becoming more demanding. I have an old IBM PCServer 330 that's incredibly reliable - if it were not for me rebooting it every few weeks to make sure it brushes its teeth regularly, its uptime would be in the multi-year range. With two Pentium III processors, it's anything but fast, but it's as trustworthy as servers can be. I'll eventually have to replace the hard disks - I have seen SCSI to CF and SCSI to SDCard adapters that may do the trick.
  - sergiosgc 12y ago
    Linux systems restart for kernel updates, and even that can be avoided with ksplice or kpatch. In terms of high availability, the Android model is from the nineties, even if it is perfect for the problem domain it is applied to.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
shmerl 12y ago
Android installations are also dependencies mess, i.e. you have no way to even specify them and each application has to bundle them all (unless you resort to some hackish workarounds). Such approach a stick with two ends with its won pluses and minuses.
- chetanahuja 12y ago
  "also dependencies mess..." "you have no way to even specify them and each application has to bundle them all..." Yeah, I think you're confusing a dependency free heaven for a dependency mess.
nodata 12y ago
Erm aren't android apps basically self-contained and statically compiled?

rst 12y ago

Android apps update frequently, but core system components (where you'd expect dependency problems and tricky compatibility issues to crop up) update hardly at all, so it's not clear that it's a model to follow.

izacus 12y ago
What does vendor not deciding to update a device have to do with an actual software mechanism of applying patches?
- Alupis 12y ago
  Even "vendors" that do update frequently like Cyanogenmod, it's usually a flash over the existing rom, not a delta or single package update. That would be tough to do with a server environment unless every server had exactly the same base (a la BSD's)

dingaling 12y ago

> Android devices are really low system administration high availability Linux systems Low maintenance partially because they are functionally very limited ( much of what the kernel and userspace can do is locked-out) and partially because the mission-critical stuff lives in seldom-updated firmware. High availability... Given how often 'reboot your phone' or ' clear the app data' is given as advice? I just don't see many parallels with server environments.

Florin_Andrei 12y ago
Anything can be low-maintenance as long as you can keep users' fingers far, far away from the system's guts.
- collyw 12y ago
  My desktop (Mint) stays up a lot longer than my phone usually, and I poke about in the guts when its needed.
  - Florin_Andrei 12y ago
    Yeah, but probably you're not a... um... "user".
    - collyw 12y ago
      A developer is not a user?
lrem 12y ago
I have never cleared app data and seldom reboot, neither in Nexus nor Cyanogen, despite beta-testing a lot of stuff. I just asked my wife, she never did these things on Motorola's and Sony's "roms". Are you sure that these events are that popular?
- dmix 12y ago
  Clearing user or app data is not required when doing OTA updates on Android. The partitions that get updating are completely separate from user data. This myth keeps spreading for some reason though... The only time user data gets wiped is when unlocking the bootloader which is a very valid security feature in order to prevent bootkits and data theft. It gives big clear warnings to backup your data before doing so.
- drdaeman 12y ago
  This is a "works for me"-type response. Mine Samsung S4 mini reboots by itself once in a few days. Hadn't bothered to catch the reasons. And it surely knows how to hang itself for half a minute when doing large app updates or otherwise IO-heavy operations.

xorcist 12y ago

Android updating doesn't work at all, for any reasonable definition of to work that is applicable in the server space. Pretty much every device out there has multiple known security holes and they're not getting updated.

cryptoz 12y ago
If you're going to count every derivative of AOSP Android, to make a fair comparison you'll also have to count every for single distro that is based on Ubuntu - how frequently do they all get kernel updates, etc? Yes, the Android ecosystem has an update problem. But that problem is largely due to external companies and not a technical limitation of Android.
- Alupis 12y ago
  I think he's talking about the literal update mechanism on your phone. It's usually a literal flash over the existing rom, not a delta or single packages like most linux distros enjoy.
  - dmix 12y ago
    Which is false because Android OTA fully supports delta updates.
    - Alupis 12y ago
      That's not always true. Most ROMS update by first downloading, then flashing the entire rom with the new version. And most OTA updates kill your root if you have it because they reset the entire system partition back to factory state, not just the updated part.
      - dmix 12y ago
        CyanogenMod OTA updates preserve root... because the OTA image contains root access and SuperSU. So what OTA updates do you mean? If you mean stock Android updates removing root access...then that is exactly the expected behavior. Root is considered a security hazard and not supported by ASOP. As it should be. I find it hilarious when people who use ROMs complain about how hard it is to modify the OS then complain about lack of security updates in the same thread. Bootloader locks and read-only filesystems are there for a very good reason.

sp332 12y ago

Android has a completely different userspace from desktop or server Linux distros. They only share a kernel, which means package management techniques aren't going to transfer directly.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

andyidsinga 12y ago

hmmm.. I'm not sure I would call android devices high availability - they're pretty good, but I suspect the 9s of availability is much less than the average system admin's notion of high availability. /beingargumentative :)

_pmf_ 12y ago

> It's often overlooked, but Android devices are really low system administration high availability Linux systems. By all conceivable notions, no.

rbanffy 12y ago
Why do you say so? My devices restart for system updates and that's pretty much it.
- collyw 12y ago
  My Andorid, (not an especially powerful one) feels like old versions of Windows. Leave it one for a few days and it gets sluggish, and needs a reboot. And now its almost 2 years old, all the new updates (Google maps for example) are getting really slow most of the time - unless I have just rebooted. Don't get that on my Linux desktops.
  - rbanffy 12y ago
    Slow with every new update only means the software is becoming more demanding. I have an old IBM PCServer 330 that's incredibly reliable - if it were not for me rebooting it every few weeks to make sure it brushes its teeth regularly, its uptime would be in the multi-year range. With two Pentium III processors, it's anything but fast, but it's as trustworthy as servers can be. I'll eventually have to replace the hard disks - I have seen SCSI to CF and SCSI to SDCard adapters that may do the trick.
- sergiosgc 12y ago
  Linux systems restart for kernel updates, and even that can be avoided with ksplice or kpatch. In terms of high availability, the Android model is from the nineties, even if it is perfect for the problem domain it is applied to.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

shmerl 12y ago

Android installations are also dependencies mess, i.e. you have no way to even specify them and each application has to bundle them all (unless you resort to some hackish workarounds). Such approach a stick with two ends with its won pluses and minuses.

chetanahuja 12y ago
"also dependencies mess..." "you have no way to even specify them and each application has to bundle them all..." Yeah, I think you're confusing a dependency free heaven for a dependency mess.

nodata 12y ago

Erm aren't android apps basically self-contained and statically compiled?