Comment by palata
2 months ago
I would still count it as the Linux kernel. They don't change the syscall API, it's really mostly at the BSP level, right?
Said differently: if manufacturers cared to mainstream their changes, they could. And we would all be better for it.
Equating sub-desktop (based on typical use) Linux device instances, with desktop instances, would be similar to counting iOS, iPadOS and Vision OS instances with macOS instances.
It would change the graph quite a bit to include all sub-desktop devices. Although that would also be an interesting comparison.
> I would still count it as the Linux kernel.
This may be technically true, except it has no single meaningful implication, like no Linux software works there.
That's not even true. You can use typical Linux software inside of a chroot, like with Termux.
Yep, and in the reverse, you don't need a separate kernel to run Android software on Linux: https://waydro.id
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Whether your virtual container is lightweight, heavyweight or from the cloud doesn't really change anything from a regular user's perspective. You aren't installing software in the main environment you are looking at, running a desktop on, etc.
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I think this really undervalues what Linux provides. The Android software is Linux software.
It's completely incompatible, so in practice it's a different OS. Doesn't mean it's not valuable.
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No software compiled for arm will run on x86. No software depending on Qt will run without Qt, even if you have GTK.
Doesn't mean they don't run the same kernel, does it?
You can recompile software for a different architecture relatively easily. You can't easily rewrite GNU/Linux software to run on Android.
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You can run Linux software on Android via termux, or the amazing UserLAnd app even lets you install an entire distro userland with several choices (Debian, Arch, etc)
Checkout https://postmarketos.org Those vendor provided kernel trees let you run a real Linux distribution on your phone.
PostmarketOS doesn't use downstream kernel trees because those are useless for anything that's not AOSP-based (unless you use terrible hacks like libhybris) and are often not upgradable to newer versions. They rely on "close-to-mainline" kernels that are much closer to real Linux.
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This is the reason I hate the recent surge in linux desktop users. People jumping in without allocating enough time to get familiar with the ecosystem