Comment by retrac

4 days ago

If the device can run PostmarketOS with a mainstream kernel, then it can run any Linux distribution. (I put Arch ARM on such devices, since I like that distro.)

That's the big hurdle though - mainstream kernel support.

For most devices, even if they can be rooted and jailbroken, you're stuck with the kernel they come with. Doesn't have a new feature you need? A horrible security flaw in the network stack? You're out of luck. Most "repurpose your old phone" approaches have this problem. You can make it a server but you wouldn't want to expose it to the public Internet.

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retrac

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Retr0id  4 days ago

s/mainstream/mainline/

But yes, this is definitely an issue. I've been playing with a 2013-era Samsung device that came with a 3.0 kernel. It can run pmos with said kernel but there are multiple root LPE vulns. I've been looking into getting it to run a mainline kernel just for fun, but it's not going to be easy.

  • pabs3  3 days ago

    I note that Linux mainline has a device tree for the "Samsung Galaxy S1 (GT-I9000) based on S5PV210", not sure how complete it is though. Lots of others too:

      $ grep -rhoE 'Samsung Galaxy[^"]+' ./arch/arm*/boot/dts/ | sort -u

  • monerozcash  3 days ago

    This is the kind of task I've found tools like Codex to be pretty good at. You just have to be able to give it good enough access to test and debug its work.

norman784  4 days ago

Is Arch ARM officially supported by the same team? If not, what might be the reason?

  • retrac  4 days ago

    x86_64 is the only official Arch Linux. All other ports are unofficial. They are community projects where many of the members are the same as the main Arch Linux.

    I think it's basically for the same reason as why they dropped 32-bit x86 support about 8 years ago. Not enough users. (That resulted in the unofficial Arch Linux 32 to maintain support.)

  • Muromec  3 days ago

    I think the reason is they don't want to become debian where deciding anything takes foverever. Another architecture is a liability, so it lives in another "project" that official arch is not committed to.

    I write this from arch on arm (orange pi) thingy, btw