Comment by rickcarlino
1 day ago
Linux is one of the last strong defenses for the idea that people should control the computers they own. On desktops and servers, root access is normal, and attempts to take it away do not work because software freedom is well established. On phones, that never happened. There is no real, mainstream “Linux for mobile,” and the result is a world of locked-down platforms where things like “sideloading” are treated as scary security risks instead of basic user rights. This makes it much easier for lawmakers to argue for removing root access on mobile devices, even though the same idea would be unrealistic on desktop systems.
A great deal of gratitude is owed to all the people who volunteer their free time to create the stable desktop environment we have free access to on Linux in 2026.
What I don't understand is why it is so much effort to use linux on a phone. Surely these 8 core ARM monsters these days should be more than enough to handle a full kernel. Hopefully it's not a driver issue where manufacturers only contribute the necessary drivers to the android kernel, not the linux one.
Android is running on Linux. It's not the kernel that's the problem, it's the application layer.
Battery/sleeping is the main challenge I believe, not processing power. Linux laptops still struggle a lot with sleep. And Windows laptop too btw.
If you're interested in this aspect of user agency, you might like the "trustworthy technology" site a few friends and I are working on: https://aol.codeberg.page/eci/
"There is no real, mainstream “Linux for mobile,”"
Probably need to clarify since Android is Linux. Assume you're referring to community run distros. Unfortunately the issue is usually proprietary hardware that has to be reverse engineered and nobody willing to pay engineers full time to do that.
Android is Linux. There could easily be a secure-boot desktop Linux too if companies cared to target that platform with things like banking apps.
Not really, it makes use of Linux kernel, cages it on pseudo-microkernel architecture since Treble and Mainline refactorings, uses a Java userspace, and the NDK has a quite clear list of what APIs are allowed to be called.
>Linux is one of the last strong defenses for the idea that people should control the computers they own.
Please run Kate/Kwrite as root and then we will talk on the topic. Or pipe password to ssh
That's the good thing with open source. You can theoretically fork it and remove what prevents you from using Kate as root.
Sure. But the malaise of smug people taking decisions that are outside of the scope of the software is creeping into linux too. It is up to me decide what is secure, not them.
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You dont have to use that software. Who even would? You're an adult, presumably, so use vim.
ed is the standard text editor.
Kate/Kwrite will ask to escalate to root if permissions are not sufficient. If it's not available to you, that's because your distro patched it out.
For ssh - sshpass.