Comment by gf000
8 days ago
Android is a Linux OS and is eons ahead anything that would sit on top of "GNU/Linux" userspace.
Why start from scratch?
8 days ago
Android is a Linux OS and is eons ahead anything that would sit on top of "GNU/Linux" userspace.
Why start from scratch?
I think that the main problem is that android has a lot of weird modifications that are not consistent with the rest of linux distros. The user data is suddenly in /data instead of /home, theres no package manager, no systemd (for better or worse), and there's hella lotta security gotchas, for example call recording is impossible without root as far as I know. I'm not saying that Android is not hackable, but it's a different type of hackability than desktop linux, you have to learn it all over again and in my opinion it's much harder to master than desktop linux.
I've been on ubports for 3 years and while it also has some weird caveats like read only rootfs, no working package manager (due to read-only fs. however ubports has pretty cool support for lxc containers where you can use apt). Due to chronic lack of time I haven't been able to sit down on my phone to play with it a bit (for example id like to install waydroid), but it seems a lot easier than android. For example, while there isn't an app for call recording, some guy worked around it by writing a systemd user service as a workaround[1]. This is exactly the type of thing I'm thinking about when talking "linux phone".
For me as a linux user, the difference if ubports was a human, I'd think that perhaps they were sick, whereas if android was a human, i'd shoot them in the face :)
[1] https://forums.ubports.com/post/75157
If your criterium for choosing an OS is tinkering and hackability freedom to do modify almost anything to your liking (even if it will compeltely break your system or poke extra security holes in), then desktop Linux OSes ported to mobile might indeed be a good option.
If your goal is security and privacy (which go hand in hand), mobile OSes are clearly the best solution.
Anyway Android is still a Linux OS. The only requirement to be a Linux OS technically is to ship a Linux kernel. Adhering to freedesktop specifications like the FHS, using systemd, using GNU userspace software, etc. isn't necessary.
On Android you can install software by installing directly from APK files or you can use application stores which are package manager, they help you install software and if there are dependencies they can also install the dependencies if they support that.
Call recording is possible on multiple Android OSes, it's possible on stock PixelOS and GrapheneOS, I'm not sure about others but normally it's just part of the Dialer app. You don't need root at all for that.
Yeah, just need to decide where to start the fork. The larger problem is radio firmware. FCC regs were the initial excuse, for wifi and Bluetooth too, but we need to open up the source for all of these and allocate money for enforcement if we are truly worried people are going to start adding wifi channels etc. Open firmware phone radios would let you do things like truly turning off the radio when wifi was present, no gps ping even.
The good news being that the work made by Linux on Mobile projects regarding the radio firmware benefits AOSP projects, and inversely, right?