Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bringing the Android kernel back to the mainline

lwn.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 121 posts

Re: Bringing the Android kernel back to the mainline

#31

Post by nextos »

pedrocr wrote: post #12

When I buy a laptop I install whatever is the latest version of Ubuntu on it and am done. When I buy an access point I install whatever is the latest version of OpenWrt on it and am done. I've tried to do the same thing with phones using LineageOS but it's hopeless. Devices are often half broken and are never guaranteed to continue being supported because of this kernel mess. It seems there's slow progress being made…

There's a compromise solution to achieve something equivalent. And I say so after having tried many possibilities.

Buy a Pixel or any other phone that supports AOSP (Sony does too, with some caveats) and install plain AOSP.

It's not perfect as you need a bit of infrastructure to compile it yourself and keep OTA updates. But it's the most practical secure and privacy-respecting option, I think.

Re: Bringing the Android kernel back to the mainline

#32

Post by pedrocr »

nextos wrote: post #31
pedrocr wrote: post #12

When I buy a laptop I install whatever is the latest version of Ubuntu on it and am done. When I buy an access point I install whatever is the latest version of OpenWrt on it and am done. I've tried to do the same thing with phones using LineageOS but it's hopeless. Devices are often half broken and are never guaranteed to continue being supported because of this kernel mess. It seems there's slow progress being made…

There's a compromise solution to achieve something equivalent. And I say so after having tried many possibilities. Buy a Pixel or any other phone that supports AOSP (Sony does too, with some caveats) and install plain AOSP. It's not perfect as you need a bit of infrastructure to compile it yourself and keep OTA updates. But it's the most practical secure and privacy-respecting option, I think.

As far as I know those have the exact same issues with their kernels. The problem isn't the Android side of things, that's workable with Android One phones too. The problem is what is described in the article, the kernels at best get some patches but are never upgraded to new versions. Imagine if your Linux laptop was restricted to the specific kernel version the particular vendor had decided to ship initially.

Re: Bringing the Android kernel back to the mainline

#33

Post by pedrocr »

pdimitar wrote: post #30
pedrocr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do nothing of the sort. You're buying a specific combination of hardware and software that may or may not get upgrades and security fixes over time, just like any Android phone. Apple just has a much better track record at doing that than any Android vendor. On the other hand when I buy a laptop or an access point I just do minimal checking of supported hardware in case there's something that's very exotic and th…

> You do nothing of the sort. You're buying a specific combination of hardware and software that may or may not get upgrades and security fixes over time Bringing in strictly theoretical supposition which is directly at odds with what's historically been a very solid track record from Apple isn't doing your argument any favours. Unless I misunderstood you.

The point isn't that Apple isn't good at doing updates. The very next sentence points out explicitly that they do that above and beyond everyone else in the space. The point is that you're locked in to a specific HW+SW ecosystem at the mercy of the vendor. If you like that ecosystem that may be great service to you, I'm pointing out that the #1 computing platform has only that choice and that's not the case in all the other major platforms so far. For the HN crowd that should be worrying.

Re: Bringing the Android kernel back to the mainline

#34

Post by jumpywizard »

pedrocr wrote: post #12

When I buy a laptop I install whatever is the latest version of Ubuntu on it and am done. When I buy an access point I install whatever is the latest version of OpenWrt on it and am done. I've tried to do the same thing with phones using LineageOS but it's hopeless. Devices are often half broken and are never guaranteed to continue being supported because of this kernel mess. It seems there's slow progress being made…

Android Inc should probably have gone with a micro kernel, instead of going for Linux' monolithic approach. Would have made things much easier to manage in regard to separation of concerns.

Re: Bringing the Android kernel back to the mainline

#35

Post by Apocryphon »

jumpywizard wrote: post #34
pedrocr wrote: post #12

When I buy a laptop I install whatever is the latest version of Ubuntu on it and am done. When I buy an access point I install whatever is the latest version of OpenWrt on it and am done. I've tried to do the same thing with phones using LineageOS but it's hopeless. Devices are often half broken and are never guaranteed to continue being supported because of this kernel mess. It seems there's slow progress being made…

Android Inc should probably have gone with a micro kernel, instead of going for Linux' monolithic approach. Would have made things much easier to manage in regard to separation of concerns.

Maybe that's why they're building Fuchsia.

Re: Bringing the Android kernel back to the mainline

#36

Post by solarkraft »

pedrocr wrote: post #33
pdimitar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You do nothing of the sort. You're buying a specific combination of hardware and software that may or may not get upgrades and security fixes over time Bringing in strictly theoretical supposition which is directly at odds with what's historically been a very solid track record from Apple isn't doing your argument any favours. Unless I misunderstood you.

The point isn't that Apple isn't good at doing updates. The very next sentence points out explicitly that they do that above and beyond everyone else in the space. The point is that you're locked in to a specific HW+SW ecosystem at the mercy of the vendor. If you like that ecosystem that may be great service to you, I'm pointing out that the #1 computing platform has only that choice and that's not the case in all th…

You're not wrong. I find it worrying too. But it's also the case with most [many] Android devices.

Re: Bringing the Android kernel back to the mainline

#37

Post by pedrocr »

solarkraft wrote: post #36
pedrocr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point isn't that Apple isn't good at doing updates. The very next sentence points out explicitly that they do that above and beyond everyone else in the space. The point is that you're locked in to a specific HW+SW ecosystem at the mercy of the vendor. If you like that ecosystem that may be great service to you, I'm pointing out that the #1 computing platform has only that choice and that's not the case in all th…

You're not wrong. I find it worrying too. But it's also the case with most [many] Android devices.

Oh, definitely! It's even worse because you don't even get a properly secured device, it's a horrible ecosystem right now. But because it actually runs an open-source kernel and the bootloaders can be unlocked in most cases there's a chance to fix it still. With Apple hardware, unlike in their laptops, you have no choice but to run their software.

Re: Bringing the Android kernel back to the mainline

#38

Post by cronix »

pdimitar wrote: post #29
mixedCase wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all about tradeoffs, Android phones getting updates usually means the phone gets faster as opposed to ever closer to unusably slow .

People love to latch onto the outlier cases when an iPhone gets slower or half-broken after an update. For the last 5-6 years however, everyone I asked told me that their iPhone and iPad either gets a bit smoother or stays the same after a new iOS. So please don't imply iOS updates brings iDevices "ever closer to unusably slow" because that's very non-factual.

> For the last 5-6 years however, everyone I asked told me that their iPhone and iPad either gets a bit smoother or stays the same after a new iOS.

Except those who Apple was "helping" "preserve battery life" by purposefully slowing the clock speeds on updates without telling them? I've often wondered how many people went out and actually purchased an entirely new phone due to this unannounced "help" vs slapping a (relatively cheap) new battery in it?

Re: Bringing the Android kernel back to the mainline

#39

Post by pdimitar »

pedrocr wrote: post #33
pdimitar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You do nothing of the sort. You're buying a specific combination of hardware and software that may or may not get upgrades and security fixes over time Bringing in strictly theoretical supposition which is directly at odds with what's historically been a very solid track record from Apple isn't doing your argument any favours. Unless I misunderstood you.

The point isn't that Apple isn't good at doing updates. The very next sentence points out explicitly that they do that above and beyond everyone else in the space. The point is that you're locked in to a specific HW+SW ecosystem at the mercy of the vendor. If you like that ecosystem that may be great service to you, I'm pointing out that the #1 computing platform has only that choice and that's not the case in all th…

The HN crowd, me included, are real humans with real needs and smartphone apps and convenience brings a real value to my life. For one, transparent syncing of photos, notes, basic spreadsheets and many others is a huge selling point of iCloud.

It's not about if I can buy a cheap FreeNAS rig -- an i5 CPU and 10-year old motherboard with 16-32GB of DDR2/DDR3 RAM -- and gradually add WD Gold hard drives to it. It's not about if I can use Syncthing and a command-line password manager. It's not about if I can use PostmarketOS or LineageOS and thus only buy Android-enabled devices (yay Linux freedom?).

I can do all that. But it requires more manual management. And I just don't have the time and energy for it.

It's strange to me to imply that the HN crowd are some sort of world-changers that never have financial struggles and live in beach houses a la Iron Man style with 3x independent gigabit fiber links and 500 sq.m. of home labs that rival Mythbusters' space -- and are constantly busy disrupting an area.

Truth is, even though in principle you are correct -- and even though I really would like to only use free [as in freedom and not a free beer] hardware and software -- the reality is that we all have jobs to do. And most of us actually love the people we live with and would want to spend a chunk of our free time with them. We all would love to get a normal amount of sleep and invest in the knowledge necessary to get proper nutrition because we're literally a hugely complex chemical compound and we better put the right chemicals inside of us...

...etc. etc to infinity., I can go on all day and night but I am pretty certain you got the point.

The HN crowd is certainly much more aware than many other crowds. Doesn't automatically imply they have the means to change a lot of things. Trust me, I'd like to live like Tony Stark and invent a ton of stuff that can change the world -- that includes his house and a lab -- but I am gradually coming to terms with the fact that I'll very likely stop at having 7-10 profitable consultancies and/or lifestyle businesses that will give me a peace of mind even after retirement.

Life is short and many of us don't want to work 24/7. More power to the people who can maintain a good living AND be inventors and disrupters. I have big respect for them.

Re: Bringing the Android kernel back to the mainline

#40

Post by pdimitar »

cronix wrote: post #38
pdimitar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People love to latch onto the outlier cases when an iPhone gets slower or half-broken after an update. For the last 5-6 years however, everyone I asked told me that their iPhone and iPad either gets a bit smoother or stays the same after a new iOS. So please don't imply iOS updates brings iDevices "ever closer to unusably slow" because that's very non-factual.

> For the last 5-6 years however, everyone I asked told me that their iPhone and iPad either gets a bit smoother or stays the same after a new iOS. Except those who Apple was "helping" "preserve battery life" by purposefully slowing the clock speeds on updates without telling them? I've often wondered how many people went out and actually purchased an entirely new phone due to this unannounced "help" vs slapping a (r…

It's a basic electronics knowledge that there's a danger in physically damaging a chip if you continuously feed it less voltage than it needs.

What Apple did is to prefer to have people's devices run slower compared to breaking them.

What they did wrong was keeping quiet about it. I ain't ever disputing that, it was a really bad decision to hide it.

The reasoning to do it however has solid foundations in physical reality. Even I that I know nothing of electronics went out of my way to read about it and asked several electronical engineer acquaintances of mine and they all said Apple did the right thing by slowing down the devices.

Post reply on HN