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

Is there hope for Linux on smartphones? [video]

media.ccc.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 282 posts

Re: Is there hope for Linux on smartphones? [video]

#6

Post by JCWasmx86 »

rbanffy wrote: post #5
jqpabc123 wrote: post #4

Hardware manufacturers have no incentive to support it.

Erm... Android is Linux.

Just the kernel is Linux, but with the "Linux" that is meant here, it has basically nothing in common, be it e.g. in the userland or "the spirit".

The Linux from "Linux Smartphones" e.g. fosters an open, user-first ecosystem, as opposed to the often very closed and locked Android Smartphones. Another examples are e.g. Safetynet or the Google Play Integrity API. Those primarily don't server the users. Or apps that either complain or even stop working on rooted phones. We have admin/root on normal PCs and nobody is complaining there.

Re: Is there hope for Linux on smartphones? [video]

#7

Post by rvz »

> while we're picky about free software on our laptops, desktops and servers lots of us have a truck load full of proprietary software in their pocket every day. Does it have to be that way?

It doesn't have to be like this, but it is also not 'early days' anymore and we have given this idea lots of time to gain any meaningful traction and it's very clear that there is almost no interest from the wider industry.

Thus, as demonstrated for many years of failed alternatives, unfortunately buzzwords like 'privacy', 'non-free software' and 'Linux' have little to no use to gaining traction and selling to mass market in a comparable manner against the existing duopoly.

And before you say 'Android', it is has tons of closed source userland software and subsystems and will get even worse once it moves over to Fuchsia OS. Therefore 'Android' as a free software example is disqualified.

We are talking about Linux distros designed to run on phones with 'free software'.

Re: Is there hope for Linux on smartphones? [video]

#8

Post by jrockway »

rvz wrote: post #7

> while we're picky about free software on our laptops, desktops and servers lots of us have a truck load full of proprietary software in their pocket every day. Does it have to be that way? It doesn't have to be like this, but it is also not 'early days' anymore and we have given this idea lots of time to gain any meaningful traction and it's very clear that there is almost no interest from the wider industry. Thus,…

Is this the one time people should be calling it GNU/Linux?
Post reply on HN