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Is there hope for Linux on smartphones? [video]

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

#261

Post by sgc »

mariusor wrote: post #174
sgc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could get by with only using banking websites in the browser. But Why does Jolla not yet support any Pixel phones? I have wanted to try it out for years, but not to the point of trying to make things work on my own.

Probably because Google does not have an equivalent program to the https://opendevices.ix5.org/ that Sony has.

I don't buy that at all. That is an awesome program that I did not know about. However, they also support Gemini PDA, which is only one of Planet computers devices. And Pixels are well-known to be the among easiest to flash devices out there, and there is no shortage of third party ROMs available for them. From what I read on the SF forums, it's a sort of google boycott despite the fact that flashing a rom gets rid of the google in a pixel.

https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/any-chance-of-non-sony-phones...

Further, look at the list of devices they work on - not at all a list of phones easier to flash than a pixel.

https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Adaptations/libhybris

There seems to be a lot of politics in their forums (and their past funding), something that does not interest me in an OS project.

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

#262

Post by Dalewyn »

rrdharan wrote: post #106
notmyaccountt wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google created an Android userspace that requires Google services to do anything meaningful. This violates everything Linux stands for.

Who decides what "Linux" stands for? Linus? RMS? "The community"?

My personal objective take is if it runs a Linux kernel, it's Linux. Any other factor is subjective and does not matter.

Legally though, Linus Torvalds gets to define what Linux is because he owns that name.

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

#263

Post by ploek »

fractallyte wrote: post #101
z3t4 wrote: post #39

Nokia had Linux on their smartphone until Microsoft bought them and stopped everything, they even shut down the app store. The OS was called MeeGo. Part of the Nokia team however started their own company called Jolla and still produce smartphones running Linux, they call their OS Sailfish. (ignoring the fact that Android also uses the Linux kernel). The problem with alternative phone OS:es is that in the country I l…

Just a datapoint: UK banking apps work perfectly on my Sailfish phone. Jolla's Android emulation is unreasonably excellent, one of their technological gems. If other Linux devices ever lift off, this will be one of the killer features that Jolla can license out. (And why not? I'm absolutely in favor of vendors selling Linux software.) As for Sailfish - it still offers the best, most consistent, simplest UI/UX of any…

Adding to the banking data points: I have an Xperia 10 II running Sailfish. MobileBankID and Swish (Sweden) as well as the ING Banking app (Germany) work on it.

I was pleasantly surprised by that. I upgraded from an Xperia X, where Sailfish had the old Android 4.4-compatible runtime and nothing worked. I kept an Android phone around, just for these three apps. As that one was also getting old in terms of OS (Android 7) and security updates, I'm very happy to no longer need it.

I have however come across Android Apps that don't work: - Betala P (Parking app for Stockholm, no clue why this doesn't work) - OI.Share (for remote-controlling OM-D cameras. I assume it has to do with it trying to control the WiFi on the phone)

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

#264

Post by tetris11 »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #199
fractallyte wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a datapoint: UK banking apps work perfectly on my Sailfish phone. Jolla's Android emulation is unreasonably excellent, one of their technological gems. If other Linux devices ever lift off, this will be one of the killer features that Jolla can license out. (And why not? I'm absolutely in favor of vendors selling Linux software.) As for Sailfish - it still offers the best, most consistent, simplest UI/UX of any…

Indeed, one of the amazing things would be if Android apps could be individually sandboxed on a Jolla (or other Linux) phone. Like each app would "think" it's running on a clean phone with absolutely nothing else on it. So they could be completely blocked from accessing hardware I don't want them to (e.g. location) and communicating with other apps. Right now Android is way too open, every app can see what other app…

Anbox and Waydroid

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

#265

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

cassianoleal wrote: post #226
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really true, in broad strokes. To my knowledge, Linux distributions are the only place where GNU forms of core part of the operating system, whereas it is frequently installed as an optional component on top of, say, Solaris, AIX, or a BSD. Termux, amusingly enough, marks a return to this on top of Android on top of Linux.

That's missing my point. What I mean is that where GNU tools are installed, they are a constituent part of the operating system as opposed to running on top/despite the OS . I never said it runs on all operating systems or on all *NIX operating systems.

I'm saying that GNU runs on nearly all unix-likes - for ages, the first thing many admins would do after installing HPUX or Solaris was to immediately install GNU's tools because they're so much better than the ones built into the OS. In that case, GNU tools are installed, but they are not "a constituent part of the operating system" because they are running on top of the OS. Linux distros are unusual in that Linux is just a kernel, so GNU tools were frequently promoted to become part of the core OS there, but out of all the platforms that GNU supports that's almost the only one where they're part of the OS proper. Android then represents a kind of funny regression because Android ships without GNU tooling (instead relying on toybox for coreutils and bionic for libc), but you can once again add GNU tools on top of the OS in the form of Termux, which carries on the long tradition of being far more usable than the OS vendor default tools.

EDIT: Changed "the only one" to "almost the only one" because I remembered that HURD exists and probably also uses GNU tools as part of the OS.

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

#266

Post by cma »

pjmlp wrote: post #227
cma wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run termux on mine and wish termux wasn't so restricted by google/android.

Maybe Termux can learn to code against Java APIs instead of forcing themselves through the Linux layer that is considered a private API on Android.

Typically the Java APIs are restricted to the bare minimum Chrome Android needs to do sandboxing and native code-gen for V8. Shared memory only works in a more limited way with many less options. They'd really like to restrict these APIs way more and not allow apps any way of loading dynamic native code with the exec bit set, but can't because of Chrome and antitrust worries about just making Chrome system software with access to the APIs it needs that a competitor couldn't replicate in an APK.

I think you can see some of their thinking with the removal of exec; they just want to undercut termux because that isn't needed for V8, but as long as loadable generated native code is still needed for Chrome, termux could potentially create their own ELF loader to replace exec).

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

#267

Post by jacooper »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #191
jacooper wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just use Aurora store! You dont have this problem because CalyxOS has a workaround for SafetyNet, i hear its pretty hacky, but it works.

The workaround is from microG. You can get it on lineage-microg too. It has a bad name but really all that they do is replace Google's signing certificate with their own and change the OS to accept it. It's not that "hacky" IMO, you're just trusting a different party. It's just like when you install Ubuntu, you trust Canonical to sign your packages, not debian. They use the same thing to replace play services. And if…

No, that's not the work around I meant.

I meant the workaround CTSPROFILEMATCH in safety net, its what makes most Payment providers work on CalyxOS.

As for MicroG, the GrapheneOS way of running unrootful GSM seems interesting, but they won't apply the Safetynet workaround, because its "hacky" and won't last when hardware attention is enforced.

This flows with most of GrapheneOS stances, they dont care about convenience much.

Personally I'm already close to my limit due to how many inconveniences I have for using a work profile and a custom ROM, and I dont want more.

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

#268

Post by pjmlp »

cma wrote: post #266
pjmlp wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Termux can learn to code against Java APIs instead of forcing themselves through the Linux layer that is considered a private API on Android.

Typically the Java APIs are restricted to the bare minimum Chrome Android needs to do sandboxing and native code-gen for V8. Shared memory only works in a more limited way with many less options. They'd really like to restrict these APIs way more and not allow apps any way of loading dynamic native code with the exec bit set, but can't because of Chrome and antitrust worries about just making Chrome system software w…

Thing is, exec() was never a public API anyway.

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

#269

Post by zozbot234 »

cma wrote: post #266
pjmlp wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Termux can learn to code against Java APIs instead of forcing themselves through the Linux layer that is considered a private API on Android.

Typically the Java APIs are restricted to the bare minimum Chrome Android needs to do sandboxing and native code-gen for V8. Shared memory only works in a more limited way with many less options. They'd really like to restrict these APIs way more and not allow apps any way of loading dynamic native code with the exec bit set, but can't because of Chrome and antitrust worries about just making Chrome system software w…

Exec should just be behind a separate permission anyway. A flashlight app has no legitimate reason for exec()ing random code that was not in the APK bundle, but the permission should be there so that JIT's and stuff like Termux can make use of it.

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

#270

Post by tingletech »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #129
tingletech wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most of the user space tools originated from GNU (such as gcc), linux really just brought the kernel.

Alpine Linux and clang say otherwise. GNU is good, but it's not the only Linux userspace.

sure, but it was the original one. upstream posts contends GNU just brought the license.
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