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Linux on Samsung Galaxy smartphones

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Re: Linux on Samsung Galaxy smartphones

#181

Post by zanny »

jrs95 wrote: post #124
saagarjha wrote: post #55

> Linux on Galaxy allows the latest Samsung Galaxy smartphone users to run their preferred Linux distribution on their smartphones utilizing the same Linux kernel that powers the Android OS to ensure the best possible performance. (emphasis mine) I knew there was a catch somewhere. I seriously doubt there's a technical reason why older Galaxy models can't support running Linux as well. I don't understand why it's so…

Older devices are probably on much older kernels that most distros stopped using a long time ago. It's not really practical to try and bridge that gap.

They are only on old kernels because of proprietary kernel module blobs. Open source those and a thousand developers will line up to mainline them for device support.

Re: Linux on Samsung Galaxy smartphones

#182

Post by _ea1k »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #128
baldfat wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AT&T killed that idea fast 6 years ago. When the Motorola Atrix came out with the ability to do that AT&T charge a $20 tethering fee to use the laptop dock with the phone! That blew my mind. The phone wasn't tethering data to anything but itself. https://www.wired.com/2011/03/motorola-atrix/

Tethering fees are another "brilliant" invention by the customer-hating American telcos. You get a set amount of data per month, for instance 20GB. Why should they care at all what you decide to use that data for?

I thought that tethering fees only applied to unlimited plans now? At least with Verizon, there is no such fee for the normal data-capped plans.

Re: Linux on Samsung Galaxy smartphones

#183

Post by pjc50 »

ju-st wrote: post #178
pjc50 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until USB-C it doesn't carry analog audio. Like the iPod itself, it's not a question of new functionality, but better usability/popularity of existing functionality. The revolutionary aspect was that you could just drop an iPod into the dock and it would start playing your music through the dock's speakers, while also charging. This didn't require the dock to be "smart", it was analog audio.

USB-C carries analog audio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C#Analog_Audio_Out_.26_Mic...

Yes. That's why I said until USB-C. Which came out after Apple had already obsoleted the 30-pin connector. At the launch of the iPod it was not possible to do analog audio over USB2.

Re: Linux on Samsung Galaxy smartphones

#184

Post by uncletammy »

ballade wrote: post #155
Brakenshire wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't seem to be a thing in the UK, at least it hasn't been an issue for the 2 telecoms companies I've used.

As it is with most countries in Europe and I think many in Asia as well (correct me if I'm wrong). This is just an example of America's hardcore capitalism where certain markets are dominated by a few key players and the only entity capable of stopping them from enacting these batshit insane anti-consumer tactics are congress who are more than happy to take their bribes whilst shafting the average American consumer.

> hardcore capitalism

crony capitalism

Re: Linux on Samsung Galaxy smartphones

#185

Post by herbst »

elboru wrote: post #167
herbst wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didnt. And some others as well. But plenty, especially professionals, still do. Not to mention that nearly all laptops except Apple & Microsofts (which are in minority) are upgradeable to some degree. Written from my Thinkpad :)

Plus I think we got to a point where those upgrades are not totally necessary unless you work with cutting edge software, my MacBook Pro from 2013 still works perfectly, and my windows HP from 2014 too... I'm a developer and those two laptops work almost like the first day I bought them without any upgrade, some years ago even Microsoft Office's newest version would slow computers...

I have a Thinkpad from 2011 so i know what you mean. However i would argue 2013 and 2014 are not old enough to worry yet. Most better laptops already were > Sandy Bridge and had 8 or 16GB of RAM. Most also already equipped with a SSD.

If you look at my 2011 Thinkpad however, it was shipped with 4GB of RAM and a 512 GB analog disc. Spending only like $200 extra it turned into a 512GB SSD + 16GB RAM + new battery beast which outperformed my 2014 MBP for nearly all of my development tasks.

So i guess it depends on how you look at products. I tend to buy things i know i wont have to replace anytime soon.

Re: Linux on Samsung Galaxy smartphones

#186

Post by tpoindex »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #69
digi_owl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do believe you can actually get a desktop going by installing https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=x.org.server and setting the display environment variable in termux.

Yeah, but you need the actual programs, and when I last looked termux didn't build packages that use X and didn't include the libraries to compile them yourself (or at least I couldn't find them)

GNURoot Debian might be a solution for you: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gnuroot.de...

It runs X, using the XServer XDSL app previously mentioned in this thread. I found some things rather quirky, but certainly fun to play with. My older Nexus 5 could do HDMI out with a dongle, add in BT keyboard and mouse, and it's mostly usable.

Doesn't run on Android 8.0 yet, and no HDMI out on my newer Pixel, so it's Termux + keyboard for on-the-go hacking.

Linux Deploy (also on Google Play) for those who have rooted their devices looks to be another choice.

Re: Linux on Samsung Galaxy smartphones

#187

Post by rsync »

admax88q wrote: post #177
rsync wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"One would thing that such an universal interface would quickly become a standard offering in airports, hotels, libraries, conferences, etc." My favorite computing peripheral form factor has always been the PCMCIA card. It seems to me that you could fit a minimum viable phone inside a PCMCIA card and then insert that PCMCIA card into a normal sized laptop when you choose. The laptop would have no CPU/RAM - it's just…

I think you're thinking about the EOMA project. Boards are soon to go out for their production run. https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/pcb...

Yes that is indeed what I was thinking of - it's a very interesting project.

Imagine if that device was a fully functional, standalone phone ...

Re: Linux on Samsung Galaxy smartphones

#188

Post by rsync »

zanny wrote: post #179
rsync wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I seriously doubt there's a technical reason why older Galaxy models can't support running Linux as well. I don't understand why it's so difficult for Android manufacturers to allow users to install whatever they want" Can you do this (install arbitrary OS, etc.) on any of the google nexus devices ? I have never used one but my impression was that they had totally unlocked boot loaders, etc.

If the bootloader is unlocked / fastboot can write to the bootloader / etc you can put whatever code on your phone you want to run. The problem is the hardware is undocumented and the shipped drivers are proprietary so you would need to reverse engineer support for everything from the chipset to the modem to the display adapter. So you can go throw a Debian Arm image in place of a system partition on many Android pho…

"So you can go throw a Debian Arm image in place of a system partition on many Android phones... it just won't boot."

Won't even boot ?

I would expect that peripherals and radios and so on would be out of reach due to hardware/drivers but my expectation was that you could boot and get serial comms somehow ... as unusable as that would be ...

Re: Linux on Samsung Galaxy smartphones

#189

Post by CaptSpify »

herbst wrote: post #113
camillomiller wrote: post #8

Maybe 2018 is finally the year of the Linux desktop. Wait... :) Jokes aside, I can see how this would be useful for sysadmin and devs - bring along your smartphone and you're set - but this would never fly for a general, even if geeky, public. Very nice approach though, curious to see where this ends up going.

To be fair this is already what we do. Android already IS linux. You can install plenty of scripting environments like Ruby or Python while having access to the underlaying Linux system which is only partly crippled. Personally i see this more as a marketing thing from Samsung than anything else.

A shitty, half-assed linux. Until I can just put Debian on natively, and use apt-get for packages without a problem, I want us to keep moving to an actual linux on the phone.

I'm quite eager to get away from android

Re: Linux on Samsung Galaxy smartphones

#190

Post by dpark »

jpalomaki wrote: post #142

What I would like to do is use my phone as portable storage device and then plug it in to external processing unit and boot from my phone. The external processing unit could be desktop computer, laptop or tablet. The reason? When sitting behind my desk at home or office I don't like to be limited with the mobile CPU. I have the required kWhs to power a proper CPU, GPU and run 64GB of memory. I also don't want to run…

> I don't want to do a full reboot every time I "unplug" the phone from desktop processing unit and move it somewhere else.

How do you expect this to work? You can’t hibernate an OS and swap out all the hardware and expect it to actually wake back up. You’re going to have to do a full boot.

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