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The libhybris situation is a pretty miserable compromise. You land on an old, busted Android kernel, with a userland that mostly works. It exists only because the major SoC vendors have no motivation to support a chip after they've shipped a BSP that successfully builds and makes the hardware occasionally provide the desired features.

(Apologies for being a bit harsh; I've wasted a ton of time recently hacking on Allwinner and Amlogic chips)

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The libhybris situation for the time being is "good enough".

Sony last year announced their intention to "mainline" their Xperia devices (their main phone brand)[1]. This could eventually mean running Android on the latest mainline kernel, and perhaps even GNU/Linux[2].

[1] https://developer.sonymobile.com/2016/02/17/work-on-the-main...

[2] Jolla (developers of SailfishOS, a real-Linux-on-mobile OS) announced in February that they are partnering with Sony to bring SailfishOS to the Xperia X (https://jolla.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Sony_Jolla_pres...), which should hopefully be out this month. It's taken a long time, but real-Linux-on-the-mobile is getting closer.

Credit to Sony for this work. They seem to have almost exactly the right emphasis for me - good cameras, expandable storage, and open devices.

what do you mean by real-Linux-on-mobile OS?

isn't Android a mobile os running linux?

I hope you meant real-GNU /Linux-on-mobileOS

note: "Android is running Linux" is certified by Linus Torvalds

I think you're nitpicking, and your comment does nothing to add to the discussion, but I'll say this:

If I'd said "Linux-on-the-mobile", you could just as easily have said "Linux (kernel) is already on the mobile!".

If I'd said "GNU/Linux-on-the-mobile", you could have argued that Termux[1] adds GNU tools to your Android phone.

Half the things you'd expect on a "Linux" system (e.g. systemd, a Wayland compositor, X, DBUS, PulseAudio) are not associated with FSF/GNU at all.

Without nitpicking, when you say "Linux" most people think "Red Hat" (or Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, etc), not "Android".

[1] https://termux.com/

Linus has a vested interest in taking credit for the most prolific mobile platform. I don't think there is any common sense in the 'Android is Linux' argument beyond that though.

As a software platform, it isn't even remotely similar.

Android is an operating system built on top of the Linux kernel project. "Android is not Linux but ${DISTRIBUTION} is" is just stupid, operating systems simply cannot be compared to a kernel.

Not quite right, NDK applications are constrained in what they can touch and many syscalls have been removed.

What does Linus have to do with it?

just to mention what I am saying is not just my opinion.

That's not how it works though.

Linux is a kernel, and Linus has all the right in the world to make that claim. It doesn't in any way strengthen your argument though because of the different userland. You are comparing apples (operating systems) with oranges (kernels).

sorry that I created confusion.

I tried to tell that his "real-Linux" (kernel) already exists (I don't know if he meant (in another comment, he said that he meant userland) userland e.g gnu, freedesktop.org etc by "real-Linux")

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