Samsung Kills 'Linux on DeX' with Android 10 Rollout
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If you're running a linux container on a machine with a bootloader you don't control, the manufacturer can pull your card at any time for no reason. I refuse to live that way if I have a choice, even if it means crappy hardware. :p
shhhhh..... stop telling the other hackers, they will buy them all! XD
https://www.ebay.com/itm/OEM-Lenovo-ThinkPad-T440s-14-Laptop...
Oddly enough, I am having an issue with the keyboard though. I unplugged it and when I replugged it in, keys stopped working. Repeating that process made a lot more keys stop working as well. I have a feeling that's just because the ribbon cable was old though, so I am replacing the whole thing.
- switched the i5 CPU for i7-2860QM, doupling thread count while mostly keeping per thread performance
- maxed RAM to 16 GB
- put in SATA3 SSD to the 3.5 inch position
- put in a high capacity 3.5 inch spinning hard drive to ultrabay instead of DVD drive
- put in a small m2 SSD to the SATA2 m2 slot because why not
This is still my main computer, driving two full HD monitors from its docking station.
I had a similar setup in my T420/T420s (I moved to the T420s when the first full HD boards didn't work well for the T420 and then came the sudden thaw in the keyboard winter, the ThinkPad 25).
> You can get still in warranty, good spec machines below 600 USD on eBay from reputable sellers, returns accepted. Extending the warranty for 1-2 more years is 50-100 USD. So, for all intents and purposes it's new. This machine is not worse than the T490, in fact it's better in some aspects like two memory slots and two batteries. It costs like half the T490 and just as good!
Discussion mentioned Europe but eBay has a nice global shipping program so you can just buy from ebay.com but also ebay.co.uk has similar prices...
And while this is one of the devices affected by the Linux on DeX depreciation, it still has regular DeX (basically a desktop shell for Android apps) and quite a few community maintained open source Linux chroots (such as Termux or UserLand) provide decent development environments.
Though there are some worrying developments recently kinda mirroring your worries due to Googles draconian security policy changes possibly making projects like this harder: https://github.com/termux/termux-app/issues/1072
So if one is paying flagship prices, then why not just buy a regular laptop from a Linux vendor?
Also all Chromebooks produced 2019 and onwards will support Crostini. Flagship or not flagship. https://www.extremetech.com/computing/291185-all-chromebooks...
Chromebooks' update model, speed and security are way ahead of any Linux vendor. Security is the pride of this product. And the hardware quality is great too. What you buy is your prerogative but the ability to run both Android apps and also a Linux install makes Chromebooks a good value.
First of all, speed is hardly a feature when compared with laptops on the same price range.
Specially when taking into consideration the VMs being executed, namely browser instances, gVisor and the Crostini hypervisor.
Then just like on Android devices, Chromebooks have a limited duration of updates, namely 6 years since device market release.
Hardware quality is debatable when I need to pay MacBook class prices for getting such quality.
It’s true that after some number of years, you switch the hardware to a different OS, including a 3rd party supported ChromeOS system or a variety of Linux distributions.
I’m not saying it’s for everyone, but I will say that it’s at least in the same class of consideration as “you could buy an old Thinkpad, and replace at least the hard drive, keyboard, display, and battery to get something similarly usable”.
Chromebook's security story is far ahead. You can do your own research and you'll find ample links proving the same.
My Windows and Linux laptops are kept up to date since ever, with hardware encryption turned on.
This discussion is about the permissions that applications get. Desktop Linuxes don't have such an permission system in place - "just run as root" with ultimate trust in the application is quite common. Sandboxing isn't a thing either.
Amount of Chromebooks on sale across European electronic consumer stores, less than 1%.
The 1% is left for when they occasionally pop up under "deal of the day", when the shop decides to test waters and is more than happy when it finally goes away after a couple of weeks on display.
GNU/Linux security is better than ChromeOS because the updates are guaranteed for longer than six years, if one buys a laptop from someone like System76, or plenty of small Linux shops, it can be properly configured with encryption, LinuxSE, Flatpak/Snap/whatever.
Windows is a proper OS and its cloud offerings are not new.
Security must be the default. Automatic updates, sane default configuration. And a user interface that supports security.
It's meant for embedded devices, but there's no reason it wouldn't fit on phones. Now, with u-boot going in roughly the same direction, and with incoming phones focusing on liberty, it might actually be possible.
It worked out well for the PC platform. Not so much for IBM, though.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IBM/ibm/stock-pric...
...it would seem IBM is still in a (very volatile) huge uptrend that started in the early 90s.
Now that I think of it, you could say that if the PC platform worked out well for Linux then Linux ended up working out well for IBM.
On my note 9 I can open a shell. Or with HDMI get a Ubuntu desktop.
Any ideas what Google changed in Android 10 to break compatibility?
I think Termux uses proot to get around this, so it still works (for now). If this is indeed the reason, Samsung probably just said "fuck this shit".
Expect Google to push out a Fuchsia-based Android whose kernel won't allow the proot hack sometime in the next few years. Like it or not, the closed ecosystem of iOS provides more value to end users, and Google wants to bring those benefits to Android.
Is there any "official" proof for this statement? To me closed ecosystem of iOs (and semi closed Android for that matter) look truly pathetic comparatively to what I have on Windows/Linux desktop
They want it to just work and be secure. iOS has this figured out hands down.
As for "just work" - nothing "just works" in the software business. It is snake oil
Summary: the conundrum Google finds themselves in is they want all code run by the user in plain sight: signed by the developer and inspectable by their anti malware tools. It's not difficult to see why they want this.
The stand out counter example is Browsers downloading and running javascript, which is unseen by them, unsigned and worst of all for them utterly impossible to prevent entirely. So in Termux's case it's always going to be near impossible to block interpreted languages like python from running.
The interesting special case is what they called mmap(PROT_EXEC), possibly better called mmap(PROT_EXEC|PROT_WRITE). In other words, the ability to write and execute create code on the fly. JIT's can't work well without it, so without it Javascript is always going to run like a dog. But with it is is always possible to load an ELF binary yourself in user space, bypassing the kernel entirely. Termux could always replace the libc exec() with something that did it that way.
So it looks to me like this is all just re-arranging the deck chairs. Ultimately Google can't use technical measures to prevent any malicious app from running any code they damned well please. Their attempts to accomplish the impossible won't help the malware problem, but does make like difficult for innocent apps like termux.
As others have said this have said, this has nothing to do with Samsung killing Linux on Dex. Unlike Termux, they have to power to turn it all off.
More likely: Linux on DeX had much less adoption than Samsung thought it would have, so after Android 10 they simple decided it wasn't worth continuing development.
OTOH your explanation is eminently plausible. A dual desktop/phone seemed like a cool idea to me several years ago, but people would rather just use their phones. Plus, people now use websites/services more than local applications - and services like dropbox have largely solved the rest of the files-anywhere problem.
Maybe if you're removing restrictions for all applications (this may make Android CTS to not pass). However I was mostly thinking of Samsung only giving elevated privileges for DeX, that is completely fine too (even some Google applications have those relaxed restrictions, i.e. Google Play).
In this later case I don't see Google disallowing this, because you're not effectively reducing Android security.
Google doesn't allow those apps on Google Play (clarifying because it's confusing i.e. you can't get an alternative to google play from google play).
While DeX isn't downloaded from Google Play, so that restriction doesn't directly apply; I can well imagine google cracking down on it. Perhaps also on other Play alternatives.
But just my imagination - IDK.
But it works well on my Tab 5e. I used it a few times to work on the move. No need for an external monitor with a tablet. I guess I won't upgrade it to androidA 10 for as long as I can.
I doubt this is true for everyone.
If you're happy with the freedom the OS vendor gives you, then the sandbox is a win because it eliminates a possible vector of harm. If you're not happy with the set of solutions, and want to put together your own, then you need a way out of the playpen. Different, not better or worse.
I learned about it in the AskNoahShow ep.144 titled "SailfishOS" [1], you might wanna check it out.
It runs notably on open-source phones from Sony. You can bet that's my next toy!
A couple of things:
fastboot oem unlock is a one way trip, it blows some kind of fuse and you can never relock the bootloader. While I give Sony lots of points for having a page showing where the UART is in their phones, they lose all of those points for deciding that unlocked devices can no longer get OTA updates, even when reflashed to a stock ROM.
Sailfish was really, really janky when I tried it, I couldn't even turn on developer mode without signing in to a Jolla account, then it hung for at least 5 minutes trying to enable the developer mode.
For the XA2 Ultra, there's also no LineageOS build.
My idea and recommendation, taking a cue from Noah Chelliah (link above), is basically to have two smartphones — 1 dedicated to SailfishOS, and 1 "fallback" on Android for everything else. Then see from there.
Thanks for that.
And having a real Linux distro in your pocket is really really nice & only illustrates how stripped down are regular Android phones and tablets every time I interact with one.
> illustrates how stripped down are regular Android phones and tablets
Oh don't get me started on that... I could probably write a short novel about it. But you know that already. Part of me feels disappointed that of all the Linux-y podcasts and blogs and comments I've been exposed to over the years, it took me this long to identify Sailfish as my probable salvation.
Does this mean the title should read something like "Due to Android 10 update, Linux on DeX will now require a jailbreak whereas it did not before"?
Samsung always appeared to do little to discourage "opening up" their devices, unlike for example HTC and other Qualcomm based ones.
Am I correct to assume that you mean direct updates, and/or security (from hackers, states, and, in a sense, hardware vendors themselves)?
They are well know in the Android developer community for their AOSP customisations (down to the API level and having a Samsung Android SDK).
Samsung's desire to continue developing the feature
For regular Android, the fact that Linux is being used is mostly transparent for userspace.
Given the lackluster development of it (like one or two releases, that was it) I suspect they discovered there wasn't enough money in it to justify the further development.
Pretty disappointing.
Your link is just the latest example how Android is not really Linux.
Project Treble drivers, NDK constraints, white listed syscalls are all examples how userspace just gets to see a selective POSIX like OS.
I used LoD often. It was just perfect for on-the-go javascript hacking. In fact at least 200+ commits to the Kea project [2] were written with Linux on Dex.
The only issue I had was that with larger projects [3] when running in the Mate desktop environment, I quickly ran out of inodes... and there was no way to increment them. I had to turn off many things in vscode (file watcher) and my projects (recompile on change) to have an usable system.
Time to look for alternatives. In the worst case I can just connect to a VNC server somewhere (LoD also used VNC), but that requires constant internet access and has issues of its own. LoD was just perfect for quick code writing in airplanes, etc.
[1] https://www.sammobile.com/interviews/dex-product-manager-new...
These drivers need a series of compatibility shims to work with "normal Linux," on both sides of the driver API.
The Kernel <-> Driver interface needs to be backported to Android's non-mainline HAL, usually using Halium. The driver <-> userspace API needs to be implemented, for example by xf86-video-hwcomposer or libhybris-libwayland-egl. Finally, the blob needs a libc shim to work with normal libc (libhybris itself).
I love the postmarketOS initiative but right now it's very much a bare-bones project. The installation process is troublesome, hardware support is very limited and desktop environments work partially if at all. Phosh development is looking good but it's certainly not finished.
As of now, I would certainly not advertise it as a Dex replacement.
I did some reading and it looks like the devices it runs on are ancient.
Linux on Dex ran on a Note 9 which has either 6 or 8gb of RAM.
With HDMI output it's possible to run visual studio code and it's very usable.
Even possible to run a Dev server.
And whilst I'm doing this using a monitor, keyboard and mouse, Android is still available on the device and I can use Spotify, send text messages and make phone calls.
Postmarket OS looks like at best a dual boot setup, running on ancient hardware and very alpha.
At the moment the only alternative (not counting thd horrendously expensive Windows running mobile studios sold by Wacom) is a couple high end Andrpid tablets and the Ipad Pro & their bunch of proprietary drawing apps.
Oh well might still get it in case the price is right for other use cases. :)
dex itself will continue to live on.
I will probably just use this in future for when I am travelling and have to do the occasional document / email etc
I sometimes plug my iPad Pro into a USB-C interfaced large monitor and it is nice having lots of working space but this is not laptop or desktop replacement.
A vicious cycle since OpenMoko.
Android is really a Java like based OS, with a native SDK for games, real time audio and integrating native libraries.
Those that want CLI and interactive dev environments on the go have plenty of options written in Java.
Only issue is I never got things like the camera working in my port of SailfishOS, and some Android apps I used wouldn't work when the phone was rooted, which is why I had one rooted Android install and one unrooted. Also, in order to switch you had to reboot into recovery and flash a zip changing which partition to boot from.
Worked relatively well though.