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Comment by realusername | Hacker News Reader

Because Android is Google's own property, it's not like a standard Linux distribution by any stretch of imagination.

I'm not even against proprietary apps (just against proprietary drivers of course), it's just that transforming Android to make it behave normally is just more and more work every year.

Some people (including myself) would prefer to have the same system they have on their desktop on their phone, with the added bonus of having convergence.

Shielding Android from the rest of the system as a "compatibility layer" just to run some apps or drivers makes tons of sens.

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A compatibility layer for Android apps would really make it viable. I just don't want to fight my OS to be recognized and treated as its owner.

In that respect I really like how I can run Windows games on Linux via Proton and Steam; an otherwise good game can ship with all kinds of crap (like having their own launchers stuck in the system tray), but when I'm done the whole Wine-sandbox collapses and I'm back in a Linux desktop that does what I want. Something like that for the host of proprietary apps you are nowadays hard-pressed to avoid (I manage now, but it is not a tenable position) would be welcome. Ideally you could do all sorts of privacy preserving stuff at the sandbox layer.

>A compatibility layer for Android apps would really make it viable. I just don't want to fight my OS to be recognized and treated as its owner.

This is the real reason we need this. Without competition from free alternatives our phones will get locked down "for our benefit" harder and harder and it won't be done for our benefit.

More tracking, more of our data sold, more DRM, etc.

Sure, the stuff in the tray goes away, but Wine is not a sandbox. Software can still look into your filesystem and processes. You need Flatpak for proper sandboxing.

Flatpak, of all things?

https://flatkill.org/

People really still post this?

I actually hadn't seen this before. What's the counter argument to the security problems that that website points out?

https://theevilskeleton.frama.io/2021/02/11/response-to-flat...

You mean Google always has dominant expertise when it comes to android, but it's still open source.

I would still rather prefer using learn that reinventing a whole mobile OS.

Hard to say if Google tries to complexify android to avoid rivals.

I often say google has the same situation of microsoft when it comes to drivers.

> but it's still open source

Tell that to Termux: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25644964.

> reinventing a whole mobile OS

There is no reason to reinvent an OS. You can use desktop GNU/Linux on modern phones. You only need to tweak the UI (see Phosh). You will also have full computer in your pocket and ability to connect it to a screen and use all Linux apps.

> There is no reason to reinvent an OS.

Android is an awesome OS. I really don't see a good reason to reinvent one, seen the progress made by android.

> You can use desktop GNU/Linux on modern phones.

Yeah but no. A mobile OS is much more usable on a smartphone than a desktop one.

>A mobile OS is much more usable on a smartphone than a desktop one.

The point is that there should be no difference between "mobile" and "desktop". Mobile devices are capable of (almost) everything desktop does. Just connect a screen with keyboard and you have a "desktop". Now, you have thousands of apps already written for GNU/Linux.

https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...

Can you achieve this on Android?

What matters is the interface and UI, and the power usage. The android SDK is designed so that app developers have constraints that reduce power usage.

I agree that users should have more power over their hardware, but it would be at the risk of non power users letting malware infecting their device.

But I really disagree that desktop and mobile are similar.

Saving energy on a lithium battery requires more than just better batteries, it also requires developers to make apps that are very lightweight in energy, and that's why android is how it is, to prevent developers to release apps that drains battery and ruins the android experience and the brand.

And what would be the point of having linux apps on a mobile device? That doesn't really matters for users, it's the same problem with linux desktop and the quality of FOSS. What matters is having an OS where users can do what they want, but it's more complicated on android because... batteries.

Also, security is though problem that is solved with the google play service. Yes, it's centralized and users cannot do what they want, but the upside is security.

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