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Comment by betterunix | Hacker News Reader

"You can open a shell on a rooted android device and use it much like any other distribution"

Assuming, of course, that you can actually root it.

"This is a huge win for Linux."

Is it? What was won, exactly? If we are not seeing a more vibrant free software ecosystem as a result, then we did not really win anything. The prevalence of app stores, the number of Android devices that are difficult to jailbreak or for which no jailbreaking tools are available yet, and the partitioning of "users" and "developers" in the Android ecosystem are not positive things for Linux or for GNU.

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What was won, exactly

Consider a world without Android, in which the new, dominant computing platform is an Apple monoculture far more locked down and exclusionary than Microsoft ever dreamed of being in their desktop heyday.

Maybe Android is not ideal, but life tends to involve a lot of messy choices. The fact that they are messy doesn't mean that there aren't still important distinctions to be made.

Well, I think we all agree that this isn't what RMS imagined (by a LONG shot). This is a kind of compromise, a merging of Free Software ideals with practical implementation how to translate Linux into a "consumer OS".

The sad fact is that you simply cannot handle root shell to an average consumer. The only result of that is a security hole because the user is grossly uneducated (the question whether he should be educated is for another time).

Regarding the bootloader lock/root, you have to commend Google for offering great, and easy to unlock & root phones off the shelf. The fact that US cellular market is screwed with subsidies and carriers making it hard to root phones is a whole different issue - that's really not Google's fault. It's also definitely not the case elsewhere (e.g. in Europe, where my experience comes from).

And I also think this is a much better state than if all those phones run Windows ;)

Because of the GPL, companies using Linux are required to release the kernel modifications they made to get it running on this wide variety of hardware, and this improves Linux as a whole.

EDIT: This article's extreme focus on the consumer mobile market is pretty narrow-minded, though: "There’s no denying the success of Linux in many areas, with Android being the foremost example." No, if you want to see where Linux really dominates, look to HPC and embedded systems.

Are there android devices that are difficult to root? I have only ever used the Nexus line (closes to actual Android spec), but they have all been incredibly easy to root. I was under the impression they were actually built this way on purpose.

There are certainly devices that are harder. Many relies on various bugs. Most ICS and Jelly Bean devices appears to be trivial to root due to a timing issue in the "recovery" functionality, though - there's a script floating around that claims to root pretty much everything.

Note that there are several issues: Rooting is often reasonably easy. But rooting is not enough to be able to install custom roms. For that you also need to be able to unlock the bootloader. There's any number of obstacles.

That said, there are tons of easily rootable and unlockable devices out there, so it's not really a big problem for those of us who insists on one or the other.

Especially with more and more higher end devices coming out of non-descript Chinese manufacturers who couldn't give a crap about the carriers desires, and which will start being "good enough" for more and more people (my new phone is Star phone that looks exactly like the Samsung Galaxy SIII, and while it don't perform as an SIII, it beats the pants of my 2 year old HTC Desire HD in every way and cost a fraction of what my Desire HD did)

I guess I do have it wrong then. I thought Android had made efforts to intentionally allow root (and unlock of the bootloader) without requiring an exploit (ie. a security flaw which could easily be used maliciously).

Well, you can still install custom ROMs even with a locked bootloader. You just can't change the kernel. The custom ROM needs to be using the same kernel.

You actually dont have to root it at all. Just download terminal emulator from market and you are good to go.

Servers ultimate is also made out of amazing sauce if you want to go the other way with your devices.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.icecoldapp...

I've been disappointed by it - everytime I use it for real work it's missing basic utilities and shell features. Has it been more than a novelty for you? If so, I'd love to hear what you've found it useful for.

I use it all the time on my Asus Transformer (which has a keyboard dock).

As for lacking basic utilities, it seems to be a problem depending on your firmware. CM10+ comes with a lot more basic stuff than just plain busybox. I know my Samsung Galaxy S came with almost nada (meaning I needed to install busybox, it wasn't preloaded).

Anyway I now use the Transformer as my main SSH terminal. From the terminal emulator. Like on a normal Linux desktop.

I also use it for finding and grepping stuff in my user/data-folder. If I am to copy things to or from the SD-card in the Transformer, I also find myself prefering to do things via the command line, much like I do on a normal Linux desktop.

As for the phone, I can't say I use it as much there, more for stuff like looking up my IP and MAC via ifconfig etc.

But lacking tools is a problem which can be solved. If you buy "Better Terminal Emulator Pro" ($5-ish) it will offer to download and install a better, more complete (and cross-firmware consistent) set of user-space tools, including stuff like ssh.

A massive win. More developers building on the OS could ultimately result in more developers contributing & honing the OS -- in addition to whatever they open source while building on it.

It's a win win :)

Kernel != The shell system.

You can't get shell on the gas station pumps I did either, but they run on linux.

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