Comment by josteink | Hacker News Reader

Comment by josteink | Hacker News Reader

As far as I can tell, the "Ubuntu Touch" bit is just a generic set of ARM-binaries running on top of a standard Android Linux-kernel without the traditional Android GUI, user-land and bits which the user normally interacts with. HAL, drivers and all that which interacts with the actual hardware still comes from the Android-base.

This means that most devices which already has a open-source Android-implementation (like AOSP or Cyanogenmod) can easily have the Android user-land ripped out and Ubuntu thrown in on top instead. Right now that is a shitload of devices.

As far as that makes Ubuntu its "own" OS or not might be a interesting discussion (1), but it's definitely a pragmatic solution and has clearly paid off with regard to getting a product to market.

(1) The same discussion can clearly be had for Android vs Linux. (2)

(2) Which in retrospect gives us the interesting case of a standard Linux (Ubuntu touch) built on top of a non-standard Linux (Android) to emulate a standard Linux (Ubuntu) in the first place. Turtles all the way down :)

How is Android kernel not a standard Linux ?

Ubuntu and Android simply share the Linux kernel. I don't see any preposterous about it.

I suppose he meant Android is not what Stallman would call GNU/Linux (and could actually be called Android/Linux if you will). See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#linuxsyswithoutgnu

And Ubuntu is? Last I checked Stallman hated Ubuntu, and told everyone to stop using it.

It's still the GNU userland on top of the Linux kernel, whether he likes it or not.

This is the one thing I don't understand about the GNU/Linux thing. Doesn't calling it GNU/Linux imply that it is derived from the GNU/FSF philosophy? To me it would make sense if another term can be coined to refer to systems that have a GNU base, yet go against GNU's goals, yet still credit the GNU project for its contributions. (I hope I'm not re-igniting the bad parts of the GNU/Linux debate).

Ubuntu is certainly what Stallman would call GNU/Linux. Just try to call it otherwise in his presense. ;)

Ubuntu, along with Debian, Fedora, and just about every major distro have always been on RMS's "not recommended" list.

> How is Android kernel not a standard Linux ?

Historically it wasn't, but checking around it seems like the kernel sources for Android has been unified and merged with the standard Linux-kernel so now they are indeed the same thing.

My bad.

Several ongoing efforts exist to get Android bits into the upstream Linux kernel, but those efforts have definitely not finished, and Android kernels still have quite a pile of changes that probably won't make it upstream.

Well, a large number of distros, Ubuntu included I believe, apply patches to their kernel that aren't in the official Linux kernel. Android's patches are far more extensive, and so it makes sense to talk about the "Android Linux kernel" as something distinct from the "standard Linux kernel".

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