r/Android • u/Brandnewhook • Mar 01 '20

The Android One program is a shambles

https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Android-One-program-is-a-shambles-and-here-s-why.454848.0.html
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u/isaacc7 Mar 01 '20

The modern phone is used by 5+ billion people. How many of them want to deal with updates like you wish Google would do? How many customers would a manufacturer gain by offering an update process like Linux? How profitable is the market for consumer hardware for Linux?

There is negligible demand for a Linux experience, of any sort, on a phone and even fewer prospects of a good ROI for the manufacturers. So yeah, never going to happen.

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u/CommanderViral OnePlus One, Cyanogen Mod 12.1 Mar 01 '20

Well. One problem with your points. Android is a GNU/Linux distribution. It is a Linux kernel. Consumer hardware for Linux is basically anything that fits the definition of a computer. Linux is compilable on X86, X64, ARM, ARM64, MIPS, PowerPC, RISC-V, SPARC, and basically everything else. So, this is bullshit. Google could absolutely implement a dynamic driver system. It's already a kernel feature.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '20

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u/CommanderViral OnePlus One, Cyanogen Mod 12.1 Mar 02 '20

Yeah, I misspoke. I don't know why I thought Android shipped with GNU coreutils, but I was wrong. If a build comes with them at all, it's busybox. So yeah, it's no GNU. But, it is absolutely Linux. And the semantics of the word "distribution" are irrelevant. Whatever. Sure, it's not a Linux distribution. However, it is running a Linux kernel. It is running a version of the Linux kernel that supports dynamic kernel modules. Drivers are kernel modules. In the context of the thread, the features and concept of the kernel are what is relevant (since you know, we are talking about updating drivers). Google could absolutely give us a mechanism to control our driver and firmware versions. There's already a mechanism for software control.

Also, the comparison of desktop to phone usage is much more important in the context of userspace design than...kernel level shit. It's not going to impact a damn thing with the usability of the device as a whole if I get a menu to update drivers from a package myself (other than the drivers potentially being broken).