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I hope an alternative open platform emerges and google android goes poof. It would serve as a warning to others.
I don't understand why it appears to be so hard for Linux to go mobile. Can anyone explain what the main hurdles are?
Presumably, it shouldn't be too hard to get apks working, right?
Similarly to what valve is doing for Linux gaming could happen for mobile Linux no? Not sure which incentives exist for a company to go that course though..
The main mobile OSs country (USA) and the main mobile builders country (China) don't like "free range mobiles".
the main hurdles from my understanding are processor/chip specs. They are generally super locked down in terms of who they run with/allow usage. From what I understand the liberux project ran into that issue because their goal was a fully open sourced Linux phone, and they had to make compromises and are still fighting issues.
I really hope this project succeeds. Having an upgradable, mostly opes source phone would be amazing.
With PC people can get pick up whatever cpu, gpu, motherboard, and ram they want and put together a machine. But, phones are so much more reliant on prebuilts with little to no options when it comes to making your own phone hardware, so that is likely the largest barrier to becoming as open and flexible as PCs.
my guess it's hardware support; drivers and firmware for existing hardware and smartphone components for linux are probably close to nonexistent. The apk support is the smallest issue.
So they should aim for older phones & the refurbished market?
I'm running lineageos on a phone from 2018 and it's running like a charm. I suppose that means that a Linux mobile os could perform well on old hardware too
It's also the old hardware where no open source drivers exist. To clarify: open source drivers and firmware for phone modules are about as common as unicorns.
Honestly, that is quite unrealistic, is it?
It is. But dreams are what future realities are made of.
Not really, given there are already multiple flavours of android in the Chinese market, that are Google free. Samsung has kept up pace on their alternative to keep Google at bay. Linux phone and other alternatives like e/os exist. The main problem seems to be adoption and Google apps. It just seems crazy to me that the hardware makers want to lock themselves in to one supplier that could turn on them in an instant. Open sourcing their drivers would give free community improvements and make tech enthusiasts favour them. The public often follows enthusiasts, provided it's easy to do so.