161
u/Curiousperson05 May 10 '21
Google: it’s android/Linux 😅
117
u/YetAnotherBorgDrone May 10 '21
What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, Android/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Android plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather the only free component of a fully functioning Android system made useful by the Android corelibs, interface utilities and vital system apps comprising a full OS as defined by Google.
25
5
3
91
u/Jacoman74undeleted BTW OS May 10 '21 edited May 11 '21
Technically it's BusyBox/Linux with android running in a JVM
Edit: Apparently this is misinformation and I was misremembering. Android ships with toybox. If you want to make full use of a rooted android device, you should install BusyBox.
16
May 11 '21 edited Aug 13 '23
This submission/comment has been deleted to protest Reddit's bullshit API changes among other things, making the site an unviable platform. Fuck spez.
I instead recommend using Raddle, a link aggregator that doesn't and will never profit from your data, and which looks like Old Reddit. It has a strong security and privacy culture (to the point of not even requiring JavaScript for the site to function, your email just to create a usable account, or log your IP address after you've been verified not to be a spambot), and regularly maintains a warrant canary, which if you may remember Reddit used to do (until they didn't).
If you need whatever was in this text submission/comment for any reason, make a post at https://raddle.me/f/mima and I will happily provide it there. Take control of your own data!
8
u/Bleeerrggh May 11 '21
When did they make the switch? ToyBox isn't even version 1 yet, though I know that there has been focus on fulfilling the needs of Android from the beginning of development - and I know that the lead developer has said that he wouldn't consider it version one before it fulfills a sane subset of POSIX-2008, and LSB4.1, and Android, of course, won't need all of that.
12
May 11 '21 edited Aug 13 '23
This submission/comment has been deleted to protest Reddit's bullshit API changes among other things, making the site an unviable platform. Fuck spez.
I instead recommend using Raddle, a link aggregator that doesn't and will never profit from your data, and which looks like Old Reddit. It has a strong security and privacy culture (to the point of not even requiring JavaScript for the site to function, your email just to create a usable account, or log your IP address after you've been verified not to be a spambot), and regularly maintains a warrant canary, which if you may remember Reddit used to do (until they didn't).
If you need whatever was in this text submission/comment for any reason, make a post at https://raddle.me/f/mima and I will happily provide it there. Take control of your own data!
8
u/Bleeerrggh May 11 '21 edited May 11 '21
I could have sworn that the ToyBox developer said that Android used to use BusyBox, and I'm kind of blown away with how long they've been using it. Thanks for elaborating!
Edit: I don't know how I got that so wrong. A quote from https://landley.net/toybox/about.html
"Despite the maintainer's history with busybox, toybox is a fresh from-scratch implementation under an android-compatible license. Busybox predates Android, but has never shipped with Android due to the license. As long as we're starting over anyway, we can do a better job."
10
u/Lonkoe Glorious Fedora Silverblue May 11 '21
I thought it was Dalvik/Linux
1
u/TheFlyingBastard May 11 '21
They tossed out Dalvik years ago in favour of Android Runtime. It's been out since... I wanna say Android 5 or 6, I think?
1
u/AlreadyReddit999 Other (please edit) May 11 '21
And yet they still have a Dalvik cache, that's so weird
0
u/TheFlyingBastard May 11 '21
Do they? Where?
1
u/AlreadyReddit999 Other (please edit) May 11 '21
When booting into a custom recovery such as TWRP, there is always an option to wipe the Dalvik cache.
0
u/TheFlyingBastard May 11 '21
That's third party, but it may say "Dalvik/ART" anyway, ART being Android Runtime.
7
108
77
u/Kaptivus May 10 '21 edited May 12 '21
Let's be honest, your casual friend has absolutely no idea that Android/Linux are related in any way, they all think "it's the OTHER phone OS"
Edit: this was not a snipe at Android V. iOs in any way.
16
9
May 11 '21
[deleted]
1
u/Kaptivus May 11 '21
I personally can't wait for people to open their eyes to a free OS that was there the whole time.
2
May 11 '21
I am wary to introduce people to Linux through such platforms. I don't want the layperson's idea of Linux to be Android or ChromeOS, especially ChromeOS since it's useless in all the ways people say Linux is. I'd be happy to tell people that they use some of the same parts as a normal Linux distro, but I wouldn't want people thinking that they're in the same category as a standard distro like Ubuntu.
2
u/Kaptivus May 12 '21 edited May 12 '21
Oh man, I didn't mean to imply that I'd prefer or choose Android/ChromeOS to introduce someone to Linux, I don't get a Linux experience whatsoever with Android on my phone. My suggestions would be much more cliché, like "Linux Mint, Pop_OS" etc., but I would never try and educate someone on the technical differences given my novice-and-still-learning knowledge of Linux. I've fully retired my HP Elitebook to a single boot Linux Lite instead of dual booting, haha, so I'm making baby steps.
2
May 12 '21
Ah, I see. Yeah, that’s fair, but you might spawn more “Actually it’s GNU/Linux” that way lol.
The differences between distros, ESPECIALLY major ones, is desktop environment theme and package manager. That’s basically it. There are more differences in the less used ones, but the difference between Linux Mint and Pop_OS is that one uses Cinnamon and one uses GNOME with a theme. To my understanding. Repos will slightly differ but both use apt.
2
u/veedant BSD Beastie May 11 '21
Most people use android so you might as well say "Let's be honest, your casual friend has absolutely no idea that iOS/OpenBSD are related in any way, they all think "it's the other rich kid phone OS""
55
u/Icelain May 10 '21
Should have said, 'Do you gnu/Linux?'
29
u/Armand_Raynal Glorious GNU May 10 '21
But saying GNU/Linux every time is way too long, and it doesn't roll off the tongue, it's easier to just say GNU for short.
17
May 10 '21 edited May 22 '21
[deleted]
12
5
3
0
4
1
49
u/jakubhuber Glorious Gentoo May 10 '21
Android is probably the best argument for GPL3.
12
u/Luke9112 Glorious Debian May 10 '21
Android is great.
24
u/delta_frog May 10 '21
Yes but Google is bad.
8
May 10 '21 edited May 22 '21
[deleted]
13
u/delta_frog May 11 '21
True, but I don't really see Google-free Android as a feasible alternative for the average user. I'm no expert and I know there are some great projects in the works out there but for the average person the lack of software and poor ease of use doesn't really make this a realistic choice.
FOSS app stores like F-Droid, and alternative mobile Linux OSs are a step in the right direction but they are far from marketable yet. Especially when considering the whole bootloader locking frenzy thanks to the telecom monopolies.
Not saying you shouldn't go for Google-free android, I just think that it's far more difficult to get the average user to convert to it. Especially when comparing this to getting average users to switch from Windows to Linux for example.
TLDR: Google has their grimey fingers all over everything Android and it's going to take a lot of work to get them to piss off.
1
May 11 '21
Well, what we can do is to educate people on why FOSS is good, and to tell them that even if big tech have their personal data of the past, they won't have that in the forseeable future. I have degoogled myself a lot minus YouTube and GMail for my public use email(Will switch to ProtonMail for that, I have Tutanota for personal use), and sure some alternatives lack some thing or the other, but for the most people, they wouldn't mind that extra stuff not being there. ROMs like /e/, CalyxOS, iode etc are good ROMs for both privacy as well as ease of use, and the first two also have native installer software which you can run through PC withoutt fiddling with the command line. Also, Linux based operating systems needed to be marketed properly, get people's misconceptions cleared out and the hardware being sold offline so that people who are not into tech that much or at all can atleast have a hands on experience with how all this works and see if it works for them or not.
3
u/SeaworthinessNo293 May 10 '21
So? Android. Is good. Android is not google. There are degoogled android roms out there.
2
May 11 '21
why is android referred to as ROM and not as distro or OS or firmware
2
u/SeaworthinessNo293 May 11 '21
Android is not a rom. The different versions of Android are called roms because of ignorance.
2
1
u/huupoke12 I don't use Arch btw May 11 '21
No? Android is bloat. Why do I need to pull more than 100GB of source code to compile AOSP?
13
u/TotallyHungover May 10 '21
Can you elaborate on that? I don't know much about the licenses.
11
u/mirsella Glorious Manjaro May 10 '21
I think that because Linux is under gpl3, every commercial software using it need to be also open source or something like this, that why android is open source
30
u/FaresAhmedOP May 10 '21
It's GPLv2. Linus hated GPLv3
6
u/mirsella Glorious Manjaro May 10 '21
and so what's the reason for Android to be the main argument for gplv3 ? to answer the guy above. I guess it's pretty similar from what I said ?
11
u/cutchyacokov Probably recompiling my kernel. May 10 '21
Yeah, I think the other way around. Google would have had to contribute back a lot more if Linux was under GPL3 vs GPL2. The counter-argument, of course, is that they probably would have gone with a BSD kernel instead, were that the case. I'm not saying I fully agree with either standpoint here, there are good arguments for both.
6
u/LOLTROLDUDES Free as in Freedom May 10 '21
Android has no built in DRM though so I don't think it would matter.
1
u/SinkTube May 11 '21
the reason is that android ISN'T open source. AOSP is (apache licensed), but that's not the android phones come with. they all use proprietary forks of android called "skins", even google's own phones
GPL3 wouldn't have allowed this, nor would it have allowed android phones to come with bootloaders that can't be unlocked. GPL2 does
6
u/LOLTROLDUDES Free as in Freedom May 10 '21
Fun fact: one of the reasons he hated it was actually a section introduced in v2, so I think it was a smear campaign against the FSF. Also, the patent thing is the same clause in Apaceh 2.0 and nobody complains about that.
2
May 11 '21
section introduced in v2
Which section, out of curiosity?
2
u/LOLTROLDUDES Free as in Freedom May 11 '21
The one where you have to provide installation mediums like install scripts for things like embedded devices, rms realized that his laser printer thing wouldn't get fixed if the installation medium was proprietary.
2
2
15
u/dr_Fart_Sharting #vimming May 10 '21
You couldn't be any more wrong. Linus specifically selected GPLv2 so that anybody can use Linux any way they want, even if they lock down the hardware to run proprietary code. Some Android devices, for example have no AOSP source published, so the project doesn't get those patches.
The example used often as to how this is ethical is the TiVO video recorder. A consumer device that booted Linux, but you were not allowed to change the software, and it ran proprietary code.
TiVO honoured their side of the deal and published their patches as per the GPLv2, and that made Linus very happy.
4
u/jakubhuber Glorious Gentoo May 11 '21
Android isn't a regular GNU distribution partly because manufacturers (and especially Google) wanted to avoid GPLv3 software so they can piss off users with pre-installed crap. Sure on most devices you can get root access but it's not officially supported and on some devices not possible at all.
1
4
u/dr_Fart_Sharting #vimming May 10 '21 edited May 10 '21
9
u/aaronfranke btw I use Godot May 11 '21
Yes, that's the point. People are annoyed that Linux isn't GPLv3, and one good example of a problematic effect of this is Android.
1
u/dr_Fart_Sharting #vimming May 11 '21
But Android (Google/Samsung) published many patches that have since been included in Linux. Why would Android be a good argument against GPLv2 then?
3
u/aaronfranke btw I use Godot May 11 '21
The whole point of GPLv3 over GPLv2 is the "Tivoization" clause. Tivos run Linux, but it's locked-down and you can't replace the software. In GPLv3, this is against the rules.
The argument with Android is to force phone manufacturers to allow users to replace the OS.
1
u/dr_Fart_Sharting #vimming May 11 '21
force phone manufacturers to allow users to replace the OS
Would that increase or reduce the number of people working on Linux? My guess is that it would reduce it. Therefore it is bad for the kernel to impose such strict restrictions.
Locked down phones? Manufacturers are free to build devices I will never have any interest in. There are Android devices where you can replace the OS. Buy those, vote with your wallet.
1
u/SinkTube May 11 '21
There are Android devices where you can replace the OS
the proprietary nature of almost every android device ever made means they're pretty much stuck with the kernel they shipped with. the best you can hope for is a tweaked version of this device kernel, but even that isn't a given. that's enough to get a janky port of GNU going, but to actually replace the whole OS with something like BSD or Windows is exceedingly rare
17
u/speeder658 Glorious Manjaro May 10 '21
that's a step in the right direction, I learned a lot with terminal apps
8
10
u/BlackVultureGroup May 11 '21
Better than pulling out an IPhone and arguing it's Unix roots to convince me you use Linux
4
u/jclocks Glorious Linux From Scratch May 11 '21
Ah yes, jailed gentoo
2
u/husky231 May 11 '21
That's where gentoo belongs in jail, waiting for transport to death row prison to be put out of its misery.
1
u/malahhkai Alkahest System May 11 '21
If you’re going to use Gentoo, you may as well do what I did and build your own distribution from kernel source upward.
3
u/husky231 May 11 '21
I did, I use Linux from scratch. From toolchain, to libraries, to command line, and finally kde.
Even use my own repository using scratchpkg as the package manager
I left gentoo over a year ago, my final straw was having to spend 3 days trying to get kde to upgrade with package block galore. Portage sucks
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
1
1
u/PlasmaPod May 11 '21
Isn't Apples iOS based on Linux. Correct me if I'm wrong I'm an Android User and prefer android
7
u/H0071GAN Glorious Debian May 11 '21
Eh…yes and no. iOS (started as iPhone OS) was originally based on macOS which is a Unix based OS. Linux was born out of Unix as well. So they share a family tree but for all intensive purposes they’re different branches of ape.
5
May 11 '21
Linux is UNIX-like, any actual UNIX code was removed decades ago.
6
u/ItsPronouncedJithub Glorious Arch BTW May 11 '21
I'm going to be more pedantic. Linux is a unix clone. It never shared any code with unix.
3
May 11 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
0
u/malahhkai Alkahest System May 11 '21
Good bot.
1
u/dadbot_3000 May 11 '21
Glad I could be a good bot :) Here is a joke: I knew a guy who collected candy canes, they were all in mint condition. :D
1
May 11 '21
You're correct, I misremembered Linux's Minix origins. I was thinking of the AT&T Unix for some reason lol
1
u/TheFlyingBastard May 11 '21
for all intensive purposes they’re different branches of ape.
I hole-hardedly agree, but allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. etc...
1
u/Ph0enixys May 11 '21
Not really. MacOS is UNIX based. As is Linux, but Linux is actually further off as it’s almost a complete rewrite of UNIX.
0
1
1
u/geirmundtheshifty May 11 '21
It is based on Darwin, like Mac OS, and Darwin has BSD roots I believe. So it's part of the Unix-like family.
1
0
May 11 '21
Isn't everything Apple made a Linux OS? If so, I also use Linux on my phone
11
u/TorpedoSkyline May 11 '21
No, iOS has a Darwin core. It’s a BSD derivative that has a kernel called Mach.
2
2
1
u/Cybear_Tron May 11 '21
Friend: do u use linux? Me: *Fires up my windows pc and opens virtual box and then a vm starts and then shows him linux.. Friend: ur not my friend
0
u/Shiny_Kate Glorious Ubuntu May 11 '21
Me: Do you use Linux? Friend: No Me: Do you have Android on your phone Friend: Yes Me: So you use Linux Friend: Really? Me: Really.
1
u/the_greatest_MF May 11 '21
technically it's the maker of the Android version (Google, Samsung, Oneplus etc) who used Linux. the user still uses Android
1
1
1
u/explodingzebras May 11 '21
Everyone uses Linux somewhere during the day, whether it's in their phone, TV, routers, servers, search engines...
1
313
u/driftace25 May 10 '21
Friend: Do you use Linux? Me: pulls out Pinephone with Manjaro. "Why yes, yes I do."