On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 11:55:44AM -0400, Fungi4All wrote:
From: d...@randomstring.org Not yet a Debian on Android, but: https://ollieparanoid.github.io/post/50-days-of-postmarketOS/ summarizes the first 50 days of building Linux directly for several smartphones, with the intention of eventually getting them fully functional. Their work could lead to a Debian flavor/spin/whatever it"s called now. Personally, I would be pretty happy to run Debian on a phone instead of the giant pile of Java sitting on an old kernel that currently constitutes Android.
I just wanted to check that you were aware that Android mostly doesn't run Java. True, the code is written in java, but the code isn't run by a java vm, but by a Dalvik or ART VM. Dalvik and ART are specifically optimized for low-memory, low-cpu systems. In a way, this is similar to the way switching from GCC to Clang has provided "free" performance improvements to some projects.
-dsr- 20 days of me trying to do something to an unrooted tablet and the verdict is that you can not make a computer system out of cat dish (used to be frisbie). For a rooted system you pay big bucks, might as well get one of those gadgets with free open architecture. At least you will know what your hardware will be transmitting to your "enemies". On an unrooted device with secret hw-code all you can do is run something within an android compartment/sandbox. More than half the machine's resources are already occupied running the sandbox area (like gnuroot or termux). Start with a cheap low resource machine and by the time you get gnuroot ready to direct a Gui to a GFXserver program, either the one or the other crashes with lack of resources. .... Then you open your windows if you are lucky and 90% of the stuff will not run in this pseudo linux/debian environment. Systemd is having a fit as it sweeps most of the left over resources before you even run anything. It is amazing how something SO STUPID can be marketed to become as esential as underware. My 6510i still sounds crystal clear, and does all a phone is meant to do.
Yes, but can it run Debian? (My point being, what do you want the device to do? If all you want is for it to make telephone calls, then a 'feature phone' is great. It makes calls; it has solid software; it probably can't evolve to make VOIP calls, but there's no reason a new 'feature phone' couldn't. If you want it to be able to run arbitrary, mostly-unvetted applications and still be relatively secure and stable, then the modern, mobile OS is the way to go: sandbox each application such that when you download that dodgy knock-off version of Candy Crush, it doesn't have the ability to silently call all your contacts and offer them life insurance. If you want a pocket, general purpose computer, then you basically need to either use a laptop or a PDA, if they still make them). -- For more information, please reread.
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