Android is almost fully supported with Linux kernel 3.3

Android is almost fully supported with Linux kernel 3.3(androidcentral.com)

48 points by DallaRosa 14 years ago | 16 comments

krakensden 14 years ago |

Don't be too hopeful- Binder is still a big sticking point, and nothing is going to work without it. The two schools of thought on it are:

* It is a terrible, terrible interface that doesn't belong in the kernel

* Linux supports SysV IPC because other Unices do, Binder is at least as popular

Before you pile in and declare your reasonableness by endorsing the latter position, please understand that the former is not exactly on thin ice.

ajross 14 years ago | |

Binder was merged. But yes, both of the above are true.

krakensden 14 years ago | | |

I thought it was just merged into staging?

nextparadigms 14 years ago |

Someone else said that full support will come with kernel 3.5. But does that mean Linux apps will be able to work on Android then?

rlpb 14 years ago | |

Linux apps generally expect a full software stack. Android's userspace is radically different (and for good reason). There's no GNU libc or GNU coreutils or GTK/Qt or X. There's a minimal libc implementation, busybox, and an Android-specific framebuffer-based GUI framework. From the source it appears that Google have tried hard to exclude GPL'd code as much as possible, too.

Getting Linux apps to (natively) run on Android isn't really affected by this news. The kernel was already as close as it needed to be. It's userspace that's the issue.

ajross 14 years ago | | |

No busybox in android; that too is GPL software that Andy Rubin and the pre-Google Android people didn't want to ship. They actually hacked up a minimal "toolbox" to avoid shipping it. Sad, really.

dsr_ 14 years ago | |

You can recompile most Linux apps to work on an Android phone now. Anything requiring graphics will require a complete rework, though, because Android doesn't have X.

shimon_e 14 years ago | | |

iirc there was a port of x server recently to android.

bitwize 14 years ago | |

Linux apps already do work with android.

Just be rooted and get this: http://android.galoula.com/en/LinuxInstall/

Tobu 14 years ago | |

No. All this means is that the delta will be lower, and new kernel work will be able to cross-polinate a bit more easily. Though manufacturers don't really follow the mainline's upgrade path, and it seems like they will converge on this (embedded LTSI) instead: https://lwn.net/Articles/484337/

zokier 14 years ago | |

Afaik this means the converse. This will help run Android apps on vanilla Linux systems (eg desktops). Note that kernel is only one piece of the puzzle, but with these patches porting userland should be easier.

nextparadigms 14 years ago | | |

Yes, I figure you'd still need a Dalvik VM on Linux, but that shouldn't be too hard to port.

ghost91 14 years ago |

Yay, hopefully I can soon run Android parallel to a x-server on my netbook