Android Authority Doesn't Understand Linux or Android

Key Takeaways

do you ever read an article you feel is so incredibly wrong you take multiple breaks you stand up walk out of the room and get some fresh air well at least for me this is one of those articles this is an article from Android authority is Android really just Linux and whether you think it is or it isn't doesn't really matter for today's video I've made my case in the past but what I want to correct is some of the just completely wrong information in this article now this article is two months older this one month though what month is March right now this is one month old I was gonna do the video back then I forgot to either way uh I love this article nonetheless now the article starts off perfectly fine when it's in the is Android just Linux and the argument for white and what is Linux it's you know fairly surface level Linux stuff like Linux is the kernel Linux is a distribution Linux is gnu Linux stuff that we've all heard before and is pretty you know self-explanatory when it gets down to why Android isn't Linux this is where things start to get a little bit weird and it seems like the author doesn't understand Linux enough to have this discussion with the argument for why Android resembles Linux out of the way let's look at a few reasons why you might think the two aren't similar Android doesn't use the standard Linux kernel oh boy we're starting off strong in order to create an operating system that meets the unique needs of mobile devices the Android team made a number of changes to the Linux kernel absolutely we'll have a look at this in just a moment that includes the addition of specialized libraries apis and tools that are mostly BSD derived or written from scratch specifically for Android that's mostly not a point about the kernel apis yes I'll give you libraries sure they're probably using some specialized libraries in the kernel but tools that seems like more of a user space dependency Edition rather than the kernel itself without a doubt they have some custom tooling to make their workflow work better but that's not really a point about the kernel itself but that's sort of a minor nitpick since the entire argument in favor of classifying Android as a Linux distro hinges on the fact that Andrew uses the Linux kernel this point might seem like it's the end of the argument but it's not that unusual for a Linux desktop to make changes to the kernel absolutely so why is this point even included like this is a good point about the Linux kernel but you've just said the point doesn't matter so why is it here when it comes to the question of just how drastically the Android team modified the Linux kernel the embedded Linux Wiki concludes the amount of changes implemented by the Android team is not extremely large and is on the order of changes that are customarily made to the Linux kernel by embedded developers so once again this entire Point could just be deleted and your argument is just as strong because this is not an argument for why Android isn't Linux this is an argument for why it is if we look at another project like Asahi Linux this is a project to get Linux running on the Apple silicon Max the M1 M2 M1 Ultra all that fun stuff this makes a lot of changes to the kernel because this is a lot of custom Hardware just getting it running on the Apple silicon itself is a big enough challenge but a lot of other things about the system isn't the way that normal Windows devices would work is this kernel they have not a Linux kernel no it absolutely is a Linux kernel and in this way with this one argument here yeah buy what Android has done it's still in the realm of Linux but don't worry it only gets better from here the second point it doesn't include the gnu software and libraries foreign if you agree that your new software is a defining characteristic of a Linux distro you're wrong uh to the point where we should all be referring to Linux distros as gnu Linux then there's no way that Android can be a Linux distro Android includes very little gnu software most notably the Android team developed a customized C library called bionic rather than using the new C library there is no argument to be made that a Linux distro has to have the gnoodles why are we still talking about this this is our plan Linux this is Camaro Linux both of these are non-gunu Linux systems there are implementations of the Unix tooling of the C library that are not from gnu and these still use the Linux kernel these are Linux distributions everybody in the Linux space has already accepted that these are Linux distros I don't know how this argument keeps coming up it hasn't mattered for like at least 15 years so even if you disagree that a Linux distro has to include gnu software then there's still no denying that the absence of gnu makes Android very different from the majority of the Linux District Community it does but it doesn't make it not Linux the reason why every distro uses GNU is gnu was the first thing available and canoe is good so there's no reason to stop using it all of the other Solutions are just as good so there's no benefit to swap to them unless you prefer the license and that just doesn't matter for most people but there absolutely are places where it does matter say for example you have a car computer if this is running Linux in many cases it's using a non-gunu Linux if you have an embedded system in a lot of cases this is using non-gnu Linux because the license just simply doesn't make sense in that business context these are very much still Linux distros on to the third point you cannot run Linux apps on Android and vice versa if you picked several Linux distros at random then chances are that the Linux kernel would be the only software component they have in common I was not going to address this point but that's completely wrong things like xorg don't get updated that often so they're likely to be the same things like the gnu software does not get updated that often very likely to be the same many point releases have a similar release cycle so it's likely they'll include similar versions of software especially if that software moves fairly slowly and gets updated like every three every six months things like that so I have no idea why that point isn't being made I feel like they're meant to say Android and the distros but they didn't they just said the distros in fact Android has so little in common with other Linux distros that it's impossible to run makes apps on Android at least not natively now I feel like the author didn't do any research when they wrote that they probably just like read it somewhere I was like ah yeah that's true that's definitely the case it's not so no emulation no virtual machines on Native Hardware no rooting the device uh this is termax so yeah um you can run Linux applications on an Android device now when it says terminal emulator that's just the word we use for terminal because we're emulating a physical terminal but this is termux It's existed for like a long time is it going to let you run everything no absolutely not but things will run so the point goes in the bin now in the other direction there is a point being made there Android apps require Android specific libraries a runtime plus a range of other software that's only found in the Android OS so by default you cannot run Android apps on any platform other than Android I'll give you that that's fair the closest you can really get in this regard is way Droid but wageroid is absolutely not perfect now for the next point when we get to the planetary level reach Android is a Google product yes it is Google may make the base Android source code publicly available via AOSP but Google develops the next release of AOSP privately in fact the AOSP website clearly states that Google retains responsibility for the Strategic direction of Android as a platform and a product there's also the small matter of Google owning the rights to the Android name and logo so even if you do build an operating system based on AOSP code you'll need to liaise with Google if you want to release your work under the end word name while some Linux distributions do have strong links to a particular company canonical and to immediately spring to mind what about um red hat and Rel also it's a pretty good example it's unusual free Linux gesture to be developed in private entirely by a single organization it might be unusual but it's not unheard of like rel's probably the best example there as for the logo and name most people don't pay attention to the legal stuff going on in the background but most projects that take themselves seriously do have a trademark to their logo and name like canonical owns the Ubuntu name in Ubuntu logo the Arts Linux team owns the Arch Linux name in the arch links logo Red Hat owns the real logo in the real name like all of these things are owned by the distro owners like this is not weird this is why if you make a distro based on Ubuntu you can't just call it like Ubuntu Unity when it wasn't an official flavor it had to be called Ubuntu Unity remix and Arch links for example there was a project called I think it was called Arch Linux install or something like that and they were asked to change their name by the Arch Linux team also why it might be weird for development to be done in private it's not that strange to do bulk updates like this is version one this is version two this is version three and stick all of that in a git repo which is sort of like what's being done with AOSP it's not a great open source development practice but it's also not that crazy on to the next Point Android's open source status is Up For Debate despite the free software foundation's recommendation that developers remove all proprietary software from Linux distributions there's no strict rule that states Linux distributions cannot include proprietary software in reality many distros include vendor compiled binary drivers also known as binary blobs so really the question is how open is Android compared to your typical Linux distro now the fun thing about this is I wouldn't even call it like a a loose rule or even like a recommendation that anybody takes seriously if you want working Hardware you need proprietary blobs unless you are going to go and buy very specific devices knowing what you can and cannot run but most people are not doing that as we established AOSP is far from an ideal open source project very true however by the time the AOSP base reaches the Android User a lot of proprietary code has been added and this is true regardless of whether you opt for stock Android or a device that features manufacturer modifications Google services being a major part of that but in most cases you're going to have a custom skin as well although many distros do include proprietary code uh I would say like 99 of them with the exception of like 10 15 at most for many people the term Linux has a strong association with open source software technically it's free software but I'll let them have that and all of that user-facing proprietary code does tend to make Android feel more closed-sourced than your typical Linux distro and yes it absolutely does there is no doubt in my mind that Android is typically used in a very proprietary fashion but in the same vein there are distros like Steam OS on the steam deck yes it's using KDE in the background and yes it has all of this fun gnu stuff but you can use that system and never go outside of the steam client you can have effectively a completely proprietary desktop and at the end of the day it's still a Linux distro I think the best way to put it is just because one aspect of the project isn't open that doesn't make the open part any less open like with Vivaldi for example where they have a proprietary interface but at the end of the day it's still running chromium underneath on to the final point and why I wanted to make this video you cannot customize the Android OS by default and that sounds pretty reasonable yeah you have some theming but you can't make like underlying changes while it's typically pretty easy to modify a Linux distribution at the operating system level by default Android owners cannot access the underlying operating system on their smartphone or tablet and sensitive petitions are locked down tight however by default is key here you can gain access to areas of your device that are normally closed off through a process known as routing what do we call the use that has operating system level access to your Linux distribution I'll give you a couple of seconds to think about it if you guess root user you would be correct now why do we call it rooting on Android could it be because you were given root user level privileges so you can modify operating system level components routing is the exact same thing you have to do on Android as you do on Linux the only difference is on a regular Linux distro you set the root password so rooting the device is very simple on Android on most devices you have to do some exploits to get that access I love the fact that an Android User can talk about routing a device unlocking the bootloader and have no idea what the underlying terminology actually means and somehow think that's any different from what happens on regular Linux but let me know your thoughts down below I know there's going to be a discussion about whether Android is or is not Linux but do you think the arguments made in this article were good and I'm just taking it out of context or do you think they're really missing a lot of the information there and framing it in a way that doesn't really make any sense I would love to know so if you liked the video might have gone like the video and if you really liked the video and you want to become one of these amazing people over here check out the patreon scrub Sally therapy Linked In the description down below that's gonna be it for me and Google bad [Music] 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