The Android kernel is generally pretty bad and right now we are missing a build for the newer versions of the Android SDK.
We also have free software phones or phones that are very close but they are 3G. The main problem is that the telephone has always kind of been a tool for surveillance. Cell phones are no exception and the modem in your phone is a total black box.
As far as I understand the comment on Wikipedia, Android can be seen as a Linux distribution, but not as a GNU/Linux distribution which we commonly understand as ‘real’ Linux.
Android is a Linux distribution according to the Linux Foundation, Google’s open-source chief Chris DiBona, and several journalists. Others, such as Google engineer Patrick Brady, say that Android is not Linux in the traditional Unix-like Linux distribution sense; Android does not include the GNU C Library (it uses Bionic as an alternative C library) and some other components typically found in Linux distributions.
I use Alpine Linux quite a bit, which is a Linux distro that doesn’t use the GNU coreutils or glibc.
Also even giving GNU such a high level in the name on a distro like Arch makes little sense imo because other components like systemd are arguably much more important than one of many libc libraries you can optionally use and a bunch of coreutils you can also optionally use.
So it should be the some other components which don’t make Android a ‘real’ Linux according to some definition.
Personally I agree, that the Linux kernel makes a system a Linux system. However, the choice of a specific C library is important as it ensures some kind of binary compatibility between distributions, i.e. download a generic ‘GNU/Linux’ binary and run it is possible.
I think that both ChromeOS and Android are Linux. They may not embody a free software mentality, but they are Linux.
Android can be free software but it takes so doing and has limitations
Just as Linux-libre has limitations. Mainstream Linux is never 100% FOSS.
The Android kernel is generally pretty bad and right now we are missing a build for the newer versions of the Android SDK.
We also have free software phones or phones that are very close but they are 3G. The main problem is that the telephone has always kind of been a tool for surveillance. Cell phones are no exception and the modem in your phone is a total black box.
Android is not really Linux, as has been explained about a bazillion of times. It uses a Linux kernel, doesn’t make it a Linux distribution.
Then what would be needed to make it a Linux distro, instead of “just” a Linux-based OS?
As far as I understand the comment on Wikipedia, Android can be seen as a Linux distribution, but not as a GNU/Linux distribution which we commonly understand as ‘real’ Linux.
The Android kernel is a mess (I’m looking at you, hardware vendors)
I use Alpine Linux quite a bit, which is a Linux distro that doesn’t use the GNU coreutils or glibc.
Also even giving GNU such a high level in the name on a distro like Arch makes little sense imo because other components like systemd are arguably much more important than one of many libc libraries you can optionally use and a bunch of coreutils you can also optionally use.
So it should be the some other components which don’t make Android a ‘real’ Linux according to some definition.
Personally I agree, that the Linux kernel makes a system a Linux system. However, the choice of a specific C library is important as it ensures some kind of binary compatibility between distributions, i.e. download a generic ‘GNU/Linux’ binary and run it is possible.
I use Debian btw. ;-)
Yes, it does. It’s not a GNU/Linux distribution, though.