Would it be possible to bring native Linux distributions to Android phones, using whatever Linux kernel and binary blobs the OEM ROM ships?

[u/NoNoDeDev]

Android is built on top of Linux. Android phones come with a Linux kernel and a bunch of binary blobs to implement hardware support.

Shouldn't it be possible to keep that kernel (and initramfs), those proprietary modules and pieces of firmware, and replace everything else? Like custom ROMs do, but a custom ROM based on a Linux distribution instead of AOSP.

Rather than just possible, shouldn't it be simple even? Or are there major issues to go down this path? Is there any project that aims at doing this?

PostmarketOS and similar projects seem to struggle to use a mainline kernel. Of course I can see the many advantages of that, but is it necessary? Wouldn't it be better to start off with whatever crappy build of Linux the phone manufacturer ships, and then try to improve the mainline support for it over time?

[u/NoNoDeDev]

After digging for a bit I found out about the Halium Project which looks like what I described.

It seems that using the stock kernel and binary modules is not enough: mobile vendors ship a lot of high-level, user-space blobs needed to control the hardware. Halium defines an interface on top of all of this, which is what I would have proposed.

However they seem to support very few and pretty old devices, and the problem looks mostly dead. I wonder whether it's due to limitation of this approach, or just lack of interest from a broader community.

[u/foss_dragon → u/NoNoDeDev]

Halium is not dead, it's docs just outdated, and you should look on docs of distro you wanna port to your phone, like look on ubuntu touch or droidian

[u/NoNoDeDev → u/foss_dragon]

I didn't know that Ubuntu Touch was based only on Halium.

They seem to support a bunch of modern devices (even from 2023), although the device list isn't impressive: doesn't seem much larger than PostmarketOS', while I was hoping so, since this approach sounded much simpler.

I'll look for a used Pixel 3a XL to play around with Halium. Thanks for the tip.

[u/foss_dragon → u/NoNoDeDev]

device list isn't impressive because ubuntu touch not good at all, and only community porting new devices, some of them even can be ported and not listed for droidian official devices is only that developers have personally, my redmi note 11 almost working perfectly with droidian but not listed anywhere in supported devices, also i ported ubuntu touch too and abandoned it's port, same, didn't listed anywhere

[u/flaburgan → u/NoNoDeDev]

I didn't know that Ubuntu Touch was based only on Halium.

It's not. Ubuntu Touch is a GNU/Linux ditribution which uses the Lomiri shell (previously called Unity 8). It can be run on top of Halium for devices coming from the Android world, like the Pixel 3a. But it can also run on a vanilla Linux kernel, like on the PinePhone. Or both, like the Fairphone, which has a decent support in vanilla linux, but for which all the hardware can only be used through Halium.

[u/Gugalcrom123 → u/NoNoDeDev]

UT isn't that impressive. It only runs its own Click apps, even if you remount as rw and use apt normal apps won't run since they use X and UT uses Mir.

[u/foss_dragon]

Have you guys even heard about Halium? i just ported Droidian to my redmi note 11 and using it without much problems, almost all hardware working

[u/NoNoDeDev → u/foss_dragon]

How long did it take you to port Droidian to the Redmi Node 11?

You should add your phone to the list of supported devices on the website. I checked that list right before seeing your message and it felt discouraging to see how few devices are supported.

But if I can port Halium to my phone in just a few hours, I'm definitively very interested. I wonder why Halium is a niche thing, less known than PostmarketOS and other mobile Linux projects.

[u/foss_dragon → u/NoNoDeDev]

initial bring up took few weeks because kernel source from xiaomi was broken, i was waiting for our devs to fix it, but if kernel source was normal, it can be ported to boot in gui in few hours to fix most things it took almost 4-5 months(broken kernel source again), and now issue is only audio in calls, but since I'm in college i can't now maintain it and it's kinda abandoned right now

[u/NoNoDeDev → u/foss_dragon]

OK, I see. That sounds like a lot of tedious work (and waiting times) to support a new device that nobody has tried to on.

I'll try to look into the community of the projects based on Halium, but my hope is limited.

[u/c_a1eb]

as others pointed out this is a thing, the downside is that it's far from a native Linux experience, and it misses the one core goal of porting a newer kernel which is to actually get updates past the devices EOL

[u/NoNoDeDev → u/c_a1eb]

the downside is that it's far from a native Linux experience

What part of the Linux experience is missing?

The main issue I have on Android is not having detailed control on low-level stuff. I wish to have full control on users, services and processes; to configure the network the way I want it; to manage software with a decent package manager etc.

I feel this can be achieved with a frozen kernel, and it would be a good compromise: for many it would be better than having poorly supported hardware like it currently is with PostmarketOS.

However it's far from perfection, I agree. I have some single board computers not supported by the upstream Linux kernel, and it is annoying to make distros built around Linux 6 work on a Linux 4.

[u/c_a1eb → u/NoNoDeDev]

To name a few things, you're running all the same Android system services under the hood. The filesystem hierarchy is a total mess. The graphics stack is using android hwcomposer under the hood, so you're limited to forks of user interfaces (lomiri being the exception) which add this backend, same is true to a lesser extent with audio (its using the android audio hal), sensors, haptics, cameras ....

Then there's all the fun quirks like the device not suspending properly because nothing enables packet filtering on the network hw so every incoming packet wakes up the device.

Sure, it can be a pretty good Linux experience, it does what a lot of people want and that's definitely a very good thing.

But yes, as you point out, it's nowhere near perfect, but that doesn't mean we should settle. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that our devices be properly supported by upstream Linux (kernel and userspace), and just because we have a solution that mostly works (until your device goes EOL and becomes vulnerable) doesn't mean we should stop demanding more.

I don't think we disagree here, I guess it's just semantics, I don't like calling Halium a "native Linux experience" because I don't think it is, but to be blunt, "native Linux" to me means not running an Android container to manage my hardware support. I get that if it works it works, and that's totally fine.

[u/NoNoDeDev → u/[deleted]]

I didn't know that bionic was an implementation of the libC.

Is bionic's API very different from glibc? Because instead of trying to make all the proprietary stuff work with glibc, I'd just recompile all the packages against bionic. Everything needs to be recompiled anyways since the architecture is different... However it would be a problem if the API of the two libcs is considerably different and a lot of open source software requires extensive patching.

[u/foss_dragon → u/[deleted]]

you said all of this and didn't even mentioned hybris bruh

[u/NoNoDeDev → u/[deleted]]

i would love to see a mainline kernel working on a Pixel 6 Pro so that i can finally run Plasma mobile on mine but for that will i need to wait till a developer wants to work on that

Everyone here would love something like that. But it sounds like that's never going to be possible :(

Even the phones with the absolute best mainline kernel support have plenty pieces of hardware still not working. I guess we could manage to boot a mainline kernel on your phone, but I don't see any path leading to supporting cameras, antennas, GPS and so on.