[dozzie]

> It reminds me in the early days of "smart phones" people would say where is the Linux phone OS we keep hearing about. They just didn't understand that Android was Linux based.

It's actually the people who believe that Android is Linux-based that are mistaken. If you write for Android, you write for Android and nothing more. You can't just run the application on a regular Linux (i.e. the one with libc and X11), and if Google ever rips Linux kernel out of it and replaces with, say, DOS, most of the applications won't even need to be recompiled, because they were using Android's API/ABI.

[TomMarius]

That changes nothing about Android being Linux based, though. The word "based" has a definition, and you're trying to change it.

[dozzie]

Then what does it mean "to be based on"? What's its definition, and a one that's well-established and commonly agreed upon, since you're trying to invoke it?

[TomMarius]

"a fundamental principle or groundwork; foundation; basis"[1]

[1] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/based

[dozzie]

And in what way is the Linux kernel the "fundamental principle" or "foundation" of Android? How is it so important that you can rip it out and replace with something totally different without much change to the applications running on top?

[TomMarius]

You can replace NT with Linux (or Linux with NT) as well. Userspace has nothing to do with this, kernel has its API and the userspace is built on top of it

[dozzie]

> You can replace NT with Linux (or Linux with NT) as well.

No, not quite, not without enormous effort. Look at Cygwin or WSL or Wine: tons of work poured into and still not there yet.

On the other hand, typical Android application only ever touches Android's API and doesn't even leave its JVM. Replacing whole kernel (with obvious single point of work in Java interpreter) would be practically invisible.

[LocalH]

I think you’re confused about Linux being anything more than a kernel

[baldfat]

How so? Android runs on the Linux Kernel.