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by yjftsjthsd-h 1257 days ago
Yeah, give it another decade and perhaps they'll reinvent Linux distros with the ability to upgrade libraries separately from the kernel. (Seriously, though; their examples look a lot like "we figured out how to ship an ad library and xdg-desktop-portal-gtk without upgrading your kernel+libc!")
2 comments
pjmlp 1257 days ago
They already did that, and that is what this buids on, say hi to "Modular System Components":

https://source.android.com/docs/core/ota/modular-system

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jeroenhd 1257 days ago
With the competition not being able to update its web browser without a full system upgrade, I'd say Android is actually ahead in this respect.

You can't just upgrade libraries willy nilly on Android devices for good reason. First it all, Google has no way to know what versions of what libraries are actually modified by the vendor or requires by vendor software. Second, the system image is read only for security and stability reasons, just like it is on many other consumer facing Linux devices. Lastly, these modular upgrades have already been implemented for years for a select subset of the Android API that can safely be updated without causing conflicts.

Having Google update a library on a Samsung phone is like installing an Arch package on Ubuntu. In theory it'll work out fine it's just a newer version, right? In practice you have no idea what's about to happen to the stability of your system.

There's a reason Linux software is actually moving towards the Android way of doing things, packaging all of its dependencies by itself into Flatpaks or AppImages or even Snaps. Externally updated code causes issues across the board, especially in a fragmented space like Linux or Android distributions.

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