Definitely not mostly Android. It's their own Linux distro/flavour with an "Android compatibility layer" like Waydroid and (gradually open sourced) system components. Ubuntu Touch has a similar approach and I believe postmarketOS as well. I really hope that Jolla's next community device brings them some more traction and subsequent development velocity. I tried installing SailfishOS on my Fairphone 5 but it is not (yet) a polished setup experience from first boot. If they can polish that, I think it's a great OS to facilitate a gradual move from privacy-hell. It would allow absolute must-have apps to live in locked down Android compatibility mode while there's no viable alternative and more and more of your data living in a tracking-free OS.

[–] erebion@news.erebion.eu 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

libhybris literally uses an Android comtainer to bridge over Android kernel drivers from the SoC vendor to the Linux (non-Android) userland.

EDIT: postmarketOS has a mainline strategy, you could create a downstream port, but ultimately their goal is to create strong mainline support for many devices.

[–] Glitterkoe@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

AFAIK they offer a way to port their OS to Android devices by re-using the drivers built for Android when building a SailfishOS image for non-native hardware. I personally wouldn't call that "it's mostly Android", but that might be where we have different interpretations. Your initial comment came across as if it was a glorified launcher or a deGoogled Android. If I interpreted that wrongly, my bad. Cheers

[–] erebion@news.erebion.eu 2 points 1 day ago

I've changed wording from "mostly still Android" to "mostly still Android kernel and Android drivers", I agree, might have been a bit unclear.

Anyway, libhybris requires running half an Android system in a container, so I believe it'd be fair to say it is... half an Android system and a somewhat regular Linux userland with a proprietary UI.

It's important to know that it can only be updated as long as the SoC vendor provides updated kernel sources.

It'd take months to rebase it onto a new kernel. Just trying to port the drivers would take more time than mainlining. But once you keep things upstream, it suddenly becomes much easier to maintain.

That's where mainlining comes in.

For example, I am mainlining the Xperia 10 III to make sure it does not become obsolete trash and can still ne used in a couple years:

https://git.erebion.eu/forgejo/erebion/pdx213-temp