Your comment doesn't describe any benefit for users. Maybe a benefit for some developers who consider ideological technology choices a benefit. But users gain nothing.
Re:Will Linux phones stay around this time?
by heavyset_go on Sunday May 02, 2021 @02:50PM
(#27017775)
> Your comment doesn't describe any benefit for users
Read the question that was asked and then look at the address bar to see where it was asked. Most people on HN are familiar with Linux or are developers themselves.
But either way, I disagree entirely. On a platform like webOS or Maemo, users benefited greatly from running traditional Linux userlands. There were millions of users who got to enjoy a plethora of apps and the benefits of extensible, hackable hardware and systems.
Preware, for example, had thousands of apps, extensions, and scripts available to millions of users. Users were able to take full advantage of what their hardware and systems were capable of, instead of being limited to whatever Apple or Google allowed them to do with their APIs.
You can write most of your app in any language, it's only some UI and startup code that needs to be in the javalike languages.
Re:Will Linux phones stay around this time?
by heavyset_go on Sunday May 02, 2021 @02:52PM
(#27017791)
It's still a nightmare to use say, Python, to write Android apps.
A Linux phone can forgo Google's userspace libraries for Android, and if they're really needed, Android can just run in a container like with Anbox. Instead, it can ship with the typical GNU, busybox or ulibc userland that most Linux users are familiar with.
Also, you can use pretty much any language or runtime to write apps for Linux, while you're stuck with the Android Runtime, Android NDK and Java compatible languages and runtimes on Android.