On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 9:50 PM, Rob Landley <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 01/24/2016 10:06 PM, dmccunney wrote: >> On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 10:41 PM, Rob Landley <[email protected]> wrote: >>> I'm hoping that in future Android grows a userbase plugging their phone >>> into a USB hub with hdmi adapter, mouse, and keyboard (or chromecasting >>> to their TV with bluetooth keyboard and mouse) that can actually pop up >>> a terminal window. I'd like android devices to grow into the workstation >>> space and organically displace PC hardware. Your suggested change works >>> against that goal, when you _do_ have a terminal size, it's good to use >>> it... >> >> There are attempts to create X86 ports of Android that *can* be used >> that way. They are all alpha at this point. > > I'm aware of them. I'm also aware of people trying to use telco android > as a desktop, ala https://lwn.net/Articles/668822/ but I'm not focused > on that level. > > I'm trying to get AOSP to build on vanilla out of the box android. > Beyond toybox, we need llvm or similar, and we need "make" and "git" > implementations that aren't GPL, and probably m4...
(off-topic, but for building AOSP, make's already dead. https://groups.google.com/forum/?pli=1#!topic/android-platform/Hhl_4hfOONg has more details. ninja is already Apache-licensed.) > Working on it. I've done some research on those last 3 and am prepared > to implement them myself if nobody else has before I get there. > >> One of the things I've been watching for a while is convergence, and >> the idea that you'll run a flavor of the *same* OS on any device you >> may have. Ironically, Windows seems closest, with Windows on the >> server, desktop, laptop, notebook, tablet, and phone. OS/X and iOS >> are increasingly converging, and seeing OS/X subsumed into iOS and iOS >> running on everything Apple makes would not be a surprise. >> >> Linux is the odd man out, given that the Linux kernel itself runs on >> almost everything, but there are more different and largely >> incompatible distros than I can keep track of. Android being the >> one-size-fits-all Linux distro that unifies the Linux space seems to >> be the best bet for convergence there. > > Linux on the desktop failed, getting vendors to preinstall it didn't > happen and getting users to reimage their machines never cracked 2% > market share. > > But a billion Android phones _exist_, and get gradually more powerful > with time. > >> I have a good terminal app on my Android tablet (Jack Palevich's >> Terminal Emulator), > > There's apparently one in the base AOSP build, which you can install > through the app store ("Terminal") but isn't installed by default for > reasons I don't understand at all. > >> and I look forward to a version of Toybox than >> can make Busybox go away. > > For Aboriginal Linux's self-hosting and linux from scratch bootstrapping > build, I still need: > > awk bzip2 dd diff expr fdisk ftpd ftpget ftpput gzip less ping > route sh sha512sum tar test tr unxz vi wget xzcat > > There's a bunch more things in defconfig, but that's what I need for the > self-hosting part. (And the ftp stuff could be replaced by functioning > network mounts so maybe v9d or smbd instead...) > >> I regularly use an external keyboard, and >> can use a mouse if I plug in a hub. >> >> Given the steadily increasing power and decreasing size of components, >> I don't expect it to be long before your phone *is* your computing >> device, that you carry around as a phone, and plug into a docking >> station with KB, mouse, monitor, NAS and the like and *poof!*, it's >> your workstation. > > The economies of scale tilt that way. A billion phones shipping > annually, an installed base expected to stabilize around 6 billion, > that's going to erode the PC niche the way the PC eroded minicomputers > and mainframes. > > The question is what the resulting systems will be like. That's still up > in the air. (Apple's read-only ipad future would not be fun.) > > Rob > _______________________________________________ > Toybox mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.landley.net/listinfo.cgi/toybox-landley.net -- Elliott Hughes - http://who/enh - http://jessies.org/~enh/ Android native code/tools questions? Mail me/drop by/add me as a reviewer. _______________________________________________ Toybox mailing list [email protected] http://lists.landley.net/listinfo.cgi/toybox-landley.net
