Running a mainline kernel on a cellphone

Posted Oct 28, 2015 22:28 UTC (Wed) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404)
Parent article: Running a mainline kernel on a cellphone

It would be nice, but I think the security argument was undercut by the misleading scare tactic of trying to associate the lack of kernel upgrades with a vulnerability in a user space library (stagefright). The problem of an easily updateable open-source user space doesn't really have a solid solution yet. Installing a mainline kernel may or may not help with that.

Running a mainline kernel on a cellphone

Posted Oct 29, 2015 12:58 UTC (Thu) by genaro (subscriber, #82632) [Link] (3 responses)

The association is relevant, as it is only a matter of time before a nasty kernel bug presents on Android devices. As the old kernels drift further from mainline, any effort to bring them up to speed becomes that much more difficult. Stagefright is an easy fix compared to a kernel issue.

Running a mainline kernel on a cellphone

Posted Nov 3, 2015 0:26 UTC (Tue) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (2 responses)

There are all kinds of kernel bugs in every android release. That's just a simple fact. Most of root exploits are actually exploits of either the kernel or a privileged service running on top of it. We wouldn't be able to attain root without it.

Though better security would be a nice thing I doubt we'll see it unless the ARM phone chip guys embrace openness. Qualacom and others are openly hostile to openness.

Running a mainline kernel on a cellphone

Posted Nov 3, 2015 23:17 UTC (Tue) by liam (guest, #84133) [Link] (1 responses)

AIUI, freedreno has received some patches from Qualcomm via their Innovation Center (iirc), on the drm side of things.

Running a mainline kernel on a cellphone

Posted Nov 26, 2015 6:35 UTC (Thu) by speedster1 (guest, #8143) [Link]

> AIUI, freedreno has received some patches from Qualcomm via their Innovation Center (iirc), on the drm side of things.

That was a lucky misunderstanding -- their bosses thought they were contributing to improvements in Digital Rights Management ;)