Wayland On Android Is Continuing To Come Along

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Wayland On Android Is Continuing To Come Along

The Wayland port for Google's Android platform is continuing to be hacked on by Collabora. Here's some new details...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTEyMzU

[uid313]

Why is it desirable to run Wayland on Android?

[89c51]

Why is it desirable to run Wayland on Android?

Run a full linux desktop at an android phone maybe. Like the thing Canonical is trying to achieve. You dock the phone you have an ubuntu desktop, you undock you have an android phone.

[e8hffff]

Waste Of Time?

I don't want to be offensive, but isn't this a waste of time?

Anyone with the skills to port it to Android should be working on getting the the main project up and running first.

What's the point of Wayland on Android as it's already got a display manager that isn't going to change any time soon.

Promote proper Linux first and as a secondary then maybe broaden the scope!

[mark45]

The 2 points I can think off the top of my head are:

1) Lower the barrier for new Linux mobile OSes to make sure Linux on mobiles strives and to help loosen Google's consolidating Android "monopoly" by eliminating core/sophisticated components from Android which are Google-specific.
Currently you (only) use the Linux kernel but have to create your own mobile graphics stack (X.org doesn't cut it) which is a lot of work and usually boils down to a "good enough" boilerplate. Providing a display server (Wayland), and possibly the Weston compositor with plugins, makes it a lot easier to have a 1st class Linux graphics stack based on the mainstream Linux PC stack. The ever increasing power of mobile CPUs and GPUs allows for this, now is the right time to simplify and unify without losing flexibility.

2) The maintaince for non-Google companies of their own fork/whatever of Android will be easier in case they part ways with Google (e.g. because it acquires Motorola) and try to develop their own Android fork or a new Linux OS not to be dependent on Google at all.

[daniels]

If you read the presentation, you'll see the explanation of why. A lot of it boils down to the fact that IHVs often only support Android and do not even attempt to support vanilla Linux with the regular GNU userland.

[89c51]

If you read the presentation, you'll see the explanation of why. A lot of it boils down to the fact that IHVs often only support Android and do not even attempt to support vanilla Linux with the regular GNU userland.

Don't they have tizen which is far more vanilla linux than android?? And up until now meego which was also more vanilla

[pq__]

When you think about Wayland on Android, don't think about smartphones. That probably is not where it will fly. Think about tablets, laptops, etc. larger devices, where you could use more desktop-like features and apps. We are only using a phone to develop on, because it was conveniently available, with recent software.

To e8hffff: unfortunately, it seems to be easier to get paid for working on something related to all these little new hot devices than working on something directly for the desktop. Hopefully on the side we can also benefit the desktop. People are going to write software for those devices, so is it better they write it using proprietary Android APIs, or (to be) standard APIs like Wayland that would work with much less effort on the Linux desktop, too?

[smitty3268]

Don't they have tizen which is far more vanilla linux than android?? And up until now meego which was also more vanilla

Sure they "have" it, just like they can download HURD kernels. They just don't care about it.

[89c51]

Sure they "have" it, just like they can download HURD kernels. They just don't care about it.

I dont disagree.

Big part of Androids success in Big G backing it up. And when Nokia managed to put a phone (N9) on the market that got some praise they killed Meego completely.