Android-x86 6.0 Marshmallow Uses Mesa 12.0, Adds F2FS File-System

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Android-x86 6.0 Marshmallow Uses Mesa 12.0, Adds F2FS File-System

While Android 7 "Nougat" is available as the latest upstream from Google, the Android-x86 folks have finally put out their first stable release of Android-x86 6.0 Marshmallow...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Android-x86-6.0-Marshmallow

[uid313]

Android 6.0 is nice. I hope they get out version 7.0 Nougat soon tho, even though no apps require 7.0 yet.

It is really nice that Android-x86 uses kernel 4.4, my Nexus 5X still use kernel 3.10.

[Jumbotron]

Hey Michael. Any chance you could do a review of Jide's RemixOS ? This is Jide's version of Android-x86 remade to act more like a desktop OS with keyboard and mouse usage rather than touch (although that still works on touchscreens).

Although the easiest way to use it on a PC (regardless if it's a Windows or Linux box) is to boot it off a USB drive, there is a way to dual boot it. I don't know, however, if someone has tried it with Virtualbox or another VM. Would be cool to always have an Android OS running in a VM right along side your favorite Linux distro.

[Jumbotron]

Sorry.....forgot the link.

http://www.jide.com/remixos-for-pc

[Modu]

Android 6.0 is nice. I hope they get out version 7.0 Nougat soon tho, even though no apps require 7.0 yet.

It is really nice that Android-x86 uses kernel 4.4, my Nexus 5X still use kernel 3.10.

AFAIK it's up to hardware vendors to ship which version of kernel that the hardware can run regardless of the Android version.

[Decay]

Indeed great that they're using kernel v4.4, unfortunately using such a recent kernel is unheard of in the current Android phone landscape.
With this Android-x86 using Mesa, doesn't that imply that it's using a fully OSS video stack? That would be awesome!

[starshipeleven]

AFAIK it's up to hardware vendors to ship which version of kernel that the hardware can run regardless of the Android version.

Yeah it works like that. This happens because drivers are usually blobs and, totally unexpectedly, they don't work with a different kernel version. Unless the hardware manufacturer makes new blobs (not likely), your kernel is locked to that version.

Also there are usually some hacks to get Android to work on that hardware, so it's not 100% "regardless of the android version".

[starshipeleven]

Indeed great that they're using kernel v4.4, unfortunately using such a recent kernel is unheard of in the current Android phone landscape.
With this Android-x86 using Mesa, doesn't that imply that it's using a fully OSS video stack? That would be awesome!

Uhm, I'm not sure what you are trying to say. This is basically Android 6.0 running on top of a garden variety "desktop Linux" kernel.

[sarfarazahmad]

multi gpu (optimus) support is worse than in v5.0 . i have only been able to boot up this 6.0 release properly with vesa, otherwise android's gui stack wont come up and i am stuck at a terminal prompt. now that you say that garden variety desktop kernel is in play. maybe something can be done with it ? look at vgaswitcheroo?

[Julius]

Hmm, so with the recent kernel it should work quite well on those 2in1 Intel Atom X5 tablets right? Those even have a intel GPU, so full FOSS graphics stack.

Could be also a really cool system to try running full Linux in a chroot and thus have the best of both worlds without massive performance impact (same kernel used) and no dual-booting required. Anyone tried something similar before?