this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
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This is going to be nice. Good first step.

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[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 9 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Press X to doubt.

The root filesystem will very likely still be locked down.

[–] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

That’s not what this is about at all.

With the latest Android 16 beta, you can now allocate as much storage as you want to the Linux Terminal

until recently, it was restricted to just 16GB of storage space

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, but that means that not the entire storage is available like the headline implies.

[–] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

VMs can’t ever do that on any OS. I don’t think that’s a reasonable expectation.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 6 points 2 hours ago

Correct. The whole thing is lauded as this revolutionary new thing but in reality it's just a bullshit VM isolated from the rest of the system. We have had that almost for as long as Android existed. Along with Termux and similar that actually can access everything.

[–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

You can still root pixel phones no problem, no?

[–] secret300@lemmy.sdf.org 35 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

Yeah let me know when I can install mainline Linux.

Definitely a step in the right direction, but the fact that android uses the Linux kernel but still manufacturers keep so much proprietary... It kills me

[–] mikey@sh.itjust.works 7 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I mean... This is kinda close. The "Linux Terminal" app is running a full Debian install in a KVM VM. On the newest version of the app (like on Android beta or on GrapheneOS), you even have a full GUI that you can use.

In theory, we should be able to boot any mainline Linux distro in a VM, if someone writes an app for it, as AVF (Android Virtualization Framework) is just a wrapper around Linux KVM with some restrictions. (for now the built-in app only supports Debian)

[–] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 1 points 2 hours ago

Can I plug in an hdmi cable/keyboard/mouse and use it like a desktop and is there some way I can mount the android storage? (Eg can I get access to docs/pics/downloads)

[–] Quackdoc@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

Im not sure what you mean, like, run android on mainline linux? if that is the case you already can. Not on all devices, but I think the pixel can run mainline kernel, I know ofc you can run androidx86 on mainline, if you mean via terminal I think you can sideload mainline. At least, if you compile your own rom you absolutely would be able to.

[–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 16 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

They're doing this because they want to switch chrome to be android based, and they want to have desktop apps available right away since chrome doesn't have much.

[–] stsquad@lemmy.ml 4 points 5 hours ago

Not just that - modern Androids compile apps in a VM these days to reduce the attack surface of the compiler. You can also push other services into VMs that support the main image. You could even push some vendor drivers into VMs and help keep the main kernel less of a vendor fork fest.

[–] iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee 8 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I'd like to be able to test installing a full DE, but I made the mistake of getting only the 128GB model and so now I have always free storage issues 😅

[–] drwankingstein@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 hours ago

I has 64gb so I know your pain lol

[–] d3lta19@lemmy.ca 4 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

This is gonna be cool. Does Android 16 release in the fall?

[–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 6 points 11 hours ago

Some time in June.