Note that this is an old article from 2 years ago and that GKI is already implemented in Android
this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I was about to say, I swear I've been reading articles about Android 14 dropping soon, and this is mentioning 12.
This year's Internet Explorer award goes to... the OP. lol
Yeah, I saw "Android 12" and got confused. 13's been out for a while now, and 14 has open betas on some phones...
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Then SoC vendors like Qualcomm, Samsung, or MediaTek fork Android Common to make an SoC-specific kernel for each major chip release.
Android's kernel fragmentation is a huge mess, and you can imagine how long and difficult the road is for a bugfix at the top of the fork tree to reach to the bottom, where end-users live.
The goal is for Google to fork the Linux kernel once for Android, instead of three times, and give SoC and device manufacturers space for their customizations via plug-in modules.
We've interviewed members of the Android team several times about the GKI, and the plan, eventually, is to be able to update not just LTS kernel versions through the Play Store, but also upgrade to major new releases.
The timeframe for shipping the GKI to consumers is "Android 12," and since this core kernel work only happens on new devices, all eyes will be on the Pixel 6 to see how ambitious Google's first swing at this will be.
Assuming the Pixel 6 ships with Linux kernel 5.10—which was called out several times in this talk—just that will be a big improvement over the usual two-year delay—5.10 was released in December 2020.
The original article contains 830 words, the summary contains 199 words. Saved 76%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!