Thread · HN Continuity

It's a special version of Android that has a developer mode that unlocks a virtual (sandboxed) Linux environment. Because otherwise, no one would be able to use git (Android's filesystem abstraction is so slow for git, it's worse than NTFS).

Inside the virtual layer, you get real ext4/btrfs and real terminal applications will run at near-native speeds (supposedly) but their ability to interact with other applications (Android side) will be limited.

In short, it's not a real computer. Not a general-purpose one, anyway.

Google thinks that the selling point will be that enterprises can have their locked-down environment in the Android OS which allows remote wipe capabilities and heavily-sandboxed apps while it also allows developers the power to run whatever they want inside their little virtual Linux sandbox (e.g. VS Code). Sort of like WSL.

What they fail to understand is that enterprises will want just as much control over that sandboxed Linux environment as they have over the Android side of things. Making the entire purpose of the device moot.

Another idea behind the project is that it will allow Google to sell laptops that run processors that are traditionally used in smartphones without having to port the drivers and whatnot to general, open source Linux. Things like deep sleep states with rapid resume should "just work" because it's using Android which was what the vendor targeted when they made the chip.

The foundation of the entire device is hacks upon hacks in order to avoid doing the right thing (and possibly giving up market share to generic OEMs that might make their own ARM laptops).

The actual solution to all these issues is for mobile processor companies like Qualcomm to just be good Linux citizens.