Smartphones are easier to use than a pc at the beginning. But the older they get, the harder it becomes. My laptop is older than my smartphone and i can still update the linux on it using the same commands i did in the first year.

Whereas updating LineageOS on my smartphone leaves me either with backporting eBPF to the 3.18 kernel, or somehow patching a newer kernel with device specific patches and hoping the binary blobs will not burst into flames?

I don't even have a firm understanding where to begin, i look at two android linux kernel repos and there is over 36000 commit difference between the two. Will updating the smartphone take years?

The hardware is still fine, my display has no cracks or any other problems, i recently replaced the battery. But somehow updating the software is a herculean task.

#linux #android #smartphone