Pinephone + AOSP Mental Model

[thunderbiscuit]

Hello everyone.



Trying to wrap my head around the Android Open Source Project and the pieces that come together to make it work on specific devices. The image attached is my current mental model of how Android can be built. With this thread I am looking to:






1. refine/restructure the mental model it if it needs it, and



2. understand better if "vendor blobs" are the only thing one needs to make AOSP work on any given device or if more is needed.





Eventually the bigger picture question I have is whether one could build "vanilla" AOSP from source and use it on a Pinephone or whether other pieces are still missing in that architecture to make it work that I have not understood/accounted for.





Thank you!
(mmmm... I can't upload images from my machine on a post?)
Ok here's a link I guess: https://ibb.co/CPF0MHt

[thunderbiscuit]

Wow the spaces between paragraphs on this... haha. Sorry it's my first post. Not sure if I really got this down yet. Also can anyone tell me how to upload a picture? I see others do it!

[nas]

Eventually the bigger picture question I have is whether one could build "vanilla" AOSP from source and use it on a Pinephone or whether other pieces are still missing in that architecture to make it work that I have not understood/accounted for.

No idea on the architecture questions but aosp is already running on pinephone.

https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=10613

[thunderbiscuit]

Thank you!

I'll ask them for more info on this AOSP/Pinephone thing.

[amosbatto]

(mmmm... I can't upload images from my machine on a post?)
Ok here's a link I guess: https://ibb.co/CPF0MHt

In the "Typical Android OS" graphic, you need to add the proprietary additions of cellular service providers (which can be quite a bit for providers such as Verizon). In the Americas, these providers often lock the phones, so you can't use them with another cellular provider.

The apps and skin that LineageOS (and /e/) adds to AOSP are FOSS.

To answer your question in the "Vanilla AOSP" graphic, the only binary blobs in the Pinephone should be the firmware for the Realtek WiFi/BT chip. I haven't checked the code of the GloDroid port for the PinePhone to verify this, but AOSP shouldn't require any more blobs than the Linux versions.