Novel os

Klingerman01

I know that on the roadmap there is a eventual wish to leave android completely. In which case there would indeed be a increase in security because any targeted attacks would likely not work against something new. The question then comes to what all goes I to that? Would it have a novel kernal or would it likely use the Linux kernal? How much of it would be truly novel code?

de0u

Klingerman01 This question is a little puzzling because it both mentions the GrapheneOS roadmap and asks about whether/how Linux would be used. The FAQ "roadmap" question goes into a fair amount of detail about this.

Klingerman01

de0u apologies here is the roadmap I was referencing.

The roadmap can be broken down into several phases:

Near-term enhancements: Check the issue trackers for planned improvements and features. The majority of open issues are concrete and actionable.

Hypervisor integration: Deploy and integrate a hypervisor like Xen to leverage it for reinforcing existing security boundaries. Linux would run inside virtual machines at this stage.

Sandbox reinforcement: Replace Linux inside the sandboxes with a compatibility layer like gVisor, which would need to be ported to arm64 and given a new backend alongside the existing KVM backend.

Phasing out Linux: Over the long term (many years), Linux can be phased out completely, along with the usage of virtualization.

Hardware and firmware security: While currently limited to research and submitting suggestions and bug reports upstream, GrapheneOS aims to move into the hardware space in the long term.

I know these are far off I was just trying to envision it. I was struggling to conceptualize it and the implications of it.

de0u

Klingerman01 I was struggling to conceptualize it and the implications of it.

I think to assess what it means it might be necessary to read a book about Linux and at least some papers about hypervisors.

Klingerman01

de0u true a technical understanding would be ideal. However there is a lot of differences such a mobile platform would Harold. For instance the ui. Would we go for more of a GNOME shell look? Perhaps a android clone? When I think of it I imagine kind of a cross between unity and gnome. Of course there is no way to ever know because of how far off such a thing would be. Just fishing for thoughts about what the experience would be like.

de0u

Klingerman01 Would we go for more of a GNOME shell look? Perhaps a android clone? When I think of it I imagine kind of a cross between unity and gnome.

The material above is about improving the security of the system (which is invisible) by making changes to the architecture of the OS (which is invisible).

Just as an electric car can look like a Nissan Leaf or like a Tesla Cybertruck, the UI is not a direct function of the underlying software architecture.

Klingerman01

de0u ah thats makes sense then. SO likely no change to the average users experience as far as ui goes.