Chinese phones that let you unlock the bootloader are actually a great deal

If it can’t run GKI then not interested

ADB commands cannot permanently remove system applications, they can only disable them till you get around to wanting to enable them again. The problem starts getting ugly when you disable a lot of stuff at once and then something breaks and you’re too lazy to track down which component was necessary. A couple of applications are no problem. Of course, it’s been a year since I’ve tried ADB so RTFM. Don’t worry so much about it

It runs on a rooted device?

I think they should stop working on new features other than the occasional option and make these all about security updates

You’ll have a hard time running AI on relatively affordable mobile devices

Why do you want a mobile device specifically?

Just use any cheap one that you can find that runs Linux well. There’s 100s of them I’m sure you’ll find your pick

Singe Board Computer

Get an SBC with a battery backup

Kernel Module Interface, Google’s new project with making the GKI mandatory on devices. I think it’s a good step.

Yeah if the ABI changes spec frequently I can see the problem. Thanks

Apologies for my tone earlier. I simply did not expect an in-depth and genuinely thought someone did a copy-pasta from another relevant thread/got an LLM answer in. It was my mistake to assume as such and I apologise.

Ah, indeed for some reason this part about the Linux kernel completely escaped my mind about it being a monolithic kernel. Yeah I can see the problem now. Unfortunate that OTA updates are the only way for updates to reach devices not supported by custom ROMs.

I’m sorry again.

By Kernel I mean GKI

I feel like at least part of this is copy-pasta, but whatever. You make valid points, but I do not understand how it is relevant to the question. If proprietary drivers can be plugged in as modules (which is what GKI wants), shouldn’t I just be able to update to the latest FOSS GKI myself (which is exactly what Google wants to do with Play updates to the kernel) and keep the drivers from the vendor?

Sorry but I’m having trouble following the discussion. Copying over from another comment:

If I keep the proprietary drivers of the vendor in place and just upgrade to the latest GKI by Google, shouldn’t that be OK in theory? Unless the KMI itself changed and everything breaks.

I don’t understand: If I keep the proprietary driverss of the vendor in place and just upgrade to the latest GKI by Google, shouldn’t that be OK in theory? Unless the KMI itself changed and everything breaks.