[gentoo-soc] Re: GSoC 2018 : Portage Powered Android

[gentoo-soc] Re: GSoC 2018 : Portage Powered Android

[Benda Xu]

Hi Ashutosh,

Welcome to the list!

Ashutosh Sathe <2ashutoshbs@gmail.com> writes:

> My name is Ashutosh and I'm a currently a second year computer
> engineering student.
>
> Quick background : i started flashing custom roms on my device since I
> was in high school, and I always wanted to build one for myself. So I
> started learning kernel and rom building from 2016 snd since then it's
> been great so far.
>
> With the said background and title, it's clear that I'm interested in
> portage powered Android. I also read that "Gentoo for Android" is a
> project focussed on bringing Gentoo prefix to Android. Apart from GSoC
> I'd also love to contribute to this project as well.

Thank you very much for your interest!

> I'm interested in knowing more about this idea from you guys. My
> current view is that we have to integrate Gentoo prefix on the top of
> lineageOS(which I've built a couple of times). I've played very little
> with Ebuilds right now, but I'll make sure to play enough before
> applying.

Your experience with Android is impressive.  It will be great if you
could try out and get familiar with Gentoo.  Because that is the common
ground for doing GSoC with Gentoo.

> I read the GSoC 2018 idea "Portage powered Android".  I was a bit
> confused about what the project actually is. I'm writing this mail to
> make myself clear on this topic.
>
> Coming straight towards the point : So far, reading from various
> documentation on internet and Gentoo wiki, I found that there is a
> Gentoo prefix available for Android which is to be installed with root
> + busybox. Using this as a starting point, the goal of this project is
> to make a custom Android ROM that will have this portage + package
> management built in.

No, having "a custom Android ROM that will have this portage built in"
is not the goal.  The goal of the project is to use portage/ebuild to
manage ASOP build systems (or whatever LineageOS uses) to build Android
on the phone itself, *natively* without cross-compiling.  Consequently,
no ROMs are needed to be flashed.  The ultimate goal is to get rid of
ROMs and let smartphones stand on themselves like other personal
computers.

Yours,
Benda