Errrrmmmm I think this is just an issue either with your choice of distro or your approach to security.
The Linux ecosystem has by far some of the greatest security technologies available for modern operating systems. Android is a Linux distribution after all.
Most of the issues with Linux on a phone so far is more the hardware and architecture to support and integrate the hardware.
Major mobile device manufacturers have secure enclaves, cryptographic co-processors, advanced face/depth cameras, fingerprint readers, etc. The system architecture needs to be tailored to the hardware and security architecture for the threat models mobile devices face that you want to mitigate.
iOS is Unix deep under the hood, Android is Linux deep under the hood. The issues here aren’t with the kernels, they’re with userspace, hardware selection, and perhaps the odd supporting driver, service, or interface.
Current Linux doesn’t come close to Android. I wish it did but you still need root access and permission controls leave something to be desired. I think that is mostly fine for desktop but on mobile the stakes are much higher since spyware could have much more access.
I’m not trying to be rude but none of these points are true. I imagine you’re confusing a single Linux distribution and their architecture with being representative of Linux as a whole. You can indeed spin an unprivileged, immutable distribution with SELinux for MAC, hardened kernel, and so much more, which would blow Android et al out of the water.
I’m basing this all on the Android documentation along with my experience on desktop Linux. I would love if there was a Linux system that was as solid as Android but I haven’t seen anything as of yet.
Build it. Gentoo, Arch, and any other minimalist distro where there’s less userspace fluff out of the box can easily be configured to be incredibly hardened.
Your looking for a desktop distribution that doesn’t really exist out of the box (perhaps Qubes). Android is a mobile OS for a reason and has a different architecture in userspace to accommodate for is threat model and use cases.
Just because desktop distros don’t typically lock down userspace out of the box doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
I don’t think there’s a distro that goes as hard as mobile except maybe some based on flatpaks rather than package repos of libs and bins. But you can piece your own together based on your requirements and personal threat model.
Errrrmmmm I think this is just an issue either with your choice of distro or your approach to security.
The Linux ecosystem has by far some of the greatest security technologies available for modern operating systems. Android is a Linux distribution after all.
Most of the issues with Linux on a phone so far is more the hardware and architecture to support and integrate the hardware.
Major mobile device manufacturers have secure enclaves, cryptographic co-processors, advanced face/depth cameras, fingerprint readers, etc. The system architecture needs to be tailored to the hardware and security architecture for the threat models mobile devices face that you want to mitigate.
iOS is Unix deep under the hood, Android is Linux deep under the hood. The issues here aren’t with the kernels, they’re with userspace, hardware selection, and perhaps the odd supporting driver, service, or interface.
Current Linux doesn’t come close to Android. I wish it did but you still need root access and permission controls leave something to be desired. I think that is mostly fine for desktop but on mobile the stakes are much higher since spyware could have much more access.
I’m not trying to be rude but none of these points are true. I imagine you’re confusing a single Linux distribution and their architecture with being representative of Linux as a whole. You can indeed spin an unprivileged, immutable distribution with SELinux for MAC, hardened kernel, and so much more, which would blow Android et al out of the water.
Source?
I’m basing this all on the Android documentation along with my experience on desktop Linux. I would love if there was a Linux system that was as solid as Android but I haven’t seen anything as of yet.
Build it. Gentoo, Arch, and any other minimalist distro where there’s less userspace fluff out of the box can easily be configured to be incredibly hardened.
Your looking for a desktop distribution that doesn’t really exist out of the box (perhaps Qubes). Android is a mobile OS for a reason and has a different architecture in userspace to accommodate for is threat model and use cases.
Just because desktop distros don’t typically lock down userspace out of the box doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
Edit: Here’s some examples:
Plague Kernel
Hardened Arch Linux
SELinux for MAC
Kernel lockdown
Immutable distro BlendOS
Bubblewrap sandboxing
Firejail sandbox leveraging hardened malloc
Hardened Alpine Linux
I don’t think there’s a distro that goes as hard as mobile except maybe some based on flatpaks rather than package repos of libs and bins. But you can piece your own together based on your requirements and personal threat model.