Hey there, Just wondering is Linux on an Android device (through UserLAnd or else) is as secure as Linux as the main OS.

Edit…Should say private not secure

Tanx much

  • shirro
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    1 month ago

    There is no simple answer. Its is almost entirely dependent on implementation. All systems are vulnerable to things like supply chain attacks. We put a lot of trust in phone vendors, telcos and Google.

    If you are going to compare to something like termux you need to compare with an equivalent sandboxed environment on regular linux, like a docker/podman container with appropriate permissions. As far as I know they use the same linux kernel features like cgroups and namespaces under the hood.

    Traditionally Linux desktop apps run with the full permissions of the user and the X window system lets apps spy on each other which is less secure than Android sandboxing by design. There have been attempts to do better (eg flatpak/flatseal, wayland) but they are optional.