[Answer] What Useful Software Is Available for Linux-Based Mobile Systems?

[Answer] What Useful Software Is Available for Linux-Based Mobile Systems?

Linux is not the same as Android—this is a common misconception at the level of basic understanding. Traditional Linux, together with Microsoft Windows and Apple’s desktop operating system OS X, forms the three major operating systems. Compared with the other two, Linux does not necessarily consume more system resources than Windows or OS X does (in a certain sense, OS X could even be considered a branch of Linux). However, because Linux lacks a large amount of support from everyday consumer software, its installation base on personal computers has long been far lower than that of Windows and OS X. On the server side, by contrast, Linux holds a clear advantage thanks to its stability and relatively low resource usage. Deepin is a branch of the Linux system, so its desktop performance should inherit Linux’s strengths, and there should be no issue of it being especially demanding on system resources.

On Android, however, the situation is somewhat different. Although it is also based on Linux, Android made many compromises in areas such as permissions during its early development in order to achieve the highest possible compatibility. This is what led to the widespread perception that Android “consumes performance.” By comparison, Apple’s operating system performs better because its software is optimized for specific hardware. If other Linux systems want to develop mobile versions, they would face the same trade-off between compatibility and optimization, and that is not something that can be achieved overnight. Judging from Ubuntu’s announcement last year that it was abandoning its mobile operating system project, Linux’s attempt to move into smartphones on a large scale has not been successful. Microsoft’s Windows Phone also ultimately failed, which shows just how difficult this really is.