Google recently officially released Android 11. For this latest generation of Android system, the new functions and features brought by it are naturally quite valuable. However, considering that various kinds of magical changes are often made to native Android functions in China, in fact, for domestic users, the impact is limited. The biggest impact of Android 11 on the domestic ecology may be some underlying changes , which are rarely mentioned.
Android 11 is here
That’s right, the bottom layer of Android 11 has changed a lot! The tremendous changes brought about will profoundly affect the majority of users, so let’s talk about it today.
Does the flashing machine no longer become bricks? Recovery partition becomes history!
If you are an Android flashing player, you must know the term Recovery. This is the mode used to restore the system in the Android system. Whether it is the official upgrade system of the manufacturer or the player flashing into a third-party ROM, it usually needs to be done through Recovery. In the Android machine, there is also a special partition to store Recovery, but this will become history in Android 11.
Recovery that is familiar to players
In the traditional Recovery upgrade mode, if the data written to the System partition is incorrect, the machine may not be able to start. The flashing player should be familiar with this kind of “bricking” situation, and even the manufacturer OTA will occasionally “brick”. How to avoid it? In fact, in recent years, new Android devices use the A/B partition mechanism, and many Android devices no longer need Recovery to guide the upgrade.
The change of the Android system startup method requires Recovery, and then directly through the boot boot after using the A/B partition mechanism.
In the Android machine that adopts the A/B partition mechanism, when the system needs to be upgraded, the new system will be written to one of the partitions. After the write is successful, it will start from that partition; if the write fails or the startup fails, Boot from the original partition, which is equivalent to mutual backup of two system partitions, which greatly reduces the failure rate of system upgrades.
The mechanism of Android 11 is similar to this. For machines with Android 11 pre-installed at the factory, the Recovery partition has been cancelled, and the A/B partition mechanism has been changed to a certain extent . When Android 11 needs to upgrade the system, it will compare and verify the data of the new system with the current system data, and write the difference part to another partition instead of the system partition. After that, use the new data to start the system. If the system starts successfully, Then, the difference data is written to the system partition, and if the startup fails, the difference data is discarded and the original system partition data is used to start.
This new mechanism of Android 11 not only has the reliability advantages of A/B partition, but also does not need to occupy a lot of extra space like A/B partition. In any case, the Recovery partition has been abandoned. For machines with Android 11 pre-installed, there is no Recovery partition at the factory. The boot partition takes over the work of the previous Recovery partition. Recovery is an indispensable tool for flashing. Where do flashing players go? I’m afraid we have to find another way out.
Android 11 is the easiest Android ever to upgrade?
We know that Google has been working hard to solve the problem of system fragmentation, and strive to upgrade the device to the latest version of Android. To this end, Google has made a lot of efforts. For example, the Project Treble mechanism was implemented in Android 8.0, which separates the system (Android OS framework) from the hardware driver (Vendor implementation). After that, manufacturers can push new versions of Android separately for devices. No need to re-adapt the drive.
Project Treble separates Google’s Android system framework from the drivers provided by hardware vendors
Project Treble greatly simplifies the Android upgrade process, but it is not enough. In Android 10, Google launched Project Mainline to further subdivide and modularize the system. In Android 10, 14 system components are Mainlined. System components such as media decoders, permission controllers, and network components can all be updated through the app store just like ordinary apps. Many friends found out that this year’s Android device’s GPU The driver can be updated independently, thanks to this.
Qualcomm announced that GPU drivers can be updated separately
In Android 11, Google has further subdivided Android components. Android has more than 20 component modules, and Android system maintenance will become more flexible than ever. Not only that, Google will also implement the restructuring into the system kernel, and Android’s Linux system kernel upgrade will become more flexible.
In the current Android system, Linux system kernel upgrade generally requires three steps. First, Google selects a Linux LTS version as the Android kernel and puts on the patch needed for Android operation; then, Google submits this kernel to SoC vendors such as Qualcomm, and the vendors build it into a SoC-compatible kernel again; finally, Equipment vendors such as Samsung then let the kernel adapt to different components, and once again marked the kernel with various patches to make the kernel a version that can be run on Android devices.
The traditional Android system Linux kernel upgrade process requires many links, which is very troublesome
Due to the cumbersome steps, once the current Android machine leaves the factory, the Linux kernel rarely changes. Even for Google’s Pixel devices, the kernel is still only the older Linux 4.14.
In Android 11, the situation has changed. Google modified the system kernel in a modular manner, and the kernel was divided into Generic Kernel Image (GKI) and other GKI modules. If you want to upgrade the Linux version, Google can push GKI directly to Android devices, and the phone can directly upgrade GKI, and there is no need to go through the cumbersome steps from SoC manufacturer to mobile device manufacturer.
Starting from Android 11, the kernel has been modularized, and a GKI kernel can be used in a large number of Android devices on the market
It is understood that this feature of Android 11 is mandatory for devices with a higher kernel version than Linux 5.4. It can be said that if the factory kernel version of Android 11 devices is Linux 5.4 or higher, then it may be the easiest Android to upgrade in history.
Completely solve the chaos of Android storage directory folder? I believe many people have discovered that after using the Android device for a long time, there will be many strange folders in the storage directory. These folders are generated by various apps. This is actually a historical problem.
Where do the various messy folders in the Android storage directory come from?
The internal storage directory of the Android machine was once very small. For example, the ROM of the classic Milestone was only 512M, and an SD card was needed to expand the storage space. Therefore, the Android App often saves files in the external storage directory (that is, the sdcard directory). Android did not provide a specification for external storage directories before version 4.3. App used to create its own folders in the sdcard directory at will. This habit has been retained until now.
Now, although Android has established storage specifications for the sdcard directory, for example, the Android system stipulates that if the App wants to create a folder in the internal storage space, it needs to be created under the /data/data/ directory, and in the external storage space, it needs to be created under /sdcard/Android /data/ directory. However, this specification is not mandatory. Many apps use third-party SDKs and other various reasons, but depending on the Android storage directory specification is missing, they still build their own folders under the sdcard directory. The confusion of the Android storage directory is therefore Come.
In Android 11, folder chaos is finally expected to be completely resolved. Android 11 will no longer allow apps to create directories and files on the sdcard, and apps can only write data to private folders in specific directories. At present, some apps have begun to prepare for this. For example, the new version of QQ has changed the storage directory from /sdcard/tencent/ to /sdcard/Android/data/com.tencent.mobileqq/Tencent/ in order to adapt to the new Android storage mechanism.
to sum up
In addition to the above mentioned, Android 11 has many very meaningful updates, such as stronger privacy protection, improved notification system, etc., which are not listed here. In general, Android 11 is a version that has undergone major reforms from the inside to the outside. It solves many historical problems of Android. Let’s look forward to it.
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