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Help Why is Android not user installable?

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I am an old school PC user and have owned a Android phone since 2011.
I started out with an LG running 2.2 Froyo and are familiar 2.2 Froyo, 2.3 Gingerbread, 4.0 ICS and KK and Lollipop; but I've never done any modifications to these operating systems aside from rooting a couple.

I know the basics of how ROMing and mods are done; like rooting, custom bootloader, USB debugging etc
But I've never done it. My question is why is it so hard to get/make ROMS for Android devices? Why does each OS have to be custom built and flashed as a ROM instead of being able to load a single disk image and have it " install " like Windows on a PC?

I've had so many phones and tablets that were stuck on an outdated OS only to be told that no new ROMS were ever made and I was SOL.
on a desktop you load the OS disk which is a full image of Windows/Linux/ OS X, and the installer program loads in RAM, finds and installs hardware drivers, then flashes to hard disk/ flash drive.
If drivers are not available then you are prompted to install them from a separate disk during OS install.
Even without drivers the computer can still display video in 16 bit legacy mode. All basic hardware works without drivers like keyboard, serial/parallel port, disk drives etc all work in legacy mode without drivers??
 
Hey, thanks for your question(s)!

As you can imagine, there are a lot of differences in the hardware components that make up each Android device as time and technology advances. The same is true for the evolution of Android and the device drivers for each of the manufacturer-specific platforms.

I'm not a ROM dev, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express once :p.

Anyway, to build a custom ROM, here's a starter framework for you need:

- prepare your development environment:

- initial setup:

- pull-down the Android source:


- prepare to build:


- running / testing:

https://source.android.com/source/running.html

- assuming the manufacturer has published the kernel source (no guarantees there), you might build/tweak your own kernel (or use a kernel for a very near version for your same device)


As you can see, it's not a trivial process and there are lots of steps and knowledge / info that is only lightly touched-on in the above links . There are however, lots and lots of sites out there that tell you how to get started and do this.

Cheers and hope that helps!
 
Android Question said:
I've had so many phones and tablets that were stuck on an outdated OS only to be told that no new ROMS were ever made and I was SOL.
on a desktop you load the OS disk which is a full image of Windows/Linux/ OS X, and the installer program loads in RAM, finds and installs hardware drivers, then flashes to hard disk/ flash drive.
If drivers are not available then you are prompted to install them from a separate disk during OS install.
Even without drivers the computer can still display video in 16 bit legacy mode. All basic hardware works without drivers like keyboard, serial/parallel port, disk drives etc all work in legacy mode without drivers??
Click to expand...

Actually OS X isn't as straight forward as Windows, or say Ubuntu. If you have a Mac, usually no problem. But if you want to install OS X on a PC, i.e. a Hackintosh, you've basically got to have the right hardware, which is usually hardware you find in Macs, that Apple supports of course, so no AMD processors and chipsets. And even installing updated OS X on a Mac, if you have an older one, no way! I've got a white 2007 Macbook here, that can't run the latest versions of OS X. But it can run Windows 10 though. :thumbsupdroid:
 
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