Early implementations of Android-on-Linux used chroot . AoW moves away from this toward , specifically:
Then here’s a concise explanation:
Modern Android (Android 10+) relies on APEX (Android Pony EXpress) packages for system components. In AoW, the rootfs must support the loop-mounting of these APEX packages. The AoW runtime must ensure the host kernel supports loop devices and that the Android init process has the capabilities to mount them within the namespace. aow rootfs
Android relies heavily on SELinux contexts stored as extended attributes ( xattrs ). Many host filesystems (specifically FAT32/exFAT on Windows or older Linux setups) do not support xattrs . Early implementations of Android-on-Linux used chroot