How do I use Android’s “Surface” classes?

Question

Is there a detailed explanation of Surface, SurfaceHolder, EGLSurface, SurfaceView, GLSurfaceView, SurfaceTexture, and TextureView?  In particular:

• What’s the difference between SurfaceView and TextureView?
• Do I need to use GLSurfaceView to use OpenGL ES?
• How do Surface and EGLSurface interact?
• What does SurfaceTexture do?
• Why does the stuff I draw on a SurfaceView have to go above or below everything else?
• What is SurfaceFlinger?
• How does composition of the status and navigation bars work?
• While we’re at it, what’s the right way to structure a game loop on Android?

Answer 1

The answers to these and many other questions can now be found on the Android Open Source Project web site:

Android System-Level Graphics

The document begins with an explanation of the low-level infrastructure, and then explains how the higher-level features are built from them. The goal is not to provide direct answers to common questions, but rather to describe the system at a level of detail that makes the answers apparent without being overwhelming.

The choice of material and level of detail were heavy influenced by Q&A on stackoverflow.

(Technically this is a link-only answer, but writing 10,000 words here seemed like a bad idea.)