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Hi there!
Is anybody working on porting linux to xda now ? Is any info about project's state available ?
I found this idea very interesting, and I'm interested in porting Linux on my cell phone - SONY CMD-J5. Internally xda & j5 is very similar(!) - both have hercrom100 cpu, twl3011 chip, and there is absolutely no docs on hardware, excluding firmware hackers' info (r00t.host.sk, http://hyperion.sp.unipg.it/bodhi3/), but there is still nothing that seems like datasheet.
HI
No help to give I'm afraid but am having a similar linux problem. Mainly connecting to a linux based wireless LAN and using telnet facilities on linux systems.
No progress
Hi,
As far as I'm aware no-one is working on it. Mostly because everyone is too busy with other stuff and it doesn't have priority. Maybe because people are too busy finding out what can be done with the current software.
One note though: when running Linux on an XDA you have nothing todo (or hardly) with the hercom chipset etc. The ARM that would run Linux is completely separate and would communicate with the GSM modem through a serial AT command interface.
OK, thank you.
And then a new question: if two devices both using hercrom100 & twl3011 chips, they must (?) have similar hardware IO ports. For example, it was concluded that on Sony J5 on-chip com port data register is accessible via 0xFFFF5800 port, and first timer's control registers are accsible via 0xFFFFF800, 0xFFFFF802, 0xFFFFF804 ports. I didn't find any info about this ports on the site's pages. What's the matter ? I know that they are busy people, and cannot spend a lot of time disposing XDAs. More politely, I want to ask - is any sort of similar info is available to anybody ?
In the XDA all or almost all I/O with the end-user is taken care of by the StrongARM chip. This chip communicates through GPIO lines and a serial port with the GSM ARM chip. This part is the custom ARM/DSP combo. I suspect that there will be great similarities between things like hardware ports on the processors themselves. I doubt that the are used in the same way as on the XDA. For the XDA port it is not needed to touch the hercom chipset at all.
Porting linux to something like such a Sony sounds like a very big and uncertain effort. With the XDA at least there is the iPaq, which is similar and has a linux port. Still for that port Compaq used a lot of internal specs that are not available on the XDA. I suspect the Sony to be quite different from the XDA because I don't think it will have and additional strongARM for starters. Do you know if the thing was manufacutered by HTC for Sony? Because if it is a Sony design than even if the chipsets are identical there is no comparison possible.
Hmm. I expected that you have a bit info about hercrom chipset.
Also I expected that hercrom chip plays a more significant role in the xda, than a gsm modem. But the firmware loaded to hercrom cpu might be useful - possibly it converts AT commands to the output on some ports to drive the gsm hardware; may be it quite plain for reverse-engeneering than Sony firmware, where gsm hardware driving routines mixed up with lot of other stuff. Hmm. May be, it is possibe to find a guy from, for example, HTC software development team, who can help us. Dreams, dreams..
"Porting Linux" is sounds quite good, but now it's no more than brave idea, you right.
There is no additional chip in the Sony that drives LCD, takes care of user input and so on. Also, I don't know who is real manufacturer of the device. It is almost certainly known that hercrom is the one and main cpu in the device. There are 32Mbit flash chip, in which resides the firmware. And this firmware is disassembled by ~10-20 volunteers.
Thank you very much.
And where is my Interactive Disassembler ?
Hello all...
Just some quick questions with xda and linux...
- What's the current status of linux support? Like, what works, what doesn't?
- How many people (or maybe also who) are actually working on porting linux onto the xda?
- What has to be done for xda linux support?
Thanks.
Pigeon.
Staus of porting Linux to XDA
Status of porting Familiar Linux to the XDA:
a) Lots of people think it would be totally cool
b) Nobody's doing it
We here at XDA-developers would love to help out and share our experience with the device and we can invest quite a bit of time. But we're not diving into this one on our own (just yet).
Given that Familiar Linux runs on an iPaq the job wouldn't be too great. Getting the kernel to run would be doable. Getting it to talk to the screen, modem and buttons may be a little more tricky. And there issues with the flash chips not being supported by Bootblaster (?). Probably the lack of a sleeve-interface and/or CF-card slot would make development a little bit more tricky.
All in all, it would be a Good Thing (tm) if some people that are really familiar with familiar would spend a secluded weekend with some of our gurus, sometime later this summer. Maybe do this as a project at CCC Camp?
Familiar and etc...
I've been using Linux/Familiar on my Ipaq for quite a while (2+ years). I'm also a developer for Familiar and GPE (not actively right now though, "busy" you know I have a fair bit of knowledge how it works as a distro. However I'm not really a Linux kernel/drivers hacker. I'm willing to help porting Linux onto xda for sure, though I don't really own a xda yet, which is even more tricky. Been looking around ebay for xda but haven't started really getting/biding one yet.
Anyway... I'm basically one of those i-am-not-buying-a-device-unless-it-can-run-linux person.
Cheers.
Lots of recruits
Looking like there are a lot of us on this site just gagging for Linux on our XDA. Hopefully by the end of the summer this will have emerged in some way then.
Perhaps now would be an appropriate time for somebody here, or elsewhere to take charge? Of course it has to be somebody who has time, and knowledge. Me personally am one of the many people who are eager to test, but don'y have a clue!
Many thanks. And heres to something getting underway very soon.
w w w . l i n u x . x d a - d e v e l o p e r s . c o m
here we come !!!
Martin
Maybe we could have a bit more detail list of what steps are needed to be done/discovered in order to have a usable (or full) linux port on the xda?
Something like...
- JTAG
---- locating JTAG pins(?)
- bootloader
- drivers(?)
- etc(?)
Someone who really knows about the xda can come up a comprehensive one and people can slowly work on them?
Pigeon.
Hi
Now that I made some progress, we can look at this.
pigeon said:
Maybe we could have a bit more detail list of what steps are needed to be done/discovered in order to have a usable (or full) linux port on the xda?
Something like...
- JTAG
---- locating JTAG pins(?)
- bootloader
- drivers(?)
- etc(?)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Currently I finished the JTAG part and a bootloader can be flashed in this way. More details can be found at the following page, but it has not been finished completely yet: http://xda-developers.com/jtag/
To port Linux, I think the following steps are needed:
- reverse engineer the hardware mapping to registers, pins and addresses
- port a bootloader with this information
- port the kernel with this information
Now the first two parts would be an iterative loop, starting with a basic set of hardware features such as screen, touch screen and buttons. For this it is necessary to understand how the bootloader (for example bootldr at http://cvs.handhelds.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/bootldr/) works and how it can be limited to basic functionality.
When the bootloader has been ported with the basic hardware features than this information can be pretty much directly used for porting the kernel.
Question is:
Who has experience with coding in the bootldr or BootBlaster for iPaq?
Who has experience reversing the Wallaby bootloader to figure out how hardware is controlled from software?
Who can create a basic build for running the bootloader in RAM on the XDA from Windows CE?
Any volunteers can mail me, but I don't have much time to instruct. People should have the ability to take a 'Figure out how the LCD is controlled' and proceed from there with something like IDA Pro.
XDA developer W4XY said:
Question is:
Who has experience with coding in the bootldr or BootBlaster for iPaq?
Who has experience reversing the Wallaby bootloader to figure out how hardware is controlled from software?
Who can create a basic build for running the bootloader in RAM on the XDA from Windows CE?
Any volunteers can mail me, but I don't have much time to instruct. People should have the ability to take a 'Figure out how the LCD is controlled' and proceed from there with something like IDA Pro.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, I took it upon myself to at least create a basic port and procedure for getting bootldr running on the XDA in RAM (without flashing). When that is working, I'll post more details on where to get it etc.
Good Luck
We appreciatte the effort that you all make on this site. As I have no experience in any of the things that you mentioned I can be of little assistance for the moment. But as one of the few here that are interested in this Linux port, I look forward to testing and giving feedback.
Looking forward to the XDA Special Edition Linuc ROM ! ! ! v0.01
Martin
Available to work
I have a couple of years experience coding under Linux on desktop PCs, and some experience coding kernel modules, although no specific experience of Familiar.
I don't have an XDA yet (quite a big obstacle except at CCC), but I want to get one soon; I saw one a friend of mine had, and I fell in love with it.
I have quite a lot of time to work on stuff like this, and I'm thinking of going to CCC if a couple of other people are who are interested in Linux on XDA.
I'll be on #xda-developers on IRCnet and #familiar and #handhelds.org on Freenode.net pretty much every evening (BST) and my email is [email protected]
Good deal. Thanks for the offer for assistance.
Can't come to CCC
I'm afraid I've decided that I can't come to the CCC. It's too short notice (only found out about it a couple of days ago), a long way to travel, I'd be coming alone, and I already have plans for that weekend.
Contributors sought
An old thread back to life! Linux porting has now started in full on http://xanadux.org. We're looking both at porting to Wallaby and Himalaya and do not want to stop after the kernel is done. Userland applications and maybe even a full distribution are our goal.
Check it out.
I wish to know:
1. What is the status of the project now?
2. How to join? (I tryed to send to the email there but couldn't)
regards,
Hi,
AlBaraSoft said:
I wish to know:
1. What is the status of the project now?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Currently there are two developments going on:
XDA 1 or Wallaby: http://wiki.xda-developers.com/wiki/WallabyProgress
XDA 2 or Himalaya: http://wiki.xda-developers.com/wiki/HimalayaProgress
Progress and information can be found in the respective Xanadux pages: http://wiki.xda-developers.com/wiki/XanaduxDeveloperHome
2. How to join? (I tryed to send to the email there but couldn't)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh that is strange. Where did you send mail to and what was the result? The e-mail address is: [email protected]
Beware that the current state of linux is very primitive. But with both it is possible to boot Linux and start TCP/IP networking over USB.
If you want to join and try and implement a feature help is very welcome! We are looking at several features such as Touch screen, button support, GSM modem etc.
Hi !
Does anyone actually know if android can be installed / flashed on current devices ? Or it's only for certain devices that come with it preinstalled ?
Please don't post things like: "i would love it if it did" or "omg, android is great"...
I'm looking for an answer from someone who actually knows or someone who knows exactly how this stuff works...
Thanks
PS: Menneisyys, i hope you'll post something
I don't think that you'll be getting your answer any time soon as nobody has seen the thing yet.
But i would speculate that as HTC is one of the partners, it might be possible. HTC probably wont reinvent their phones again for the android.
Not a programmer...
but i was listening to leo laport yesterday and it seems that ggls world domination strategy would be all including. so it seems very likely that they would allow some version of it for use on other phones.
http://techguylabs.com/radio/ShowNotes/Show403#toc5
At this point, since there there is no release yet and nobody has/can play with it, it's probably hard to say. However, knowing Google, there is a good possibility they will come out with an app that allows you to use your current phone (speculation).
I heard that Android based on some Java-sintacsys - maybe it is good for us?
Well, the SDK has been released, get it here: http://code.google.com/android/. A demo video is available on the page to show you what it's capable of thus far--looks promising. I'm no coder, but I wish someone would develop this for current HTC devices. As an incentive, Google launched an Android Developer Challenge (http://code.google.com/android/adc.html), where developers of "innovative, useful apps" can win up to $275,000.
leetsauce said:
Well, the SDK has been released, get it here: http://code.google.com/android/. A demo video is available on the page to show you what it's capable of thus far--looks promising. I'm no coder, but I wish someone would develop this for current HTC devices. As an incentive, Google launched an Android Developer Challenge (http://code.google.com/android/adc.html), where developers of "innovative, useful apps" can win up to $275,000.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I grabbed the SDk and got a basic hello world up and running. From what the video said and what I can glean from various sites. The Android OS is designed to run on existing hardware. I would imagine that includes HTC machines. Its a complete OS though not an app so I would imagine you have to blow away WM6 and put android on in order to take advantage of its functionality. The actual coding appears to be extremely easy.
I can see google or the community releasing a "shell" of Android.
The more people with it the more money for them. If you watched the video they are really trying to push the location based services from GPS, cell towers, IP address... can anyone say more cash for ads.
I wouldn't mind having it on WM and its open source so there a good chance we will see it.
Alpine would be perfect for Android
Alpine would be a perfect phone if recycled with android !!
Good processor, lots of mem and a big screen for touch sensasions!!
Is it a dream or could that become reality?
Is Android compatible with HTC Touch-style hardware or does it require the numberpad?
There is a linux-2.6.23-android-m3-rc20.tar.gz kernel file on the android google code project site, there is also ADB utility - Android Debug Bridge (comes with SDK), it has an option of flashing a device (over usb) or an emulator (which is also included in the package)...the question is how to compile that kernel and make it run on our HTCs, and what kindof boot loader does it require? Maybe guys from Xanadux know better
It's also interesting how JAVA is being used after becoming open source, it appears that android is mostly independent from the JAVA API, the only relevance I found was only basic stuff like java.util, java.io and etc (included in the android.jar)...
i think that android will work on htc devices because pretty much they are the ones that will be releasing the first devices preloaded with android and i think that white device was made from htc. I see a potential here so i ask some one to make a thread on porting android to any or a specific device. good luck and may the force be with you.
ps. i hope its a htc wizard
I'd say we'd be waiting to see the HDK come out before we can put it on our own devices, can't wait though.
A dream
The Android SDK includes an emulator, see here http://www.ohadev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15
Quote: "It seems that the main binary is emulator; this includes a qemu-0.8.2, which runs (in system mode) the ARM kernel image at lib/images/kernel-qemu.
Two more images are mounted from lib/images : the system.img (which appears to be the rootfs, and userdata.img, which gets replicated (and mounted from there) at $HOME/.android/userdata.img."
This guy (http://mamaich.uni.cc/fr_pocket.htm) got Qemu compiled for ARM, buggy/crashing, no visible update for several years, see also here http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/in...e_to_running_ms_dos_8_12&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Question: Anyone have any more recent news/experiences about Qemu on ARM/HTC?
So, theoretically one could try running the Android Kernel image from the SDK emulator on Qemu on PocketPC.
Even if it works (highly unlikely), this megasandwich AndroidImage->Qemu->PocketPC would probably be fantastically slow, with dodgy/absent I/O support.
Real solution is to wait for a modifyable Kernel which can run natively on the HTC ARM processor.
Did not someone from google mentioned at the day of the release that android will run on any ARM9 based device?
dirac said:
Real solution is to wait for a modifyable Kernel which can run natively on the HTC ARM processor.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no such thing as "HTC ARM processor". All major ARM-based CPUs
are supported by Linux, it's the device drivers for external hardware that are
often missing because of the missing documentation.
cr2 said:
There is no such thing as "HTC ARM processor". All major ARM-based CPUs
are supported by Linux, it's the device drivers for external hardware that are
often missing because of the missing documentation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im sure that HTC will release drivers for all their devices since they are partners in the Open Handset Alliance..
prodinho said:
Im sure that HTC will release drivers for all their devices since they are partners in the Open Handset Alliance..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are some doubts that the (future) drivers will be released as free software, and not some binary blobs like nvidia, ati and m-systems did it in the past.
Binary linux kernel drivers are evil
Hi.
I want to see if someone has tried to compile eUAE for Android before ? It would be cool to have a full Amiga emulator for the phone. Especially with the 1GHz units, this would probably run Workbench pretty nice aswell, and with TV Out on some devices (Galaxy I9000 etc) then this would be a very cool
The sources are located on : http://www.rcdrummond.net/uae/
I have no prior experience with compiling other peoples sources for Android. I take it, it is not just Plug'n'Play
Comments are welcome....
This version is written for "big" machines (PCs) if you or someone want's to try to compile UAE for Android then check this site
Code:
http://www.embeddev.se/agroot/
here you can find UAE4ALL sources that were made for symbian made by Anotherguest eventually search for pocketuae sources for WM anyway good programming skills are needed
Hi. Yep -- but doesn't the I9000 with 1GHz memory qualify as at least a test-candidate to see how eUAE will work ? I do not mean as a "desktop" computer, but more like a proof of concept
There is alreasy a uae4droid out on Market which seems to work nice, but to my big disappointment it does not hold emulation for hardfiles and bsdsocket.library for networking.
But, to test if a quick-compile (first try) will work. Do I just have to download the SDK and maybe a compiler ?
From what I know sources must be converted to java used in dalvik vm anyway there are uae4all versions with hardfiles suport(for other platforms) i think best try will be compiling pocketuae for android (it worked really nice on TG01 with 1Ghz snapdragon cpu but had problems with on screen keyboard)but I don't know if there are sources available.Anyway I think it's matter of time when someone will relase more advanced uae for android.
Nice. Hardfile support is a nice thing. However, the uae4all developer mentioned to me that hardfile support was not natively supported in his sources. Maybe there are people who works on his sources to make it more updated then. That would be great news if that is the case.
I wonder if it would be possible to extract the network support (bsdsocket.library) from eUAE sources (WIP4 version) into uae4all. I mean, if one can re-use code from eUAE to get RTG and Network support, then this would be great.
Reading your reply, I understand that just compiling eUAE sources is not just straight forward then )))
XBMC will soon be the driving force for people looking to purchase Android TV devices. The Android TV community however, is seriously lacking in the ROM department for Android TV sticks and set top boxes. If you're a reputable developer and interested in getting involved in this new, exciting and soon to be huge community which is the Android TV community here at XDA, get with me and I'll make sure you get the hardware and information you need.
Cheers!
Can elobrate more.
Hope to help.
Have MK808
Basically I'm trying to get a team together of people experienced in Android TV Sticks so that we can make proper documentation and perhaps create better ROM firmware files for them. I have many resources and hardware to share. Just get in touch at my site.
XBMC ANDROID said:
Basically I'm trying to get a team together of people experienced in Android TV Sticks so that we can make proper documentation and perhaps create better ROM firmware files for them. I have many resources and hardware to share. Just get in touch at my site.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What you need to get proper development on these is some proper kernel sources for Rockchip processors... The RK3066 "sources" are incomplete, and use "blobbed" .o files rather than including the c sources for some parts.
While I've been working on CM10 with some another guy, this is a fairly big nuisance.
The MTD driver is blobbed, and very badly broken... Needing lots of workarounds to just make it work.
There's limitations to what is possible, but some decent kernel sources would be the first thing. The actual building and booting of the kernels is less of an issue now we've got that figured out.
Devolpers rk3066
Here u have some intresstering links for rk3066 devices.
[/COLOR]Ubuntu for rk3066 devices:
http://code.google.com/p/rk3066-linux/
First linux webserver running on a rk3066 device
http://ubuntu.g8.net/
Source code:
http://service.i-onik.de/
extra.
http://odroid.foros-phpbb.com/t2051-working-mali-400-opengl-es-acceleration
Hello everybody, i'm very excited with Cyanogen's new way and i must to say that it be a huge community for the device that i solicite support.
It's a device with an awesome hardware, but, sure you know, Android OS came from China isn't very good, i hope you regard my request.
Thanks to all of you (and sorry for my quite bad english).
As an CUBE U30GT2 owner, It will be a mircale for cube U30GT2 users if you will make a rom for our device.
Cube Android os is owful, crush and stuck.
jgarciaillanf1 said:
It's a device with an awesome hardware
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Rockchip is about as far as possible from awesome as you can get from a developer perspective. RK3066 is an utter and total nightmare to work with, I assume 3188 will be equally bad.
I've attempted a bringup of RK306u6 with Codeworkx before. While someone else might be able to do a neat bringup, it won't be me working on it, I'm afraid.
The RK architecture was horrendous, I'm afraid, and had a lot of design compromises (ie. no wifi and ADB at the same time, etc)
Hi,
things have changed a bit since the rk3066.
Rockchip recently released the kernel sources and there is some work that has been made, especially by omegamoon, Galland and aloksinha2001 (take a look here : https://github.com/omegamoon/Rockchip-GPL-Kernel).
Although there are some modules that are always closed sources. :d
Given the number of Android PC Keys that run through a SoC Rk3188, it would be interesting for omnirom to work on it, or even to work in parallel with the above mentioned developers to give it a try and bring a true clean android experience, especially with the multi-window feature that would be a huge improvement in those products.
Regards.