Database Users

[Q] Boot from external usb?

Will it be possible to boot from external USB flash or hdd?
Seems xoom already support bootloader unlocking - details here - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=967065&page=2
Will it be possible to do the same with a500

Bump this...I'm thinking about getting one.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App

Just thinking, that now when we can flash custom roms. Would it be possible to code grub like bootmanager?

I know its not the same layout.but...the nook color is able to boot into different Roms ect. While holding the n while booting.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App

Im no expert but the a500 doesn't have an unlocked bootloader so until someone can crack it (if that's even possible) or Acer unlocks it we're sol in this dept. At least that's what I've garnered from reading these forums
Sent from my Acer Iconia Tab A500 using XDA Premium App

You can flash custom kernel with custom ramdisk instead of recovery and force the external root device in the command line.. Although that kinda sucks. I'm booting my test system from external micro sd card now (will release sources a bit later, need to push a lot of traffic) but I want to port uboot though.

sp3dev said:
You can flash custom kernel with custom ramdisk instead of recovery and force the external root device in the command line.. Although that kinda sucks. I'm booting my test system from external micro sd card now (will release sources a bit later, need to push a lot of traffic) but I want to port uboot though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will be great if you can reveal bit more details. I'm looking into booting ubuntu or other distro without sacrificing the existing android system.
I'm still not sure do we have 2 kernels one in the main boot and one for recovery or we have one kernel that gets different rootfs - either normal boot or recovery
Will be happy if someone can clarify a bit more onto this.

yodor said:
Will be great if you can reveal bit more details. I'm looking into booting ubuntu or other distro without sacrificing the existing android system.
I'm still not sure do we have 2 kernels one in the main boot and one for recovery or we have one kernel that gets different rootfs - either normal boot or recovery
Will be happy if someone can clarify a bit more onto this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My kernel tree is here - https://github.com/astarasikov/iconia-gnu-kernel
My plan is to port iconia to chromium tree and possibly integrate into mainline tree and get rid of proprietary stuff (i.e., make camera work via v4l2)
Right now, the framebuffer, mmc card and usb host are working and I'm struggling to make usb client and touchscreen to work with mainline drivers
And yes - we have two kernels, 'normal' and recovery. So we can ditch recovery and put our custom kernel there. Sure that's not good - ideally we should port uboot and repartition internal storage to install linux there but we need to get basic hardware working first

sp3dev said:
My kernel tree is here - https://github.com/astarasikov/iconia-gnu-kernel
My plan is to port iconia to chromium tree and possibly integrate into mainline tree and get rid of proprietary stuff (i.e., make camera work via v4l2)
Right now, the framebuffer, mmc card and usb host are working and I'm struggling to make usb client and touchscreen to work with mainline drivers
And yes - we have two kernels, 'normal' and recovery. So we can ditch recovery and put our custom kernel there. Sure that's not good - ideally we should port uboot and repartition internal storage to install linux there but we need to get basic hardware working first
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great thinking. Thank you for your hard work.

So is it not possible to install second boot loader in the recovery area like u-boot or lilo, that will give us ability to boot further from external hdd or usb flash or else.
In other words, we have locked boot loader but can it be tricked like if it is loading a recovery kernel and in turn it loads other bootloader on top?

Ok, got something to brag about. The kernel in git has now usb client (cdc ethernet) and touchscreen (sic!) working. GNU/Linux is coming to our place

Dual Boot,Splitting Partitions

Can you dual boot or any other way to have 2 different roms installed at the same time,so i can switch back and forth?Like windows either at boot or logging in and out of 2 different desktops.
Maybe find a way to split the partitions.Any suggestions would be great.

Duel= 2 roms fighting. Make it dual. Thought it was funny, no malice intended.

lol - duel - dual...
It would be interesting if that was possible. There would have to be another program in there to act as the buffer between both OS's though - that would take control of the start-up, hold on a page that has both options and then would boot the option you want.
Not sure if that's possible since some files are right on the root and in order to have an OS work it can't have files in the same directory - they would just overwrite each other.
But, I too, have wondered if it would ever happen. Be a great way to test new ROM's if you didn't always have to overwrite the existing ROM but rather, you could place a new ROM in a special directory and then run it from that - or partition the internal memory with the new partition available to boot from and store.

partition the internal memory with the new partition available to boot from and store.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats exactly what i was thinking,partition the system os,i rebuild computers and a little system modding in windows,but this is a linux based os,so it would be a little odd for me.I'm gonna look into this a little more.

You may try to contact the guys who developed boot manager. www.init2winitapps.com they have a listing of supported devices and a request form. Works on the thunderbolt 5 slots for 5 roms, I'm unsure how difficult it would be to add support for the iconia.
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App

ibsk8 said:
You may try to contact the guys who developed boot manager. www.init2winitapps.com they have a listing of supported devices and a request form. Works on the thunderbolt 5 slots for 5 roms, I'm unsure how difficult it would be to add support for the iconia.
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks,i submitted the idea,lets see if they will run with it,hopefully they will find interest.

Hello Diabblo,
Any update on that?
I think the idea of dual boot (or 5al boot) is just fantastic!
I have beside my iconia a501 a poor old zt180s and it can triple boot on android, ubuntu and WinCE!
Best,
Inji.

inji75 said:
Hello Diabblo,
Any update on that?
I think the idea of dual boot (or 5al boot) is just fantastic!
I have beside my iconia a501 a poor old zt180s and it can triple boot on android, ubuntu and WinCE!
Best,
Inji.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im guessing that device has a open non encrypted boot loader. The Iconia was encrypted at birth with the 3.2 push they tightened security even more from whqt I have read.So this is likely never happening unless acer changes ttjere boot loader policy.not likely to happen.
hope this helps you understand more of this issue.

I'm dual-booting my A500 right now with ICS and Ubuntu. The method for dual-booting is a replacement recovery.img which contains a Linux kernel and acts as a bootloader for Linux. Ubuntu itself runs from a rootfs.img on the internal storage (there's also recovery.img's available to run from external SD too). If I want to run Android, I just boot my tab normally. When I wanna run Ubuntu, I hold vol+ as I'm turning it on to force the modded recovery to load. It's a pretty cool setup more info in this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1158260

Dear Erica Renee and Bloodflame,
Thanks a lot for your answers. Ok, I got it with the encrypted bootloader.
Will try the method described by Bloodflame.
Actually, since I got these tablets my main use of them is flashing new ROMs... I don't really have the use of new ROMs but I think it's so exciting!
Cheers,
Inji.

I don't believe the encryption is the problem.
The current boot loader is available unencrypted in update packages if anyone want to have a look at it.
Replacing the boot loader on the device is done as part of a down grade procedure described elsewhere on this forum.
So unless I'm missing something, the problem is more likely time and interest. Someone need to care enough about it and have the time to make some other boot loader work. Or patch Acer's. Either way it is likely to require quite a bit of time and patience.

So let me see if I have this correct. Acer's hardware bios code is 'locked down' enough to keep the average code manipulator out? A custom boot loader needs to be dev'd that can communicate correctly to be able to handle Android recovery and a linux/android boot screen etc. ? Could someone elaborate more blatantly if I am incorrect...

[SUPPORT] Ouya Boot Menu Support Thread

Hello everyone,
This thread previously was a discussion area for the Ouya Boot Menu feature during its early development.
It's now being transitioned to a support area. The new project description/download page is at:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2499673.
Thanks!

CWM Bootloop
Hal9k+1 said:
Hello everyone, attached is the ZIP of an updated CWM Recovery IMG file.
This image is based on the latest stock Ouya kernel in GitHub. The kernel contains some newer HDMI code, which will hopefully increase the chance of getting the CWM graphics showing up properly. I also turned off HDMI’s HDCP in the compile (not needed for a utility partition such as this), and grabbed a patch from Kulve’s Ouya kernel fork to really ensure HDCP bypass.
More importantly, the image contains Tasssadar’s excellent work involving KExec-HardBoot. This technology should allow for the implementation of a “fastboot boot”-related capability from a running ROM, enabling kernel chain loading. The recovery image in particular will be a place to practice with KExec-HardBoot, and come up with a booting method that could eventually be flashed to the boot/kernel partition.
It is fine (and recommended) to fastboot to this image as a quick verification of things. However, it will be necessary to flash to the Recovery (“SOS”) partition for proper testing of KExec-HardBoot, since there’s an embedded reboot (to Recovery in this case) in there. Do *NOT* flash this to the Boot.
A simple chain load test can be done by extracting “zImage” from this image, and “initramfs.cpio.gz” from your current ROM kernel. (Included is “unmkbootimg” that can help here - runs on Linux.) Push these to /tmp on the Ouya while it is running this image. Then enter the Ouya shell and do:
kexec --load-hardboot zImage --initrd initramfs.cpio.gz --mem-min=0xA0000000 --command-line=”$(cat /proc/cmdline)”
kexec -e
It should come up with this new kernel under your current ROM’s environment. As verification, you should see kexec files under /sys/kernel.
I’m looking to implement a basic chain loading application. It would come up before the Recovery and ADB services, and do the following:
% Pause for a bit, to allow any Alt-SysRq keyboard action (jump to Recovery or Bootloader) that may be needed.
% Check for any attached USB mass-storage devices (e.g., thumb drive), and look for the file “kernel.img”. Pull it in and boot it if present.
% If that failed, then look to “/system/kernel.img” on the Ouya itself, and boot it.
% And if that didn’t pan out, then exit and allow Recovery/ADB services to come up.
I hope all of this will be of help to others along the way!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will this help with the problem I have?..
New update today it downloads automatically and then reboot to CWM and it fail verification...reboot system and it does all over again?...Any ideas Plz

View2Askew said:
Will this help with the problem I have?..
New update today it downloads automatically and then reboot to CWM and it fail verification...reboot system and it does all over again?...Any ideas Plz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, I'm not sure I understand. It sounds like the new stock firmware update is failing to go in, perhaps because of consistent download corruption. Whether you're actually being dropped in to the recovery partition is unclear. You might try the download again with the other networking type (Ethernet vs WiFi). You might also just disconnect from the network for the time being, and see if you remain in the firmware without interruption. From there you can consider setting up ADB to see if you can administer the Ouya from a PC.
My post is more for the developers at heart, just in case my investigation piqued anyone's interest. Ideally the post would go in the Development section, but I evidently need a few more posts here to unlock that area.
Best of luck!

Dual booting
Yes, please do enable dual/multi booting
Is there something I can do to help in that regard?

kulve said:
Yes, please do enable dual/multi booting
Is there something I can do to help in that regard?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks kulve, and thank you for the kernel patch set. I need to get familiar with the offerings there.
I don't see any blockages in my plan so far; I just need to start in and see what comes up. At least it's a better feeling than the dead-ends encountered with the U-Boot and regular KExec investigations.
Someone more enterprising could possibly port in the MultiROM project, but I'll stick with this. Will let you know if I get stuck.

My findings so far...
- I've finally decided that shutting off HDCP in the build does nothing to help avoid the funky pink/purple squeezed screen that sometimes appears when CWM comes up. With my Asus monitor, I see the issue when the monitor was in sleep mode. Likewise, if I can switch the monitor to HDMI input at the same time as starting Recovery, then it's fine. It may be possible to hack in a fix by somehow starting and closing an HDMI session shortly before CWM itself starts. (I don't want to fight this too hard but would be nice to resolve.)
- I see how to pull the kernel and ramdisk out of an Android image (on the Ouya itself), so that they could be passed to KExec-HardBoot. I've done it with a script as a test but it may end up in an executable.
- I tried out a USB thumb drive. It's detected but no block device is made available under /dev -- I've finally decided that support is likely in a kernel module, which does not exist on the Recovery image. I'm probably not going to sweat this due to the next item.
- I notice that the CWM application can read the Ouya power button as something comparable to a keyboard key press. Borrowing this capability may allow us to count the button presses in a limited time range, and thus boot an appropriate image. (Would be easier than dealing with the pairing of the controller, but at least still wouldn't require a keyboard.) With this line of thought, I'm thinking the main image could sit in /system while any alternates could be in /sdcard or /data.
So in general, studying the code of the CWM application appears to be the next direction. Thanks - feel free to send any ideas.

Hal9k+1 said:
- I've finally decided that shutting off HDCP in the build does nothing to help avoid the funky pink/purple squeezed screen that sometimes appears when CWM comes up. With my Asus monitor, I see the issue when the monitor was in sleep mode. Likewise, if I can switch the monitor to HDMI input at the same time as starting Recovery, then it's fine. It may be possible to hack in a fix by somehow starting and closing an HDMI session shortly before CWM itself starts. (I don't want to fight this too hard but would be nice to resolve.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does the rendering in CWM? Is it Android or something lower level? I think my kernel has better HDMI support but for that the software needs to use that explicitly instead of the default one as there is not internal LCD panel (/dev/graphics/fb0 vs. fb1).

kulve said:
What does the rendering in CWM? Is it Android or something lower level? I think my kernel has better HDMI support but for that the software needs to use that explicitly instead of the default one as there is not internal LCD panel (/dev/graphics/fb0 vs. fb1).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does look to be low-level, as CWM directly opens /dev/graphics/fb0 and uses ioctl() on it. I've decided to try my own compile of CWM as it does look to be a nice base for the booting effort. Will definitely look to your patches for the improved HDMI when I'm all ready -- thanks!

Hal9k+1 said:
It does look to be low-level, as CWM directly opens /dev/graphics/fb0 and uses ioctl() on it. I've decided to try my own compile of CWM as it does look to be a nice base for the booting effort. Will definitely look to your patches for the improved HDMI when I'm all ready -- thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed your comments related to this on the "Ouya CWM Recovery" thread but I'm not allowed to post there, so I'll post here.
Or actually repost as I'm mostly repeating myself. I had all kinds of issues in getting output using /dev/graphics/fb0 in Linux with the stock Ouya kernel but after some fixes the fb1 seems to work quite reliable. I get the output even if I don't have HDMI plugged in during the boot and it chooses the right resolution both for my TV (1080p) and for my monitor (1680x1050).

To all: I have updated the attachment that's present on the first post. I've synced to the latest Ouya kernel and pulled in the next HDMI patch set from Kulve. My HDMI issue now appears to be fully resolved.
Kulve: Thanks so much for refocusing me! I should have grabbed the patch from day 1, but that summary description had me a bit spooked. Note that I kept the HDMI/PRIMARY symbol enabled, so there's still only the fb0 device on this kernel.
With this handled and due to my thinking in general, I'm going to back away from trying to compile CWM itself -- I don't want to invest in CM10.1's environment at this time. Instead I will borrow CWM's UI and input technology to build an independent front-end with this Ubuntu/glibc environment I have working. My idea is to release another Recovery image when that's ready so we'll have a chance to practice/debug before moving to the Boot image.

Hal9k+1 said:
Kulve: Thanks so much for refocusing me! I should have grabbed the patch from day 1, but that summary description had me a bit spooked. Note that I kept the HDMI/PRIMARY symbol enabled, so there's still only the fb0 device on this kernel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hit the Thanks button
Anyway, do you have your kernel source code somewhere? Being able to use multiple resolutions on HDMI while keeping it as primary might be something that many Ouya Android gamers want as they might be able to play at 720p then.

ooo nice, ill try it out and see what happens

kulve said:
Hit the Thanks button
Anyway, do you have your kernel source code somewhere? Being able to use multiple resolutions on HDMI while keeping it as primary might be something that many Ouya Android gamers want as they might be able to play at 720p then.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Done! :laugh:
My modified files were tarred up and placed in the ZIP; let me know of any possible issue. I'm not planning on a GIT account, but anyone may feel free to pull anything back to their project. Also I understand that sticking with HDMI/PRIMARY may reduce some of the capability/flexibility you're seeing, but I wanted to stay honored to the Android/CM layout expectation if possible.

Hal9k+1 said:
Done! :laugh:
My modified files were tarred up and placed in the ZIP; let me know of any possible issue. I'm not planning on a GIT account, but anyone may feel free to pull anything back to their project. Also I understand that sticking with HDMI/PRIMARY may reduce some of the capability/flexibility you're seeing, but I wanted to stay honored to the Android/CM layout expectation if possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any chance of getting some concise installation instructions?

zondajag said:
Any chance of getting some concise installation instructions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's a quick executive summary until I can update the 1st post.
I'm reminded there's another XDA project (Ouya Safe Recovery) with a very similar goal as this, and works by reversing the Boot and Recovery concepts. However it's completely incompatible with us, and those users should not be doing any flashing -- at least not until we have a Boot image ready.
First step is to get rcvy092613.img to the Ouya in its /tmp directory. This may be done with an "adb push rcvy092613.img /tmp" command, or can by done through Secure Copy if an appropriate SSH server is set up.
Next step is to access the Ouya shell, either running from the main ROM or from a Recovery ROM. Be sure to become root (ensure "#" in the prompt) as needed.
Run the following to back up the old image:
cd /dev/block/platform/sdhci-tegra.3/by-name/
dd if=SOS of=/sdcard/old_rcvy.img
Make sure the new image is correct - should see "2a882d1ba8c2d543503cacb49ab0d397":
md5sum /tmp/rcvy092613.img
On to flashing Recovery:
dd if=/tmp/rcvy092613.img of=SOS
Now wait at least a full minute in case there is any internal flushing still taking place. And to finish up:
sync
reboot recovery

Aye....never enough time to tinker it seems, especially with getting over this flu.
At this point I have my own compiled code splitting the boot image file, as well as counting the power button clicks.
I want to see if I can make a welcome/instruction screen, probably by getting CWM's minui down to its core essence. From there it will hopefully just be normal integration work to achieve a new Recovery for testing.

Everyone, a new boot menu is ready for testing. Please read through the first post to see if you'd like to try it out. Apologies once again for the delay in getting this ready.

Hal9k+1 said:
Everyone, a new boot menu is ready for testing. Please read through the first post to see if you'd like to try it out. Apologies once again for the delay in getting this ready.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did I read correctly that the image support multibooting?

kulve said:
Did I read correctly that the image support multibooting?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi again Kulve. It supports three Android boot images - the main + two alternates: kernel.img, kernelA1.img, & kernelA2.img. It prefers to see the selected image in /sdcard, but will shift to /system as needed.
So, it is multi-booting, but you should keep in mind that there is still only the single /system partition. So installing two normal ROMs together probably won't work out, due to that common storage area. However, one of the ROMs could be based out of /system, while any others could use some form of external/networked storage. Note that the Android image format contains both the kernel and the initial ramdisk, so I feel that a multi-boot arrangement could be done.

Hal9k+1 said:
Hi again Kulve. It supports three Android boot images - the main + two alternates: kernel.img, kernelA1.img, & kernelA2.img. It prefers to see the selected image in /sdcard, but will shift to /system as needed.
So, it is multi-booting, but you should keep in mind that there is still only the single /system partition. So installing two normal ROMs together probably won't work out, due to that common storage area. However, one of the ROMs could be based out of /system, while any others could use some form of external/networked storage. Note that the Android image format contains both the kernel and the initial ramdisk, so I feel that a multi-boot arrangement could be done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My kernel is hard coded to mount the Debian (or whatever) rootfs from /dev/sdaX so Ouya's internal partitioning doesn't matter. It would be really cool to be able to put kernelA1.im to /sdcard, an USB flash drive to the USB port and boot to Debian without tinkering with adb/fastboot/etc. on a PC.
I'm not currently using any initrd-images but adding something simple should be straightforward.

[R&D]Android 4.4.4

Hi Folks
I've been working on porting Android 4.4.4 ( CM11 ) to the RaspberryPI .
Using the androidarmv6 project as I base I've created a device tree and made the modification required to get the thing built and booting into a console on the PI the thing that is currently missing is the Graphics Stack implementation which includes the Gralloc, HWComposer and OpenGLES libraries.
If you have an experience/knowledge of how the Android Graphics Stack works especially wrt Surfaceflinger internals how to Implement OpenGLES at the platform level or any of that fun stuff and also have a RaspberryPI to hand then feel free to start hacking on this.
To get started follow the README @ https://github.com/trevd/android_vendor_broadcom_rpi .
Just to be clear. This is not so much a call for help as it is an invitation to anyone who fancies the challenge as I'm pro-actively working on the Graphics stuff myself. I'm coming at this one cold however as upto until 6 weeks ago I had never done any Graphics driver development. I figured this a great opportunity to learn.
DEVELOPERS
If like me you have no experience with Graphics but want to have a go anyway then again feel free. I'll happily answer questions wrt to specifics of the development. I'll caution however that this involves a fair bit of research and the learning curve is fairly steep (IMHO). If you have no experience porting android to devices and thing like debugging device bring-up over adb then this is definitely not the place to start.
OTHER INTERESTED PARTIES
This is going to sound harsh to some folks but here goes. I'd really like to manage expectations by saying expect nothing! I will also report and have removed any non development related posts, Even nice ones! If you feel compelled to offer some encouragement just click the thanks button. It really should also go without saying but for the love of <insert favourite deity> Don't ask for an ETA.
CREDITS
My work is definitely standing on the shoulders of giants here and this wouldn't even be a thing without the fine work of the androidarmv6 project and their efforts to keep Android alive on older hardware. Also the Razdroid folks who prior work in this area has been extremely useful.
Obviously CM, Google et al and lets not forget those 1000's of linux kernel developers too.

I hope this project will come alive, cause I want any form of working Android on my Raspberry, but couldn't get an answer...
Android on that little machine would be great!

Hello everyone,
Thread cleaned.
As you all may or may not know, things had gotten off-topic on this thread. Usually it takes quite a bit of time for that to happen but somehow it began almost out of the gate.
Tempers were getting hot about whether Android is Linux or not. I'm not sure why this debate was going on but it doesn't belong here. Please stick to the topic as it pertains to this thread.
Also, please show one another a little respect. Just because you may have a difference of opinion, there's no need to start insulting one another by name-calling.
Regards

What's new?

I have read that on this site http://www.mesa3d.org/relnotes/10.3.html new gpu drives for the raspberry pi are
V 10.3 is the First one
But i am not sure

Little Bit of an update
Hi Folks OP! here.
Bit of an update. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO10mkZWeA8 ....
This basically shows the PI booting to the Launcher then the whole thing goes a bit mental and fails somewhere around a dequeuing buffer attempt.
A Couple of Technical Details
This is booting without the HWComposer library ( apparently that's a thing ) big thanks @psyke83 on the armv6 who pointed me in the right direction.
The Gralloc in it's current state is pretty standard and I'm trying to get my head wrapped around how the RaspberryPI dispmanx tie's in without allocating and lock graphics buffers. There seems to be at least 3 ways of accessing the Graphics Memory via various kernel drivers.
I added blanking support to the raspberrypi kernel framebuffer driver , which was absent. I did this upstream as I'm too lazy to maintain a separate patch set This seems to have prompted ( who I think ) is the RPi kernel maintainer to extended the Videocore closed source graphics firmware to enabled HDMI power down and also add the FB_WAITFORVYNC which is something Android makes use of in many HWComposer implementations.
As we are using a close to mainline kernel which means we're not constrained to compatibility hacks wrt to the surfaceflinger service layer. at the moment that is about has much as I know. Currently the AOSP Display Stack is a moving target and there's discussions going on with regard to Dma-buf fences vs Android sync driver. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhNRItGn4-M&list=UUIxsmRWj3-795FMlrsikd3A .
As you may gather there's alot of information to soak up ....
Meanwhile over at the RPI Foundation. Fromer Intel GPU driver development Eric Anholt has been working on making a kernel driver for the videocore. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTc3NjQ . I initially thought we could maybe use the A KMS Hwcomposer, Mesa GLES implementation and a DRM ( Display Render Manager ) based gralloc. All these are things today and would just have to be extended to support the vc4 implementation. Eric was working with Mesa as part of his implementation which would leave the gralloc which is available in the android-x86 and libdrm .... libdrm looked like a tricky proposition for someone with my skills and Eric said he had no ( concrete ) plans to do libdrm . However looking at his current codebase I noticed that the videocore driver now supports dma_buf. Arm have made their Mali Gralloc opensource this also supports the use dma_buf and the nature of the beast is to provide a Generic way of accessing the Graphics buffer access many GPU's ( I think ) .
The Current Plan
=============
Merge the vc4 GPU kernel changes into my kernel branch
Port the Mali Gralloc to handle any difference between mali and vc4 ioctl etc
?????
?????
?????
?????
?????
Potentially Profit!
Thanks
trevd

trevd,
As a temporary measure, you could try to disable the opengl renderer by setting USE_OPENGL_RENDERER := false. That may allow you to boot into the home app and do some further debugging. With hwui and hwcomposer both disabled, the UI will be very slow, but it has a better chance of working if your problem is specifically due to an incompatibility with the EGL drivers.
Have you tried running with the full brcm_usrlib driver? As far as I can see, there have been successful cases in which the driver was demonstrated to run on RPi (though not specifically on Android). See here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/quake-iii-bounty-we-have-a-winner/
You mentioned an error with dequeueing buffers; you may have the same issue that I had with the original brcm_usrlib source that was solved by this commit.
BTW, I'd appreciate if you could post a logcat captured during boot (failing or otherwise). I'm curious...

Android Wear on Raspberry Pi?
Hi there!
Nice project. Is there any existing solution to run Android Wear on Raspberry Pi? A prototypical port would be sufficient for my case.
Many thanks in advance!

psyke83 said:
trevd,
As a temporary measure, you could try to disable the opengl renderer by setting USE_OPENGL_RENDERER := false. That may allow you to boot into the home app and do some further debugging. With hwui and hwcomposer both disabled, the UI will be very slow, but it has a better chance of working if your problem is specifically due to an incompatibility with the EGL drivers.
Have you tried running with the full brcm_usrlib driver? As far as I can see, there have been successful cases in which the driver was demonstrated to run on RPi (though not specifically on Android). See here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/quake-iii-bounty-we-have-a-winner/
You mentioned an error with dequeueing buffers; you may have the same issue that I had with the original brcm_usrlib source that was solved by this commit.
BTW, I'd appreciate if you could post a logcat captured during boot (failing or otherwise). I'm curious...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@psyke83 Thanks for the tip .wrt USE_OPENGL_RENDERER . It's a good idea but not where I'm at in the process . I know what I need to do it's just a case of doing it lol , i've been lazy the last few weeks and sometimes time is a great leveller in these things . There's smarter people than me doing work in the same area which is presenting some interesting options as I noted .
I did see your dequeue and wait patch and have I think it's something I need to do ... Am I correct in thinking that this is the same as what later Android Graphics Stack implementations are doing in the way sync fencing?
Tbh It was the original broadcom source release that got me going on this and I was quite excited to see the PI "Port" ... After some investigation I thought using that approach was way beyond my level of understanding , Put simply I didn't have the skills or knowledge or the patience to even attempt implementing it ..... That was 6ish months ago ( I think ) so revisiting it is also an options ... again time is the leveller and smarter people ( you and the armv6 team in this case ) have done alot of the hard work and my knowledge is dramatically increased in the area of porting missing Broadcom functionality into the RPI Kernel
The PI's kernel is also virtually mainline which presents more options still as the current state of the art on the Android Graphics Stack is to use the Atomic Display Framework and the AOSP has libraries to work with that [ https://android.googlesource.com/platform/system/core/+/master/adf ] . As a test/hack I compiled/backported the AOSP master surfaceflinger hwui to the androidarmv6 code base so that is ultimately where I'd like to go with this madness ..
I think It's going to be a mix of everything , the full broadcom EGL/GLES library with a dma_buf based gralloc and hwcomposer to suit .
I'd say I've got an embarrassment of riches atm .
Ahh the curious mind of the developer , lol . You know where curiosity gets you? Reading logcats of devices you don't have access to for entertainment on a saturday night but yeah I'll drop a logcat etc when I next power the thing up ... :good:
@Verses There's no Android Anything on the PI and without wanting too sound harsh. If you want it , you have to build it.
If you want to do something with Android Wear today than the PI isn't the device you need. There's better, more powerful SBC's available for not much additional cost. Also there's really no sane reason the latest versions of Android should run on the PI the CPU is legacy by 2 generations the available source code made no provision for Android what so ever and the RPI Foundation decided that Android was not an OS that fulfilled their primary mission of improving (real) computer literacy in the British yoof! But I really like Android and had a spare PI and making the latest version of Android work on "weird" machines is sort of how I get my kicks, hence this!

trevd said:
@psyke83 Thanks for the tip .wrt USE_OPENGL_RENDERER . It's a good idea but not where I'm at in the process . I know what I need to do it's just a case of doing it lol , i've been lazy the last few weeks and sometimes time is a great leveller in these things . There's smarter people than me doing work in the same area which is presenting some interesting options as I noted .
I did see your dequeue and wait patch and have I think it's something I need to do ... Am I correct in thinking that this is the same as what later Android Graphics Stack implementations are doing in the way sync fencing?
Tbh It was the original broadcom source release that got me going on this and I was quite excited to see the PI "Port" ... After some investigation I thought using that approach was way beyond my level of understanding , Put simply I didn't have the skills or knowledge or the patience to even attempt implementing it ..... That was 6ish months ago ( I think ) so revisiting it is also an options ... again time is the leveller and smarter people ( you and the armv6 team in this case ) have done alot of the hard work and my knowledge is dramatically increased in the area of porting missing Broadcom functionality into the RPI Kernel
The PI's kernel is also virtually mainline which presents more options still as the current state of the art on the Android Graphics Stack is to use the Atomic Display Framework and the AOSP has libraries to work with that [ https://android.googlesource.com/platform/system/core/+/master/adf ] . As a test/hack I compiled/backported the AOSP master surfaceflinger hwui to the androidarmv6 code base so that is ultimately where I'd like to go with this madness ..
I think It's going to be a mix of everything , the full broadcom EGL/GLES library with a dma_buf based gralloc and hwcomposer to suit .
I'd say I've got an embarrassment of riches atm .
Ahh the curious mind of the developer , lol . You know where curiosity gets you? Reading logcats of devices you don't have access to for entertainment on a saturday night but yeah I'll drop a logcat etc when I next power the thing up ... :good:
@Verses There's no Android Anything on the PI and without wanting too sound harsh. If you want it , you have to build it.
If you want to do something with Android Wear today than the PI isn't the device you need. There's better, more powerful SBC's available for not much additional cost. Also there's really no sane reason the latest versions of Android should run on the PI the CPU is legacy by 2 generations the available source code made no provision for Android what so ever and the RPI Foundation decided that Android was not an OS that fulfilled their primary mission of improving (real) computer literacy in the British yoof! But I really like Android and had a spare PI and making the latest version of Android work on "weird" machines is sort of how I get my kicks, hence this!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We can't give up now

@psyke83 For your viewing pleasure lol ... This is before I've switch the Gralloc over to Arm's DMA Buf based one .
At least the kernel booted with the DMA additions . ... Anywho To Work!! I might get this done before christmas. :good:

@trevd, I'd like to know something. I already build some ROMs for different devices and the output was always a custom recovery flashable zip, some images, ramdisk, kernel etc.
My answer is: How you "flash" this on RPi?
Thanks.

GeekyDroid said:
@trevd, I'd like to know something. I already build some ROMs for different devices and the output was always a custom recovery flashable zip, some images, ramdisk, kernel etc.
My answer is: How you "flash" this on RPi?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can take the files like Kernel and system and so on direct on the SD-card! The whole OS is on the SD by default... You don't have to flash anything! Only put the SD into your PC, copy the files on it and put the SD into to Raspberry... That's the magic... [emoji6]

ph87 said:
You can take the files like Kernel and system and so on direct on the SD-card! The whole OS is on the SD by default... You don't have to flash anything! Only put the SD into your PC, copy the files on it and put the SD into to Raspberry... That's the magic... [emoji6]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, thanks for the answer. But I was actually asking for the structure how you put it on the SD card. I guess you can't just put system folder and boot.img on the SD card. An Android device has much other folders which are in root directory. Like /proc, /dev, /config and so on. It would be interesting to know this

GeekyDroid said:
Well, thanks for the answer. But I was actually asking for the structure how you put it on the SD card. I guess you can't just put system folder and boot.img on the SD card. An Android device has much other folders which are in root directory. Like /proc, /dev, /config and so on. It would be interesting to know this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@GeekyDroid Hi ... Should have mentioned that I threw together an HACKING document in the vendor repo
But Basically I've gone with on an 8GB sd
Code:
Number Name Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 boot 512B 80.0MB 80.0MB primary fat16 lba
2 system 80.7MB 1000MB 920MB primary ext4
3 data 1000MB 7000MB 6000MB primary ext4
4 cache 7000MB 8000MB 999MB primary ext4
The sizes you can pick yourself boot is about 12MB at the moment. The system.img create by the build is and unsparsed ext4 image which is 512MB as specified in the device/broadcom/rpi/BoardConfig.mk . The actual system directory is ~215MB
My basic workflow for sdcard creation is to use a SDCard USB Adaptor. setup the partitions using parted and mount the boot partition. copy out/target/product/rpi/kernel out/target/product/rpi/ramdisk.img and the contents of out/target/product/rpi/bootloader to the mounted directory
then I used make_ext4 on the data and cache device nodes and then I just cat the out/target/product/rpi/kernel out/target/product/system.img to the system parted.
The hacking document explains it way better than I just have ... but I've typed it now so sod it :silly:
Obviously this method leaves gaps between the system and data partitions but for now I ain't to bothered. Recovery does work and there's a switch you can pass to the raspberry reboot which "tells" it to boot recovery ... i believe that's how their ( RPI Official ) noobs installer and like works. I've not got round to creating a updater-script for it yet
Once the system.img is "flashed" onto the sdcard and because of the nature of the task then you don't really need to create another one, I give mine a refresh every now and again just because I've been at it a couple of months now.
Once the PI is Booted as there is no OTG it brings up eth0 and runs netcfg eth0 dhcp as a late_start service and prints the ip address to the console. In my case the PI is connected to my home network so I then use adb over tcp for debugging fun! .. The bootanimation gets in the way of the printip now .. I should fix that .. obviously you can use a static one or whatever you like** The aforementioned services are specified in device/broadcom/rpi/init.bcm2708.rc
You can use mmp from within source directories to make and push whatever module your working on then adb restart to "hot restart" the framework.
you can also quickly replace the ramdisk.img kernel config.txt which has the resolution and kernel command line args by mounting using adb to mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 somewhere and just dropping in your replacements and rebooting .... saves constant pulling of the sdcard ; I read in various places that the sdcard slot isn't so robust but that's what you get for £30!
Hopefully that makes a little bit of sense ... I've only just picked the PI development backup after a month "off" ... I'm still a bit confused about GPU/GFX development in general and the fact that there's at least 3 maybe even 5 ways of allocating/locking/mapping the gpu memory and whether it even has to be mapped or whether "we" can just smash it using DMA isn't aiding in my rapid understanding of it .... I'll get there though.
Thanks
trevd
** I think eric anholt who is working on the vc4 drm/kms drivers and actually knows what he's doing wrt all the gfx fun is booting over NFS so is always an option see : http://anholt.livejournal.com/ for that work

trevd said:
@GeekyDroid Hi ... Should have mentioned that I threw together an HACKING document in the vendor repo
But Basically I've gone with on an 8GB sd
Code:
Number Name Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 boot 512B 80.0MB 80.0MB primary fat16 lba
2 system 80.7MB 1000MB 920MB primary ext4
3 data 1000MB 7000MB 6000MB primary ext4
4 cache 7000MB 8000MB 999MB primary ext4
The sizes you can pick yourself boot is about 12MB at the moment. The system.img create by the build is and unsparsed ext4 image which is 512MB as specified in the device/broadcom/rpi/BoardConfig.mk . The actual system directory is ~215MB
My basic workflow for sdcard creation is to use a SDCard USB Adaptor. setup the partitions using parted and mount the boot partition. copy out/target/product/rpi/kernel out/target/product/rpi/ramdisk.img and the contents of out/target/product/rpi/bootloader to the mounted directory
then I used make_ext4 on the data and cache device nodes and then I just cat the out/target/product/rpi/kernel out/target/product/system.img to the system parted.
The hacking document explains it way better than I just have ... but I've typed it now so sod it :silly:
Obviously this method leaves gaps between the system and data partitions but for now I ain't to bothered. Recovery does work and there's a switch you can pass to the raspberry reboot which "tells" it to boot recovery ... i believe that's how their ( RPI Official ) noobs installer and like works. I've not got round to creating a updater-script for it yet
Once the system.img is "flashed" onto the sdcard and because of the nature of the task then you don't really need to create another one, I give mine a refresh every now and again just because I've been at it a couple of months now.
Once the PI is Booted as there is no OTG it brings up eth0 and runs netcfg eth0 dhcp as a late_start service and prints the ip address to the console. In my case the PI is connected to my home network so I then use adb over tcp for debugging fun! .. The bootanimation gets in the way of the printip now .. I should fix that .. obviously you can use a static one or whatever you like** The aforementioned services are specified in device/broadcom/rpi/init.bcm2708.rc
You can use mmp from within source directories to make and push whatever module your working on then adb restart to "hot restart" the framework.
you can also quickly replace the ramdisk.img kernel config.txt which has the resolution and kernel command line args by mounting using adb to mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 somewhere and just dropping in your replacements and rebooting .... saves constant pulling of the sdcard ; I read in various places that the sdcard slot isn't so robust but that's what you get for £30!
Hopefully that makes a little bit of sense ... I've only just picked the PI development backup after a month "off" ... I'm still a bit confused about GPU/GFX development in general and the fact that there's at least 3 maybe even 5 ways of allocating/locking/mapping the gpu memory and whether it even has to be mapped or whether "we" can just smash it using DMA isn't aiding in my rapid understanding of it .... I'll get there though.
Thanks
trevd
** I think eric anholt who is working on the vc4 drm/kms drivers and actually knows what he's doing wrt all the gfx fun is booting over NFS so is always an option see : http://anholt.livejournal.com/ for that work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks you so much for explaining it to me! It really makes sense now for me! Thanks for doing this project I really appreaciate it, that someone works on it! :victory:
I'm not a developer neither a pro, I just now some source building, however I'd like to help you. But as I said I can't, because of the lack of the knowledge. Anyways keep going and all the best! :good:

With the new quad core raspberry pi that just came out, would this port work with it?

Chrisw_2003 said:
With the new quad core raspberry pi that just came out, would this port work with it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With the work that eric anholt has done on the videocore mesa kms driver ... someone just needs to write a simple pass through gralloc ( in theory ) This port doesn't need to work on it as you'll be able to compile the AOSP master branch without too much trouble.

@trevd I think that you should not use Mesa, but trying every AndroidARMv6 fix instead. (until the DRM driver is merged in the raspberrypi/linux tree as Anholt's tree DOES NOT support the Pi2B)
That dequeue patch is a good thing to try.(it fixed that particular error on another device)
Currently your tree DOES NOT build, it stalls at repo sync:
Code:
21 689k 21 151k 0 0 12202 0 0:00:57 0:00:12 0:00:45 21103Fetching project CyanogenMod/android_bootable_recovery-cm
23 689k 23 164k 0 0 12273 0 0:00:57 0:00:13 0:00:44 23933error: Cannot fetch trevd/android_external_busybox
Fetching project CyanogenMod/android_external_grub
100 689k 100 689k 0 0 12014 0 0:00:58 0:00:58 --:--:-- 17929
Fetching projects: 67% (313/467)

Is anyone still working on this for the gfx port?

Yoga Tablet 2 Pro, how do we enter BIOS and/or disable secure boot.

I've been trying different ways of entering bios and/or disabling secure boot, but can't figure out exactly if it has a BIOS menu at all.
Connected a keyboard to it and tries different keys during boot but I can't find the right combination.
Does anyone know how to enter the BIOS menu, or how do we go about disabling secure boot?
Thank you,

cocacola2015 said:
I've been trying different ways of entering bios and/or disabling secure boot, but can't figure out exactly if it has a BIOS menu at all.
Connected a keyboard to it and tries different keys during boot but I can't find the right combination.
Does anyone know how to enter the BIOS menu, or how do we go about disabling secure boot?
Thank you,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Keyboard is disabled(no driver installed, thanks Lenovo). Bios is usless.
From my LG-G4, Rooted running Stock 5.1

I was afraid that this would be the case. There seems to be no way to circumvent it either to boot a linux kernel.
http ://i.imgur.com/Tfd9U3i.jpg
Am I right to assume that the only thing we have that are signed are the stock Lenovo Yoga kernels, making them the only thing we can boot?
Also, does anyone know if these are the Microsoft keys, or some Lenovo keys, that they use for secure-boot. http ://i.imgur.com/dm1i16B.jpg
I'm wondering, because linux grub distributions do have a signed grub "shim" with the Microsoft key, maybe making us able to execute that at boot.

Ok, I've found out that it does have the microsoft keys, among other keys, which means it should in theory be possible, in theory. Will be looking into this more.

cocacola2015 said:
I was afraid that this would be the case. There seems to be no way to circumvent it either to boot a linux kernel.
http ://i.imgur.com/Tfd9U3i.jpg
Am I right to assume that the only thing we have that are signed are the stock Lenovo Yoga kernels, making them the only thing we can boot?
Also, does anyone know if these are the Microsoft keys, or some Lenovo keys, that they use for secure-boot. http ://i.imgur.com/dm1i16B.jpg
I'm wondering, because linux grub distributions do have a signed grub "shim" with the Microsoft key, maybe making us able to execute that at boot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
actually the problem is not in the unlocking but in making a working kernel for this tablet... because you see... Lenovo released the "source code" so they won't risk being sued for breaking the opensource (kernel) licenses, yet what they released is crap, broken drivers (i had to download all the source packages from all the YT2 models because they didn't even un-tarred crap and each one was 400MB and move things around and still it wont do the job as it should) they intentionally crippled the mk files, removed others, stupid and not working configs and so on... driver files missing... you get the picture and this was intentionally (not to say that this is only the kernel, not a chance to see in their source whats even more interesting: the code for the libraries, binaries etc) i am not saying it cannot be done but the amount of work it requires... hmm does it justify? in the end there are few people on this tablets and even lesser with the knowledge/available time to try and do something that will look like a custom rom
i thought at some point in making a rom but the hassle and time required don't justify it (what would i have? except that it's trendy to have a costom rom) so i for one will stay on my Android+Linux combo but who want to go further has my help
a better approach would be to build a custom rom based on the stock kernel/initramfs, this way you will start having the drivers in order and do your custom system (while no longer used in these days still it was cyanogenmod's way of making custom roms in the past) yet this one too is difficult and requires lots of work (and again for what? what's the gain?) but this one is much more acceptable than the rebuilding all previous one
the secure boot is passed (pm and you will understand) but to what end? see... the problem isn't so much in opening the door but in what you will do once inside (and i am inside that room for some time now yet no better bed than my Linux+Android combo) but feel free to continue on the road..
this is not to discourage you but to warn you about issues others (me) had on the road you're stepping now.

Thank you for the reply.
You're right, going the route of compiling whatever Lenovo has put out, is not the most streight forward option, but I disagree on not putting Linux on this tablet. This is the biggest and highest resolution tablet I've seen, and having Android on it instead of a full-blown Linux distribution, is a waste. Things like X forwarding to use it as a thin clinet, does not work well, I've tried all options. The only viable thing for using this as a thin client, is to run Linux on it, with its native input methods on the display server.
The gain is not having to pay twice as much for a Microsoft Surface tablet to install linux on, with it even being lower resolution and smaller screen.

well in this area @workdowg can give you more details as he is the one who loves X on this tab me i'm more like an Y type (aka windows gui/y) (i am happy with my openvpn and sshd) but again consider the unlocking part done and start collecting stuff for making your kernel

ionioni said:
well in this area @workdowg can give you more details as he is the one who loves X on this tab me i'm more like an Y type (aka windows gui/y) (i am happy with my openvpn and sshd) but again consider the unlocking part done and start collecting stuff for making your kernel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very exciting. Need to boot a compatible kernel with the provided drivers, as you also suggested, and eventually get a full fedora distribution up and running.
Since this is an x86 tablet, no cross-compilation will be needed so it will allow for more flexibility with getting tools into initramfs to make it bootstrap systemd, and eventually run a full distribution from the system partition.
Would be very interested if workdowg can also provide some input on the issue.

cocacola2015 said:
Thank you for the reply.
You're right, going the route of compiling whatever Lenovo has put out, is not the most streight forward option, but I disagree on not putting Linux on this tablet. This is the biggest and highest resolution tablet I've seen, and having Android on it instead of a full-blown Linux distribution, is a waste. Things like X forwarding to use it as a thin clinet, does not work well, I've tried all options. The only viable thing for using this as a thin client, is to run Linux on it, with its native input methods on the display server.
The gain is not having to pay twice as much for a Microsoft Surface tablet to install linux on, with it even being lower resolution and smaller screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
as short as it was yet i still read it on fast-forward
i wasn't saying to not put linux on it (i have linux on mine too) i'm saying that putting ONLY linux was not worth (for my needs) the work required for (maybe i was too subtle ) i mean even if i had a full linux distro solution for my 1380 tablet i would still go for my current Android on Linux set-up that i have. yet, each has his own needs
oh boy it's getting late

cocacola2015 said:
Very exciting. Need to boot a compatible kernel with the provided drivers, as you also suggested, and eventually get a full fedora distribution up and running.
Since this is an x86 tablet, no cross-compilation will be needed so it will allow for more flexibility with getting tools into initramfs to make it bootstrap systemd, and eventually run a full distribution from the system partition.
Would be very interested if workdowg can also provide some input on the issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ionioni said:
as short as it was yet i still read it on fast-forward
i wasn't saying to not put linux on it (i have linux on mine too) i'm saying that putting ONLY linux was not worth (for my needs) the (huge)work required for (maybe i was too subtle ) i mean even if i had a full linux distro solution for my 1380 tablet i would still go for my current Android on Linux set-up that i have. yet, each has his own needs
oh boy it's getting late
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I purchased my tablet with intention of dual booting Linux and Android and eventually going with Linux alone (being x86 I thought this would be a piece of cake). Now after getting Linux running (with Android in a chroot).... My vision has changed. TTY Linux is great, I have so much I can get done when not home. Using Xsdl, X runs well enough ( I had wine installed to run a Windows app) and I don't think it would be all that much better on the framebuffer.
The problem ends up being.... (and it has been stated before).... Touch still sucks on a small screen! Android just excels at it. So for me, if someone were to develop kexecboot or such I would definitely play with it (proof of concept) but I'm positive I'd go right back to my current setup.... ssh and the Xsdl for X as needed are perfect.

ionioni said:
as short as it was yet i still read it on fast-forward
i wasn't saying to not put linux on it (i have linux on mine too) i'm saying that putting ONLY linux was not worth (for my needs) the work required for (maybe i was too subtle ) i mean even if i had a full linux distro solution for my 1380 tablet i would still go for my current Android on Linux set-up that i have. yet, each has his own needs
oh boy it's getting late
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh I see. The highest priority for me at least, is to get any linux distribution to boot.
workdowg said:
I purchased my tablet with intention of dual booting Linux and Android and eventually going with Linux alone (being x86 I thought this would be a piece of cake). Now after getting Linux running (with Android in a chroot).... My vision has changed. TTY Linux is great, I have so much I can get done when not home. Using Xsdl, X runs well enough ( I had wine installed to run a Windows app) and I don't think it would be all that much better on the framebuffer.
The problem ends up being.... (and it has been stated before).... Touch still sucks on a small screen! Android just excels at it. So for me, if someone were to develop kexecboot or such I would definitely play with it (proof of concept) but I'm positive I'd go right back to my current setup.... ssh and the Xsdl for X as needed are perfect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Touch will probably work better on the larger screens, I've got the 13inch one.
---------------
So I got the latest kernel from kernel.org to boot but I'm not sure why it doesn't find the initramfs, I assume it has to do with it not existing on a partition, but being built into the boot.img.
http://i.imgur.com/IxdwXre.jpg
I'm trying to make it boot a live OS directly from USB, without initramfs. It's a bit difficult because I don't know how the block devices are named, maybe if anyone knows the kernel command line for booting the live linux using the custom kernel, using sdhci or normal usb.
Basically, instead of the normal LiveUSB sequence:
grub from USB -> kernel from USB -> root filesystem from USB
I want
custom kernel with android boot.img -> root file system from USB/SD card

cocacola2015 said:
I want
custom kernel with android boot.img -> root file system from USB/SD card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there's something wrong with your boot.img, and from the image there not enogh info
link the boot.img you make

ionioni said:
there's something wrong with your boot.img, and from the image there not enogh info
link the boot.img you make
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's wrong is you need the root= kernel argument, and I'm not sure how the block devices are named (For example, it doesn't have /dev/block/ like on the android kernels). The initramfs isn't modified yet, it's a custom compiled kernel with the source at kernel.org.
Created a boot.img that one can add root= kernel arguments to, to test booting from other media:
https://anonfiles.com/file/177753c2344c3c64c200cdb3803236bd
It has these kernel command line arguments built into the kernel:
Code:
oops=panic panic=360 vmalloc=172M debug_locks=0 bootboost=1 vga=ask i915.modeset=0 drm.vblankoffdelay=1 selinux=0 nomodeset ro debug noinitrd

Another one with UHCI (USB2.0) driver, instead of xHCI (USB3.0), because it might not reach init sometimes otherwise when plugged in, for some reason.
https://anonfiles.com/file/d41f495d118ab1e5ccef961baeb1bcce
No command line arguments built into the kernel, all in boot.img, boot_delay= disabled
Code:
oops=panic panic=360 vmalloc=172M debug_locks=0 bootboost=1 vga=ask i915.modeset=0 drm.vblankoffdelay=1 selinux=0 nomodeset ro debug noinitrd root=/dev/mmcblk0