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This might sound really odd... but I'm looking to -NOT- use my g1 as a phone... I want to uh... (shoot me if you must) want to remove Android, and install a very light ubuntu install or other gnu/linux derivative like DSL (which cannot be ported to armel probably) to my phone and use it as a mini mini computer...
my question to the DREAM community on XDA here is... can it be done... and for any reason I ever want to go back... do you think it'd be reversible?
My main reasoning is this... I have a nokia 5310, and I work a crappy produce job at a supermarket... I fear my G1 getting broken, and have not used it in the last 2 months. also, I'd be interested in learning how to work stuff out and try to get androided ported over to the new 3g Dash if that was possible, cause that phone looks very nice... IMHO though so... please criticism and responses of all kinds welcome to this question.
The closest I've seen is installing Debian with only terminal =/ sorry. You can look under development for more info.
well actually... with vncviewer you can uh... vnc to it and have x11 running with icewm or lxde
vnc viewer local host
I'm not pro at this. Sorry if my advice was bad. lol
No not bad... but good... thank you. I am looking for "ANY" information... and you fit the requisites. Thanks friend
The reason for running x11 and debian on top of android through vnc is that drivers for the g1 hardware aren't available. Unless you want to write these drivers yourself, I'd forget this one. By the time you get it working, your g1 will be fossilised.
I'd be willing to go and try to learn how to do it.
it'd be a fun project... i mean the thing is just sitting here... I mean... I could always perhaps make a completely stripped down version of android. I only want it to use Wi-Fi... and that's pretty much it... I just want it to be an MID
I want to make sure I understand the situation:
1) You have a cheaper phone so do not use the G1 for fear of damaging it.
2) Since you do not use the G1 you want to:
- tinker with it, most likely destroying it in the process if you succeed at anything.
- install a more conventional Linux distro on the phone, which will require at least some programming knowledge as well as intimate knowledge of Linux. If you want X then it as gone from challenge to an impressive feat.
and finally
3) You want to port android to the Dash 3G.
Your decision making process is a little questionable, but hopefully there is some reasoning I missed or you did not mention.
My advise to you would be: Please learn to walk before you attempt to fly.
A stripped down android would be more feasible. You would not have X, but you should be able to port quite a bit of commandline tools over, to include a more user friendly shell. Then you could try and cross compile X, which will take a lot of patience. If you manage to succeed though. from that point you could do a headless X session and attach to it vian VNC in much the same way as is currently done with debian. Alternatively you could try and port the G1 drivers over to the freerunner project and work from that direction, but this would be much more difficult.
It seems a terrible waste of time in my opinion but if you want to try, go for it. Personally I say sell the G1 and buy a nokia n810. It is a little larger but still small and is a mid.
If however you are set on this course I would suggest hanging out on the IRC channels and getting advice from the ROM cookers, Cyanogen in particular since he rebuilds the linux kernel for the G1, something you will be doing a lot of.
Well most birds learn to fly before they walk. And I think I will go down the trail of a custom Android build. I just wanted to know of it being possible to make it work.
I mainly refer to the fact I didn't want it to break ie the screen or the digitized I assume you mean the xda channel... ... so yes I will choose to jump into the pool before the water is full in it thank you for the advice and knowledge
I am constantly reading posts about android here and i cant understand why everybody is so excited about it. Ok, its linux, but so what. Its open-source, but so what. How many of users that are so desiring it has ever change one line of code in any software? 0.0001%? How many times have you edit some config file as there was no GUI to set it up from there? Do you actually know what the file is? And how to edit it without Word ? So what is SO cool about it? What is this great thing where the touch hd would be so great with it? I thought it was bragging but you can brag with iPhone, i dont think Linux will ever catch its look AND stability (actually imho linux is one huge pile of bugs that works together by pure coincidence). The amount of software that could be used on a phone is very inferior to Windows Mobile and iPhone, and shell is quite useless as on screen keyboard typing can be only meant as a joke (i actually had to buy myself a folding keyboard)... You like it becoase it is google? Some privacy concerned people would raise eyebrow... You dont like the manilla? What about this: http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/pocketpc-software/mobileshell/ ?
So what is so cool about android??
(running ssh to dragonfly bsd host and i really dont understand what linux on phone could be good for)
Well, basically, Linux and Linux-based systems allow you to polish those bugs. Which is one of the reasons Linux is as bug-free as you can get right now.
And most computer users don't make their own GNU/Linux distributions either, they download their favorite. I don't see why that wouldn't work in a PDA environment.
This thread doesnt belong here.
msedhom said:
This thread doesnt belong here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't agree with you. Android is a Rom-development for the Blackstone, so I agree his placement for this thread.
Back on-topic, I disagree with the fact of android being a spoiler to our Blackstone. Android is an open-source OS for Mobile Phones and I really would like a Android Rom for the Blackstone. Creating my own apps and stuff. I hope it will be developed some day
root said:
I am constantly reading posts about android here and i cant understand why everybody is so excited about it. Ok, its linux, but so what. Its open-source, but so what. How many of users that are so desiring it has ever change one line of code in any software? 0.0001%? How many times have you edit some config file as there was no GUI to set it up from there? Do you actually know what the file is? And how to edit it without Word ? So what is SO cool about it? What is this great thing where the touch hd would be so great with it? I thought it was bragging but you can brag with iPhone, i dont think Linux will ever catch its look AND stability (actually imho linux is one huge pile of bugs that works together by pure coincidence). The amount of software that could be used on a phone is very inferior to Windows Mobile and iPhone, and shell is quite useless as on screen keyboard typing can be only meant as a joke (i actually had to buy myself a folding keyboard)... You like it becoase it is google? Some privacy concerned people would raise eyebrow... You dont like the manilla? What about this: http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/pocketpc-software/mobileshell/ ?
So what is so cool about android??
(running ssh to dragonfly bsd host and i really dont understand what linux on phone could be good for)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Personally I want it because its smother than winmo, even the old halfworking port feels really smoth and more robust flipping through menues etc. It has that stable feeling Iphone-OS has.
That beeing said, i love where the new manila and Winmo is heading. If they just speed it up and get rid of the flickering and ****ty looking graphics when opening applications it would be more attractive.
my dad recently bought the htc magic and i can understand whats the hype with android.
its a very nice system for a phone.
what i dont understand is that if you want it, why not buy an android phone? my next phone will probably by android, but for now i'm happy with WM. and i can guarantee you that never will android on a device like blackstone be as good as windows mobile. without the help of the manufacturer it is not possible to get a stable and fully working android port. waste of time. go get a hero.
MOD EDIT
Already a discussing/testing thread on Linux. No need for another. I've already had to close one due to repetitive/useless posts.
Please try searching before creating new threads. Thread closed
Ta
Rick
Does anyone remember the video adobe put up demonstrating flash on g1? It's a video of kevin lynch showing flash 10 working what seems to be flawlessly on the g1, more than a year ago!
link--->http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT__RDRVb4c
just a couple days ago cm6 got released and its running beautifully on my "old bed-ridden" so why not flash? i'm no developer but there must be a way to make flash specifically for g1's or mytough 3g's, after all the video is living proof. hopefully a developer can take the flash app from another phone running froyo and work their magic on it to make it work on our devices. c'mon devs keep the g1 alive
It really is heartbreaking..
Seeing this video makes me remember why I was bragging to Iphone users that have no flash what-so-ever... I remember this video now and I guess the G1 has the flash capabilities but, the app that adobe released is coded to only work on Froyo and Snapdragon devices.
I think their plan is to get us all to upgrade to the newer snapdragons or soon to be dual core snapdragons... Man I hate how technology ages.
Well from the sounds of it the Flash that is available now and to the public for Android Phones won't work on the older processors of the G1 and such. In it's current form anyways.
People keep throwing around that Flash is "not possible" on the G1 and I just don't buy it. I'm no developer and I'm sure it's not easy, but I don't for a second believe it's "not possible."
I could however believe that it just isn't worth it. But that's totally different. It'd be nice to hear a dev say they don't want to bother with the headache and that it would just be too large an undertaking rather than just hear that it's "not possible."
It is possible it however is not probable. As flash isn't open source it would have to be backwards engineered(unreasonable amount of effort) and recompiled for the arm6 architecture..far to much effort for something that would function questionably..
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
@Blackman778g
yea definitely agreed, but i don't see why not someone can screw around with a couple of files or code or whatever developers do and recompile to operate on older devices, or devices with different hardware. sure it's probably not gonna be an easy task, but if we can get a whole operating system that's suppose to cripple the **** out of our hardware, why not just an app? sense has done it, not in a specifically good way but it can maybe spark hope?
@dezvous
yea it'd be pretty sweet for someone to take a jab at it, and personally i believe the "it wont work with our processors" is a load of bs, because i think the phone in the link is running cupcake, which underclocks the g1 at 386 and it looks perfectly fine. now-a-days we can get to 725mhz without jacking up your battery, i run 614 and i just sit and watch it fly
@ftruck90
yea thats true, but it'll be cool to see someone try
why not dump adobe flash alltogether and work on an open source flash replacement, there's one available for linux, i think its called GNUFlash or something..
ps: i think this was already mentioned somewhere else on xda..
here you go...
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/
Cyanogen has told us full flash will never work on G1. However, there's a think tank for getting flash lite to run in Froyo.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=7177455
Flash not working is not bs.
Flash as it is now was built for a certain processor architecture (The G1 has Arm6 where flash was built to run on Arm7). Its like saying that its BS that I can't run software built to run on PowerPC on a x86 processor. The PowerPC processor has different instruction sets that the x86 does not.
We need an open source mobile flash alternative.
That we could try to recompile for our devices and build a plugin around it.
Or someone disassembles the curreent flash froma dobe and recompiles it for Arm7...wich i don't think is possible.
i dont understand something. everytime i see one of these flash topics, every1 says it was never compiled to run on arm6 and everything else.... but how did this video come to life? OVER A YEAR AGO. that video is flash, running on a g1, pretty solidly too. and i mean...whats that...cupcake?
that video is pretty incriminating stuff if you ask me. adobe got some explaining to do.
but...if CM says it cant be done, i'll believe him.
CM said it can't be done (with the adobe flash)
What you saw was a (probably unstable?) version of flash compiled by adobe probably as a testrun on the G1.
Adobe CAN compile it for the G1 IF they want to.
What we can do in the meantime is ask adobe to compile flash for the Arm6 and hope that it'll make enough rucus for them to notice.
havikx said:
i dont understand something. everytime i see one of these flash topics, every1 says it was never compiled to run on arm6 and everything else.... but how did this video come to life? OVER A YEAR AGO. that video is flash, running on a g1, pretty solidly too. and i mean...whats that...cupcake?
that video is pretty incriminating stuff if you ask me. adobe got some explaining to do.
but...if CM says it cant be done, i'll believe him.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1.that video could very well not be legit lots of companies release mocked up videos as ads
2.if it was real adobe have the source code for flash as it's their product so they very well may of compiled a version for arm6 and never released it. But as its not open source that means exactly zero to us. The argument isn't that it's impossible to run flash on this processor it's that it is impossible to run current releases of flash on it
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mr.johnsexydavis911 said:
@Blackman778g
yea definitely agreed, but i don't see why not someone can screw around with a couple of files or code or whatever developers do and recompile to operate on older devices, or devices with different hardware. sure it's probably not gonna be an easy task, but if we can get a whole operating system that's suppose to cripple the **** out of our hardware, why not just an app? sense has done it, not in a specifically good way but it can maybe spark hope?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, you obviously aren't a dev. Here's the basic version. Programs these days are written in a more human readable format (called "source") and compiled into a format the computer can understand. Most compilers build for a specific CPU type, and the code they generate won't run on anything else. Interpreted languages like BASIC, Python, and Java either don't really get compiled, or get compiled to a neutral format called "bytecode". Then you need a CPU specific app to run the source or bytecode.
Flash is a bytecode language. That's why it can run on so many platforms. The problem is the bytecode interpeter. That's proprietary code that Adobe wrote and has not released the source for. It's also native CPU code, so it's compiled for a specific CPU family. Which is a somewhat retarded thing to do on a platform like Android, but they probably did it for performance reasons. Though with a working JIT, I imagine a Java based version would work. Adobe has never been known for writing very efficient code.
Now, the Flash runtime engine was compiled for a different CPU type than the one we have in G1, MT3G, and others. In order for the Adobe code to work with our devices Adobe would have to compile it for us. Or give us source code, which they will likely never do. Or we could try to write an emulator to fake the CPU type differences, but those are SLOW. The rule of thumb is you have to have a CPU 10x as powerful as the CPU you are emulating. Our CPU is slower than the one we would need to emulate.
Another option is to attempt to do dynamic compilation on the binary to translate it to our CPU architecture. This is an incredibly complex undertaking and is rarely attempted. There are just too many things to go wrong with this sort of thing. In this particular case, the existing code is close to the same architecture, so it might be a little easier, but it's still very difficult. You have to translate every instruction at the machine code level and account for differences in the available instructions, registers, size of data fields, CPU cache, RAM size, and various other side-effects that are not obvious at first glance. The devs here are good, but this is the sort of thing that billion dollar companies try and fail at. It's a LOT harder than it looks.
If you want flash, learn to dev and work on one of the open source Flash engines to try to get it up to snuff. Then try to optimize it to run well on our low end CPU and RAM starved machines. By then we'll likely be running dual or quad 3Ghz ARM12 phones.
has any1 tried contacting adobe about it?
Dead platform. Probably not worth their time and money to compile on ARMv6. As ttabbal stated above, by the time any of these solutions come to fruition, we'll probably all have upgraded.
I would say its definitly worth adobes or a devs time and money. Because even tho g1s are getting old. I would still pay 20 or 30 bucks just to download a nice operating flash player for the g1 off the market. There's so much money in it. Its sick. That dev would be rich fo sure!!!!!
sent from my superfroyo dream
dead platform
Ok, in the last 4 weeks over a million Phone with android and ARM 6 processors were sold world wide. So I would say that Adobe may listen.
It took adobe SEVERAL YEARS to support AMD64, and that was with the entire world nagging them about it several times every day, and it is an ADVANCEMENT from intel32.
Adobe is just a bloated hog, they are COMPLETELY out of touch with consumers, selling you the JUNK that they WANT to sell you and not the product that YOU WANT to buy from them.
To be honest though, LET FLASH DIE. I don't want flash on my phone, or, for that matter, even on my desktop. It doesn't offer ANYTHING that is even REMOTELY useful.
dhkr123 said:
It took adobe SEVERAL YEARS to support AMD64, and that was with the entire world nagging them about it several times every day, and it is an ADVANCEMENT from intel32.
Adobe is just a bloated hog, they are COMPLETELY out of touch with consumers, selling you the JUNK that they WANT to sell you and not the product that YOU WANT to buy from them.
To be honest though, LET FLASH DIE. I don't want flash on my phone, or, for that matter, even on my desktop. It doesn't offer ANYTHING that is even REMOTELY useful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed. Is there any way we can make this thread disappear? I don't want another necromancer to appear after Gingerbread drops and people go nutso there too.
Hey guys,
Does anyone know if there is a way to compile source code right on the device? I remember some people asking for this way back in the day but it wasn't really practical on such small devices. With a xoom and a bt keyboard though, it's almost as easy as using a regular laptop. I know there are a few different compilers for the iphone(c, c++, java) so I'm sure it is possible. I haven't seen anything but perhaps I'm just looking in the wrong places.
Thanks,
Samuel Maskell
so I'll take that as a no..
I'd love to work on this but I wouldn't really know where to start
I do have some programming experience
but I don't really know anything about how compilers are made
besides a basic overview we did in my computer architecture course
In theory, if you rooted and installed ubuntu, you could install the dev toolchain/eclipse. But it's crappy enough on 2gb of memory, 1gb on the xoom would be ridiculous.
I installed Ubuntu/eclipse on my cr48. It's barely usable.
Developing for android requires a desktop.
That being said, sometimes I make small code changes and build from the cli on my cr48.
smaskell said:
so I'll take that as a no..
I'd love to work on this but I wouldn't really know where to start
I do have some programming experience
but I don't really know anything about how compilers are made
besides a basic overview we did in my computer architecture course
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I really don't see eclipse running very well on a xoom
It doesn't even run that well on my desktop with 4gb of ram and 3.2ghz 6-core processor
like you said, developing for android requires a desktop
but I wasn't really thinking about making android apps on the xoom(although that would be awesome)
I'm mostly just thinking of simple cli programs
something like this would be great
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BDylxLzUEM
Edit: skip to about 1 minute in. the first part is just him writing the code on his desktop and then copying the source file over to his iphone. I don't see any reason why he couldn't have written the code on his iphone though
Your best bet would be to setup a box (with your compiler) somewhere and SSH in. Edit file locally, push to box, SSH in, compile, pull results back.
If you don't have a *nix box handy, you can try something like Slicehost.
that's actually not a bad plan
I use my school's computers to compile things through ssh sometimes anyways
still, I think would be pretty cool to compile right on the device
if it can be done for iphone, it can (and should) be done for android
smaskell said:
that's actually not a bad plan
I use my school's computers to compile things through ssh sometimes anyways
still, I think would be pretty cool to compile right on the device
if it can be done for iphone, it can (and should) be done for android
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you can compile applications using the NDK, but you still have to be on a non-Xoom box to do this.
In theory, it should be possible for you to cross-compile gcc for arm and push that to the xoom to do your compiling there. This is a bit more complicated, however, as you can't just specify --ARCH=arm to gcc's ./configure script.
Well I played with my first android device for a while now (Nook Color of course) and I really like the device but to be honest am not too impressed with android. I tried a rooted stock rom and more recently cyanogenmod7 but I am not that impressed. I guess I was not really sure what to expect with the android experience.
What I would like to do is get something more like a "real" gnu/linux distro installed (with a touch screen interface of course). Is this possible at all? I know debian has an Arm port that supports this kind of CPU but what about drivers for the screen and other components?
It seems to me that getting a booting os should be as simple as installing U-boot or something and just compiling the kernel to fit the hardware..
Thanks!
/mrintegrity
In my opinion, the Nook Color isn't the greatest example of android, most of the roms available aren't so stable and none of them run a "real" honeycomb, which is how android is supposed to be on tablets (Ever used a Xoom? The Honeycomb GUI coupled with great hardware is much, much smoother and user-friendly than the Nook's "phone" GUI scaled up.) Also, the hardware in the Nook Color is somewhat lacking even compared to some mid-range android phones;things just aren't as smooth as they should be and the user experience is seriously degraded as a result. Don't let this very hacky device turn you off from android entirely.
I don't know much about Linux distros, but this seems relevant to your interests. These developers seem to be pretty far in their work on Ubuntu. Looking at the screenshots, it looks great! However, this linked thread is old;you may want to find a more up to date place but this will hopefully point you in the right direction. (Hopefully work didn't cease!)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=899037
Unfortunately the Ubuntu on NC project appears to be long dead.
I'd also love to see someone getting a working linux distro on this device, and I'd love to help, but I don't have near enough knowledge on the subject to do it myself.
I am going to give it a shot getting a debian kernel up and running.. I wonder if the display works with a straight VESA driver?
/m
Just out of curiosity, what is it about Android you don't like?
Good question.. it just doesn't feel like unix (because it really isnt). I was probably a bit missguided in my beleifes.. that if it was a "linux box" (the hardware) you could more or less install any distro on it you want. I'm seriously considering trying to put u-boot on it and load up a debian arm kernel and gnu userspace.. no idea how it will work though if there are missing drivers etc.
/mr
Ubuntu on the Nook Color is a cool trick, and a testament to the power of open source software. That said, its basically a tech demo.
In my opinion Ubuntu is at least a revision away from having it so that the entire interface can be driven by touch. The extensions needed to do that are in heavy development. Even if Ubuntu was ready 100% for touch screens, the Nook lacks the power to take advantage of that. A Nook Color only has 512mb of RAM (any Netbook has more), and out-of-order 1.1GHz CPU (aka Celeron would eat it for breakfast), and a lacking set of hardware drivers.
If you want to actually USE the Nook Color, Android is the only option. You should try the soon-to-be-released final release of CM7 with tablet tweaks before giving up, I find it makes the Nook Color a much better device.
poofyhairguy said:
If you want to actually USE the Nook Color, Android is the only option. You should try the soon-to-be-released final release of CM7 with tablet tweaks before giving up, I find it makes the Nook Color a much better device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lets be fair - tablet tweaks adds some buttons, but it certainly doesn't change much of the experience. it nice, but the system works the same.
That said, i would love a linux build running on the nook, simply for the sheer neatness of it. I will also say that for a lightweight linux build, 512MB of ram is more than enough, though yes, the CPU may be perhaps lacking a bit. Still would be fun to try...