Is there a possibility to wipe out the Android and install Windows on a MTK6589 device? Thanks
Read the FAQ.
NO!
Impossible. Windows Phone 8 doesn't have the drivers to run on other devices, unless you're willing to program them yourself. Furthermore, I believe it's hardware locked because of Secure Boot. All devices have secure boot (unlike Windows 8, where only some computers have secure boot) and it is (I believe) a requirement, hence the inability to boot Windows Phone 8 on an Android device. Unless you're willing to emulate secure boot somewhat as well, then go for your life.
Want Windows Phone 8 on an Android device? Buy a Nokia Lumia and sticky tape it on top of your current Android device. Voila! Results are instant.
Honestly, if you want a certain OS on your phone, buy the phone that has the OS. It's like buying a tomato and then saying "fudge, wish this tasted like a cucumber".
The idea comes straight from the world of PCs : there you can if you want to wipe the system clean and install almost anything you like. From MS-DOS to Windows 2, Windows NT, OS/2, dozens brands and copies of Linux, Unix mutations the list is almost endless.
The onboard ROM on a "PC" will happily run whatever's on the disk or CD or DVD or other boot device. This is a 1970'as design which has not changed.
If you are missing device drivers for a certain device on PC then it (a) defaults to basic functionality (b) this device does not work at all but it is not always a stopping block.
I did not know what the obstacles are on smartphones. I was hoping to find and understand more details.
The MTK65XX chip set is an Arm CPU for which Windows have a new system. Some Chinese tablets now sell with Android or Windows.
Thanks for the explanations.
Yeah, you might have saved yourself some time if you'd done even a little research. Not only do ARM devices require a Board Support Package (firmware image, basically) that generally won't be available for an arbitrary device/OS combination (it's not just a matter of having basic drivers like on x86), but there isn't actually any installer (at least, not publicly available) for Windows Phone. There's only full device images available, which are specific to their intended devices. Custom ROMs, even for variants of the same OS that the device shipped with, are hacked together and often don't have full hardware support, especially when switching between OSes. You would need to build one nearly from scratch for a device like yours, given that the manufacturer of it doesn't (so far as I know) sell *any* Windows Phone devices so you couldn't even crib drivers from another phone. Additionally, nearly all ARM devices ship with locked bootloaders that will not boot a different operating system, or even allow the OS to be tampered with (although these days, consumer Android device bootloaders can usually be unlocked).
Zilliman said:
The idea comes straight from the world of PCs : there you can if you want to wipe the system clean and install almost anything you like. From MS-DOS to Windows 2, Windows NT, OS/2, dozens brands and copies of Linux, Unix mutations the list is almost endless.
The onboard ROM on a "PC" will happily run whatever's on the disk or CD or DVD or other boot device. This is a 1970'as design which has not changed.
If you are missing device drivers for a certain device on PC then it (a) defaults to basic functionality (b) this device does not work at all but it is not always a stopping block.
I did not know what the obstacles are on smartphones. I was hoping to find and understand more details.
The MTK65XX chip set is an Arm CPU for which Windows have a new system. Some Chinese tablets now sell with Android or Windows.
Thanks for the explanations.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well then think of it this way, Install XP on a computer. Take the hard drive out and try to boot on another one. It won't work unless you have all the drivers or extremely similar hardware.
I don't have a complete understanding of ARM, but I assume these Qualcomm SoCs have the TPM built in. Its almost the bottleneck with using WP8, but we'll have to wait for HTC to release a potential dual boot Android Windows Phone. Things will align sometime.
Sent from my Lumia 928 (RM-860) using Tapatalk
thals1992 said:
Well then think of it this way, Install XP on a computer. Take the hard drive out and try to boot on another one. It won't work unless you have all the drivers or extremely similar hardware.
I don't have a complete understanding of ARM, but I assume these Qualcomm SoCs have the TPM built in. Its almost the bottleneck with using WP8, but we'll have to wait for HTC to release a potential dual boot Android Windows Phone. Things will align sometime.
Sent from my Lumia 928 (RM-860) using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK Here is how PC/Windows works:
When Windows boots it uses a thing called "HAL" (hardware abstraction layer) - and whilst booting it tries its best to cope with a number of chipsets, disc drive controllers, and other core hardware components. This is done on the fly because there are only so many chipsets out there and the drivers aren't that large. If you boot Windows in debug mode you will see it loading one million drivers for hardware which you definitely not have - and when you actually install it it does the same - it does not ask you " what CPU / north bridge / south bridge / other DMA/ chipset / and everything else you have?". It just tries it all and loads what fits. The only things left out are whatever you can load later, eg specific sound card drivers, wifi, video card etc.
So this is a marriage between the PC's BIOS ROMs and the OS - so that with one single CD you can install pretty much anywhere. And this idea and technology has been around since the 70s.
For Linux/Unix/OS/2 and anything else on the PC the idea is pretty much the same: the BIOS has " started " the machine for you, and you simply run your "application" which in most cases is a complete OS!
For example I once wrote a memory tester that booted straight off the drive, without any other OS being present, it is that simple once you have the BIOS in place.
In my complete ignorance of how smartphones are made, I assumed that the hardware manufacturer of each phone provides a BIOS which can provide basic services like on the PC. Is that what we call the "bootloader" ? Looking at the "scatter files" it appears there is a whole lot of binary images before the "android" image.
Are these images the "hardware layer / BIOS" then? And can we consider the "android" image to be the actual OS?
Zilliman said:
OK Here is how PC/Windows works:
When Windows boots it uses a thing called "HAL" (hardware abstraction layer) - and whilst booting it tries its best to cope with a number of chipsets, disc drive controllers, and other core hardware components. This is done on the fly because there are only so many chipsets out there and the drivers aren't that large. If you boot Windows in debug mode you will see it loading one million drivers for hardware which you definitely not have - and when you actually install it it does the same - it does not ask you " what CPU / north bridge / south bridge / other DMA/ chipset / and everything else you have?". It just tries it all and loads what fits. The only things left out are whatever you can load later, eg specific sound card drivers, wifi, video card etc.
So this is a marriage between the PC's BIOS ROMs and the OS - so that with one single CD you can install pretty much anywhere. And this idea and technology has been around since the 70s.
For Linux/Unix/OS/2 and anything else on the PC the idea is pretty much the same: the BIOS has " started " the machine for you, and you simply run your "application" which in most cases is a complete OS!
For example I once wrote a memory tester that booted straight off the drive, without any other OS being present, it is that simple once you have the BIOS in place.
In my complete ignorance of how smartphones are made, I assumed that the hardware manufacturer of each phone provides a BIOS which can provide basic services like on the PC. Is that what we call the "bootloader" ? Looking at the "scatter files" it appears there is a whole lot of binary images before the "android" image.
Are these images the "hardware layer / BIOS" then? And can we consider the "android" image to be the actual OS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't understand the basic problem.
Windows (desktop) is an entirely different OS which has very powerful hardware at its disposal and it is supposed to run on various hardware configurations. It was designed to be this way from the ground up.
Windows Phone is just not like that. It is designed to work with one configuration, and one configuration alone. You can;t even flash the WP8 image from one device model to another without risking brick.
If you try to flash the lumia 1520 ROM on a lumia 820, chances are the lumia 820 will brick.
In other words, WP8 does not load "millions" of drivers in hope of matching the single one the system matches. There are various technical and marketing reasons why this does not happen.
And it is like this for android as well. Getting past the bootloader is easy (for android devices). Getting to actually boot something is an entirely different story.
Just a FYI, I did have a old mtk device once that has dual boot Android 2.x and Windows 6.1... I know that is old. But that was cool.
Related
The number of OS-es for our "little friend" (i'm talking about a ppc ) keeps growing, many versions of windows mobile including the soon to be released 7, android and symbian.
I was wondering if it's possible to have just a boot loader with basic drivers that will allow users to have different roms in storage card and just continue booting the rom from there.
I'm a web application developer working with actionscript 3 and some java for serverside so I don't know a lot about mobile hardware architecture and but I was wondering if anyone with a lot more knowledge into the field can enlighten me and anyone else interested about that possibility.
Thanks in advance for any bit of information.
Romeo.
There is a bootloader that lets you pick between wm and android but its not a bootloader in the traditional sense, just an application that runs when wm boots that gives you the option of staying in wm or running haret to boot into android.
AFAIK, theres no way to switch ROMs or versions of WM without a reflash.
Wouldnt be a bad idea though, as you could have a stable 6.1 ROM on one hand as a backup and could still play around with a less stable 6.5.5 rom with the latest packages, manila etc.
not to mention, that booting a ROM from MMC will result in crap performance (just look at android, i mean max respect for all the hard work/coding done, it's a structural limitation issue) because of the slower transfer speed.
imho the whole phone os idea should be handled more like a desktop pc. you know, bios, OS install, partitions, etc. ofc adapted for a mobile phone. instead of these "closed" proprietary bootloaders.
this whole rom thingy doesnt really seem logical to me. the concept itself of WM "build" is stupid and pretty uncomfortable. an updatable os would make all things easier. for us geeks atleast.
hopefully it will happen
Thanks guys for supporting the idea If it's not possible at this stage maybe letting the right people know that we want that will make a change.
@ASK768 Yeah i knew about the "boot loader" for android ... actually i'm not even sure if android has full control over the phone while running with haret or some part of windows mobile is underneath. Is android running on top of some windows drivers or something?
I was not really able to run android due to some "formatting for video performance" of my SD Card (haven't really noticed any change and did not benchmark also i hope i'll find the time one day) ... well it least that's what i think the problem is.
@crashDebug i think the most important parts of the rom are loaded into memory so it might just increase boot time. I'm running most of my application from Storage Card and i did not really see any difference in performance. I might be wrong about it's just what i noticed from experimenting without any real benchmark.
I completely agree with phones being as desktop PC's and i really hope we'll be there soon but i still hope something can be done with the blackstone
i wouldnt count on it and with the rumors about winmo7 well things aint goin in the right direction ifear
Coming from Nexus one where it was no issues with installing ROMs. However life is not as easy with my SGS.
I'm using VMWare on my mac to use programs that are only for PC. My issue is getting the SGS to even show up in VMW. Anyone with some mac experience (I'm a couple of month old mac user after 15 years on PC) Who has made this working So I can start ODIN and get back to 2.2.
Kind regards
Frewys
MAC = fancy closed source Linux
anyways in VMware you have the option to ADD a USB device to your VMware machine, once you do that you can MAP the USB on the VM machine to the phsyical USB port where the SGS is connected to
Fancy, nice looking. I was curious and bored of PC.
This sounds interesting. I get the popup asking me to which machine to connect it to. But then absolutly nothing.. No missing drivers or anything in Device manager.
Do you have a link where to read more? looking around on VMWares sight is of course an option.. unless you can point me in the direction.
Kind regards
Fredrik
EDIT. Looking over VMWares sight didn't really give some help. So I'm still where I started. I even tried to disable the USB 2.0 since there where apparently some instances where it didn't work but in the end still no go.
Eh. Have you installed sgs drivers in virtual machine yet? Easiest is to install kies
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
Apple being notoriously strict on following the USB standard to the T might be an issue, I don't even think VMware gets around this but I could easily be wrong since it is software that is detecting hardware but I know people that have problems with the SGS that haven't been cleared up with VMware. I think they do this so customers are more likely to buy Apple branded products and they get their mega premium due to a lack of competition that their comps will support.
So, what happens that is applicable to you here, is that the device doesn't get recognized to begin with and Samsung (assuming they test on Macs at all) sees this at some point and says F it, it's not worth our time...possibly even under the belief that all mac users would want iPhone anyways.
PS, I don't consider this, nor am I trying to spread, FUD. That's just what I've seen from other Mac/PC device intermingling in other areas and part of the reason why many users can't charge their iPads on their computers.
I setup a small Windows XP install on Boot Camp. I already had it so I can play Starcraft 2 since it runs like ass in Mac but worked out perfectly for my phone too.
You could try installing the Android SDK.
I have installed Eclipse and the Android SDKs on my Macbook and use ADB to control my phone (debug mode turned on in the phone). That's the way I have developed and debug my Android apps.
I also have Parallels installed to use the Bootcamp partition from Mac OS X. I found I could only get Kies to work (USB debugging turned off again) when re-booting into Bootcamp, not via Parallels, so I guess Samsung is doing something funny at a low level USB driver level, which neither Parallels or VMWare support.
Thanks for all the reply guys!
@ickyboo, alovell83 Yes. Installed Kies. Installed separate drivers. No effect. It is not even in device manager list.
@decepticon The problem for me with bootcamp is to my knowledge (like I said new to Mac) they don't allow bootcamp on a partition HDD. Maybe I'm just "PC" and don't really need to make extra partitions to save time in case of need to reinstall (saving all music. images, movies etc on "D" partition). Enlighten me. Come to think of it. I could remove the extra partition install the bootcamp and THEN remake the partition?
(of topic. How much better FPS do u get on bootcamp compared to native mac? I ran it on my 2010 MacBook Pro 17" and have to lover the the settings pretty much to lowest settings to get playable frame rate)
@shawnfr that is interesting!! So I can use the bootcamp partion as a source in virtual machine!? Sounds sweet! Know if it is only possible in parallels? yea looks like there is something going on With the USB thing on the Samsung.. shame..
So After getting rid of all my PCs I had to use my fathers to finally flash the ROM. A LOT easier!!
frewys said:
@decepticon The problem for me with bootcamp is to my knowledge (like I said new to Mac) they don't allow bootcamp on a partition HDD. Maybe I'm just "PC" and don't really need to make extra partitions to save time in case of need to reinstall (saving all music. images, movies etc on "D" partition). Enlighten me. Come to think of it. I could remove the extra partition install the bootcamp and THEN remake the partition?
(of topic. How much better FPS do u get on bootcamp compared to native mac? I ran it on my 2010 MacBook Pro 17" and have to lover the the settings pretty much to lowest settings to get playable frame rate)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you already have a spare partition then you can use it. Just run through the Boot Camp setup and it will walk you through it. You can read your Mac partition in Windows but it's read only to protect it from any Windows virus.
I haven't checked FPS because it runs so bad on my 2007 Macbook Pro but in Windows I get a noticeable improvement due to the newest nVidia drivers in Windows. Sadly Apple won't allow hardware providers to release drivers directly for Mac.
That is just it. I get this cryptic error that i googled and to my understanding it cannot install on a partitioned disk. Right now I'm copying my entire drive to an external so that I can remove the partition and copy it back after hopefully getting the bootcamp up and running.
No I know about that whole driver fiasco for Mac. They are waaaaay behind windows on the graphdrivers... But thankfully steam seems to put some sense in Jobes.
Coming from Windows I think that the virus thing is exaggerated.. I had ONE virus of negligence during 15 years of PC. But don't trust common sense to all other million PC users
frewys said:
That is just it. I get this cryptic error that i googled and to my understanding it cannot install on a partitioned disk. Right now I'm copying my entire drive to an external so that I can remove the partition and copy it back after hopefully getting the bootcamp up and running.
No I know about that whole driver fiasco for Mac. They are waaaaay behind windows on the graphdrivers... But thankfully steam seems to put some sense in Jobes.
Coming from Windows I think that the virus thing is exaggerated.. I had ONE virus of negligence during 15 years of PC. But don't trust common sense to all other million PC users
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know if it's relevant for newer MBPs but I did get a video update that says it solves issues with SC2.
I had some issues with Boot Camp and partition tables at first but I removed them all and did it all through Boot Camp and it worked fine. The virus things is exaggerated but common sense takes a back seat to "see me live on my web cam click here" lol
Been working on this annoying thing for a couple of hours.. Bootcamp is NOT very flexible.. But I found a way to "cheat" it.. I had to remove the second partition. Then make "system" partition the entire drive. THEN I make the Bootcamp partition. And after windows is installed I can repartiton the System and make my second "data" partition!! Messy. But hope it works. Installing windows soon.
The SC2 update didn't do anything for me. But I'm happy to see it.. At least that is a start.. I read it had some effect for some older MacBooks...
Nope.. No luck at all. Giving up for now on BootCamp. I guess I will stick to PCs for my SGS in the future. I dont really have time for gaming anyway so the issue with lack of partitioning is not really worth it
I have not yet had any luck getting my SGS to show up in a Windows 7 VM running on VMWare Fusion.
USB virtualization is a tricky animal. A device has to be enumerated twice - first on the host, then on the guest. I imagine the SGS is having a hard time with the low-level second set config request. This seems fairly typical with high-bandwidth USB devices like PDAs.
When I get to work tomorrow I'm going to try it out against VMWare Server and VMWare Workstation. I might even try Hyper-V just for giggles. Workstation has the ability to disable the set config command. So maybe it will have more luck (doesn't help Mac users though!)
ok. Interesting. Good luck with that
I just realized Mac has VirtualBox to! Anyone tried it? Maybe there is a small difference for the better in this case...
Okay, so I have been having some problems with a recent upGrade I did on an older computer I'm using as a kind of file server...anyways I'm baffled and getting quite annoyed at all the problems I'm having that seem to have just appeared out of thin air.
Motherboard specs here: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...=en&product=3184095&lang=en&docname=c00683218
Ubuntu 12.04 x64 dual boot with Windows 7 Ultimate x32
Integrated Nvidia 6150le (see mobo specs)
IDE hard drives
AMD Athlon x2 3800+ dual core @2.0ghz
Railink rt2561 WLAN card
Upgrade:
Before: 1.75 GB total of different speed and size hodge podge ****ty ram; pc2100
After: 3GB pc3200 3x1gb (got four sticks, one was DOA so sending it for exchange)
For the record beforehand ubuntu and windows were both installed updated and tweaked with no major problems and were fully working before the switch
That was the only change. First I booted into Ubuntu, and it was like pissing its pants...it seemed to boot and logged in fine but apps started crashing I couldn't get anything to open and my network cards disappeared both Ethernet and WLAN. Ok, weird, I guess I will just reinstall.
Also, I've never had a significant problem installing from The normal desktop iso on USB...I had to be connected to the Internet to download extra stuff to get my nvidia graphics working but other than that it installs with no problem.
This time though, I pop in my USB, boot and I get the black screen. It completely booted but no x server. I tried all the different switches even burned to a cd to try that way, nothing. So I tried the alternate ISo install. Got that to install finally, booted, same black screen! Had to goto fail safe X, try a few times because it kept freezing, and finally got to the desktop. I added the x-updates ppa as I have to to get gnome 3d to work correctly, and ran the general update. Not only do I find out as I'm waiting for everything to download and install that the nvidia driver that usually installs and allows me to use unity 2d was never activated, the damn update fails and one package breaks and now I have to start over again....
Here's the kicker: through all of this, before during and after, windows 7 booted like nothing happened. It just ran faster from the ram as I expected. No weird graphics or errors or anything. It's completely baffling....as I thought if anything would blow up it would be windows...
So I ask...what the hell is going on??? Is there some relationship between my graphics card and the RAM? I was under the impression that there was 64mb of graphics memory separate from the physical ram. And as most branded mobos are I can't do **** in the bios...so what am I supposed to do? Just fight Ubuntu until I can get it to play nice? Even the installer acts differently now with the upgrade. It just doesn't make any sense to me
Please she'd some light? Thanks.
Are you using unity with Ubuntu? It's really resource intensive and it's better without it (if you're a purist and comfortable with linux). Did you install all updates to Ubuntu? Also did you install closed source additional drivers for your hardware?
063_XOBX said:
Are you using unity with Ubuntu? It's really resource intensive and it's better without it (if you're a purist and comfortable with linux). Did you install all updates to Ubuntu? Also did you install closed source additional drivers for your hardware?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh I put gnome on there as soon as I install all updates because I need an updated nvidia driver to use gnome properly....I install them every time I install Ubuntu and usually the ones bundled that are installed automatically during setup, while they don't work very well they at least gave me basic functionality, now they don't install or activate at all at any stage, and I have to coax it into fail safe x just to get connected to WLAN and install the updated nvidia driver
Hello folks. I hope I'm not posting an already answered question (at least, I couldn't find it using the search tool).
The question is simple: I dev-unlocked my Lumia a few days ago, but now I need to reset the device. After resetting, shall the phone remain dev-unlocked? Or shall I have to go through all the dev-unlocking process again?
Thank you in advance for the answer.
No, of course not. Developer unlock (registration) is a software change, and the whole point of the factory reset is to undo all software changes.
Not that the process is exactly an arduous one, though. I mean, it takes maybe 30 seconds, typing in my password included, on my dev box...
Thanks for the answer, GDTD.
Just for the sake of some sane discussion: when you "root" an Android device and install Clockworkmod bootloader, it remains installed even if you flash the factory ROM again. So, I don't see the answer to my question as obvious as you do, as I ignore in which "depth" the unlocking takes place.
On the other hand, dev-unlocking my Lumia can be more arduous than what you think, considering that: a) I'm not experienced, b) when I deleted my Microsoft account the AppStudio license went away with it, and -most of all- c) I've downgraded my computer from Windows 8 (I just can't stan that beast) to Windows 7. Now I can't install WP8-SDK. Even the modified one by Arnold Vink doesn't work for me.
But then again, thanks for the information.
Yeah, bootloader replacement is completely different from this hack. WP7 had some custom bootloaders, although you still had to flash a custom ROM to get full-unlock; the stock ROMs weren't unlocked in any meaningful way by the bootloader replacement. In any case, this is not a flashing operation; the change is entirely made within the running OS, and resetting the state of the OS removes it.
I've used the Win7-hacked version of the SDK just fine, although I guess I haven't tested registration. Not sure what people's beef with Win8 is; I mean, install Classic Start Menu or something if you must, but Win8 is just an OS. It does what I need (load drivers, manage files, run programs) at least as well as Win7 and sometimes better (uses less RAM, can run more software, has better security features).
Cool. Now I understand the whole picture. I don't know why, though, the SDK-lite isn't working for my win7. I've installed the full SDK in a virtual machine running win8 and it had no problem seeing my device (even through pass-thru USB).
My "beef" with win8 is, well, I find it more bothersome in several respects. Though uses less RAM, it takes more disk space (I've Windows on a 128 Gb SSD, along with Linux, and I'm a bit short of storage), I can't get used to the new layout, which shows up even after installing the classic start menu, there are a bunch of new features that I don't control, I dislike the "app" approach to programs and, last but not least, the registration watermark (my copy is pirate) bothers me. But I guess it's a matter of getting used to it.
zogoibi said:
Cool. Now I understand the whole picture. I don't know why, though, the SDK-lite isn't working for my win7. I've installed the full SDK in a virtual machine running win8 and it had no problem seeing my device (even through pass-thru USB).
My "beef" with win8 is, well, I find it more bothersome in several respects. Though uses less RAM, it takes more disk space (I've Windows on a 128 Gb SSD, along with Linux, and I'm a bit short of storage), I can't get used to the new layout, which shows up even after installing the classic start menu, there are a bunch of new features that I don't control, I dislike the "app" approach to programs and, last but not least, the registration watermark (my copy is pirate) bothers me. But I guess it's a matter of getting used to it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well there's your problem right there. Discussion of any pirated software is against the rules of the forum and is not tolerated:
6. Do not post warez.
If a piece of software requires you to pay to use it, then pay for it. We do not accept warez and nor do we permit any member to request, promote or describe ways in which warez, cracks, serial codes or other means of avoiding payment, can be obtained. This is a site of developers, i.e. the sort of people who create such software. When you cheat a software developer, you cheat us as a community.
It is strongly advised that you do not proceed with any conversation related to piracy in the future.
:good:
I can pop a Windows installation disk into just about any computer and install it with no problems whatsoever. Why do Android ROMs need to be so tailored to each device?
enginuity2 said:
I can pop a Windows installation disk into just about any computer and install it with no problems whatsoever. Why do Android ROMs need to be so tailored to each device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Each device is unique and may involves various components that are not necessarily present in other devices. Also things like the kernel cannot be uniformly coded for every device or else you'd start having some serious problems. Also technology changes from phone to phone. Some manufacturers also layer Android with "skins" to make their product more unique and add different features. If all devices were the same then there would be little incentive to buy from one manufacturer vs another.
enginuity2 said:
I can pop a Windows installation disk into just about any computer and install it with no problems whatsoever. Why do Android ROMs need to be so tailored to each device?
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Click to collapse
Just popped a Windows 10 disc on my Mac, and suprisingly its a no go. What happened?
enginuity2 said:
I can pop a Windows installation disk into just about any computer and install it with no problems whatsoever. Why do Android ROMs need to be so tailored to each device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have an old PCAT 80386, and my Windows 10 just won't install.
I'm sorry, but this is a bad comparison. Windows comes with the most common drivers, but if you have a rare hardware device then it won't work when you install it. It will appear as a red x in Devices, until you download your driver from the manufacturer's homepage. I mean if it's still compatible. If it only has Windows XP drivers, then you're boned. If it has Vista, well you r chances have increased.
Unless you have a Broadcomm ethernet adapter that windows does not support. Download those drivers if you can.
Now imagine if the device which is not working your touchscreen. Or, the screen itself.
Linux would be a better example, since all divers are in the kernel itself, or at least a simplified legacy version, that's not hardware accelerated until you install proprietary closed binary drivers. Like the nVidia cards on Linux. I wouldn't want to have my phone in 640x480 in 256 colors until I can obtain the latest driver.
mikeprius said:
.... If all devices were the same then there would be little incentive to buy from one manufacturer vs another.
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Click to collapse
It's true for manufacturers, but pesky for consumers. I have had HTC sense....no more HTC !
I think the point that @enginuity2 is trying to make is that one can buy a PC from almost any manufacturer, with a varied range of components from various manufacturers (or buy components and build one), and Windows will almost certainly run on it. I think this boils down to the fact that Windows has drivers for almost all devices/components, or they can use generic drivers, that are built into the OS itself.
From what I hear, communication components (like modem) have proprietary drivers that cannot follow this model for some reason. In theory, should it be possible for the OS to have access to a repository of drivers for most (if not all) components? Yes - if Microsoft can do that with their desktop OS for years, it "should" be doable here as well. I don't know why it can't be done. I'm sure there is a reason why.
enginuity2 said:
I can pop a Windows installation disk into just about any computer and install it with no problems whatsoever. Why do Android ROMs need to be so tailored to each device?
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Click to collapse
Its because of the way the ARM CPU and bootup processes work -- all different. x86 platform standardized this, which is why you can drop a "generic" OS onto them without much in the way of customization.
doitright said:
Its because of the way the ARM CPU and bootup processes work -- all different. x86 platform standardized this, which is why you can drop a "generic" OS onto them without much in the way of customization.
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That's why I was dumbfounded when Asus succeeded in making their Atom based Zenfones equally convoluted to unlock, flash, boot, etc.
(Though you can run Windows under KVM )
istperson said:
That's why I was dumbfounded when Asus succeeded in making their Atom based Zenfones equally convoluted to unlock, flash, boot, etc.
(Though you can run Windows under KVM )
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Click to collapse
Just because the infrastructure to do it correctly exists, does not mean that everybody has to do it correctly.