Has anyone thought of writing a quick shell based virtual keyboard that would use the new virtual keyboard framework from cupcake? The idea being that if you were at a shell prompt all of your keystrokes would get sent to the new virtual keyboard interface as if you had typed them on the main G1 keyboard allowing the PC keystrokes to be forwarded to the foreground app on the screen.
I get frustrated when I am hacking on my phone and I have a shell connection setup through adb and then I click on the screen to activate an app which wants my input. Since my hands are usually better placed at this point to continue to type on the PC keyboard, I would rather not have to open the clunky G1 keyboard to type.
I was thinking that a simple shell app named 'kb' or even 'k' that could take stdin and pass it to the jvm via the new API would be ideal. Has anyone seen anything like this?
...perhaps I need to search for/get familiar with the new keyboard API docs.
already working on it, it's a little harder than it seems, but the two iof us working on it are also trying to use another program that gives us a pic of the screen while we play with the phone via the keyboard. if you know any java at all then you are more than welcome to help. the thread is in games and apps subforum and just search in there for computer app that controls phone.
edit: basically the terminal will allow one word or one character, no spaces. so to type hello world and send in a text message(which is why we are making the app) you would have to type
$adb shell
#input text hello
#input keyevent 26
#input text world
#input keyevent 66
i am pretty sure i remembered the correct mapping for the keys, but i could be wrong. i have the keys mapped in my other thread
Found your thread
OK, I found your thread. I see what you are trying to do, and I think it is more than what I am looking for. I am happy to use the G1 screen to display things (and to click on fields and what not,) but I would still like to be able to use my PC keyboard.
However, if I understand what you are saying, it looks like android already provides a minimal tool to do what I am looking for. I should be able to put together a quick little wrapper shell script that would make using this tool a lot easier and straight forward for typing. I will investigate the tool tonight and post my results here if I come up with something that helps.
We could merge our threads, but since I am looking for something slightly different than you are, I do not want to take away from your effort even if I post a tool which solves mine. After I solve my needs, I will look at your java code and see if I can help.
Thanks for the direction!
-Martin
So you’ve got a nice, shiny, new G1 and you’ve been hearing about all the amazing things you can do with it but you “MUST HAVE ROOT”. As far as you know, you’re not a plant (although you may feel as smart as one at this point) and beyond that, you have no clue what any of the terms or concepts mean in context.
Well, I’m bored so I’m going to try and clear some things up.
There are a lot of threads that cover each of these things but I’m going to try and put as many basics into one post as possible. Hopefully it can be a perfect start for n00bs and good reference in lieu of search for others. Please feel free to correct any semantic (or blatant) mistakes I make.
I’ll keep the glossary here and update terms as I add to this post:
Android OS - Like Windows Mobile but based on Linux, using a Java based front end.
Linux - Open Source operating system used instead of Windows XP/Vista, Mac OSX etc... it's free (as in beer).
Open Source (From Wiki) – Free and open source software, also F/OSS, FOSS, or FLOSS (free/libre/open source software) is software which is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code.
Root (as in access)- root is like the administrator account on a windows machine (also referred to as su, or superuser). It allows you to have complete access to the underlying OS of a linux or *nix based machine. For the G1, it allows for the use of themes, native backup functionality, manually selecting which apps can utilize root access, auto-rotate screen, multi-touch in browser, moving applications/caches to the sd card etc...
Root (as in location)- the 'root' of a folder or drive is the top most area of that location. In windows, C:\ is the 'root' of your hard drive. The 'root' of your SD card just means you haven't moved into any subfolders.
Shell – (also heard as terminal, bash, command line) This is a loose definition, but it’s basically a command line to run specific actions against the OS.
Bootloader – the SPL and IPL of a flash based device. See jashu’s description here.
SPL (Secondary Program Loader) - You get to the SPL by holding the camera button while powering on your phone. This is where you flash NBH images. See bootloader above.
Recovery Mode - Holding the 'Home' key while while powering on the G1 will take you into Recovery Mode. From here you can perform a NANDroid backup, wipe your phone, access a command line and of course, flash your phone with an update.zip file.
RC## (or release candidate) – In context to the G1, it is an official release of Android from T-Mobile meant specifically for the G1 (not ADP).
ADP (Android Developer Phone) – A Google specific (or carrier non-specific) version of the G1/Dream that has root access by default and is meant for developers writing apps for the G1, or Android in general.
ADP vs. RC## - Neither RC’s or ADP versions are tied to their respective hardware. With the right bootloader, you can flash an ADP image to a G1 or an RC image to an ADP.
JFV1.## - Is a specific Version of a JesusFreke ROM. JesusFreke is a developer on this website that has graciously spent his time to modify the G1 OS to allow us to have root access to our phones. This gives us the ability to explore and modify our phones via a command line.
Cupcake – a development branch of the Android OS that contains many improvements that was merged into the master build of Android and is currently being released to new phones as Android 1.5.
Nandroid – a utility, accessible through Recovery Mode, that allows you to backup your phone and restore to the exact condition at backup.
Apps2SD – Applications moved to your SD card instead of internal memory. Some people like the extra room, some people don’t want to hassle with the partitioning.
Partition – just like the partitions that separate cubicles in an office, a partition separates parts of a drive.
File system – there are many. It’s basically a specific way of organizing data on a partition. FAT(32) is generally windows, ext2 is generally linux. This is not a hard and fast rule, just most common in context with what you’ll see here.
Scripts – scripts are text files that contain a list of commands to perform. Instead of typing each command out multiple times, a script can be run that will initiate all steps listed in the script.
Android SDK (System Developer’s Kit) – This includes all tools (sans fastboot) that a developer needs to create applications for the G1. It also has tools for interacting with the phone via a command line (ADB).
ADB - is a part of the SDK that allows you to run commands against the G1 in lieu of using the terminal on the phone itself.
Fastboot - is a tool used to flash system images (.img files) to the G1 from a command line on your pc. IMG files are created when you do NANDroid backups and official images can be downloaded from HTC as well. To get to fastboot mode on your phone, hold the back button while powering on.
When T-Mobile first released the G1, they left a bug in the Android OS that allowed anything typed on the keyboard to be passed on to a root shell running in the background. This really was a major flaw and needed to be patched. Unfortunately, when they patched it, they really patched it. RC29 was the last version that still had root. With all versions RC30 on, it was removed. It completely denied us any hope at modding our “open-source” phone.
Somehow, the base image for RC29 (dreaimg.nbh) was leaked and some enterprising developers were able get access to the bootloader and return an updated G1 (RC30+) to RC29 and use this to regain root.
Somewhere along this road, Google released the ADP (Android Developer Phone), which has root enabled and uses a specific SPL (EngineeringSPL) that was the base for the modified HardSPL that most of us use now. Nandroid was included to allow us to back up our phones and shortly after, JesusFreke modified RC30 to keep root and still provide the fixes and improvements that came with it.
I’m not sure where it all started, but eventually, LucidREM released a modified version of JesusFreke’s ROM. This made moving applications to SD painless and freed up system storage and now we can have 32 flashlights and 62 tip calculators installed all at once.
Apps2sd has been the bane of many peoples existence. It requires you to partition your SD card in to separate file systems (FAT32 to remain compatible with windows computers as a mass storage device and ext2 to maintain compatibility with the underlying linux OS of the G1). It also requires you to move your apps to the SD card and then create symbolic links (similar to a windows shortcut) from the internal location pointing to the SD card. Lots can go wrong in this process and that’s why LucidREM, MartinFick, MarcusMaximus04 and others have created tools to help simplify the process.
Now of course, to achieve any of the things you want to do with the G1, you have to interact with it. There are at least 2 main ways to do this. Some prefer to do everything from the phone itself using a terminal, while some prefer to use their PC with the phone connected via USB. Others avoid both of these, as best they can, and use other peoples apps or scripts anywhere they can get away with it. This is why you may find many different explanations of the same goal.
In order to interact with your phone from a pc, you need the Android SDK, which includes ADB. ADB is basically a linux shell that communicates with the G1. It is easier to copy and paste from threads and insert commands without worrying about making typos. It also requires it’s own bit of hoops to jump through (unless you use a mac or linux ;-)) and sometimes scares people away. It is highly recommended if you plan on hacking at your phone with any regularity.
Of course, there are some sadists (I once was one) that like to type line after line of code on a tiny keyboard and use the terminal directly from the phone. This is fun and it makes you feel 1337, but it also leaves a lot of room for error. Remember, you are a root user now, and any mistake you make can be potentially huge.
Well, that’s all for now folks. Please feel free to add, subtract, reorganize, correct anything I’ve said, in the comments. Also, I’ve tried to add links to any relevant threads and sources that I used in making this… this, whatever you wanna call it.
Thanks to everyone in this community for doing what you do. We are all geeks and enjoy doing this stuff. It's good to have so many talented people taking an interest in Android and the G1 in general. It is open source communites that keep technology interesting and exciting.
Thanks to Haykuro, TheDudeofLife, all the theme devs, and all the big players that I didn't reference in this post. Oh, and SolemWishing for the Timeline! It helped, thanks!
Reserved for future posting
Awesome post for nuubs. This should be permanently stickied!
Very cool. a couple terms you should add:
Fastboot
SPL
Recovery mode
(including what key strokes you need to hit to get into spl and recov. modes)
Thanks for the feedback!
I added SPL and Recovery... let me get my facts straight on fastboot and I'll add that tomorrow.
I don't know if it is the right place for it, but there seem to have been lots of question about "radio" or more specifically "radio update".
I feel smarter already.
I particularly found the file system explanation useful, i put it together that fat32 and the other were the two partitions but didnt realize which was for cpu. Not ready to attempt but definitely closer (although Im not even sure if I want to partition i have no need for all that space at this point) It doesnt affect performance does it?
Agreed. Good stuff. Definitely noob required reading material.
Yes, indeed a very nice guide for the beginners. Hell we ALL started that way...i remember when I first got this phone ~6 months ago (no root), and there was almost nothing about it, no support, no add-ons, no hacks, nothing. It was boring, and for me I was coming from a motorola (motomodders?), so going to something that was far superior but didnt have community support made me almost cry.
Though look now, 3 months later the market was filling up and being abundent of new stuff to play with (I didnt even try rooting for a while, until it became a lot more well-known [fixes and the likes], and themes became a necessity because they started to get really good), and now 6 months later people are hacking away figuring out soo much stuff about it. Amazing work everyone, seriously.
Something good: It all starts at the roots .
Well, I added info on fastboot and exceeded my 10000 character limit. Now I understand why so many people reserve the second post. lol...
I'll make some changes so I can add info about the radio, however the link to fastboot explains the radio fairly well.
Thanks for the feedback everybody, I hope this helps some people out.
skri11a said:
So you’ve got a nice, shiny, new G1 and you’ve been hearing about all the amazing things you can do with it but you “MUST HAVE ROOT”. As far as you know, you’re not a plant (although you may feel as smart as one at this point) and beyond that, you have no clue what any of the terms or concepts mean in context.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When i read those lines i knew that this post would be worth reading
It was a really nice n00b guide, though ive done some WiMo flashing so some of the terms sounded familliar i certanly learned a thing or two
I would say it should be stickied and put on the wiki - oh and perhaps list it in alphabetic order, it would make it more usefull as a "I dont understand this term so ill just look it up"-thread...
Perhaps you can get a mod to give you post #2 & #3
//M
DMaverick50 said:
I feel smarter already.
I particularly found the file system explanation useful, i put it together that fat32 and the other were the two partitions but didnt realize which was for cpu. Not ready to attempt but definitely closer (although Im not even sure if I want to partition i have no need for all that space at this point) It doesnt affect performance does it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm glad it helped. As far as performance issues, I've had none. In fact, when I was skating along with 12-19MB of free space, my phone would crall and cause me all sorts of grief. Since I've moved the apps and dalvik-cache, it's been very responsive and reliable. That being said, get a GOOD sd card. I see a lot of people having problems using cheap or < class4 sd cards.
m.klinge said:
When i read those lines i knew that this post would be worth reading
It was a really nice n00b guide, though ive done some WiMo flashing so some of the terms sounded familliar i certanly learned a thing or two
I would say it should be stickied and put on the wiki - oh and perhaps list it in alphabetic order, it would make it more usefull as a "I dont understand this term so ill just look it up"-thread...
Perhaps you can get a mod to give you post #2 & #3
//M
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol... I'm glad you liked it.
And thanks for the tips. I'm gone for the weekend, but I'll alphabetize it when I get back. Not sure what I can do about getting it stickied but I'll look into the wiki on monday too.
can you add busybox
in the nandroid instructions it requires busybox but I didnt see an explanation for what busybox is. Thanks and this thread has already been very helpful for me
speaking of stickying this....
who is in charge of stickies? A lot of stickable topics aren't stickied and a lot of topics that should be unstickied are still stuck...
DMaverick50 said:
in the nandroid instructions it requires busybox but I didnt see an explanation for what busybox is. Thanks and this thread has already been very helpful for me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey sorry for the late reply... Been pretty busy since Friday.
I'll try and add this to the first post shortly. I may have to remove some of the history lesson if I can't get a mod to give me the second/third post.
BusyBox - This is a single executable utility that contains many common Linux commands, instead of having an individual executable for each command. As far as I know this is built into all of the JF releases, as well as Dude's. It is also usable in the JF recovery console by hitting alt-x. To use busybox, just type "busybox" in front of the command you want to use (i.e. #busybox ls -L --to get a list of your directory).
AbsoluteDesignz said:
speaking of stickying this....
who is in charge of stickies? A lot of stickable topics aren't stickied and a lot of topics that should be unstickied are still stuck...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you figure this out, let me know. I haven't tried to PM a mod or anything but I'd still be curious to know what the magic requirements are.
This will definitely help a lot of newcomers. Thanks for taking the time to make it.
Way to get stickied! Now I can stop copying pasting updates worrying I might not be able to find the post...
skri11a:
BusyBox - This is a single executable utility that contains many common Linux commands, instead of having an individual executable for each command. As far as I know this is built into all of the JF releases, as well as Dude's. It is also usable in the JF recovery console by hitting alt-x. To use busybox, just type "busybox" in front of the command you want to use (i.e. #busybox ls -L --to get a list of your directory).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wouldn't "Unix utilities" be more correct than "Linux commands"?
And saying Android is "like windows mobile" is blasphemy! You can't compare Unix to Micro$oft Windoze (Yes, that's a very sophisticated and mature way to express my hatred of the OS )! >:|
Anyway, it's good that you wrote this, theres probably a lot around here not having a clue about how things work in the world of unix
I made this for my own reference and would like some experienced users to critique it (please don't laugh) and help me add to it. This is a first draft replacing the "napkin" I've got tucked under my keyboard. Specifically simple for newbes like myself to just help us get started with Terminal, Scripting, ADB and have a command reference to follow.
Please chim in on the ADB section which I know needs some serious help. I have almost no experience with ADB but seek to learn and document more so its useful. Or if something already exists like this but way better please point me to it so I can take from it or use it to replace this.
Thanks in advance!
Edit1: Redline1, change to:
chmod octal...10 columns: 1 Type, 9 Permissions
Nice start.
Some comments from top to bottom:
You don't need semicolons after each line. Only if you want to write more than one command on the same line - e.g. "if some condition; then".
For the directory commands (cd, mkdir, ...), you can type directories with leading "/" if you want to specify the complete path starting from root, and without leading "/" to refer to subdirectories of the current directory. ".." is the parent directory of the current directory.
"which" scans your $PATH for the command you give it, so especially if it exists multiple times it shows you "which" will get run if you type it without specifying a path. It has nothing to do with directories.
The permission groups are usually called "u=user", "g=group" and "o=other" (not "everyone else)". And "s---------" is a socket, not a binary - the rest is correct. Read all you wanted to know about the output of ls and much more here: http://www.gnu.org/software/coreuti...ion-is-listed.html#What-information-is-listed
You confused "logwrapper" with "logcat". You use "logcat" to display the log and "logwrapper" to redirect the output of something in your script to logcat.
"sh script.sh" will execute a script even if it doesn't have the "executable" permission set. Use chmod 7xx to make it executable directly without "sh".
"adb command" doesn't exist - to run a single command, you need to say "adb shell xxx".
"adb fastboot" also doesn't exist, at least on my adb.
Some general tips:
Many or all commands in busybox have built-in help if you invoke them with "--help". Also adb shows a small manual if you invoke it without parameters.
You can use most basic reference material for Linux, e.g. guides about shell scripting. It's 95% the same on Android.
Always be very careful when running commands as root - the system assumes you know what you are doing. There is no safety net. For example, "rm -rf" will happily wipe your entire device (if mounted writable) if you add a space between the following "/" and the rest of the path.
Thanks oodels for the feedback and corrections. I will update and rev the document based on this feedback when I get the time.
Also thanks for always being the one who takes the time to reply in detail to my threads, give me guidance, and inspire me to learn more about the discussion topic while NEVER making me feel like I have asked a dumb question or am the newbe I am. I had a college professor that reminds me of you who told me the only dumb question I could ask was the one I didn't ask. I appreciate that more than I can express. You are a plethora of knowledge and a master instructor with a winning humble and tackful approach to education and inspiration; a rare gem.
_that said:
Always be very careful when running commands as root - the system assumes you know what you are doing. There is no safety net. For example, "rm -rf" will happily wipe your entire device (if mounted writable) if you add a space between the following "/" and the rest of the path.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for _that tip. Knowing this now I think I will remove that example from the newbe guide as someone could easily mistype it, add a space after /, and wipe their device from the root down. I will also add the -i option to the command(s) that are dangerous, requiring user intervention (permission) to proceed with the command as a newbe safety factor.
Info:
my device is rooted (fully) and my phone consist of Supersu, Nethunter terminal, bcmon, Reaver.
(below are the codes i modified for my device)
The history
when I first started running reaver i would receive many errors; [...not found] [...can't enable] [...can't change permissions (appearently you can't change permissions within sdcard folder... anyways, moving on.)]
[...no internet connection found]
my point is after looking at the custom scripts I had installed (with notepad++) i noticed that the actual scripts were the big issue. so I started changing things one by one in-order to not mess-up everything. yeah sure, I made some errors that made things last longer- way longer than normal. Nevertheless, at some point I actually started making things better and slowly started knocking down those errors!! until i hit the 'test' button and sure enough
"Cannot link executable... libfake_driver.so is 32 instead of 64.... only PIE are supported."
Truth Be Told
as you might can tell from the kind of question I'm asking, I am not an expert.
And I understand these kind of questions comes with others looking at the questioner as annoying- and with the thought of 'these beginners just want everyone to give answers instead of learning themselves...' It's NOT COMPLETELY wrong, since now days a comment like such is ... pretty much true-
So i'll say this: Not Every One Is The Same.
I am a programmer. my programming is mostly within game design/ game development so if more coding is needed to solve my issue at hand, then let me know and please (at the lease) point me in the right direction.
if I need to google something, please clarify what to search. For I am just one person, so it is possible I haven't thought of something to type in- however, that does not mean I haven't type MANY searches in already.
The Question
Am I able to use Rfa and bcmon on nexus 5x, and if so, then what is needed to get my phone operating (the app(s)) correctly? This is the complete error i am receiving in RfA.
CANNOT LINK EXECUTABLE: "/system/app/bcmon/assets/libs/libfake_driver.so" is 32-bit instead of 64-bit page record for 0x7f98e8c010 was not found (block_size=64)
error: only position independent executables (PIE) are supported.
My Done Work
with the rfa settings you can choose to use custom scripts the following shows the scripts i used and it's placement.
these scripts i had to modify to get the device's errors fixed ( not all though )
Activation Script:
#!/bin/bash
svc wifi disable
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libs
LD_PRELOAD=/data/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libs/libfake_driver.so sh
cd /sdcard/bcmon/assets/tools
./enable_bcmon
echo “rfasuccess”
exit
Warm-up Script
#!/bin/bash
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libs
LD_PRELOAD=/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libslibfake_driver.so sh
cd /sdcard/bcmon/assets/tools
Stop Script
#!/bin/bash
svc wifi enable
echo “rfasuccess”
Will you care to help me?
Hi,
Try posting your question here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-5/help
The experts there may be able to help.
Good luck!
Info:
my device is rooted (fully) and my phone consist of Supersu, Nethunter terminal, bcmon, Reaver.
(below are the codes i modified for my device)
The history
when I first started running reaver i would receive many errors; [...not found] [...can't enable] [...can't change permissions (appearently you can't change permissions within sdcard folder... anyways, moving on.)]
[...no internet connection found]
my point is after looking at the custom scripts I had installed (with notepad++) i noticed that the actual scripts were the big issue. so I started changing things one by one in-order to not mess-up everything. yeah sure, I made some errors that made things last longer- way longer than normal. Nevertheless, at some point I actually started making things better and slowly started knocking down those errors!! until i hit the 'test' button and sure enough
"Cannot link executable... libfake_driver.so is 32 instead of 64.... only PIE are supported."
Truth Be Told
as you might can tell from the kind of question I'm asking, I am not an expert.
And I understand these kind of questions comes with others looking at the questioner as annoying- and with the thought of 'these beginners just want everyone to give answers instead of learning themselves...' It's NOT COMPLETELY wrong, since now days a comment like such is ... pretty much true-
So i'll say this: Not Every One Is The Same.
I am a programmer. my programming is mostly within game design/ game development so if more coding is needed to solve my issue at hand, then let me know and please (at the lease) point me in the right direction.
if I need to google something, please clarify what to search. For I am just one person, so it is possible I haven't thought of something to type in- however, that does not mean I haven't type MANY searches in already.
The Question
Am I able to use Rfa and bcmon on nexus 5x, and if so, then what is needed to get my phone operating (the app(s)) correctly? This is the complete error i am receiving in RfA.
CANNOT LINK EXECUTABLE: "/system/app/bcmon/assets/libs/libfake_driver.so" is 32-bit instead of 64-bit page record for 0x7f98e8c010 was not found (block_size=64)
error: only position independent executables (PIE) are supported.
My Done Work
with the rfa settings you can choose to use custom scripts the following shows the scripts i used and it's placement.
these scripts i had to modify to get the device's errors fixed ( not all though )
Activation Script:
#!/bin/bash
svc wifi disable
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libs
LD_PRELOAD=/data/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libs/libfake_driver.so sh
cd /sdcard/bcmon/assets/tools
./enable_bcmon
echo “rfasuccess”
exit
Warm-up Script
#!/bin/bash
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libs
LD_PRELOAD=/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libslibfake_driver.so sh
cd /sdcard/bcmon/assets/tools
Stop Script
#!/bin/bash
svc wifi enable
echo “rfasuccess”
Will you care to help me?