VirtualBox Android Emulator with Marketplace - Android Software/Hacking General [Developers Only]

Does anyone know of any VirtualBox Android Emulator that has Marketplace?
Thanks!
Oh, I forgot to add "that's free" and not the $50 that some cheeky bastards are trying to charge for a thing called AndroidVM!

iridium21 said:
Does anyone know of any VirtualBox Android Emulator that has Marketplace?
Thanks!
Oh, I forgot to add "that's free" and not the $50 that some cheeky bastards are trying to charge for a thing called AndroidVM!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android doesn't just load up and run on a PC. It's a source code project that a real developer has to spend time porting from platform to platform, unless you want to run it from a runtime built from the SDK. To do that requires an underlying OS, like Windows, Linux a MAC - something capable of running the SDK.
Since, VMware is emulating a PC, then in order to run as a real virtual machine, android needs to be pretty much ported to a PC. Since Android is built on a Linux kernel, it's not impossible, but geese - why? That said, it's bound to show up on an Intel compatible tablet at some point, if it hasn't already.

attn1 said:
Android doesn't just load up and run on a PC. It's a source code project that a real developer has to spend time porting from platform to platform, unless you want to run it from a runtime built from the SDK. To do that requires an underlying OS, like Windows, Linux a MAC - something capable of running the SDK.
Since, VMware is emulating a PC, then in order to run as a real virtual machine, android needs to be pretty much ported to a PC. Since Android is built on a Linux kernel, it's not impossible, but geese - why? That said, it's bound to show up on an Intel compatible tablet at some point, if it hasn't already.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm already running Android under Virtualbox - I just wondered if there's a version for VB that has Marketplace.

attn1 said:
Android doesn't just load up and run on a PC. It's a source code project that a real developer has to spend time porting from platform to platform, unless you want to run it from a runtime built from the SDK. To do that requires an underlying OS, like Windows, Linux a MAC - something capable of running the SDK.
Since, VMware is emulating a PC, then in order to run as a real virtual machine, android needs to be pretty much ported to a PC. Since Android is built on a Linux kernel, it's not impossible, but geese - why? That said, it's bound to show up on an Intel compatible tablet at some point, if it hasn't already.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow. So much complete and utter wrong in one post... I've been running Android under a virtual machine for quite a while...

There is an x86 version of Android available at androidx86.org
It will definitely run under Virtual Box or any other virtualization software package. It's Android 1.6 by the way, and you will have to perform some geek-like activities to simulate an SD-card to install appz.
Big question is whether an ARM-device version of Android would work in a normal VM emulator (not talking about Bochs and stuff).

FloatingFatMan said:
Wow. So much complete and utter wrong in one post... I've been running Android under a virtual machine for quite a while...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, since I hadn't heard of a port to x86, I was certainly wrong about that, which makes the rest of the post moot, but not wrong. In any event, I stand corrected.

sorry to add a flame of any kind but this
"Since, VMware is emulating a PC, then in order to run as a real virtual machine, android needs to be pretty much ported to a PC. Since Android is built on a Linux kernel, it's not impossible, but geese - why? That said, it's bound to show up on an Intel compatible tablet at some point, if it hasn't already."
is totally wrong.
Virtual machines virtualise the hardware of your machine (bad explanation I KNOW). if you have a PowerPC you can only emulate PowerPC (Mac for those that dont know) and intel/amd chips are things like x86 then theres smaller devices like ARM. my point is that if you have a Intel/amd box you can only emulate x86 O/S. however if you have a netbook with a version of linux or windows built on arm arch then u could prob get away with the original android if you are running normal x86 then u require android that has been built from source on x86.
this made me laugh
"Since Android is built on a Linux kernel, it's not impossible"
all i can say is what??
anyway back to the point... to run android on a x86 box u need x86 android

The problem with getting the Market to work is simply that the GApps are currently only available in a compiled for ARM version. period. that's the answer you wanted to hear i guess.
@others: stop OTing please...

hvc123 said:
sorry to add a flame of any kind but this
"Since, VMware is emulating a PC, then in order to run as a real virtual machine, android needs to be pretty much ported to a PC. Since Android is built on a Linux kernel, it's not impossible, but geese - why? That said, it's bound to show up on an Intel compatible tablet at some point, if it hasn't already."
is totally wrong.
Virtual machines virtualise the hardware of your machine (bad explanation I KNOW). if you have a PowerPC you can only emulate PowerPC (Mac for those that dont know) and intel/amd chips are things like x86 then theres smaller devices like ARM. my point is that if you have a Intel/amd box you can only emulate x86 O/S. however if you have a netbook with a version of linux or windows built on arm arch then u could prob get away with the original android if you are running normal x86 then u require android that has been built from source on x86.
this made me laugh
"Since Android is built on a Linux kernel, it's not impossible"
all i can say is what??
anyway back to the point... to run android on a x86 box u need x86 android
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
VMware and Virtualbox emulate PC hardware. Since Android runs on a Linux kernel, and Linux was originally developed for an x86 PC, it follows that a port of Android could be done for a PC. Since this was not a generic discussion about virtual machines but a specific discussion about PC emulation, I don't see where the argument is.
PC = x86 and it's successors. You said I was totally wrong and then pretty much made my case. The only point I missed is that the work had already been done. To run Android in a x86 (PC) VM, you'll need an X86 (PC) compatible version of Android - right - what I said.

Right... Ok, now does anyone know the answer to the original question?

the_fish said:
The problem with getting the Market to work is simply that the GApps are currently only available in a compiled for ARM version. period. that's the answer you wanted to hear i guess.
@others: stop OTing please...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OP should read your thread.

arctu said:
OP should read your thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have
Supposedly, these guys have Android with Marketplace for VirtualBox:
http://www.androidvm.com/home
So it must be able to be done - the only problem is that it's $49.95!

deleted

zgornz said:
They state they are running Ubuntu in a VM, then installed the Android emulator in Ubuntu, then the android emulator is setup to have the Marketplace. The android emulator is doing the ARM emulation.
I think using qemu User Mode emulation it might be possible to actually launch the Marketplace and apps via android-x86 without using a phone emulator. Not sure it would be that valuable, but it would allow lots more apps on a netbook running Android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I imagine it would be a mess to get a touch screen working in android running on an emulator.

I read reviews on androidx86 booted (not emulated) on a few netbooks that ran great and very responsive..I also read one on a touch screen comp that worked fine..they claim all apps work-minus gapps obviously.
I plan on trying this on my Toshiba nb205 netbook today and can post a review if anyone is interested..
Sent from my Nexus One using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

A review would sure be appreciated. More knowledge is always better.

Just a quick follow up, I tried out the Androidx86 on my netbook this weekend, both booted off the usb and installed on the hd..it runs..nothing spectacular and slightly dissappointing. You still only have a 4x4 screen and the Marketplace is entirely different, very small selection of "blah" apps..none of my favorite android apps anyways-facebook,twitter,gmail..not really any widgets either. Lastly, you need to use an external mouse..the touchpad just moves the background but gives you no pointer (could be a hardware compatability issue tho)..
On the positive side, the internet was very fast and resume time was almost instantanious..not really any major bugs, just nothing too special..

This method works with 1.6 as originally described here:
link-> forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=529170
I got it to run with the signed-dream_devphone_userdebug-img-14721.zip image from HTC for the developer phone.
link-> developer.htc.com/adp.html
I replaced the android-sdk-windows\add-ons\google_apis-4_r02\images\system.img with the one from the signed-dream_devphone_userdebug-img-14721.zip
(you should backup the original system.ini)
I then used the Android SDK GUI interface to create a Google API Level 4 machine.
I did not need to install the marketenabler.apk, as described in the original thread.
It boots up like a new Dev Phone, it behaves like there is a valid SIM and working data connection.
CTRL-F11 rotates the screen (slide out keyboard).
I have only installed a few free apps (K9 mail) but they seem to work fine.
I can't post links so copy, and paste them.
It would be trivial to create an Ubuntu virtual machine and then install the Android SDK inside of it and modify the system.img. Installing the SDK on your own machine probably takes less space and resources then running it inside another VM.

attn1 said:
Well, since I hadn't heard of a port to x86, I was certainly wrong about that, which makes the rest of the post moot, but not wrong. In any event, I stand corrected.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Updated, not corrected.
Yes, you were absolutely correct except for being out of date, because that process you described has already taken place as others have now pointed out.
To the person who said he was wrong, actually, no.
Android as it stands on the phone, is an ARM system compiled in ARM machine code. Android apps are hardware/platform agnostic but the operating system is not, it does have to be ported and recompiled for any different hardware system. That being said, it seems that most of that work is finished, ala androidx86.org
Cheers,
Rob

x86 Android Market
I have been reading a bit. It seems that it is possible to have Gapps installed for x86.
Froyo, people have been using Cyanogen 6 Gapps for Tegra.
Android x86 launched their Gingerbread version not long ago. It would not surprise me if Cyanogen 7 Gapps worked with it. Different devices used different versions and now there is just one version for all. It should be possible to run VM from the desktop.
NDK dependent Apps: in theory, it may be possible taking the apk using android apk tool, x86 NDK from the x86 build and rebuild it for x86 code.
I will be playing with an old EEE900 and see how this goes sooon.

Related

Best Computer OS for Android Development?

Hey guys, I'm new here and new to Android Development. I would like to try my hand at it. Can you guys suggest the best OS for Developing Android Apps.
Linux (Which Distro)
Windows
Thanks
Andrew
I to have been curious as to the best linux distro for android development. I'm not looking for afull blown linus os...more along the lines of dsl for android and app development. I have only dabbled with linux, mainly dsl and phlak livecds. I want something a little more capable then that.
avacomputers said:
Hey guys, I'm new here and new to Android Development. I would like to try my hand at it. Can you guys suggest the best OS for Developing Android Apps.
Linux (Which Distro)
Windows
Thanks
Andrew
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
UBUNTU IS THE BEST OS because android is developed under linux with java base...
if you tray windoze you must to adjust a lot of thinks and make compatibilities... donĀ“t complicate and try UBUNTU 10
An answer of one ubuntu lover!
sorry somtimes my english is poor
Linux is best os android development application. Android is an operating system based on Linux and a robot body or synthetic. It is open source as a Java library. It is a software stack for mobile devices because it includes an operating system and middleware, application key.
I think the best Linux for Developing Android is Ubuntu. There is a new version, 11.04. Try it
i know linux is the obvious choice for android development as it has the same base as android. i also understand ubuntu is the most popular of the linux brands, but i dont really need a full blown linux os. i curently use my mobile-ap for internet with about 2 bars if that...so internet speeds are slow. i dont want to spend alot of time and bandwidth downloading a linux os with features i will probably never use. or is there a light version of ubuntu with just a basic environment i need to develop for android?
as for my other computing needs, im still a windows fan!
Is Fedora on GNOME 3.0 a good platform for development?
yea i like linux mint its more user friendly than ubuntu
Since you might be using Eclipse as IDE, there shouldn't be too much difference using a windows or linux OS.
We're using windows and we're satisfied...
Just try different OSs. You'll notice windows is slow when compiling Java. Why is that - the OS, or the usual virus scanners sitting on it - don't know. I'm pulling my hair right know why my Macbook Pro on a 7000 rpm drive is much (3x) faster to compile than windows XP on a 10K rpm drive. My office buddy's telling me Linux is faster then windows.
Wow... some of the answers in this thread are just... wow...
Ok listen up people!
For just pure development it doesn't matter which OS you choose. You can code just as well in Linux, Windows or Mac since they all run the JDK, Eclipse and the Android SDK just as well. HOWEVER:
Linux has some advantages over the two:
1. The Android emulator will run better on certain versions of Linux depending on how they are set up. The AVD works by using an emulation technology called qemu which is now integrated in the Linux kernel giving it direct access to the processor thus improving the speed of the emulator significantly. Windows and MacOS don't have qemu integrated in their kernel as far as I know therefore the emulator works like S**t.
2. Linux distributions by default are optimised to work faster on hardware than Windows. Take note of the words "than Windows". MacOS is highly optimised to work as fast as possible on Macs therefore it can't really compete in this category. But for PC users, if you invest the time and effort to make your Linux machine tweaked accordingly to your hardware settings it will blow windows away when it comes to processing speed, therefore enhancing the quickness of your IDE as a result.
Now that we got that out of the way, I do have a warning: Linux Is Hard To Configure Properly! Unless you know exactly what you are doing you will brake it over and over and over again until you get it working. If you really must use Linux, here are the distributions I recommend for developing Android apps:
Linux Beginners: Ubuntu - any version above 10.04 I think. Take your pick at what works best for you
Linux Intermediate: Spend some time configuring a Slackware Machine with Eclipse + ADT + JDK + qemu. You won't be sorry.
Linux Advanced: Gentoo or Archbang depending on preferance
Linux Experts: The bloody hell are you doing on this thread?
taranasus said:
Wow... some of the answers in this thread are just... wow...
Ok listen up people!
For just pure development it doesn't matter which OS you choose. You can code just as well in Linux, Windows or Mac since they all run the JDK, Eclipse and the Android SDK just as well. HOWEVER:
Linux has some advantages over the two:
1. The Android emulator will run better on certain versions of Linux depending on how they are set up. The AVD works by using an emulation technology called qemu which is now integrated in the Linux kernel giving it direct access to the processor thus improving the speed of the emulator significantly. Windows and MacOS don't have qemu integrated in their kernel as far as I know therefore the emulator works like S**t.
2. Linux distributions by default are optimised to work faster on hardware than Windows. Take note of the words "than Windows". MacOS is highly optimised to work as fast as possible on Macs therefore it can't really compete in this category. But for PC users, if you invest the time and effort to make your Linux machine tweaked accordingly to your hardware settings it will blow windows away when it comes to processing speed, therefore enhancing the quickness of your IDE as a result.
Now that we got that out of the way, I do have a warning: Linux Is Hard To Configure Properly! Unless you know exactly what you are doing you will brake it over and over and over again until you get it working. If you really must use Linux, here are the distributions I recommend for developing Android apps:
Linux Beginners: Ubuntu - any version above 10.04 I think. Take your pick at what works best for you
Linux Intermediate: Spend some time configuring a Slackware Machine with Eclipse + ADT + JDK + qemu. You won't be sorry.
Linux Advanced: Gentoo or Archbang depending on preferance
Linux Experts: The bloody hell are you doing on this thread?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awe but Archbang is easy, how about pure Arch Linux ;D
is ubuntu still best OS to develop android apps?
how to take back up of only videos on my Android device?
taranasus said:
Wow... some of the answers in this thread are just... wow...
Ok listen up people!
For just pure development it doesn't matter which OS you choose. You can code just as well in Linux, Windows or Mac since they all run the JDK, Eclipse and the Android SDK just as well. HOWEVER:
Linux has some advantages over the two:
1. The Android emulator will run better on certain versions of Linux depending on how they are set up. The AVD works by using an emulation technology called qemu which is now integrated in the Linux kernel giving it direct access to the processor thus improving the speed of the emulator significantly. Windows and MacOS don't have qemu integrated in their kernel as far as I know therefore the emulator works like S**t.
2. Linux distributions by default are optimised to work faster on hardware than Windows. Take note of the words "than Windows". MacOS is highly optimised to work as fast as possible on Macs therefore it can't really compete in this category. But for PC users, if you invest the time and effort to make your Linux machine tweaked accordingly to your hardware settings it will blow windows away when it comes to processing speed, therefore enhancing the quickness of your IDE as a result.
Now that we got that out of the way, I do have a warning: Linux Is Hard To Configure Properly! Unless you know exactly what you are doing you will brake it over and over and over again until you get it working. If you really must use Linux, here are the distributions I recommend for developing Android apps:
Linux Beginners: Ubuntu - any version above 10.04 I think. Take your pick at what works best for you
Linux Intermediate: Spend some time configuring a Slackware Machine with Eclipse + ADT + JDK + qemu. You won't be sorry.
Linux Advanced: Gentoo or Archbang depending on preferance
Linux Experts: The bloody hell are you doing on this thread?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you guide me how to take back up of only videos on my Android device
using own made program or application software.
Means from where to begin ?
What to cover first ?
File system of Android ?
Or direct using system calls I can copy videos directly ?
regards
matt
You suggested its worth time & effort to properly setup Slackware it would be worth our while. Ok found u page2. Let's see is the needed software list still valid 2015?
Where can I go for support setting up Slackware for android development.
Plus FYI can't watch tutorial video be.cause Flash no longer supports Linux.
I have UBUNTU 16.04.
I've noticed a lot of people saying to use Ubuntu 10. is that because the post is old or is the 10th generation Ubuntu the best for android development. i also am a noob. i can root, i have successfully flashed a lg stylo once with katana rom. i still use it to this day,,,,, bc my gf "accidentally" broke my 500gig hdd that i was booting windows ten from via usb on my dell inspiron. i was using mainly odin and lg flash tool which i rem was hard to get up and running on Ubuntu which if i rem correctly is why i went to windows when i am flashing. Any suggestions or refferences would help greatly. i fig if im starting over id better do it the correct way. My end goal is to try my hand at learning android development. Ty LOVE THE SITE

Wine in Ubuntu on TF

Hi,
i have just to run Ubuntu in my TF, it works great for me and now i want to install WineHQ. I think that wine isnt compabitile with ARM devices but somewhere i read,that from version 1.4 its have to be. But if i tried to install it in Ubuntu its says me,that the program isnt compabitile with my device. Have anyone of you run the Wine?Or do you know,where i can find the Arm version?
Thanks
http://www.winehq.org/announce/1.4
Not sure yet, but if someone else tries and gets successful, report back! I am very interested in this.
i don't see how it'll be compatible with arm... what wine basically does is it redirects requests for libraries that are in windows to those that are available in linux.
and then theres this: WINE=Wine Is Not an Emulator.
Quote from http://wiki.winehq.org/ARM:
"Windows apps are mostly compiled for x86 and they won't run on ARM with bare Wine, so this is not our motivation. The original Motivation was to be able to run winelib-apps on ARM, that even was before it got public that win8 will run on ARM devices."
Exactly - without emulating an x86 processor, you can't run an x86 app. That means no steam, not even notepad. No windows apps.
Strange that this thread has stopped as there is a thread in the gt540 forum linking to a thread where someone got it running through a memory card ubuntu install.
Although I think things like dual booting ubuntu and android and running things like wine will become truly interesting and less hacked once armv8 chips hit the market
FOUND IT!!!!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=17469201
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium HD app

[Q] Android x86 efi boot

So I tried out Android x86 for my PC. It works beautifully. I cannot boot it on my Surface Pro though... It seems like the Surface Pro was designed to only boot EFI boot loaders. Not BIOS boot loaders... I was wondering if somebody could lend a hand at helping me get past this issue. I really think Android x86 would be great for the Surface Pro, there are so many things I miss from my Nexus 7 but I don't want an Android device, if I could just dual boot it every now and then, I would be happy. Can someone please get the Android 4.2 x86 ISOs to boot via EFI? That would be appreciated.
sionicion said:
So I tried out Android x86 for my PC. It works beautifully. I cannot boot it on my Surface Pro though... It seems like the Surface Pro was designed to only boot EFI boot loaders. Not BIOS boot loaders... I was wondering if somebody could lend a hand at helping me get past this issue. I really think Android x86 would be great for the Surface Pro, there are so many things I miss from my Nexus 7 but I don't want an Android device, if I could just dual boot it every now and then, I would be happy. Can someone please get the Android 4.2 x86 ISOs to boot via EFI? That would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmmm ... interesting you tried ...
and came out with a finding ...
following this thread on the possible development on this front ...
I've always dreamt of a Surface Pro on Android always ...
a reboot to Win7 for Work ... and back to Android !!!
going to be really very interesting ...
Hope the Android X86 team is peaking at this thread ...
Cheers!
Did you bother disabling secure boot?
Otherwise you can try "jar of beans" or "bluestacks" to run android applications for windows. There is a version of bluestacks which claims to be optimised for the surface pro, in reality its just bluestacks with proper windows 8 touch support.
SixSixSevenSeven said:
Did you bother disabling secure boot?
Otherwise you can try "jar of beans" or "bluestacks" to run android applications for windows. There is a version of bluestacks which claims to be optimised for the surface pro, in reality its just bluestacks with proper windows 8 touch support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course I did, the problem is the Surface Pro's UEFI chip does not actually support booting BIOS-based bootloaders. It only boots EFI-based bootloaders like the Windows Boot Manager or Grub EFI, etc. Unless one was to emulate BIOS to boot Android, it needs a EFI bootloader to even boot it on the Surface Pro. Ubuntu boots fine on the Surface Pro, but it is booting from Grub EFI. I copied the Grub EFI file to my other flash drive, and Grub indeed boots. It is the trouble of getting Android x86 to boot because it isn't using a EFI-based bootloader.
Also, that wasn't the point. I want to run pure Android just for the experience of having Android right on my Surface so I don't miss having a Nexus 7. I tried it on my desktop PC and it runs beautifully, if only I could get it on my Surface...
Surface Pro comes with Windows 8 Pro and a CPU capable of second-level address translation. It is therefore capable of running Client Hyper-V, which is a hypervisor-based virtualization (rather than hosted VM) technology that allows you to run another OS in parallel with Windows. I believe it includes support for BIOS-based OSes. Perhaps you should try that?
GoodDayToDie said:
Surface Pro comes with Windows 8 Pro and a CPU capable of second-level address translation. It is therefore capable of running Client Hyper-V, which is a hypervisor-based virtualization (rather than hosted VM) technology that allows you to run another OS in parallel with Windows. I believe it includes support for BIOS-based OSes. Perhaps you should try that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But what's the point in that? I don't want to virtualize. I want to run it natively... That's like saying hey use Bluestacks. I want Android running native on my Surface.
Anyway, guys I got it. Here it is.
First of all, running on a hypervisor is nothing like using Bluestacks. Android would then be running as "natively" as Windows at that point (Windows itself would also be running on the hypervisor), except that Windows would have first access to the display (Android would be able to use the graphics hardware nonetheless). When the virtual display was set to the Android machine, Android would be interacting with the input devices. As a plus side, you could switch back and forth rapidly...
That said, if you managed to get it working on bare metal, that's cool. Did you mean to include a link in your "Here it is "?
GoodDayToDie said:
First of all, running on a hypervisor is nothing like using Bluestacks. Android would then be running as "natively" as Windows at that point (Windows itself would also be running on the hypervisor), except that Windows would have first access to the display (Android would be able to use the graphics hardware nonetheless). When the virtual display was set to the Android machine, Android would be interacting with the input devices. As a plus side, you could switch back and forth rapidly...
That said, if you managed to get it working on bare metal, that's cool. Did you mean to include a link in your "Here it is "?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The tutorial is on the YouTube page. But the problem with the Hyper-V hypervisor is it uses that remote console. I only found it decent for running Windows with the guest drivers installed. Unless I'm just not executing it very well, Hyper-V isn't a good solution. Since VirtualBox is used much more in the Linux world, I would use that before using Hyper-V.
I'll investigate the virtual solutions though and let you know.
more recent linux kernel versions do support hyper-v, partly provided by microsoft believe it or not
I would assume that hyper-v support would carry over into android. Just a case of setting it up.
Worth trying. However, Android runs a somewhat customized kernel build that probably doesn't include a lot of the optional stuff such as the Hyper-V helpers. Of course, you could install the required kernel module for them...
SixSixSevenSeven said:
I would assume that hyper-v support would carry over into android. Just a case of setting it up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I somewhat doubt the android platform itself has support for hyper-v.
Further, if you're looking to boot android directly would an android kernel and platform support booting via UEFI at all yet?
What partition would android be installed to? it likely wouldn't like being stuffed into an NTFS partition so you'd have to repartition the SSD and take some of the space from Windows, or boot android from an SDcard or USB memory stick.
EDIT: I see you did infact get it running, nice job, did you just use GRUB for a bootloader? did you have android run from the SSD or from elsewhere?
tbh if I had a surface pro I don't think i'd be installing android on it, slightly a waste.
by the way, a faster way of doing advanced reboot so you get the boot options is to hold shift and select the reboot option from the power menu.
So, after a short little flip around the web, I came across this
https://01.org/android-ia/downloads/2013/android-4.2.2r1-ia0
somehow.
I would love to have my Surface Pro dual-bootable between Android and Win8, but your tutorial has sort of overwhelmed me.
Are you using this code? Would it be better to?
Just wasn't sure where this development was going....
Purrsia said:
So, after a short little flip around the web, I came across this
https://01.org/android-ia/downloads/2013/android-4.2.2r1-ia0
somehow.
I would love to have my Surface Pro dual-bootable between Android and Win8, but your tutorial has sort of overwhelmed me.
Are you using this code? Would it be better to?
Just wasn't sure where this development was going....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can try my guide in windows 8 development forums
Sent from my HTC One X+ using xda app-developers app
---------- Post added at 10:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:36 AM ----------
feherneoh said:
Can't you add the lines which boot android-x86 into Ubuntu's GRUB? If it can be loaded, it could be used to load Android's kernel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Microsoft locked it, you can only use the stock bootloader for now
Sent from my HTC One X+ using xda app-developers app
rEFIit
Have you tried a rEFIit or rEFIitd? As the name subtly suggests, its a bootloader for EFI machines. I suggest having a look. I'm going to try this myself on a couple of machines tomorrow once I get to work. Good luck! Let me know how it turns out or if I lead someone down the right track!
rEFInd - An EFI boot manager utility: http://goo.gl/KRwzk
rEFIt: http://refit.sourceforge.net/
Agreed, Android on a Surface would be kick ass. Windows for work, Android for real life!
Hi Folks.....
Feeling a little nervous here seems I must have took a wrong turn somewhere to end up in the Microsoft Surface forum LOL.
Is anyone still wondering about this? I noticed the other day that the linux kernel 3.10 which is currently used by the android-x86 project has android efi drivers/patches which maybe what you require. I'd also have a poke around the Android-IA sources which is the official intel android open source project from what I recall there's more efiboot goodies in there.
As an extra bonus the 3.10 kernel also includes a patch for Binder which allows a 32bit userspace to function correctly with a 64bit PAE kernel which means "BIG RAM" so if you have more than 4 gig and a 64 bit processor you can get access to the full ram allocation, not quite the pure 64bit Android that I want but it'll do for now while I figure out the finer points of x86_64 assembly language.
If Anyone wants/needs a kernel rattling off with these options enabled just let me know and i'll well rattle one off!
Thanks
trevd said:
Hi Folks.....
...I noticed the other day that the linux kernel 3.10 which is currently used by the android-x86 project has android efi drivers/patches which maybe what you require. I'd also have a poke around the Android-IA sources which is the official intel android open source project from what I recall there's more efiboot goodies in there.
As an extra bonus the 3.10 kernel also includes a patch for Binder which allows a 32bit userspace to function correctly with a 64bit PAE kernel which means "BIG RAM" so if you have more than 4 gig and a 64 bit processor you can get access to the full ram allocation, not quite the pure 64bit Android that I want but it'll do for now while I figure out the finer points of x86_64 assembly language.
If Anyone wants/needs a kernel rattling off with these options enabled just let me know and i'll well rattle one off!
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If the offer still stands, I would be interested in this (..or even just a how-to).
I have a multiboot system with PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu, and Win8.1 running right now, and I can get the recent 4.4rc1 release from android x86 to boot if I switch to legacy bios and use legacy grub from PCLinuxOS or the android_x86 thumbdrive, but I cannot get it to boot from Ubuntu's EFI capable Grub2 (..d/t kernel panic). On my Acer m5-583p it works great in legacy mode (wifi, touchscreen, keyboard, etc), but I would like to be able to use an EFI bootloader so that I don't have to change to/from legacy/efi before selecting the OS at boot.
Thanks! :good:

BlueStacks App player

Hi everyone.
Could anybody compile BlueStacks App Player for Windows RT?
It would be great to use this app on our tablet with Win RT
I use on my laptop (win7) and wish o use on my Surface RT
Official site
Thanx a lot
It would be a great app to have, but seeing that it's not open-source there is about zero chance of it ever getting ported by the community.
Your best bet is to just hope that they (the actual makers of the app) decide to bring it over to RT, which is possible but unlikely.
Search next time; the devs here are up to their ears in requests for closed-source applications and are pretty fed up with it. Sorry.
They've actually already stated that it's coming...
Not explicitly. They hinted at it in a Help forum post, but never confirmed or denied it. And that was months ago.
jtg007 said:
Not explicitly. They hinted at it in a Help forum post, but never confirmed or denied it. And that was months ago.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually they had listed on their site that they were working on an ARM version.but not sure if they still are. Seems unlikely MS would allow it in the store due to direct competition with the windows store.
guitar1969 said:
Actually they had listed on their site that they were working on an ARM version.but not sure if they still are. Seems unlikely MS would allow it in the store due to direct competition with the windows store.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MS doesn't have a whole lot of control of things outside the Store. They could side-load an app pretty easily.
The vast majority of RT devices aren't "jailbroken" for sideloading arbitrary ARM binaries. Also, remember that RT doesn't (currently) support OpenGL, which means any Android apps/games that use advanced graphics won't work unless BlueStacks write and include an openGL-via-DirectX compatibility layer.
GoodDayToDie said:
The vast majority of RT devices aren't "jailbroken" for sideloading arbitrary ARM binaries. Also, remember that RT doesn't (currently) support OpenGL, which means any Android apps/games that use advanced graphics won't work unless BlueStacks write and include an openGL-via-DirectX compatibility layer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I meant side-loading a Metro app, which can be done by just about everybody.
Cant sideload metro apps without a developers certificate
Derp. Yes, of course sideloading is the obvious way to go about it. Getting the dev license is easy, and yeah BS would have to sign their app, but that's not exactly difficult and their cert doesn't have to be signed by anybody else; it just requires that the end user install the cert before the app if it doesn't already chain to a trusted authority. The appx installer script automates all of that, though.
That said, the OpenGL issue is still there. Don't count on 3D games, at a minimum, working.
Don't forget however, that all of this is pretty much irrelevant right now. The Surface lacks the power to run Bluestacks. On my 6-core 2.3 ghz 6 gigs of ram computer with a great graphics unit, Bluestacks is still relatively slow. Just imagine it on the quad-core 1.4 with 2 gigs of ram that the Surface has. Not to mention it's on ARM, which is considerably less powerful than x86 or x64.
C-Lang said:
Don't forget however, that all of this is pretty much irrelevant right now. The Surface lacks the power to run Bluestacks. On my 6-core 2.3 ghz 6 gigs of ram computer with a great graphics unit, Bluestacks is still relatively slow. Just imagine it on the quad-core 1.4 with 2 gigs of ram that the Surface has. Not to mention it's on ARM, which is considerably less powerful than x86 or x64.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont think bluestacks is a multithreaded application in which case your 6 cores would be irrelevant and it would be purely down to your 2.3ghz clockspeed, which is not high at all. 6gb of RAM would also be irrelevant as no android app requires that much RAM so it simply wont be needed. GPU, not so sure what happens there, most of the apps I try running dont seem to enable my GPU at all so I am not sure if bluestacks is using software or hardware OpenGL, but then I havent tried any 3d games or anything. It runs ok on my 3.5ghz AMD athlon 2 but its not always as perfect as lets say a nexus 7 tablet running android natively.
I'm admittedly not 100% sure on how BlueStacks works (is it a native x86 DalvikVM, or is it emulating a full ARM system?), but it should be, at least in theory, possible to get it to run as naively as it does on Android by just porting the DalvikVM to Windows RT. That should result in speeds at least similar to a lower end Android tablet (Windows is bigger and has more cruft than the linux kernel that's running the DVM). With some sort of reverse WINE scenario it should also be possible to get a degree of binary compatibility for native libraries/addons.
SixSixSevenSeven said:
I dont think bluestacks is a multithreaded application in which case your 6 cores would be irrelevant and it would be purely down to your 2.3ghz clockspeed, which is not high at all. 6gb of RAM would also be irrelevant as no android app requires that much RAM so it simply wont be needed. GPU, not so sure what happens there, most of the apps I try running dont seem to enable my GPU at all so I am not sure if bluestacks is using software or hardware OpenGL, but then I havent tried any 3d games or anything. It runs ok on my 3.5ghz AMD athlon 2 but its not always as perfect as lets say a nexus 7 tablet running android natively.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sort of, yes. But still, that means the Surface would be way less powerful. Also, my RAM is EATEN by Bluestacks because it's not apps that are the problem to run, it's Android. You're basically loading an entire virtual machine onto your RAM to run, in a program shell, then running Android apps on top of that. So the power of the device does matter... however:
netham45 said:
I'm admittedly not 100% sure on how BlueStacks works (is it a native x86 DalvikVM, or is it emulating a full ARM system?), but it should be, at least in theory, possible to get it to run as naively as it does on Android by just porting the DalvikVM to Windows RT. That should result in speeds at least similar to a lower end Android tablet (Windows is bigger and has more cruft than the linux kernel that's running the DVM). With some sort of reverse WINE scenario it should also be possible to get a degree of binary compatibility for native libraries/addons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bluestacks would have to run a full emulation of ARM in order to run all apps, right? Because when you install native x86 Android, it runs very few apps from the store, because they aren't compiled for ARM.
Netham45 could be right though that we could kind of make Android run natively, though I'm highly dubious about it happening through Bluestacks. Bluestacks most likely won't make an ARM port (especially cause I doubt Microsoft would allow it in the store) and if we did have access to source code, it's still built around running on Intel processors, and would probably have to go through all sorts of unnatural emulation... So making a totally separate Android program from scratch (which would require inordinate amounts of work) would probably be the best bet.
No. I think bluestacks is actually "just" a port of the dalvik VM to run on windows.
Android apps are not compiled for a specific CPU type. They are compiled for the dalvik virtual machine which is in a way similar to the java virtual machine, in fact a dalvik applications source code is java source code hense why many people say android apps are java, in reality the dalvik VM is very different from the java VM and the 2 are not compatible.
The vast majority of apps do actually work on x86 just fine.
The main problem is that google restricts apps based on your device and often it doesn't recognise x86 devices so doesn't show results, the default app manifest files don't actually restrict platform but many devs set them to arm for some reason. With various tools to spoof what device you appear as you can still gain access to thses other apps.
The problem apps are those that use the NDK (a small minority). NDK apps do have native code, but not just for ARM. The NDK default settings are to generate binaries for ARMv7, but it can be set to x86, ARMv6, MIPS or to compile multiple binaries for a mixture of the above (causes its own issue as it includes the binaries for all platforms in one APK which loads the relevant binary at runtime, good for compatibility as one APK covers all devices but makes the final APK massive). x86 devices of course cannot run ARM compiled apps which does include a few big name apps.
I don't know if bluestacks has left it as pure dalvik VM on x86 or if it does include an ARM emulator for the NDK but it certainly isn't just running an ARM emulator and tyen android atop of it.
I don't experience the ram eating effects you mention either.
SixSixSevenSeven said:
No. I think bluestacks is actually "just" a port of the dalvik VM to run on windows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly what my understanding was as well, although what I'm about to say somewhat contradicts that.
Interestingly, http://www.bluestacks.com/technology.html says that BlueStacks is "fully configurable" and that it "supports" Windows on ARM as well as x86 Chrome, even though neither of those are actually available today. So, not sure if that page is before or ahead of its time.
"BlueStacks employs a lightweight, optimized, soft hypervisor with deep enhancements to support "embedded virtualization". End consumers can enjoy the full Android environment through BlueStacks, or just install Android app icons directly on the Windows desktop."
What the page basically says is that the core virtualization that BS uses is very easily configurable to different combinations or permutations of OSs; that the technology can just as easily run Windows on Android or Android on Chrome as it can Android on Windows, which is the only current release. It also implies that BS can do BOTH a mere dalvik vm (just install apps to the Desktop) as well as a complete system emulation (full Android experience).
There may be hope for RT yet.
As far as I remember, Bluestacks is using QEMU as there base platform. So it's probably still running ARM code in emulator.
I am looking at if we can port the Dalvik VM over to Windows RT. Anybody want to join the explorations?
So far I can see the Dalvik VM has lots of generated ARM assembly code and have huge dependencies on linux.
Porting would need quite a bit of effort.
Developers from Windroy has done it for the Windows X86 platform. If they can do it for Windows RT, it'll be much easier.

The Gemini and Ubuntu Mate....

Basically, on the Mate site there is now a Mate download for the GPD Pocket, which does look like a cracking good machine.
Basically, has anybody had the gumption to try this on their Gemini? I have only one Gemini and don't have the skill or the courage to do this myself. If, and it is if, Mate worked on the Gemini, that would be excellent. I know people have Debian working, which is the fork for Ubuntu, which is the fork for....... which is why I'm thinking / hoping it may work.
Thoughts from anyone?
P.
GPD Pocket runs on an Intel x86 processor (like most computers and laptops), which means that it can basically run anything available. Gemini runs on ARM, which is basically the processor that powers mobile phones and some tablets. ARM is a completely different architecture and is not compatible with x86 software. Most of the desktop operating systems (like Windows, mac OS, Ubuntu, etc) focus their development on the x86 platform, since the vast majority of desktops use this architecture of processors. Because Linux is a free and open source OS, it is possible to get the kernel source code and (with a few modifications) compile it to a different architecture. That's what was done for the Gemini (and all other ARM devices that can run Linux), they got the Debian source code and compiled it for the ARM cpu. Some specific hardware settings and drivers were added for the Gemini PDA to make our custom Gemian, a Debian for the Gemini. Ubuntu is based on Debian, and not the other way around. So, to have Ubuntu Mate running on the Gemini requires one step further, to get Ubuntu source code and Gemian customization and drivers, mix it all together to make some "Ubuntian" of some sort... Honestly, I see no advantage in running Ubuntu, since Debian is the root of it. I don't know of a thing you can do on Ubuntu that you can't on Debian. But still, if you really want to have Ubuntu Mate running on your Gemini, on the Android side you can install Linux Deploy. This app only works on rooted Android, but it is totally worth it if you want to run Linux on your device. It allows you to install several distributions of Linux on top of Android, including Ubuntu Mate.

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