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Ok, theres a lot of threads out there on getting Debian working "with" Android side by side. What about getting Debian working primarily and natively? You can easily modify the bootloader to boot into Debian.
No I'm not talking about chrooting into debian from the Android environment.
With this being said there are plenty of possibilities. Debian works natively with ARM, so you can go ahead and install Xorg with touchpad driver etc. and get Debian working up to fullspeed. Believe me, it works a 1000x better than using AndroidVNC and tightvnc server. You can actually use mplayer with ffmpeg to play any type of vidoes off your sdcard at fullspeed.
So anyway, what do you guys think? Maybe theres a way to modify the bootloader so at boot time you can choose to boot into debian or android etc. or maybe it would be possible to lets say "boot debian" and vnc into androids fb to "make a phone call" etc., kind of a like a reverse vnc method we use to get into X on the debian side. Heck - we could maybe even figure out how to access the framework to make calls natively through debian. The possibilities are endless.
Also, I'll edit this post and try to get a guide going here in a couple days on how to get Debian ARM/Xorg working.
I was actually wondering myself if this could be done. Heck, not like I do not enjoy android or anything. It would be great to be able to run a lot of my *nix apps natively on my phone.
I already have Debian runnin off my 8GB sdcard(unfortunately a class 2) and I enjoy it. Problem is having to shut it down and restart it so much to get functionality out of my G1.
Keep me up to date on your progress and let me know the best GUI to use for better performance.
so whats the deal, anyone actually got this working? i have no use for my brothers g1 considering the low call quality/not recieving mms'es, i mean literally if i put them side by side, my excalibur has better service/reception. and id be pretty sweet to have crystal fvwm running on g1. so it doesnt really matter to me if i could get it to make calls, as theres always skype/amsn w.e. so pretty much anyone got any links on getting a native debian install?
dinscurge said:
so whats the deal, anyone actually got this working? i have no use for my brothers g1 considering the low call quality/not recieving mms'es, i mean literally if i put them side by side, my excalibur has better service/reception. and id be pretty sweet to have crystal fvwm running on g1. so it doesnt really matter to me if i could get it to make calls, as theres always skype/amsn w.e. so pretty much anyone got any links on getting a native debian install?
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Yes they got this working. If you looked at the bible you would've seen this. But I will give you the link enjoy it is very cool. Youtube has some videos also.
http://www.saurik.com/id/10
Royalknight6190 said:
Yes they got this working. If you looked at the bible you would've seen this. But I will give you the link enjoy it is very cool. Youtube has some videos also.
http://www.saurik.com/id/10
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Click to collapse
no you misunderstand . i mean run debian native, as in to replace android
dinscurge said:
no you misunderstand . i mean run debian native, as in to replace android
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Click to collapse
Gotcha Sorry, um let me look around for yeah.
hey...check this out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX1BOGl8Fnw
and heres another xda thread here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=624392
USHERROB said:
hey...check this out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX1BOGl8Fnw
and heres another xda thread here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=624392
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ahh thx for the link i saw this before but misplaced the bookmark. but im afraid thats not exactly what im looking for but that probably doesnt exist. as this is only set up to have dual boot booting android/debian of 3rd part on sdcard. and as far as i am seeing in the thread it isnt working to well. that im just going to have to wait and see what happens.
This is an old thread, but still a very interesting topic.
Would be *great* to but debian at the bottom of things.
A note about the bootloader: It is ***ALREADY DUALBOOT***. There are TWO boot partitions on the phone: "boot" and "recovery". If you want to set it up to dualboot, but your primary (automated) boot kernel into "boot", and your secondary in "recovery".
As long as you have an engineering SPL, the actual recovery is not required -- in fact, if you WANT to boot into recovery, you can always "fastboot boot recovery.img" without even having to flash the recovery to the phone.
I tell you the thing that really bugs me about android: that it doesn't support existing X.
What I dream of at night is running the ANDROID stuff ON TOP OF X. It would present a little bit of a challenge in terms of having the PHONE app (or whatever) be able to pop up to the top. There would also be some RESOURCE challenges. DREAM may not be the best hardware to implement this on.
Native Xorg
A slight off-topic because I have Samsung Galaxy
I was also fascinated by this possibility of running debian linux, Xorg on the phone.
So I created this project "linux-on-android" (sorry, I am not allowed to post links yet) on the google code where I am going to post instructions and code. Please, join the project if you are interested. It should be completely open.
The idea is to start with something simple but working and move slowly. In order to run X server from the Debian distribution it is enough to just use the Android kernel, with only a little change to the framebuffer driver. I don't change the boot procedure - only turn off the android services and put things like startx instead. Now I am trying to use matchbox+LXDE and they look nice and fast. Wifi and touchpad work. Nothing else does. I thought about what would be the minimal working configuration and decided that power management + telephony would be very good.
With the telephony I plan to leave the android RIL daemon and write a small python program that would communicate with it and act as a dialer. It appears to be not such a problem, at least I am able to communicate with the daemon now and all requests are nicely wrapped in python methods. The next step is to write phone GUI/dialer.
I think it would be already very nice to have Xorg and debian running on top of the android daemons and android kernel replacing this "zygote" stuff. Also if we do something in this way, it would probably work on any android-based phone without big changes.
About dual-boot: I am still using chroot, I don't find anything bad in it. I have two different boot.img files, they only differ by init.rc, one which starts zygote, and one which starts Xorg. In Android I press a button and reboot in debian, in debian I press a button and reboot in android.
klinck said:
A slight off-topic because I have Samsung Galaxy
I was also fascinated by this possibility of running debian linux, Xorg on the phone.
So I created this project "linux-on-android" (sorry, I am not allowed to post links yet) on the google code where I am going to post instructions and code.
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Click to collapse
I'll post it for you in the hope to get something good going here
http://code.google.com/p/linux-on-android/
Wow klinck you really seem to be making awesome progress here man. Just looking through your project page and i see it being updated every day. I just watched the video proof and i must say it's really quite impressive.
What needs to be done now is make a guide for this, so people can easily install this on their G1 and test it.
Also, this will give it more developer attention. I really think this deserves a chance
EDIT: added links for easyness
Jefmeister said:
EDIT: added links for easyness
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To Jefmeister: thanks for posting the links and your interest.
About G1: As I said, I have Samsung Galaxy, so I don't have a chance to test it on G1. But still I can probably make a "binary distribution" for G1 and somebody else can test it. There are some hardware differences, to summarize, there are 3 things I need to change:
I need a kernel for G1 with ext3 support, and patched framebuffer driver which turns double buffering into single buffering and automatically updates screen at regular intervals
I need to know if tslib driver works with touchscreen from G1 and what is the corresponding device (it is /dev/input/event2 in my case)
I need to know where to put the debian distribution. In Galaxy we have a separate 1Gb ext3 partition on SD card which is normally used for '/data' directory, so there is a plenty of free space there. But I guess it may be different on G1.
klinck said:
To Jefmeister: thanks for posting the links and your interest.
About G1: As I said, I have Samsung Galaxy, so I don't have a chance to test it on G1. But still I can probably make a "binary distribution" for G1 and somebody else can test it. There are some hardware differences, to summarize, there are 3 things I need to change:
I need a kernel for G1 with ext3 support, and patched framebuffer driver which turns double buffering into single buffering and automatically updates screen at regular intervals
I need to know if tslib driver works with touchscreen from G1 and what is the corresponding device (it is /dev/input/event2 in my case)
I need to know where to put the debian distribution. In Galaxy we have a separate 1Gb ext3 partition on SD card which is normally used for '/data' directory, so there is a plenty of free space there. But I guess it may be different on G1.
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(3): You could certainly put it all on the sdcard in exactly the same way. As long as you have the sdcard driver built into the kernel, the sdcard is just like any other storage device.
I dont know if this is going to be of any help to you, but as I was searching around for a way to nativly install linux on my dream I found this.
http://www.htc-linux.org/wiki/index.php?title=Dream
It may interesting as a point of refrence.
anyway, keep up the good work, once my conract expires this is exactly the kind of thing I would love to do with my old phone
Hi all !
I have actually an Debian NATIVE on my G1, both Debian/OpenMOKO/Android on the SAME phone.
android are into NAND FLASH, OpenMOKO (for tests and few binaries/config files) into SD2 Partition, and Debian with all tools to compilation, into SD3 Partition.
Actualy work on my Debian G1 :
USB NET
Xorg
Keyboard (but one touch not responding)
Touchscreen (but the calibration into Worg not work, into FBCONS it's OK)
Trackball (but the ball not "click")
I trying to make call, with OpenMoko I can ring my phone.
I trying also WiFi : Crash :'(
for bluetooth, I don't have the fu***** firmware ...
For ALL : You can boot debian with fastboot or recovery.
Debian CAN be into SD1/FAT32 parition, into loop file. I make an boot img, who can boot from SD1 part with loop image you don't must repartition SDCARD, or have dedicated SD card.
Is there a publicly available Fuze/Diamond/Raphael emulator that I can run on my pc? I've done some searches, but only find info on emulators that run on the fuze itself. I would like to test some ROMS I'm trying to cook up, but as an obsolute beginner, I would like to test things without installing them on the phone itself.
Thanks!
There's a generic Device Emulator available from microsoft, but you have to use the Device Emulator drivers, and as a result you can't test a number of things (like the navi pad, accelerometer, etc)
It's not realistic to emulate a device to the point where the drivers would function on it, it would be an extreme amount of work (for each device, too!)
dc41 said:
Is there a publicly available Fuze/Diamond/Raphael emulator that I can run on my pc? I've done some searches, but only find info on emulators that run on the fuze itself. I would like to test some ROMS I'm trying to cook up, but as an obsolute beginner, I would like to test things without installing them on the phone itself.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The emulator from Microsoft does not allow ROMs to be flashed to it. There isn't an emulator that allows you top test your own ROMs.
dwizzy130
Thanks for the answers! Maybe I'll just have to pony up and get a second phone .
I first heard of such a beast when I was on the phone with a tech from FireThorn trying to work out a cert problem. He mentioned he wasn't using a phone on his end... just an emulator. I wonder if he was using the Microsoft product.
Just suck it up and flash your phone with your own roms. As long as you don't do anything super-stupid, like include a radio from the topaz or something like that, you won't brick the device. Just keep another rom handy that boots up fine if you need it in a pinch. Seriously, it's not that big of a deal, and the first time or two that you flash with your own rom, you'll get a nice rush, like the first time you unlocked the phone and flashed someone else's cooked rom.
Now, there are things you can do if you're cooking a lot and want to see if something you added (like a reg key) is 'sticking.' Look in the temp\dump folder of the kitchen, and examine the initflashfiles.dat to see if your start menu is ok. Look at the .hv files with ceregeditor to see if registry changes were compiled a-ok. Look at config.txt to see if your add2configs were compiled (and look for the corresponding cabs, etc, that you want to run during compilation). Look around for annoying shortcuts you're trying to remove, and see if they're still there. There's a lot you can do without flashing, too. I've seen Arrupenthal say that he flashes a non-booting rom like 3 times a week. It's annoying (hasn't happened to me in probably 100 cook/flash cycles, but I'm pretty conservative), but it won't kill your phone.
How do you use sys files that are designed for visual kitchens with the non visual buildos? I tried moving all the folders into one directory and buildos finishes but the rom doesn't boot... anyone? thanks!
I dunno, but you'll need all of the dsm's to begin with. If you don't have them, you might as well not even try. There's a folder in the visual kitchens with dependencies; maybe those are the dsm's that are removed from the original packages. It's just a guess.
Why not just use the newer kitchens? Or, wait until Da_G finishes with all of his kitchen tools. I bet he'll have everything figured out.
Edit: Or, check this post. It will probably help you out.
Thanks for the info! Perhaps I should have also asked what the differences were! I will check that post. About newer kitchens.. I guess I am old-fashioned. I will have to convert one day but it's like I am with cars, I require a standard transmission - one day I will have to give in a drive automatic ...
raidzero said:
Thanks for the info! Perhaps I should have also asked what the differences were! I will check that post. About newer kitchens.. I guess I am old-fashioned. I will have to convert one day but it's like I am with cars, I require a standard transmission - one day I will have to give in a drive automatic ...
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Automatic sucks, don't go there, lol.
I started out with the older style kitchens and was reluctant to change, but it's really not that hard. You'll need to convert your packages, but there's a simple tool for doing it put together by Kraize. The kitchen itself works better; I used to have the older style one crash all the time. Just suck it up and do it.
more and more kitchens are showing up as visual. I have groove rom 5 kitchen but just could not figure it out, my rom would not boot. maybe I will swap my question around and learn to convert old style kitchens to new. I do kinda like the no duplicate file error... and the nbh's they produce do seem to be smaller. not sure though as I have never made a rom that will boot!
When I first got my G-tab I was baffled by all the instructions and the literally thousands of posts in the forum. Even now, I haven't been able to find exactly how (or why) I should update my kernel. That said, I have TNT Lite running and I love my g-tab. Exploring the possible uses and utilities on it provides hours of fun. Now - here is my question. I stumbled on some instructions for installing the ROM and I have used those same instructions to install several patches to the Rom. I see all this commentary on Clockwork, side loading, etc. and I wonder if I am missing something. Today I just installed the .25 patch for TNT-Lite. I downloaded the rar file, unzipped it on my PC to get the Recovery folder and the update.zip file. I plugged the g-tab into the pc and switched it to usb mode. Then I moved the old recover folder and update.zip to a folder (cautious me) and put the new ones in the root. I disconnected the usb and started the g-tab in recovery mode (holding the power and volume+ key. It rebooted, applied the patch and I was done. That seems simple enough. It would seem that this would work for switching roms, applying patches and probably even upgrading the kernel (If I knew where it was and why I should do it). Am I missing something? Everything seems to work.
Sounds like you got the basics ok.
The real main reason to update the kernal as i see it is to add things like driver support for devices like gps and g3, so on, also minor fixs. If your not using your gtab for anything like this you maybe happy to stay stock. But if you like myself like to use your gtab to surf with g3 or as a sweet gps, then thats what the kernal updates allow. Im sure others can correct me if ive got anything wrong or add to what ive said.
You got the basic steps right, but installing ClockWorkMod Recovery has a lot of benefits.
First, built in backup and recovery will save your skin if the gTab get "cranky".
Second, installing ROMs and/or updates saves you a few steps. From "tar" files (TnT-lite), extract the update.zip file to a folder (I created a folder named "xda", just an example) and name it after the version of ROM/update.
CWM will flash "*.zip" file. This way you can keep multiple ROMs/updates on the card and switch between them.
CWM lets you clear cache, wipe Data partition, clear Dalvik-cache (use caution there), fix permissions and so much more! It is a great tool.
Sent from my gTablet-TnT-Lite-4.2.5 using TapatalkPro
So now we peel back another layer
OK so now the question of multiple roms comes up. I am not clear about the role of the rom - can I switch roms and keep all of my apps and data intact? I'm thinking like changing style sheets on a web page - presentation is different but the underlying data is still the same? Is it that easy?
And... if I am doing that perhaps I need to "clear cache" or "wipe data partition" but although I like to investigate new things I'm not willing to just walk up and push the big red button without knowing what it is for. So why would I "clear" or "wipe" things?
I get the impression that I could switch between ROMs just like switching between browsers on a pc - today Chrome, tomorrow, Firefox and never Internet Exploder... Is that correct? It took me quite a while to get the market working and it still doesn't work optimally but I'd hate to undo all the work I've done getting the g-tab humming along by switching roms. Can I?
So - anyone care to expound on the structure and how it all hooks together? What parts can be swapped out and what parts form the foundation? I'd hate to brick the little guy in my ignorance.
One final note if you know and you answer - where did YOU learn about this. Is there a book somewhere to read?
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.
The Need for A Wiki
I'm in the same boat as enigma. I'm not even sure what ROM is an acronym for, though I think it means operating system. A wiki would be a big help for many people. I bet people would be glad to contribute.
Well, I don't know about Android book, especially about "hacking android book" , but this (and others) forum has plenty of reading material and guides. Not to mention people (a lot more knowledgeable and experienced than me) who will offer advice and lend a hand. And Google search comes in handy too.
Switching ROMs is almost like switching the OS, or a flavor of. Very much like switching between Linux distributions; the base OS is the same, but the overlay changes the user experience. Some things do change deep down inside, that's why is advisable to clear data.
Android, like Linux which it is based on, uses separate partitions for different parts of the OS, like boot, recovery, data, cache and user data. Plenty of write ups and discussions on the web on that.
So when flashing a ROM, you'll rewrite boot and system. Your user apps and data/preferences pertaining to those apps are stored in data partition, and since you are changing the 'OS', the apps need to be recompiled for it. Backup apps, like Titanium Backup, come extremely handy here: backup and restore apps AND appdata with a few clicks.
Backups are stored on sdcard, which is a lot like Linux /home directory, and do not get wiped during flash. Also the CWM (sometimes called Nandroid) backups are also stored there. A backup-of-the-backup is always a good habit (copy of /sdcard to your PC for safekeep).
This is just a quick rundown, hopefully that answered some of the questions.
There is a world of information available out there in "ether-world", Google is your friend.
[EDIT]:
Some links:
http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
http://lifehacker.com/#!5596108/how-to-choose-the-right-android-rom-for-you
and of course:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=841
(use the search on top of the screen)
Sent from my gTablet-TnT-Lite-4.2.5 using TapatalkPro
Doesn't my sticky on how to flash the roms help at all? I can try to make it clearer if you have suggestions.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=892090
TeamSpeed said:
Doesn't my sticky on how to flash the roms help at all? I can try to make it clearer if you have suggestions.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=892090
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, your Sticky is as clear as Florida sky.
I just installed Thumb Keyboard on my gTab last night and I guess I got carried away getting used to it!
Yes, I have found some very good step by steps (reflashed to vegan after reading that one). Step by steps are great but I 'd like to understand why I'm doing it. The market fix...I can follow the steps and it works but why? I wish I had time to research all these things but there are so many forums,so many posts to read! The explanation that did surface in this thread was great though. Thanks. I'll keep asking questions. There are a lot of smart people out there!
I've been rooted for about 3 months. I like flashing and changing what I can to try and get the most out of my phone. My issue is this. Many of the new roms have the updated launcher which is all good but the new navbar is so big and goofy looking compared to the old one (of course in my opinion) is there a way to make a flashable zip of the old 3 "button", grey navbar? Or do I just have to get used to the new one. Can post pics if I'm being unclear
Just wondering if I'm the only one who feels this way about the newer launchers?
Diesel321 said:
I've been rooted for about 3 months. I like flashing and changing what I can to try and get the most out of my phone. My issue is this. Many of the new roms have the updated launcher which is all good but the new navbar is so big and goofy looking compared to the old one (of course in my opinion) is there a way to make a flashable zip of the old 3 "button", grey navbar? Or do I just have to get used to the new one. Can post pics if I'm being unclear
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The uot kitchen might have what you need?
thanks i just havent had time to go look and see if i can cook that myself... There wouldnt be some good books i could pick up to learn about doing my own dev work would there? Ive got ideas but not any know how on how to get them past the idea phase Thanks
No luck in the kitchen. i dont know why i dislie it so much but it really does keep me from using alot of roms
You would need to edit the 9.PNG files in framework-res.apk. this can be done with the kitchen and other tools running in the proper linux environment.
Please elaborate. Still somewhat of a noob. Thank you though
I looked all over the kitchens sight for a way to contact the people who run it to ask them but I couldn't find it. BUT I was playing Dead Island at the time so my attention was divided. Zombies with guns. What the hell?
Here is a method that may work with just using the kitchen. First you want to take an old 2.1 Rom and make a working folder in kitchen. Then take whatever Rom you are going to use and create a working folder for that one as well. It will ask if you want to back up your other working folder, select yes. You should end up with 2 working folders. What you could do is take the 9.PNG files out of the sense 2.1 rom. They are in system/framework/framework-res.apk. you will have to extract the folder then open the same folder in the Rom you want to use and extract that as well. See what the names of the matching files are and change the name of the 2.1 files to match the files in the Rom you want to use. Once you do that replace them with the 2.1 files. Compress the folder and rename the .zip to .apk. After that proceed with step 99 to build Rom and flash. If it does not work then you will have to use apk manager, which you will have to study up on because it requires a lot more dependancies than the kitchen does. I recommend installing ubuntu to do all this in. I have never swapped 9.PNG files so I am not sure if it will work. This does work with normal .PNG files though. So it is worth a shot.
WOW that sounds complicated. But being as curios and eager to learn as i am i will give it a shot. I assume you mean installijng ubuntu on my netbook so ill figure that out throug google or something, ill try to find some lit on this subject before trying so i can read up on it Thank you so much for your help. None of my friends that i personally know are into this so the only people that i can talk to about it is online friends. Its always easier having someone next to you versus trying to message and post back and forth, Thanks though your the ****
Just swapping .9 will work as long as the dementions are the same. If the themer changed them you will bootloop.
Here is some advice. Grab your favorite theme zip and unzip it with 7zip. Then unzip the apks and look around to get comfortable with the folder layout and image names. The hit up the apk multitool thread and read up on it. Except for the sdk and Java it is all in there. Everything a Modders needs short of the kitchen.
So by what Zelendel says, I don't need to use the kitchen and ubuntu??? It's really complicated to install and I've o.ly got Windows 7 starter on my netbook.
You guys are awesome though. I really appreciate all the help
http://theunlockr.com/2010/03/26/ho...om-for-android-part-1-setting-up-the-kitchen/
Hey buddie I might to late on this one but just in case lol
HTC Inspire
Thanks man I will use that video. I watched the beginning earlier to check out the ubuntu install. Thanks man
Ok I had to go to HTC.com before posting to double check but I just looked at all the new phones and they all have the navbar that I'm trying to keep around. So my question is where did the one that is in all the newer ROMs cone from? I had initially though HTC changed it AMD that's why we were seeing them on all the Roms we love to flash but if the new phones don't have it why does is end up even on a port from another phone that "completely stock, out of the box" have the smaller navbar that I seem to like so much.
Anywho I finally go ubuntu installed in my Virtual Box so I've got to wait till I get off work today to start playing with it. Hope it works. Thank you everyone for the advice and help. I will let you know how it works out. I'm sure it won't be that easy and ill have more questions though. THANKS
They are from unofficial releases that devs got their hands on.
I may be in over my head a nit but I'm still going to try. In ubuntu every time I shut the machine down instead of saving the current state when I open it again it tells me to upgrade the BIOS. I can't find any info on that particular problem. I'm also having issues with the java install. I install it and it seems to go just fine but when I try to verify it says command not found.