This is something that is driving me crazy, shouldt be MIPS Android SDK and NDK be compatible with any source maded for the ARM version?
First thing i noticed with this Ainol Novo 7 Basic was that, the small amount of compatible apps, none of the better apps are compatible.
No: Netflix, Skype, Android Terminal Emulator, MX video Player, Chainfire3D, any mame32/nes emu, a working barcode reader, connectbot, adosbox/qemu, opera or any other browser. and the list goes on.
I wonder why, i trought devs will want the larger amount of users as posible.
For the record, i just got Android Terminal Emulator working in my Novo 7 Basic, i had to:
1) Download Term source code
2) Download MIPS Android SDK, NDK, Apache ANT, Eclipse with ADL, cgywin (to compile NDK libs)
3) Import Term project to eclipse
4) change the target build to android-12
5) change Aplication.mk to "APP_ABI := mips mips-r2"
6) build ndk-libs for the app
7) build the project with eclipse
And i know nothing about programing for android, just c/c++
Best guess that anyone will probably give you is that the majority of devices out there running Android are ARM based, but as that changes, the number and quality of available apps should improve.
There is a HUGE obstacle to overcome however. Not many people are going to buy a device today based on what might run on it months from now, especially when there are devices out there that will run it now, and many of those that do purchase a MIPS based device consider it a mistake and end up returning it.
It is not possible to offer two different version on the market and i don't think it is possible to restrict the apps to a specific architecture.
Are the number of MIPS devices really rising? The android market doesn't really seem to be ready for that. It would mean even more app versions devs would have to consider.
Which apps work and which don't?
Maybe those using native code, compiled with NDK don't work, as those routines are compiled specificly for ARM.
Don't take my word for it though, just some thoughts.
its not possible to get 2 different versions on the market.
Rumor has it that the problem is frequently a development oversight and that it's related to omitting some important MIPS related files from the package build.
I imagine that it can also be related to poor programming practices and also programming for optimized code.
~~ Sent from my Velocity Micro Cruz PT701/T105 via Tapatalk ~~
As far as I know, Market supports device specific apk's nowadays, which would make it possible to have an mips apk...
http://developer.android.com/guide/market/publishing/multiple-apks.html
Altough the proccess is not trivial, it is not that difficult either, just minor changes to the manifest and filter the apk for Native Platform...
Also, it would be possible to compile it for all devices that the current NDK supports, by using the latest revision of NDK (as of November 2011):
http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html#overview
You just need to add:
APP_ABI := all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
to the makefile and it should now be compatible with all processor architectures that NDK supports....
So, now there are means to easily support different processor architectures, but, don't expect quick adoption of it, as, unfortunately, this depends entirely upon developer will to change some of its project settings and/or publishing way (it is entirely possible, now, to have a single apk for all platforms)...
Unfortunately, right now, and I would dare to say, in the next 6 - 8 Months, I would not expect this to change much... Altough the official NDK has support for multiple devices, it still doesn't incorporate the MIPS abi, which is not official, and thus, it is not possible to declare that an APK for a native MIPS device as well...
Hopefully MIPS devices will grab a nice piece of the Android devices and then "force" Google to officially support those devices. I believe that it is possible to grab the latest unoficial NDK and use it with APP_ABI all and publish it to the Market, but, as of today, is mostly something recent and that few (if any) developers support (remember, this possibility came with November's NDK, I'm not even sure if MIPs NDK is already up to date with Google's November NDK), so, I would dare to say, MIPS devices are not in a good position right now (even x86 devices, which have official support, are not...).
I have a MIPS based tablet named "MIDI Japan MD-785IP" that is quite nice but is making me sad with the lack of some softwares and in special, lack of ROMs to it. Apparently I am the only person in the internet that have one
shivansps said:
This is something that is driving me crazy, shouldt be MIPS Android SDK and NDK be compatible with any source maded for the ARM version?
...
For the record, i just got Android Terminal Emulator working in my Novo 7 Basic, i had to:
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
Have you shared that MIPS compatible Android Terminal Emulator?
Thank you
Sure... and here is connectbot too.
Ive attemped to recompile adosbox too but the source code and makefiles are just a big mess and no documentation provided.
And that is another problem, poor documentation in open source projects.
BTW, Market has to have some way to know if a app is for arm or mips, since market on basic only shows up compatible apps.
Also, its no enoght to just incluide the "mips" folder along with "armabi" with all mips compiled .so files inside the libs folder? because is that all what it takes, unless the app is using binaries.
And im agree that google has most of the fault for not incluiding mips supprt in his NDK, the mips one can compile for both.
I wonder what will happen when intel medfield will came out...
I am in an even worse position - I bought 2 NOVO7Paladins - one for the g/f. I had to get one for myself, because I know I will be 1st line support
So, I have a MIPS cpu (with reduced software availability) and also ICS which further reduces app compatibility.
Apps which I consider essential (Samba server, VNC Server, Angry Birds Seasons....) are not available, so l'm currently installing eclipse, JDK, SDK, NDK on a linux box to try to rebuild stuff - it has been many years since I last had to get my hands dirty with code.
I know I have a steep learning curve ahead, but I'm sure it will be many months before there is a significant increase in app availability. I understand though, that if developers have written native code for ARM, they won't be in a hurry to port that to a minority cpu. It is way easier for new apps to be built with different architectures in mind.
Thanks Shivansps, I had been looking for a terminal - I had given up and was trying to get telnet working - a last restort. It was either that or carry a laptop around with me to use ADB
Now, all I need is to get the MIPS ABI to appear in Eclipse AVD setup... (oh, and learn how to code for android )
i dont use Eclipse or SDK myselft any longer, what i do is just recompile shared libs with mips NDK and include the new "mips" folder intro the libs folder of the original .apk file, then re-sign the apk with one click signer.
MapsWithMe for MIPS and x86
maersi said:
I am in an even worse position - I bought 2 NOVO7Paladins - one for the g/f. I had to get one for myself, because I know I will be 1st line support
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi! Do you still have MIPS android device?
Would you please test MapsWithMe on it? It's offline world maps based on OpenStreetMap.
We've built apk for mips and x86 architectures but doesn't have any devices to check if it works.
Apk is available here: dl.dropbox.com/u/24013616/MapsWithMe-203-mips-x86-120502.apk
Cheers,
Alex Zolotarev
MapsWithMe Team
AlexanderZolotarev said:
Hi! Do you still have MIPS android device?
Would you please test MapsWithMe on it? It's offline world maps based on OpenStreetMap.
We've built apk for mips and x86 architectures but doesn't have any devices to check if it works.
Apk is available here: dl.dropbox.com/u/24013616/MapsWithMe-203-mips-x86-120502.apk
Cheers,
Alex Zolotarev
MapsWithMe Team
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I still have a mips tablet, but it hasn't gps. Do you want me to check it?
Enviado desde mi ThL W8 usando Tapatalk 2
Related
A week ago Brian Swetland (of the Android team) posted to the g1-hackers mailing list this juicy little nugget:
It is possible to bundle native shared libs in apks, and specific details
about how to do this in a least-likely-to-break-later way will be documented
in the forthcoming Native Development Kit (NDK).
Work is on-going to improve the platform APIs and provide more and better
access to the OS and hardware (bluetooth, improved audio, etc, etc). Future
updates will increase the surface area of the APIs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Trying to get some confirmation and additional details, I checked in with android-framework and received this reply from Dave Sparks:
Yes, we're planning a native SDK. There is no official release date
yet. The initial release will probably be very limited in scope, just
enough to add some JNI helpers. As we lock down native API's, more
functionality will be added.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"JNI helpers" sounds a bit underwhelming, like .so libraries for optimizing inner-loops. However, this looks like a good first step toward getting applications with performance-bound modules to shine on Android. Personally I'm crossing my fingers for this to be what the Mozilla Fennec team to invest the time in porting for Android.
I'd rather see C#/.NET bindings for Android. Java blows. When I have time, I'm going to look into cross compiling mono for ARM (it's been done for ARM PCs, but not for Android yet).
Koush said:
I'd rather see C#/.NET bindings for Android. Java blows. When I have time, I'm going to look into cross compiling mono for ARM (it's been done for ARM PCs, but not for Android yet).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At first I thought you meant to cross-compile C# to Java bytecode to run in Dalvik. Didn't seem to make much sense since you wouldn't benefit from the .NET framework itself at all.
As for getting Mono natively on ARM, would that work for a non-root G1? If not it would be of little help for developing applications for the general non-rooted public.
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.
I will be honest, I'm not an Android developer - at least not yet. That said, I'm looking for an environment to performance test apps. More or less, looking for a sandbox to test apps with. For this, it doesn't really make sense to use a real device. So I'm debating between the SDK emulator and using Android x86 in a virtual machine. Each seems to have strengths and weaknesses.
I think the main advantage of the SDK emulator over Android-x86 is that it can be used to test apps for different AVDs very easily. Plus, it natively supports NDK ARM code and can be used with x86 code with version 17 (right?). The downside, is that it is painfully slow.
On the otherhand, Android-x86 has much better performance itself, but currently (maybe not for too much longer) lacks support for ARM-specific code.
Another option is BlueStacks, but I haven't looked into it much yet and am not sure how well it will suit my goals.
I was hoping to get a little survey of opinions regarding the two from developers and folks more familiar with Android than myself.
CurlySpiral said:
I will be honest, I'm not an Android developer - at least not yet. That said, I'm looking for an environment to performance test apps. More or less, looking for a sandbox to test apps with. For this, it doesn't really make sense to use a real device. So I'm debating between the SDK emulator and using Android x86 in a virtual machine. Each seems to have strengths and weaknesses.
I think the main advantage of the SDK emulator over Android-x86 is that it can be used to test apps for different AVDs very easily. Plus, it natively supports NDK ARM code and can be used with x86 code with version 17 (right?). The downside, is that it is painfully slow.
On the otherhand, Android-x86 has much better performance itself, but currently (maybe not for too much longer) lacks support for ARM-specific code.
Another option is BlueStacks, but I haven't looked into it much yet and am not sure how well it will suit my goals.
I was hoping to get a little survey of opinions regarding the two from developers and folks more familiar with Android than myself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I always use the sdk emulator OK its a little on the slow side but quickly let's you test apps on a range of set ups. Plus having it integrated with eclipse makes the process even quicker
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium
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.
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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.
Does anyone know what phones support OpenCL so that I could build OpenCL applications with NDK for android?
In particular I am interested in speeding up SQLite with something that was done in this blog:
https://fullshovel.wordpress.com/2014/03/19/opencl-accelerated-sqlite-on-arm/
At the moment I have rooted OnePlus One and old Nexus 4.
As far as I know, you might be able to use the Nexus 4 as long as you properly install the OpenCL driver.
Source:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/goo...u-drivers-nexus-5-compatible-android-t2629123
As for developing the application, I'm not sure yet. My guess is that you'd be left to cross-compile then link the .so file, or whatever way that root programs are compiled as command line executables.