All,
Sorry of the post in the Q&A but as a new user, i cant post into the development forums where this should possibly sit.
I am currently working on a project that is deploying an enterprise use tablet, but we have some requirements to lock the device down, and enhance some of the crypto / DAR stuff.
We are looking at products from Mocana - to do this, now some of their products require swapping out parts of the android kernel. I was just wondering on what the best approach would be for us to achieve this?
At the moment we have the stock firmware running on the device out of the box, i am aware of the Samsung Open Source website. I am not really too fussed with the "TouchWiz" enchancements, i just need a working / bootable ICS build on this device, which i can compile and build out with the Mocana replacements.
Any ideas as to a good starting point / where I can find some more information?
Related
Ok, I know much of what I'm about to ask has generally been answered or discussed in other posts, but I could really use some more direct/specific answers to my own questions.
My first question is about hardware drivers. To my understanding, a great many, if not most, of the more common wifi drivers are incorporated into the latest linux kernels. If this is the case, will more or less any Android system run on a device so long as the appropriate kernel is provided?
To be a little more clear on that, I'm actually trying to learn Android development (both for apps and building roms) on a cheap Chinese tablet that I picked up. Naturally it already has a version of Android 2.2 pre-installed. However, I have not been able to extract the contents of the boot.img or the system.img, I keep getting an error, whereas I can unpack the SDK img's no problem. So I was hoping that I can get away without compiling a custom kernel, use the already existing one, and go ahead with tweaking the system.img from either the AOSP or SDK sources. Getting the source code from the manufacturer may be impossible since I can't even seem to find out who the manufacturer is or get their contact info.
I'm actually looking to port CM7 to my wife's LG Shine Plus eventually, but I don't want to pull a Tim Allen on her phone so I want to get some experience and feel for working with Android's internals on my tablet.
So my next question is still about drivers, but what I want to know is how are things like the LCD, touchscreen input, audio output, wifi and the cell radio handled on a typical Android device? Is it mostly handled by the hardware itself with the Android framework or kernel just passing universal APIs or do the drivers for each individual piece of hardware need to be compiled into the kernel? As in the gkisystem for radios, is this handled by the kernel or the framework? Which kinda brings me back to my first question, if it is built into the kernel itself, can I not use, for example, the already existing kernel on the LG Shine Plus (it's running 2.1) to port CM7?
Any and ALL help is honestly and truly appreciated. I've been looking for detailed answers for these questions EVERYWHERE.
** just bumping this post so that it can get seen**
any help or advice at all?
I recently bought a ZiiO and at first look it seems like an excelent tablet for is price. But it get's me frustrated to be stuck on Android 2.2.1 version as well as stuck on Creatives' propritary updates.
At first glinpse on the device everything here looks like it has been developed according to the hardware. Not having market, not beeing able to mess around
Searching and researching on the web allowed me to root my device and install common software like the Market.
Then I realized that ZiiO's hardware is capable of supporting USB Host which sadly hasn't been enabled on the kernel that's compiled on the device. Looking at config.gz made me wonder why on the world would Creative do such a thing.
Has anyone been able to dump ZiiO's boot or kernel? I need to recompile the kernel to enable some flags. Has anyone gone through this expirence that can lead me on the right track?
Having such a variety of devices on the world makes me confuse on what should and could be done on this device.
Hello everyone,
I am not new to the android scene, and am quite familliar with linux development in java and c. I found myself in the pleasant position of having a second Atrix 4g that I had previously unlocked and played with a bit and decided it was time to have a look at some of the android issues that have managed to sufficiently annoy me.
To this end I have pulled down the aosp of ICS as well as CM9 for comparison. I see that there are issues with the tegra2 binaries for ICS and was going to have a go at building a 2.6.39 kernel for ICS.
Can any of you point me to some info on integrating a new kernel into the android build? As I understand it, the currently available binary drivers are build against 2.6.36 for GB.
Is it only the opengl drivers that are an issue? Are there opensource drivers for the bt/wifi/cell? The cameras/touch sensors/gyros etc?
I have done some research and looked over Googles build info, but it only covers the reference gear. I have not yet found a good guide on integrating 3rd party drivers for other hardware..
Thanks for all your assistance. Once I learn the build system I'm sure I will be able to make some useful contributions.
Also, I may be able to offer some hosting assistance for some projects.
Hello World ! I have identified a need for a smaller tablet and have begun the process to request information about how to have the hardware designed and manufactured. But as we all know, hardware is only half of the equation - the other half is the software. So I have a question for you:
What would the ideal software configuration for an Android-based LTE-enabled TABLET (with SIM card), suitable for ROM developers ?
I have (a little) previous experience (as an end-user) with replacing the manufacturer/carrier ROM for my HTC Desire with the CyanogenMod ROM. That, coupled with my years of experience as a developer (pre-Internet) allow me to at least be aware that there are layers of software from bootup, to device drivers, to OS, etc.
I would like this community to help define (or point me at some documentation) what those specific layers are, which package(s) should be used at each level, up to the point of being able to get into the Google Play Store.
I am not interested in which apps should be discussed - that's the end-user's problem.
Thanks,
Steven.
Dream software config for Android Tablet ROM developers ?
Hey all, hoping to get some visibility & feedback here ...
Steven.
StevenCShearer said:
Hello World ! I have identified a need for a smaller tablet and have begun the process to request information about how to have the hardware designed and manufactured. But as we all know, hardware is only half of the equation - the other half is the software. So I have a question for you:
What would the ideal software configuration for an Android-based LTE-enabled TABLET (with SIM card), suitable for ROM developers ?
I have (a little) previous experience (as an end-user) with replacing the manufacturer/carrier ROM for my HTC Desire with the CyanogenMod ROM. That, coupled with my years of experience as a developer (pre-Internet) allow me to at least be aware that there are layers of software from bootup, to device drivers, to OS, etc.
I would like this community to help define (or point me at some documentation) what those specific layers are, which package(s) should be used at each level, up to the point of being able to get into the Google Play Store.
I am not interested in which apps should be discussed - that's the end-user's problem.
Thanks,
Steven.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi there, not sure if I'm on the right forum, but this seemed like the safest place to ask.
I have this project in my head that I would like to try, but I have no idea if it is even possible.
I'm currently doing a bachelors in computer science and as a way to learn, I would like to take on a big project.
As will soon become clear, I am a linux noob and know nothing about android development, but that's what I'm trying to change here.
Some time ago I bought a Chinese ereader (rebranded BOOX C67ML - using a rockchip rk3026 SoC, don't know how important that is -) and it's decent but it also kind of sucks. It runs android which overkill for a device like this if you ask me. When I look at the kindle or kobo ereaders, they have their proprietary os that is also Linux based, but much more streamlined without unnecessary features. This device doesn't even have wifi, so what am I going to do with full android on an e-ink screen? It only drains my battery more than it has to.
My question is, how feasible is it to create my own 'OS' for this device that is also Linux based and lightweight? I know that android devices can run gnu/linux in a sort of vm on top, but is it also possible to install this directly on the device? Wipe android and install a custom linux distro as you would a custom ROM.
Is this possible? Where do I begin? Any information on how the linux kernel underneath android functions and differs from a standard linux kernel would be great. I'm not asking for an easy solution served on a platter, I just want to know if it is possible and why or why not? Where do I go to learn about how to do this, point me in the right direction?
In searching around I came across postmarketOS, from what I understand they are trying to do something similar, only completely open source. No proprietary drivers for anything. For this project that is not a goal for me. If I can reuse parts of the android rom that it is running right now, I have no problem with that. Updating and keeping it up to date are not really a priority, I just need this to run a single application that works. Could also be that I completely don't understand what they are trying to do and I'm way off, but if so, please tell me what I don't understand and where I go to learn.
TLDR: Lightweight 'desktop' linux instead of android on an ereader, is it possible? Where do I start? Point me in the right direction please.
PS: If there is a better solution for this problem entirely, please do explain.
For anyone interested or with a similar idea, I'll just post what extra information I find here.
I stumbled upon Halium and Libhybris today. From what I understand, libhybris provides a compatibility layer between the android kernel and posix compatible applications. Halium uses libhybris and tries to create a common base that can be used to develop a non-android os for an android device. Please correct me if I'm wrong.