So the calculator community managed to get Linux running on the ti-nspire calculator. I am curious was in would have to do to compile Android for it. Where would I start? The calculator has a 320x240 display and 64mb of RAM. I think the RAM is too low for anything modern, but maybe an older version would run?
Linux on nspire
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Well this is my question. Windows Mobile can vary from 26mb to 80mb in a rom. But the iPhone operating system is 700mb.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/13/iphone-os-x-architecture-the-mach-kernel-and-ram/
Could we develop a version of Windows Mobile, or even a small linux that could be installed on a SD card and utilize the phones memory as RAM? This would alot us more room software render better graphics and give us a much larger kernel that would also increase stability and speed.
With the current specs of a Kaiser, you might be able to use even something like Windows 98 in the background with a java GUI.
I'm just throwing out an idea, let me know what you think.
By now, I suppose we've all heard about the Xobot project from Xamarin. If not, here's a short introduction: Xamarin have their own C# runtime, Mono, running on both iOS and Android.
However, Android is based on Java whereas Mono obviously uses C++. So, one day the Xamarin team came together and decided to build a proof-of-concept C# port of Android and it turned out that it outperformed the 'Java-version' of Android.
Android consists of over a million lines of Java code, making porting it by hand nearly impossible. The Xamarin team built a tool called 'Sharpen' which translates Java to C#, which also makes it fairly easy to port Android apps to the Mono runtime.
I've been thinking and I suppose it's possible to make a 'reverse-Sharpen', so a tool based on Sharpen that does exactly the opposite: Translating C# to Java. This would open a whole jar of possibilities. One of the options I suppose I'm the most excited about is porting hardcore Windows applications to Android, like, for example, Visual Studio or a port scanner app. I suppose reversing Sharpen should be relatively easy as all the links between API calls are already made. They just need to be executed the other way around.
Please keep in mind that I'm not an expert - far from it - and all I write here is just a result of my brainstorm-sessions. Now, on to my next point, as I feel that my two ideas are relatively tied together.
With the always-improving mobile GPUs, like for example the Tegra3 and the Mali400 in the Galaxy S III I'm currently using, mobile games are becoming more and more comparable to Console Quality games. Yes, they're still far from it but the question 'Does it run Crysis?' could very well soon apply to mobile phones.
I'm not sure if it's possible but I suppose I could contact Crytek about it: Wouldn't it be awesome if the SGS3 could run a 'lite version' of CryEngine? The Mali400 is one of the most underestimated GPUs to date, and although benchmarks show that the Mali 400 @ 400MHz outperforms both the A5, A5X and Tegra3 GPUs, the Tegra3 is for some reason still the mobile game industry standard.
With some heavy optimization, and the Mali 400 offers optimization options, we might even be able to run a trimmed-down version of the CryEngine on, say, the Galaxy S III.
So, what are your thoughts about this? I'm not a developer - far from it - but I'm wondering what a developer thinks about my thoughts.
Here's a link to the project:
http://code.google.com/p/zgrom/
A cut&paste from the page:
ZGrom is a gaming oriented distribution for Sharp Zaurus PDA devices. It's a console based distribution built around the Gmenu2X SDL GUI. ZGrom has a wide selection of quality emulators, game engines and apps. Currently, ZGrom only supports the following Zaurus models:
•C-1000 - Akita
•C-3000 - Spitz
•C-3100 - Borzoi
•C-3200 - Terrier
ZGrom comes with GINGE. In a nutshell, GINGE enables ZGrom users to run unmodified GP2X binaries. Some of the emulators and game engines that come with ZGrom are plain, unmodified GP2X binaries that execute on Zaurus devices via the GINGE static loader.
A link to the gmenu2x page:
http://mtorromeo.github.com/gmenu2x/
A cut&paste from the page:
GMenu2X is a frontend application targeted at embedded devices, originally developed for the GP2X and successively ported to other devices.
GMenu2X provides an easy to use interface with quick access to the games and applications of the device trough links similar to those found on PC's desktops.
Its interface is fully customizable with skins.
Other features include: built-in selector for emulators, manuals and readmes integration, built-in overclocker, gamma and volume configuration, ram timings tweaker.
I started working with these but like with other projects... i'm short on time these days. The last of my efforts had a working kernel for these, only a keymap was needed to give to the zgrom developer to build a rootfs, and for someone to text and debug.
IMO the better way would be focusing on developing Android distro, because probably most people are still waiting for working Android on our beloving UNI! Anyway, your efforts are great and mainly because of you UNI developing is still alive!!! Good luck!!
l2tp said:
IMO the better way would be focusing on developing Android distro, because probably most people are still waiting for working Android on our beloving UNI! Anyway, your efforts are great and mainly because of you UNI developing is still alive!!! Good luck!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol, I know, I’m taking a break waiting for another project to finish up:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1948803
I’m working on shrinking android now; deleting unneeded library’s and functions to lower memory/processor requirements and running processes. This OS is better suited for people who don’t use their universal as a phone and only have 64mb of ram. I don’t have time to work on this either, the question “Who wants to port ZGrom?” wasn’t rhetorical; I really want someone to pick up where I left off porting it. And android for universals is mostly done all hardware except the cams work. Power saving, gprs, sound on both ends of the call all work… I just need to trim and speed it up….and learn some arm assembly to add in iwmmxt optimizations.
I understand that 64 MB of RAM is too little to run any recent Android version (and by recent I mean higher than 2.2), so it'd be good if there was some alternative OS to bring life to old Universals with the standard RAM - even if that new 'life' doesn't including phone abilities. I don't think the PXA 27x CPUs aren't really that optimized to run Android either (Android can be slow on ARMv6, let alone ARMv5). I'm not telling you to give up on the Android thing; just trying to make people realize notime can't focus forever on something that can't be further optimized... but if it can, then just go ahead
In that sense, I support any development efforts towards something that's not Android.
Also, the work done in porting recent Linux kernel versions can be used not only in Android but in any other Linux-powered OS porting. I may have a go at it... once I format my computer with a bigger ext4 partition (currently out of space to install any kind of cross-compiling tools or SDK) - and this can get delayed for several months.
I was playing around with my Universal (with a dead battery), running old Linux distros on it (with things like Qtopia and Opie), when I started thinking if there wasn't a more recent thing to run other than Android. Then I remembered I had promised to try to port this thing once I got my computer formatted...
Actually I have already formatted my computer and now I have a mostly free >250 GB ext4 partition. I'll only be able to start working on this in the beginning of July, however.
This seems like the perfect use for a Uni that doesn't survive when it isn't charging.
Hi all,
Just inquiring if there is any app I could install on my android tab
and be able to do some java programming, like running Luna Eclipse
which does so well on windows.
Regards.
@faeiz747, despite its Linux roots, Android is far from capable of running Eclipse IDE as is. Not only is the hardware inadequate for supporting such a large application, but Android lacks a full Java SE JVM (Dalvik is a subset) and SWT (Eclipse UI framework) implementation for native Android UI controls does not exist. On Linux, SWT implementations exist only for GTK and Motif.
You may be interested in Project Orion, which is an effort at eclipse.org to create Eclipse-like experience in the browser. I understand that people have been able to use Orion from a mobile browser on devices such as the one on the iPad.
hi
i like to know if there is a database for smartphone vs android OS or linux OS?
i have a phone, Brand X it comes with android version Y.
i'm interested to know questions like, i want to run an OS that is specifically tuned for an application, say I want sensors A, B and C, that i and don't care about the telephone, touch screen, volume, etc or a fancy GUI but want to use the graphics pipeline for calculations of the sensors with a minimal GUI so i can get as close to a real time response as possible.
is it better to tune the current android version Y?
or rollback android version to an early one as possible to remove bloat?
or nuke the android OS and install a flavor of Linux with a highly tuned kernel?
say i don't care about going back to original shipping android OS.
thanks