Database Info

Google Android on Kaiser?

I have not returned kaiser in the hope of being able to install Google's Android OS on kaiser. Hardware is great, but software/drivers suck.
It should be fairly easy because its open source and the first phone that HTC is bringing out is supposed to have the same processor.
Your thoughts?

I'm hoping that becomes a reality. Open source development would open up the floodgates! Imagine TouchFLO with an OpenGL 3D environment.... can't wait to see what happens here.

jerich007 said:
I'm hoping that becomes a reality. Open source development would open up the floodgates! Imagine TouchFLO with an OpenGL 3D environment.... can't wait to see what happens here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't know much about OpenGL and linux do you
Next you'll be wanting to run Beryl on a pocket pc

Subliminal Aura said:
You don't know much about OpenGL and linux do you
Next you'll be wanting to run Beryl on a pocket pc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hahahahah, nice...or better yet, how about we get the kaiser to run the iPhone OS? after that maybe Santa Claus will show up...

Doug2873 said:
hahahahah, nice...or better yet, how about we get the kaiser to run the iPhone OS? after that maybe Santa Claus will show up...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well Leopard does run on my PC now *Cough*

If Android is open source, I don't see why someone with compiler knowledge couldn't make it run on any ARM based handheld...

Because booting an OS kernel requires extensive access to hardware specifications, wich is not what Androïd is about at all.

The Android SDK is now available. They have also announced that they're giving away $10 million to developers that build apps for the platform. More info here:
http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/developers.html
There's also a video of Android up on YouTube now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FJHYqE0RDg
For an early prototype this looks amazing.

now that the SDK is out, I will probably end up eating my own words in the next few months, assuming people on here get the appropriate hardware drivers for the kaiser from HTC.

Terrific
This Andoid is a very killer OS, a lot better than the crappy WM-X, Please HTC port it to Kaiser, if not, we can create a community for build a distribution based on android for the Kaiser.
Regards,
Taguapire

I would too like to see this new Android OS be brought to the Kaiser. If I understand correctly, they are providing all assets to the public with the SDK.

Yes your right
Subliminal Aura said:
You don't know much about OpenGL and linux do you
Next you'll be wanting to run Beryl on a pocket pc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would love to have beryl on pocket pc. I've been waiting for years since I first saw beryl on youtube. The closest thing we have is the HTC Cube. Can't wait .

Theres talk of this all over xda-developers.
One guy is calling people to work on it here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=344076&highlight=android
And here's another thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=343730&highlight=android
I sure would like to see this happen. Since HTC is a partner in the open handset alliance I could see them releasing drivers for it. ... maybe...

Problem is - OS source or not, the hardware specs for many of the ICs in the Kaiser (esp. the Qualcomm MSM) are not publically available, which means that it isn't possible to write a driver for them.
This is why, for example, the Linux ports to previous HTC devices are (relatively) crippled - drivers for parts of the hardware can't be written because the hardware specs are not available.

Ah. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for shedding some light on this issue, Entropy512.

cant see why you can't just take the msm7200 chipset specs off of the qualcomm site and build something. I mean it has generic arm processors and the other information should be able to gleaned from the windows app itself(radios,etc..)

Subliminal Aura said:
You don't know much about OpenGL and linux do you
Next you'll be wanting to run Beryl on a pocket pc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope Compiz....... Hehe

In fact the radio processor (ARM9) already runs a linux like rtos: L4 micro kernel and Iguana embedded OS. See here and here.

I think the chances might be relatively good:
1. HTC has announced they are building android based phones.
2. For the next year or so, chances are that available phone hardware is gonna be pretty much the same as what is available today (give or take).
So it follows that there are good chances that HTC will do most of the work for us. They introduce a new P4551 running Android, you guys do your ROM ripping magic, and take all the various drivers and introduce it into a generic Android ROM. Voila! Android on the Kaiser.
That said, who says Android hardware support on HTC devices is going to be any better than hardware support for WM6? HTC has already proved you can release a phone for a mature platform, with plenty of history, using almost no hardware acceleration for anything. Who says Android phones from HTC will be any better in that respect?

Cool OS
This is a very cool OS. I'm sure some of our great coders around XDA DEVELOPERS can come up with all kinds of ways to use this on many different phones. If they get the money more power to them. They deserve it. At least in my nubee opinion!

Why is Android so fragmented?

I purchased a Sprint Galaxy Tab to give myself an opportunity to get acquainted with Android (it came with ver 2.2 Froyo). After two months reading the xda threads I have basically learned that Android isn't just a few variations (Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, etc.) - but rather each device has its own flavor of Android within those larger general classes. Different ROMs, different kernels, different application compatibilities, etc.
This surely isn't good for Google and/or Android in the marketplace.
This has come to light most vividly while trying to get my Netflix subscription to work on my Samsung Galaxy Tab. Netflix promotes that they support "Android devices" which technically may be true. I suspect there are at least a handful of Android devices supported. Sadly my Galaxy Tab is not among the selected few. And based on the extremely long threads on this subject with such a wide variety of proposed possible solutions, it is not isolated to the Galaxy Tab. This should not be such a big deal. And yes, I realize it is likely the fault of Netflix themselves trying to be the DRM cops that complicate this issue. But dang - how hard can it be???
I've got to ask why? How is it that this same Galaxy Tab can display video from a variety of sources, but not Netflix? And why are there so many 'apps' that will not run on similar (but not identical) Android platforms?
Sorry for venting a bit. But dang....

It would be nice if phone hardware had more of a PC architecture so when a new version of Android was released by google, you could just go and download it, possibly with a Google installer that would auto detect drivers and such. But that's just a dream.

avrillapete said:
... with a Google installer that would auto detect drivers and such. But that's just a dream.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
20 years ago it would have been a dream. But today? And a company as agressive as Google? WHY would it still be just a dream?
Google says they want to set an open source 'standard' and I think that is commendable. But it feels like the whole process of implementing and supporting the Android OS is stuck in the '80s - with the same problems and limitations that plagued the early CPM and MSDOS world. Surely Google has resources and smarts enough to do better!
Mostly I am surprised and disappointed that Google hasn't done a better job with this aspect of Android. Surely it will get better...

Google has acknowledged this issue, and it WILL get better. Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) will have even less fragmentation than honeycomb, and be on ALL devices from its release onward. many pre-existing devices will be upgraded to it as well, ending, for the most part, all android fragmentation.

Android on Bookeen-Cybook Odyssey (eBook Reader)?

Hello everyone, I know this is a long shot but: is anyone interested in porting Android to this excellent eBook Reader?
Device description is here: http://www.bookeen.com/en/cybook/odyssey
It is basically a Nook Touch Simple/Sony PRS T1 like device that features a very fast e-Ink display (amazingly fast for an e-Ink) and should support some tablet like use (browsing the web, reading a RSS feed) quite well. You can see here and here what HSIS (High Speed Ink System) can do.
Stock version is using a Linux 2.6.31 based OS (doesn't specify what flavor)
From the little I know the main problems with porting a Android whould be:
- possible locked bootloader on the Cybook Odyssey -> no way to know without the device
- supported chipset -> an ARM A8 based chipset is listed
- display drivers -> maybe those from regular pearl e-Ink can be used?
- wi-fi drivers -> again, depends on the chipset
I'm out of my league (php, web stuff) here but I plan to buy the device next month if there's hope for it
Ideas?

Hi!
I would point out, before getting your hopes up on the porting, the fact that you asked just one day after the launch of the device, makes one think that you're thoughts are audaciously early. So unless some xda-developers are Bokeen insiders and, ahem, unbound by their job to work on this matter, either waiting or is the thing to do. Or, ahem, , learning how to port?
The chances I see for this port to happen are small (but than again still possible). Perhaps we could see if the linux running it might offer more flexibility and run apps directly (?). Porting would would have it's obvious advantages ... an Android with it's screen technology superior to any current eInk readers, except the Mirasol powered ones perhaps (those are limited to Korea for now) would we awesome.

csioucs said:
Hi!
I would point out, before getting your hopes up on the porting, the fact that you asked just one day after the launch of the device, makes one think that you're thoughts are audaciously early. So unless some xda-developers are Bokeen insiders and, ahem, unbound by their job to work on this matter, either waiting or is the thing to do. Or, ahem, , learning how to port?
The chances I see for this port to happen are small (but than again still possible). Perhaps we could see if the linux running it might offer more flexibility and run apps directly (?). Porting would would have it's obvious advantages ... an Android with it's screen technology superior to any current eInk readers, except the Mirasol powered ones perhaps (those are limited to Korea for now) would we awesome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there any news on debugging and or development possibilities on that platform? I have seen the gpl'ed linux source released at bookeen's site.
I have yet not found any pictures of a disassembled device and do not know if customized firmware updates are possible.
Would very much appreciate any news on that topic!

NonsenseInc said:
Is there any news on debugging and or development possibilities on that platform? I have seen the gpl'ed linux source released at bookeen's site.
I have yet not found any pictures of a disassembled device and do not know if customized firmware updates are possible.
Would very much appreciate any news on that topic!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would also be interested in customized firmware for cybook odyssey. thanks

Any news on this anybody?

Anyone still watching this? I'd like to try to do it, but it's over my head, skill wise...
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

thirstythirsty said:
Anyone still watching this? I'd like to try to do it, but it's over my head, skill wise...
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know that internally some version of android ran on the device, but it's really not worth to do this. Android is absolutely not suited for such device and screen.
To install personalised linux/software, first crack the update format, then the device will be open to you...

Millions of phones and tablets are obsolete because of sofware. Is there a way around?

Hi everyone.
Every year millions of phones and tablets are produced. Because hardware makers don't worry about updating them, those devices are often dumped. However, lots of them are very capable machines.
As I've read these forums for years, I've seen a lot of work from a lot of people trying to bring those forgotten devices to life again by making unofficial ROMs with tons of customization, new features, and great efforts like LineageOS and PostmarketOS. However, those lack the resources to bring an updated OS for the majority of those binned and obsolete phones.
If I'm not wrong, the biggest issue about replacing the original OS on those devices are the bootloaders and drivers/blobs for the large amount of different hardware configurations. There are multiple workarounds, shims, ports that solve those problems for one or other device.
It might be quite naive, but i'd like to ask a question I've been thinking about lately. AFAIK, if I have the blobs/drivers for a camera, wifi, bluetooth, GPS or other "peripheral" for a devices' original ROM running Android 4.4, I can make it work on AOSP 4.4. I know this might be crazy, but:
As long as I have the blobs for a certain chipset and display/touch, why can't we use a VM running a nano version of AOSP that matches the devices' original ROM that bridges the device IO to the main ROM?
As an example, imagine wifi. I could network bridge AOSP 9 to a VM running AOSP 4, which would then have the drivers so network would work. The same for bluetooth or camera or GPS, maybe? Is this absolutely unfeasible?
Thank you for your time!

wasserprojekt said:
Hi everyone.
Every year millions of phones and tablets are produced. Because hardware makers don't worry about updating them, those devices are often dumped. However, lots of them are very capable machines.
As I've read these forums for years, I've seen a lot of work from a lot of people trying to bring those forgotten devices to life again by making unofficial ROMs with tons of customization, new features, and great efforts like LineageOS and PostmarketOS. However, those lack the resources to bring an updated OS for the majority of those binned and obsolete phones.
If I'm not wrong, the biggest issue about replacing the original OS on those devices are the bootloaders and drivers/blobs for the large amount of different hardware configurations. There are multiple workarounds, shims, ports that solve those problems for one or other device.
It might be quite naive, but i'd like to ask a question I've been thinking about lately. AFAIK, if I have the blobs/drivers for a camera, wifi, bluetooth, GPS or other "peripheral" for a devices' original ROM running Android 4.4, I can make it work on AOSP 4.4. I know this might be crazy, but:
As long as I have the blobs for a certain chipset and display/touch, why can't we use a VM running a nano version of AOSP that matches the devices' original ROM that bridges the device IO to the main ROM?
As an example, imagine wifi. I could network bridge AOSP 9 to a VM running AOSP 4, which would then have the drivers so network would work. The same for bluetooth or camera or GPS, maybe? Is this absolutely unfeasible?
Thank you for your time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's sort of what project treble is.
Project Treble
The Android 8.0 release includes Project Treble, a major re-architect of the Android OS framework designed to make it easier, faster, and less costly for manufacturers to update devices to a new version of Android. Treble is for all new devices launching with Android 8.0 and beyond.
forum.xda-developers.com

I was reading about it and it seems like treble is not very seccessful. I imagine Google isn't very interested on this, as they want phones to be sold every year. Anyway, I was asking about this specific method of making phones and tablets compatible with today's OS or, who knows, even linux.

wasserprojekt said:
I was reading about it and it seems like treble is not very seccessful. I imagine Google isn't very interested on this, as they want phones to be sold every year. Anyway, I was asking about this specific method of making phones and tablets compatible with today's OS or, who knows, even linux.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes and the only way it might work is trebel. Because treble handles lot of the problems involved with booting newer androids on older systems.
You can run linux on older Androids or even Windows XP.
How to install a Linux desktop on your Android device
Get even more from your Android device by running a desktop OS! Lots of options including Debian (no root), Ubuntu, and Kali Linux.
www.androidauthority.com
Running Windows XP on Android
No rooting or custom modifications needed, we’re going to do this with stock Android and a few free (but high-quality) apps.
centerorbit.medium.com
Also, it's not that the OS gets deprecated, it's that the applications like Google Play services which become heavier as years go by.
Degoogled-Android on my Android ICS phone worked fine till it's screen got busted. With Google Play services, it was impossible to install any app since its paltry 400MB storage was extended/

Thanks for your answers!
Running other OSes via VNC is just meant to use the devices as mere thin clients, and that was not the objective.
The Project Treble will never be as widespread as it should be, because Google is obviously not interested in making phones last longer (they want more devices to be sold). Of course I was not talking about devices 10 years old, more about 5yrs. They have specs good enough to run contemporary Android and most of non-entertainment apps.
The obstacles to being able to do this are artificial. The problem is there are no drivers and project Treble does not address this in any meaningful way. Manufacturers aren't interested in this too because they want to sell more chips. So the only way it came to my mind it could work was by running a very light VM with an older Android for which the components' drivers were available. Of course main components would still have to be compatible with newer Android, such as the SOC. But things such as wi-fi, camera... could be bridged from a VM, I believe.

Not sure, but I'd guess the low-level interface would have to be outside the VM.
That is, to be able to run the VM you'd have to have some drivers already in place. I'm also not sure everything can be virtualized. For example, desktop VMs couldn't so easily passthru PCIe or USB to VMs, at least in the past.
There's some EU push to make fixing and servicing some non-phone devices easier, and to mandate labeling phones (and other devices) with repairability scores. Maybe eventually they could mandate, under certain conditions, the logical separation of hardware and software?

Well, after a long time, for those who where curious about this thread: the project Halium is exactly what was in my mind. If I'm not wrong, it basically consists in a minimal Android rom running on a Virtual Machine which then interfaces with any Linux distro, effectively giving the phone the ability to run a (more or less) updated version of Linux kernel and, therefore, many Linux distros. https://docs.halium.org/en/latest/project/Scope.html

hkjo said:
Not sure, but I'd guess the low-level interface would have to be outside the VM.
That is, to be able to run the VM you'd have to have some drivers already in place. I'm also not sure everything can be virtualized. For example, desktop VMs couldn't so easily passthru PCIe or USB to VMs, at least in the past.
There's some EU push to make fixing and servicing some non-phone devices easier, and to mandate labeling phones (and other devices) with repairability scores. Maybe eventually they could mandate, under certain conditions, the logical separation of hardware and software?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are right, and I believe Halium just works on phones which are minimally supported by Linux kernel drivers (like basic SoCs). But all those other hardware parts, like GPS, Wi-Fi, Camera... can be brought to life this way, I think.
Thanks for your insight!

Is it realistic to install Android on a 2021 Kindle E-reader ?

Hi !
I'm considering buying an Amazon Kindle E-reader because reading on my phone really hurt my eyes on the long run but I'm worried about being jailed in the Amazon environment. I'm aiming for the cheapest recent model, the Kindle 10.
I was wondering if it's possible to replace the proprietary firmware with Android or a lightweight derivative.
I did some googling but the only result I got was this thread with removed responses : https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/closed-guide-install-android-os-on-kindle-8-gen.4449977/
I'm kinda new so I don't really know what could make it possible or impossible to do it so here's my thoughts :
- Is the Amazon Firmware flashable like I would replace the OS on a computer ?
- Will the hardware be sufficient to run Android or lightweight ? (512MB of RAM, a 1Ghz ARM CPU, 8Gigs of storage, from Wikipedia)
- I know e-inks displays are really slow to refresh so I'll be disabling fancy android animations etc...
I'm not against doing it myself if no one already did, I think this could be a good experience, I just want to be sure I'm not doing something impossible from the start.
Thanks in advance for your help !

hollowww said:
Hi !
I'm considering buying an Amazon Kindle E-reader because reading on my phone really hurt my eyes on the long run but I'm worried about being jailed in the Amazon environment. I'm aiming for the cheapest recent model, the Kindle 10.
I was wondering if it's possible to replace the proprietary firmware with Android or a lightweight derivative.
I did some googling but the only result I got was this thread with removed responses : https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/closed-guide-install-android-os-on-kindle-8-gen.4449977/
I'm kinda new so I don't really know what could make it possible or impossible to do it so here's my thoughts :
- Is the Amazon Firmware flashable like I would replace the OS on a computer ?
- Will the hardware be sufficient to run Android or lightweight ? (512MB of RAM, a 1Ghz ARM CPU, 8Gigs of storage, from Wikipedia)
- I know e-inks displays are really slow to refresh so I'll be disabling fancy android animations etc...
I'm not against doing it myself if no one already did, I think this could be a good experience, I just want to be sure I'm not doing something impossible from the start.
Thanks in advance for your help !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It might be feasible but pointless because android will be limited due to the fact that an E-reader doesn't have the hardware to take advantage of many features built into android.

Droidriven said:
It might be feasible but pointless because android will be limited due to the fact that an E-reader doesn't have the hardware to take advantage of many features built into android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the feedback
Ultimately the goal isn't to get a full fledged working android, it obviously won't play videos or take pictures, I only want the ability to use whatever reader app I want and a lot of them are android apps...
Do you maybe have some advices on how to attack the problem ? I never did something similar so I'm actually learning how to replace android with lineage on a regular android phone to better understand how it works to begin with.

hollowww said:
Thanks for the feedback
Ultimately the goal isn't to get a full fledged working android, it obviously won't play videos or take pictures, I only want the ability to use whatever reader app I want and a lot of them are android apps...
Do you maybe have some advices on how to attack the problem ? I never did something similar so I'm actually learning how to replace android with lineage on a regular android phone to better understand how it works to begin with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First, it requires an android ROM that has been specifically built for the device. It isn't like changing the OS on PC you can't just install any android software on it. Unless someone else has already built android for it, you would have to build/port it yourself, then you'd have to work how to get the device to allow installing it. You'd also have to build a custom recovery such as TWRP for the device in order to install the ROM and installing TWRP on the device requires an unlocked bootloader, which is another thing you'd have to figure out.
In my opinion, not worth it, better to buy a device that you can install your reader apps on.