May be a dumd question, but I'm asking anyway. Why is Android so hardware specific?. or better yet, why can't you install any android system on any phone?
example: you can install windows or linux on any system, you don't have to have a certain set of chips. Is it a propitiatory type thing with these phone makers. is the whole android system so small, that the coding can't be added to make it installable on any phone.
I'm not a coder, or prgrammer, I do understand it enough to read what it is doing, but cannot write anything. Can someone shed some light on this
Thanks in advance
You've got this completely bass ackwards. Android is decidedly not hardware specific. Phones, tablets, computers, car stereos, home heating/AC, watches, TVs, etc. Android is open source, which means anybody can develop it to work on just about any platform they wish. I mean, you can get refrigerators and microwaves that run Android for Pete's sake.
If you're complaining that you can't get Android on an iPhone or a Nokia Lumia, then you're barking up the wrong tree.
To add some more "devices" to the list above on which android can be installed - cars! I'm working in that industry now
And the answer above is right - if your device is totally closed for others, then you will not be able to install anything on it, maybe, without really breaking into it. Android can be put mostly on any hardware - if the hardware manufacturer wants it. The short description is - Android is implemented on top of HALs (Hardware Abstraction Layer) which are then implemented by manufacturers specific to their devices and then Android works "out of the box".
Related
I know this is an incredibly newbish question, but I'd flipped through various forums and articles and googled it and still don't quite seem to understand it.
My question is why is android dependent upon manufacturer's release?
Take for example, a desktop computer.
OS
This is the core of the device and the UI between the user and the hardware.
Applications talk to the OS to instruct the hardware to do stuff.
Microsoft and Apple makes the OS.
ex. Windows 7, Mac OS, Linux.
Hardware
Asus, Nvidia, Realtek, marvell make the hardware.
ex. video, LAN, sound etc.
Hardware Bundler
Dell, Alienware, Gateway, Acer
They take commercial hardware and some OEM hardware and assemble it in a way that many consumers will buy their bundle.
For 99.9% of us, not counting Synapse, this is the only way the hardware is packaged together.
Device Standards
Collectively, the manufactures work together to determine certain industry standards ex. ATX, PCI-E, SATA 3, USB 3.0 etc...
Drivers
The manufacturers also make drivers so the OS can make use of their hardware.
Compatibility Is Determined by Driver Support
If the driver exists to talk to a given OS, then the hardware will work.
Not all hardware manufacturers will code for every OS out there.
ex. USB works on all OS because it's more established, but not every sound card will work on a Linux system.
Bringing it home...
So if Microsoft releases Windows 8, and as long as Nvidia releases a driver that works with that OS, then the video card will work.
Can you help me understand how the android phone architecture is so different that it's no longer
OS <-> Driver <-> Hardware?
Sorry for not getting it.
Culverin said:
Can you help me understand how the android phone architecture is so different that it's no longer
OS <-> Driver <-> Hardware?
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Click to collapse
It isn't different, it's exactly as you written. But manufacturers usually don't release sources of drivers, neither binaries for newer versions of OS. Also many manufacturers add protection against installing your own software into "their" device.
Android is open, but many manufacturers of Android devices - aren't.
Many devices just like????
You say manufacturers, are you referring to components such as the modem (???), video encoding/decoding chip (tegra), sound chip (wolfson)? NFC chip?
Aren't these drivers publicly available?
How else would small companies be able to develop low volume items such as these?
http://www.bigboxstore.com/computers/android-tablet-pcs
http://cheapandroidtablet.org/
When a company, samsung for example, makes a phone.
They start tying all the components together and making them talk to each other.
How "custom" are the "motherboard bios"?
Is that what you are saying by the manufacturers add protection?
Like at the "bios" level?
As for things like this...
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/27/sony-announces-playstation-suite/
Does that mean Sony is banking on Google making it more standardized?
Culverin said:
You say manufacturers, are you referring to components such as the modem (???), video encoding/decoding chip (tegra), sound chip (wolfson)? NFC chip?
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Click to collapse
I mean both components manufacturers and phone manufacturers.
Usually there are problems with Wifi, GPS, GPU support, camera, etc. Many alpha-stage ports have problems with these things.
Culverin said:
Aren't these drivers publicly available?
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Click to collapse
Do you mean sources? Manufacturers rarely release sources of drivers, even on a PC. This is the reason, why there are problems with some devices on linux systems.
Culverin said:
How else would small companies be able to develop low volume items such as these?
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Click to collapse
I'm not sure, but they have to buy a license to use these components in their devices anyway, so I guess they get sources of drivers too, but they can't release them.
Culverin said:
How "custom" are the "motherboard bios"?
Is that what you are saying by the manufacturers add protection?
Like at the "bios" level?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"BIOS" or just "boot phase software" is usually 100% custom - there are no standard solutions I know of.
Let's imagine you have bought a new PC with some preinstalled OS. You don't have administrator rights on it, you can't boot from other device than HDD and if you want to update your system, you have to use special software, which has administrator rights, but it checks whether updates were created by device manufacturer. This is more or less how most of phones work.
Culverin said:
Does that mean Sony is banking on Google making it more standardized?
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Click to collapse
I'm not sure what do you mean?
Culverin said:
I know this is an incredibly newbish question, but I'd flipped through various forums and articles and googled it and still don't quite seem to understand it.
My question is why is android dependent upon manufacturer's release?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because individual makers add their own hardware.
Can you help me understand how the android phone architecture is so different that it's no longer
OS <-> Driver <-> Hardware?
Sorry for not getting it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It still is. Android OS is JUST THE BIOS, in your example. The VXDs/drivers are made by different manufacturers (hardware level drivers) and loaded at system time.
You can load a plain Android OS, but it won't be able to talk to the phone's hardware except in a very general sense. You can touch screen, launch apps, but no phone, and only generic camera without special resolution support and such. It won't be able to do data or phone at all. That requires special VXDs (or their linux equivalent, I'm a Windows guy). Not all phones have the same buttons, or the same screen rez, or the same keyboard, and so on.
That's why there are various experimental Gingerbread ROMs out there already, but they don't work that well, because nobody had debugged the "drivers" for the hardware yet.
And if nobody release the source of the drivers (even for the earlier versions) nobody can use that to figure out if they are compatible with the next OS rev. Binary hacking is way too difficult.
Hello,
First off, apologies if I have posted this in the incorrect forum.
The company I work for is looking to update one of it's product lines and has been toying with the idea of using Android as a development platform. Up until now the philosophy has always been to develop simple, bespoke embedded software that provides only the functionality that is needed at the time. The device itself will be a medical device, and as such will have no telephony requirements (and associated things like contacts, calander and the large majority of the pre-installed Android apps).
I have read, and understand it is possible to re-compile Android from source and remove all of these non-required functionality. My question is really if that is worth doing? i.e. stripping out all un-needed applications that get build into a stock ROM. Or would it be a more efficient to use some form of OTS embedded Linux platform?
Something in Android 4.0 that does seem to be useful is the support for Bluetooth HDP.
Kind Regards,
Simon
Well there are other devices that aren't phones that use Android. Take the motoactv for example. It's a fitness watch that runs a stripped version of Android, but it's still Android and applications can still be programmed and installed to it.
I would like to create an IoT device by buying new, cheap android phones, strip them down and remove the screen, rebox into my own physical box, install a custom ROM without any bloatware (and that will boot without a screen!), and install my android app on the device to do stuff.
An example of a purpose for this could be a GPS tracker for a car. The box would be placed in the car, and record GPS and accelerometer readings, posting these readings back to a central server via the cellular network. (This is just a random example, so don't focus too much on the detail of this, but there are thousands of uses for a IoT board with the sensor, CPU, RAM, storage, and connectivity capabilities of a budget android smartphone)
The reason I want to use existing phones is that they are wonderful, mass produced, cheap devices with a variety of sensors I can use.
The reason I want to use Android is because it is because of the customization ability, and the mature development ecosystem.
To me, it seems an obvious thing to do, but I don't seem to be getting much joy trying to search for examples of this sort of thing (either here, or on the internet in general).
So some questions:
1. General thoughts? (Good idea? Am I missing some fundamental problem?)
2. What are the challenges of running Android without a screen connected?
3. Are there any custom ROMs you know of that specialize in this sort of thing?
(I've seen Google Brilo, but it still seems a bit early yet, and I really like the idea of just using the standard Android SDK to develop the app - and the abundance of help and information that comes with it)
Thanks!
Bit of a story here.
So I have been long into car hacking, doing all sorts of canbus related modifications to my Merc W203 model.
The stock radio is utter garbage by today's standard, and Xtrons do a ton of android head units for my car. (Either with an A35 CPU and 2gb ram, or Px5 CPU with 4gb ram).
I am wondering, would it be possible to COMPLETELY remove android from it, and instead boot something like archlinux-arm on it. I want to create some custom applications on it whilst also having full control over the entire OS (Hence the want for Linux, not android).
I do kernel development as well so I am not worried at all about devices not working, I can likely hack together a kernel driver for nonworking hardware on the unit.
I am simply looking if it is possible to wipe android and see if it's possible to use it as a bare bones PC.
Any help would be appreciated, before I bite the bullet and spend £250 on one!:laugh:
You still need the GUI and stuff like that.
Besides, Android "is" Linux! Much better, imo, to base it off of Android, to keep the ecosystem that that comes with.
FransUrbo said:
You still need the GUI and stuff like that.
Besides, Android "is" Linux! Much better, imo, to base it off of Android, to keep the ecosystem that that comes with.
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I am pretty sure by he said 'bare bones' does not mean an (Linux kernel based) operating system with only an command line terminal (i.e. something that looks like MS-DOS).
My point is that native Linux doesn't HAVE "mobile GUI". It have X11, which is *NOT* (!!) suited for such a project..
So either have to port whatever GUI Android have back to Android, or write his own. Which is a *MASSIVE* (!!) undertaking..
Also, Linux isn't quite suited for mobile applications. That's why Android was created. It took all the good from Linux and made it fit a mobile application.. Reverse engineering or back porting all that work to Linux is just dumb..
FransUrbo said:
My point is that native Linux doesn't HAVE "mobile GUI". It have X11, which is *NOT* (!!) suited for such a project..
So either have to port whatever GUI Android have back to Android, or write his own. Which is a *MASSIVE* (!!) undertaking..
Also, Linux isn't quite suited for mobile applications. That's why Android was created. It took all the good from Linux and made it fit a mobile application.. Reverse engineering or back porting all that work to Linux is just dumb..
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Click to collapse
Wait does the OP mean he need some thing like postmarketOS(some kind of Linux distribution with mobile GUI)?
Of course he does!! What do you think "Linux" is?!
Linux is *JUST* (!!) the kernel! NOTHING else.
The *distribution* is everything else. Boot procedure (scripts, commands, filesystem tools - technically that's "The Userland" - the install procedure, the packaging etc etc). Then you put your GUI on top of that.
On top of that you have X11. Or "The GUI". TECHNICALLY, X11 require some more stuff, the window manager too actually be useful. Without it (the window manager), X11 is just an API to the graphical functions - "draw window border", "draw a close button" etc etc. Which is what the window manager utilises.
So: kernel <- userland <- X11 <- Window manager <- Graphical apps
Then all of that is packaged up in a need CD/DVD/Image to make it easily installed and used. And we call that "The Distribution".
This is how UN*X works and that's how LINUX works. Simple, portable and very useful. But not for a phone, tablet or, in this case, a car!
That's why Android was created. It is ALL of that, in ONE package! With thousands and probably millions of apps compiled for it. Do it yourself, and you have to write EVERY (!) app you need yourself - radio apps, navigation etc etc ad-finitum..
Because NO ONE/THING (except in very rare occasion) "talks" to the kernel. They "talk" to libraries (libc, libX11 etc) to do what they need. Which is why you need "The Userland". THEY (the libraries) then "talk" to the kernel (networking, filesystem, input, output etc) giving the apps a nice API - "Application Programming Interface". A set of functions and tools for applications to use, so they don't have to recreate "the wheel" every time.
Now, I'm not going to go deeper, unless you want me to . I do understand that the un-initated don't know the difference between "Linux" the-kernel and "Linux" the-everything. But this *IS* important, believe it or not..
The kernel is absolutely useless on its own. It can't do squat! It was never MEANT to be used on its own. It was designed and built to be used *with* a distribution - "GNU" in the large majority of cases..
Although it's possible to use bare-bones Linux with either your own distribution (MASSIVE amounts of work, I know, I've tried it!) or an existing one (Debian GNU/Linux, RedHat, SuSE etc - they all provide binaries and packages for a multitude of processors), none of them have all the goodies that Google Play Store have.
And none of them are really targeted towards a mobile graphical environment.
Raspbian for example, was made for the Raspberry Pi, but that is in 99% of cases a non-graphical environment (robots and media stations mostly). Most distributions is like that.
The Play store on the other hand is *specifically* targeted towards a mobile, graphical environment. As this is. I would be foolish to try to reinvent the wheel when Android already IS Linux+userland+GUI+distribution.
Keep in mind though that Android apps on Google Play is compiled for an ARM (ARM64) architecture! Meaning, whatever hardware utilised, MUST run on/with an ARM processor..
All this limits the hardware choices substancially.
Everything "is possible". In theory. In practice though, I'd say the answer is "no". It is simply to much work to get it working. For absolutely no benefit.
With that being said... Bare Android on the other hand!! Now THAT is an idea.
Get your Android kernel source and compile it for the specific hardware you're using and then your Android distribution, set it up juuuuuuust so and you'll get what I (and probably everyone always wanted - a non-bloated piece of ... well, we've all seen them.
I am a retired programmer with too much time on my hands; as such, I wrote a complaint to a regulatory body about how I can't install the operating system I want on my device because it will render it unusable (if I can't call for help on a phone because of drivers, what good is it?). I received a response requesting an interview with an officer who specializes in anticompetition cases and I would like to make sure I have my eggs all in one basket.
The current mobile phone market I liken to the desktop OS market of the 90s, where you had companies like Xerox, Microsoft, IBM, and so on; in the 90s, there were antitrust lawsuits where a particular company was accused of intentionally creating barriers to customers seeking to install software by other companies on personal computers. Obviously, that was settled in the 2000s, but IMO it did appear to make a positive change even if we are still fighting against IE. This may not be relevant, but that's what my mind went to when I realized I couldn't uninstall the Play Store.
Nobody uses "cellular telephones" as telephones anymore; instead, they are mobile computers. Computers in the 80s/90s had plenty of OS options (you may recall using OS/2 or BSD), but you can't do that with mobile computers... is that a good thing?
In my retirement, I'd like to develop and build a mobile phone operating system that is not android (nor lineageOS); this would either be Linux or BSD-based with a simple package manager, but the user would have the option to compile their own software also. This would ideally *not* hinder the underlying function of the device (i.e. telephony), but I don't see how manufacturers could be compelled to provide binary drivers. The current mobile market makes it obviously a very high barrier to entry for any who want to develop new operating systems for mobile computers. Is this anticompetitive? Perhaps not, but I'd like to hear some opinions and if you would kindly point me towards some resources I would appreciate it.
IMO the OS is not the problem - a command line based OS can be written by any talented student nowadays - preferably in C++, yes there are enough templates on the Internet, it is the device drivers what have to fit the hardware that make the whole thing difficult. I know that some OEMs put their device drivers' source code to the public.
jwoegerbauer said:
IMO the OS is not the problem - a command line based OS can be written by any talented student nowadays - preferably in C++, yes there are enough templates on the Internet, it is the device drivers what have to fit the hardware that make the whole thing difficult. I know that some OEMs put their device drivers' source code to the public.
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Click to collapse
To install a new OS on a phone, the phone must first be booted into a bootloader such that the 'image' of the OS can be loaded. The image for the OS should be built with the drivers present such that when booting, the OS kernel can load the relevant drivers as it probes the hardware in the phone, and then the software installed on the user layer can access that hardware through the relevant system calls. How possible is it for the bootloader to load a custom OS in the general sense? The majority of instructions I find are on enthusiast/developer websites with the actual manufacturers giving basically no input (that is to say, I haven't seen on manufacturer's websites or instruction manuals where they give instructions for booting your choice of OS).
Would it be fair to say that mobile developers, like Google/Samsung/LG/Amazon/etc are restricting users from being able to install their own OS on their device? Is driver access a reasonable thing to ask for?
Again, I'm retired, so I have time on my hands, but I'm old and there's realistically not a lot of that time left. I don't want to try developing my own BSD-based mobile OS if there's no way for me to install it on my own devices; that effort could go into another project if it is otherwise wasted. I suppose it is worth asking whether I should bother returning the bureau's request for an interview.