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The lovely thing about having a Linux Kernel is that we can do a lot to optimize it.
I figured it would be a great idea to set up a thread where we can bring all these optimizations into one place.
Mind you, I'm no expert by any means...
For my (possibly useless) contribution:
When we compile the kernel to the G1, do we compile it with the general Arm eabi? If so, is that made for ALL ARM cpu's? We have an ARM6 in our G1's. If we set it up to optimize to ARM6, can we set it up to use the CPSID/CPSIE instruction instead of the SWP instruction? Are the drivers open source? Can we recompile them to do the same also? To learn more about why, read this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=516223
That's where I got the idea from.
SWP is a deprecated opcode in armv6 that decreases performance due to the way it locks the bus.
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Anyhow, whatever you guys post here, I will add to this post. Also, to the people to compile the kernels, can you answer my questions?
answers to some of your questions.
hi i usually don't post here since i am not a developer but in this case i think i can answer some of your questions (since i sometime make custom kernels for my laptop). kernel optimazation is used to removed excessive drivers and services from the kernel that you don't need that slows down your computer or in this case phone. i believe htc already does this when they configured android for the g1. most cell phone manufactures already do this to ensure that there products processor use energry efficiently and and run as smoothly as possible.
When we compile the kernel to the G1, do we compile it with the general Arm eabi? If so, is that made for ALL ARM cpu's? We have an ARM6 in our G1's
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yes, arm eabi is made for all general arm cpu's i believe you can complie it for arm 6 specifically though. how do you know that htc hasn't already optimize the kernel for that specific processor? also if they didn't you wouldn't really see any noticible speed improvements by compliling the kernel for this specific processor.
Are the drivers open source?
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no, futhermore they don't offer the drivers for the g1 except execpt for the usb driver so your computer can recognise the g1 as mass storage device.
If we set it up to optimize to ARM6, can we set it up to use the CPSID/CPSIE instruction instead of the SWP instruction?
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i don't know sorry. thats all i know i'm really not a kernel, coding expert i hope this helps in your task.
bananajama said:
no, futhermore they don't offer the drivers for the g1 except execpt for the usb driver so your computer can recognise the g1 as mass storage device.
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I think you meant to say "ADB interface" instead of "mass storage device."
t1n0m3n said:
I think you meant to say "ADB interface" instead of "mass storage device."
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The system type is set to "Quaalcom MSM", so I would imagine that it's optimizing for arm6l.
cyanogen said:
The system type is set to "Quaalcom MSM", so I would imagine that it's optimizing for arm6l.
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Sounds like it. Well, other than that, are there any other obtimizations anyone else can think of?
there are few things in linux that you can play with to see if you get any performance increase. It's mainly in memory management. run ls on /proc/sys/vm. you can play with the page cache but I doubt that you'll get much perf increase from it since, since most of the things we can play with are for write back cache. If we have access to the dalvikvm we may be able to do more optimization. The one thing that I've always wanted to be able to do is to pin Home in memory, and not allow garbage collector to kill it, so when we exit out of memory intensive apps, like browser, gallery, etc, we do not have to wait for Home to reload. If we have more control over garbage collection we may be able to do more, but I don't know much about the dalvikvm at all.
taking a quick look at the vm. The only nob that may have any effect on android may be vfs_cache_pressure. theoretically setting to 200 would push fs cache out quicker and give more memory to the vm. default is set to 100. I set it to 200 and 300 but didn't notice any difference.
knaries2000 said:
there are few things in linux that you can play with to see if you get any performance increase. It's mainly in memory management. run ls on /proc/sys/vm. you can play with the page cache but I doubt that you'll get much perf increase from it since, since most of the things we can play with are for write back cache. If we have access to the dalvikvm we may be able to do more optimization. The one thing that I've always wanted to be able to do is to pin Home in memory, and not allow garbage collector to kill it, so when we exit out of memory intensive apps, like browser, gallery, etc, we do not have to wait for Home to reload. If we have more control over garbage collection we may be able to do more, but I don't know much about the dalvikvm at all.
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dxtop, which is a home replacement, does exactly that. It keeps itself in memory so going back to it is much faster than the default home application. And in low memory situations, it tries to free up as much resources as possible while still staying in memory.
THANK YOU JOHAN DE KONING
This will explain how to make your computer fast enough to run ubuntu (a form of Linux). And how to download the android package. This will take up 7 to 8 gb of space.
THIS IS FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT UBUNTU (NOT VIRTUAL AND NOT DUAL IF DON'T WANT TO BE)*This could delete windows if you didn't partion your hard drive right
NOT FOR NOOBS BE WARNED
Go to the ubunutu download page given below and download the 700 mb iso image file. Iso is a cd formatted file u can open it with a zip appclation(but don't). When it is finished I recommand getting a dvd but maybe it could fit on a cd.(*Note that you don't have to burn on to cd u could extract to decktop and run the setup manually.) Burn the ubuntu on to the cd/dvd and than restart your computer with the cd/dvd still in the computer's cd/dvd rom. When the computer goes to a blink screen and asks you if want to boot from cd/dvd press enter. And than from here on follow the instractions.
STEP 1 (CLEAN COMPUTER)
*Note: for performance do this in safe mode.
First we need to make your computer fast as possible. Create a backup just in case you want to back up something. So go to download.com and download Advanced SystemCare Free(7 -10 mb). After you have installed click on the CARE! button to get started. This could depend on your computer usage space the bigger the longer it will take. It will wipe all internet data. If you don't want that to happen just go to maintain windows and click on the Privacy Sweep box to uncheck. Than scan. Than go to utilities and run all the following Disk Check, Disk Cleaner and install Smart defrag. After installing Smart Defrag click start on all the options in this order defrag only, deep optimize, and fast optimize.
STEP 2: RESTART COMPUTER
After restarting go back to System FreeCare and run game booster(install). Click game mode and a pop up will show. Click the button on the left side of the box. Check all boxes but not explore. than go to game mode.
STEP 3: Download virtualbox(68 mb download)
You could have a dual if you want. The download page is http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads. Download the correct version. (windows= *VirtualBox 3.0.4 for Windows hosts x86/amd64). than install it.
Install Virtualbox(takes from 5-30 minutes depending on your computer)
Next>accept>next>next>next>yes>install>continue anyway(i got this like 6 times so...)>finish(i think)>cancel>new>Next>name=ubuntu>next>Next>Next>Next>Next>Next>
when u get to the virtual size thing move the bar to 7.5 gb (min). this should be a little extra space. Next>Finish>Next>
STEP 4: Download UBUNTU(700 mb)
DOWNLOAD PAGE http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download and choose the ftp. than begin downloading. After download save the file to desktop and DON'T DO ANYTHING. go to the VirtualBox and click CD/DVD-ROM. Check the box and also ISO IMAGE FILE after that and mount to that image on the desktop. THAN OK. press CTRL+ALT+DELETE. go to processes and end explore(for speed). Click Start.
PART 2
OK. START by running VirtualBox with the mount on the ISO ubuntu and than click start on the top right hand side. press enter to leave language than enter again to install ubuntu. on the top of the bar it may pause alot so go to machine and resume it. if it total doesn't work just exit and power down and reboot with explore.exe gone and also no windows up and running. and than just follow the instructions to installing it about 1 hour to 2 hours depending. Make sure that it is completely partation to the virtual drive. After like forever when u reach the main desktop go to app... terminal and make sure u knoe your password. Than type
The rest is here http://www.johandekoning.nl/index.php/2009/06/07/building-android-15-build-environment/. How to bulid the enviroment and getting the libs and other tools together. After all that run.
Sudo apt-get autoremove
Sudo apt-get autoclean
Than on Saturday and Sunday I will teach u how to make a rom.
There is a kernel problem with johan's idea I think I know what it is
Was going to wipe one of my computers anyway. This gives me a reason to stop procrastinating! Will give this a try. Waiting for part 2!
I know I will never get into rom making but it is very interesting to read about.
P.S. Make the paypal link a bit bigger, I can't read it
I already turned my back on windows so I run ubuntu so this is useless to me but I am waiting for part 2 so I can learn more about this, prob won't ever use it but it is good to knowhow to
Already running Mint in VB .. runs just great. I am interested in reading the ROM part though
WTF? Why do you need to do all of this crap on your computer to run Ubuntu? If I was going to dual boot with windows I would not use the stuff you listed. Why not just explain how to use it create a ROM and let people figure out how to get Ubuntu on their computer.
this seems more like spam, an advertisement for those products he listed. Any sensible person would not use virtual box to build android from source (problems you run into with the jvm running out of memory).
Besides, Johan already has a well posted blog about this:
http://www.johandekoning.nl/index.php/2009/06/07/building-android-15-build-environment/
but I would really recomend installing ubuntu through the windows installer (wubi) if you're a linux virgin, that way you don't risk anything in your windows partition, it's faster than virtualization, and eventually you'll drop windows once you learn how to use ubuntu at least.
Really, I think this is spam though.
jubeh said:
Really, I think this is spam though.
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I think you are right. I don't know if "part 2" is ever going to come, or if it will just be a copy/paste from the link you posted.
Wasn't it simpler to just install ubuntu as second os? If someone wants to dedicate himself to developement it would be better to have ubuntu not virtualized
jubeh said:
this seems more like spam, an advertisement for those products he listed. Any sensible person would not use virtual box to build android from source (problems you run into with the jvm running out of memory).
Besides, Johan already has a well posted blog about this:
http://www.johandekoning.nl/index.php/2009/06/07/building-android-15-build-environment/
but I would really recomend installing ubuntu through the windows installer (wubi) if you're a linux virgin, that way you don't risk anything in your windows partition, it's faster than virtualization, and eventually you'll drop windows once you learn how to use ubuntu at least.
Really, I think this is spam though.
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I am not sure if you have ever tried virtual box but it is quite responsive and seems too run better than wubi. I am sure it depends somewhat on the system a person is running, but with a quad and 4 gb of ram VB runs very well. While I have a dual boot with Ubuntu , I have still found it easier to do my android stuff in it's own virtual space. With a dedicated 75gb I can use it seamlessly with my Windows 7 install. You should try it it really works very well and I have had no memory problems at all and have manged to build from source without any difficulty whatsoever. My Ubuntu install stays clean and I can mess with my virtual Mint install as much as I like without ever affecting my Ubuntu partition.
Personally I have Ubuntu on a Prtition of My portable drive,which means I can boot it up anywhere (so long as the computer can USB Boot). I shall certainly be following the original info. The same guy has posted many good Android Articles.
As for the OP here, he only really needed to post a link, not copy the whole thing.
pixel-painter said:
I am not sure if you have ever tried virtual box but it is quite responsive and seems too run better than wubi. I am sure it depends somewhat on the system a person is running, but with a quad and 4 gb of ram VB runs very well. While I have a dual boot with Ubuntu , I have still found it easier to do my android stuff in it's own virtual space. With a dedicated 75gb I can use it seamlessly with my Windows 7 install. You should try it it really works very well and I have had no memory problems at all and have manged to build from source without any difficulty whatsoever. My Ubuntu install stays clean and I can mess with my virtual Mint install as much as I like without ever affecting my Ubuntu partition.
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Almost everything runs well with quad processors and 4GB of RAM. Oracle 10g runs well with that hardware. So that isn't saying much.
miketaylor00 said:
Oracle 10g runs well with that hardware. So that isn't saying much.
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ha! this bit gave me a chuckle.
I freaking hate Oracle. I run a bunch of dbms' & 95% of my headaches come from them.
I prefer dual-booting, personally. I just started messing around with ubuntu (about 6 months maybe) and i love it, after using ubuntu i fully hate Windows Vista and all its sparkly, money-making horse-****. So now i have ubuntu and Windows both running smoothly on a compaq presario f700 laptop, and the only thing i really use my windows partition (i know thats not the correct technical terminology, just pay attention to the story) for is, well, basically just theming, and media storage. I use photoshop, and havent bothered to try using GIMP very much yet, and so i do all my theming (which isnt much really) in windows, which is where i also already have the autosign tools and draw9patch and other such things setup...and then all my music, pictures, whatever are all on my fat32 partition, and can all be accessed from either OS. aside from that, my computer boots into ubuntu by default. so if im using my computer, im doin it the ubuntu way, unless i NEED to use windows, for something like photoshop, and thats about it.
So long story short...(like its not already to late for that) im eagerly awaiting part 2 cuz ive been hitting some roadblocks...hope it helps!
-BMFC
mohsinkhan47 said:
Please donate and help me get a good ubuntu desktop from the case to the motherboard. Please donat.
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I'll get right on that. Is $500 enough?
miketaylor00 said:
Almost everything runs well with quad processors and 4GB of RAM. Oracle 10g runs well with that hardware. So that isn't saying much.
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Ok Granted u are right about that and so it should.
But assuming I am not the only person with a quad and 4 gb of RAM, this may work just as well for others too. As as a relative newb with Linux, I can honestly say I have killed a few installations of Linux on my Hard Drive by breaking packages and other things that prevent it from working properly. Sometimes it is easier for me to reinstall the whole thing because I lack the knowledge to fix it.... in comes Virtual Box. I can totally screw it up as much as I want and my Linux partition on my hd remains intact with no errors.
pixel-painter said:
I am not sure if you have ever tried virtual box but it is quite responsive and seems too run better than wubi. I am sure it depends somewhat on the system a person is running, but with a quad and 4 gb of ram VB runs very well. While I have a dual boot with Ubuntu , I have still found it easier to do my android stuff in it's own virtual space. With a dedicated 75gb I can use it seamlessly with my Windows 7 install. You should try it it really works very well and I have had no memory problems at all and have manged to build from source without any difficulty whatsoever. My Ubuntu install stays clean and I can mess with my virtual Mint install as much as I like without ever affecting my Ubuntu partition.
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Click to collapse
I do have virtualbox running on my linux box, my laptop's ubuntu side, and my laptop's win7 side. I also have a third computer that I have loaded with windows vista for the computer illiterate people in my house and a tiny dell mini 9 that I bought god-knows-why.
My main computer (since I can take it anywhere and my linux box i use mainly as a file server) is a gateway fx p-7805u. I won't have you google the specs, it's a 2.27 Ghz core 2 duo, 4 gb of ram, 320 gb main hard drive (plus I tossed a slow 5400 rpm 500 gb hd for files), so yeah, I can run virtualbox, but I mainly use it for running micro-xp on it for whatever else I need it.
I've used vb before like i said even configuring the vm with dual core support but there's no way it's as fast as a native system.
Anyway, wubi is not virtualization. It's an actual, loop-mounted image file/partition that fully utilizes the hardware it runs on. It's exactly the same as running a dual-booted system through partitioning, the only difference is that the ubuntu filesystem exists inside your ntfs partition rather than it's own partition, this has the effect of having a very slight hit on disk performance (much less than virtualization though), but everything else is running natively, even drivers. It's entirely safe for your host file-system and can be removed leaving no residual files anywhere on your system. It's also easy to share files with your host computer (with vb you have to set up a network share and then edit your /etc/init.d/rc.local to have it automount on startup, with wubi, it automatically creates a link to the host filesystem located at /host).
I've had to leave my computer building on vb overnight and then I come back to find that the process is stuck at some dex or java compilation, with an actual running system, this doesn't happen.
Give it a try, it costs nothing.
mohsinkhan47 said:
U guys are evil
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Wow thanks! I really appreciate your work and considering donating to you. Since you make your paypal link so large, it really inspires me to donate.
Thanks again!
edit: (hope this post isn't considered to be spam like the original post is)
Better if you do
sudo apt-get autoremove --purge
jubeh said:
I do have virtualbox running on my linux box, my laptop's ubuntu side, and my laptop's win7 side. I also have a third computer that I have loaded with windows vista for the computer illiterate people in my house and a tiny dell mini 9 that I bought god-knows-why.
My main computer (since I can take it anywhere and my linux box i use mainly as a file server) is a gateway fx p-7805u. I won't have you google the specs, it's a 2.27 Ghz core 2 duo, 4 gb of ram, 320 gb main hard drive (plus I tossed a slow 5400 rpm 500 gb hd for files), so yeah, I can run virtualbox, but I mainly use it for running micro-xp on it for whatever else I need it.
I've used vb before like i said even configuring the vm with dual core support but there's no way it's as fast as a native system.
Anyway, wubi is not virtualization. It's an actual, loop-mounted image file/partition that fully utilizes the hardware it runs on. It's exactly the same as running a dual-booted system through partitioning, the only difference is that the ubuntu filesystem exists inside your ntfs partition rather than it's own partition, this has the effect of having a very slight hit on disk performance (much less than virtualization though), but everything else is running natively, even drivers. It's entirely safe for your host file-system and can be removed leaving no residual files anywhere on your system. It's also easy to share files with your host computer (with vb you have to set up a network share and then edit your /etc/init.d/rc.local to have it automount on startup, with wubi, it automatically creates a link to the host filesystem located at /host).
I've had to leave my computer building on vb overnight and then I come back to find that the process is stuck at some dex or java compilation, with an actual running system, this doesn't happen.
Give it a try, it costs nothing.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the info... now I know you have a lot of computers in your household But seriously, I am not trying to put anyone's opinion down here... so there is no need to be quite so elitist I am just pointing out my own experiences with Virtual Box which have been very good. If it doesn't work for you... fine.. but you are suggesting to everyone else that it doesn't work properly or well and I can quite definitively say that yes it does.. and very well too.
I would imagine that your system from what you say may not be powerful enough to handle it as well... so maybe a quad is needed to make it run the way it does for me, I don't profess to know the answer... only that it works great on my system.. it is not slow.... does not have errors and compiles Android source quite easily using Mint Linux (another Debian based Linux Distro for those that are unfamiliar with it)
I don't think I ever mentioned it was as fast as a native system... all I am saying is that it runs well and for a noob it can be run without messing anything else up as it runs in it's own little environment.
i love ubuntu on my laptop but cant play with it much cuz im in photoshop most the time so am mostly in windows. i was wondering how it was on the gtab? and how to apps work with it? i assume no android market? can anyone give me some pros and cons? and how does it work with the touch screen?
Following work done on the vega, I've gotten ubuntu 11.04 running. You have to use the 2.6.32 kernel and touchscreen works. I'm trying to sort out why wireless and sound do not work. The vega folks have made much more headway at this time but they have several linux distros running on the tab.
it sounds very promising, but until the wifi is working, i can't see this as a viable os. What do you think? The lack of connectivity makes the device a stand alone - right?
I have added the driver for a usb ethernet dongle and it works. As time allows, I'm trying to sort out the wireless issue.
Considering how useful ubuntu is, if you can get everything to work with ubuntu, I'm putting ubuntu on as soon as I get the gtab.
I'm not really sure what the point of putting Ubuntu on the GTab is. I suppose there are linux apps that just aren't available in Android, but most of those are the heavy hitting apps that you'd never want to run on the GTab anyway. just trying to figure out what the point is.
There are things you can do with a linux load that android cannot do. And being a risc processor, it can do more in less memory than on a x86 processor. I want to be able to run librioffice on the tab at meetings rather than having to depend on a wireless connection to the cloud.
NMCBR600 said:
There are things you can do with a linux load that android cannot do. And being a risc processor, it can do more in less memory than on a x86 processor. I want to be able to run librioffice on the tab at meetings rather than having to depend on a wireless connection to the cloud.
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Have you seen the "office" apps available in this forum, that came from the Notion Ink? You can do that with Android. That's kind of my point. The apps exist for the most part... Unless you want to run GIMP or some sort of CAD, which is silly to run on a tablet to start with *I* personally think.
You could theoretically install Eclipse/Android SDK and develop on the tablet.
Support usb modem $ ethernet Android -No, Linux -yes
Support cut/past between pdf and odf docs -- Android No Linux -yes
Ability to use the same linux apps that are on my netbook -- Android -No
Faster program action in linux not inside the java VM in android.
And Google may have several legal issues about stripping out the GPL2 headers out of source code.
If you want android and it's apps, that's fine. There are those of us who want a full OS and apps on our tabs. We'll work to get what we want running the way we want. Try that with an Ipad.
h3llphyre said:
I'm not really sure what the point of putting Ubuntu on the GTab is. I suppose there are linux apps that just aren't available in Android, but most of those are the heavy hitting apps that you'd never want to run on the GTab anyway. just trying to figure out what the point is.
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Because some of us are considering using the gtab for work. I'm sure most people see it as a toy. I intend to use it for much more than a toy. A full os like ubuntu will get the job done.
unfortunately not a full OS
Look I want Ubuntu as much as anyone and I am starting my own business in Photography so another one for the work aspect...
However, it will be limited and not a full OS at least IMO until Ubuntu on the Gtablet can:
run wine (optional but not necessary) may not even work at all since wine is for windows programs and gtab is arm processor
have Flash for video and the web (would this idea have a chance at working http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=994433)
able to connect--read and hopefully write to CD/DVD (obviously drivers needed)
there are other limitations that we will discover too I am sure but without at least the last two from above, Ubuntu on the Gtablet will not be a full OS, a darn handy mobile one but not a full one IMO!
thanks NMCBR600 for your work on this and jersacct whos version (no touch screen has wireless) I am currently using.
I am greatly hoping NMCBR600 gets wireless going on his so I can get touch going on my tablet. Sorry that I may have ideas of my own and love what the Devs come up with here but I am helpless to do any of this myself because I am not that advanced, wish I was, I wish I was.
doihaveto said:
run wine (optional but not necessary) may not even work at all since wine is for windows programs and gtab is arm processor
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Actually, I can live without wine. I've never had to use it.
have Flash for video and the web (would this idea have a chance at working http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=994433)
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Click to collapse
No problem, me thinks.
able to connect--read and hopefully write to CD/DVD (obviously drivers needed)
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Click to collapse
USB to external drive.
true about usb external drive but in my photography business I plan to be giving customers who pay for the option a cd/dvd with everything they order on it and so hence the cd/dvd function
and the flash part is there any dev who may happen to read this thread have any ideas to get flash working on arm ubuntu
thanks
Hellburger said:
You could theoretically install Eclipse/Android SDK and develop on the tablet.
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Click to collapse
This is actually something that I would want (Eclipse), so touche.
doihaveto said:
run wine (optional but not necessary) may not even work at all since wine is for windows programs and gtab is arm processor
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Click to collapse
This actually just opened my eyes to a new potential... VMWare has already shown VM's running on Android. Running a Linux VM from within Android would be utterly awesome.
wine will probably never make it to Android, because of the processor architecture issue... well, at least until vendors start shipping x86 tablets that run on recent Android versions (Wind River is working on it)
doihaveto said:
true about usb external drive but in my photography business I plan to be giving customers who pay for the option a cd/dvd with everything they order on it and so hence the cd/dvd function
and the flash part is there any dev who may happen to read this thread have any ideas to get flash working on arm ubuntu
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But we're talking about a tablet. They have to keep the thickness around half an inch. So, I suspect that no tablet will ever have an internal cd/dvd drive. Just get an external one and carry that around. DVDs are cheaper than dirt these days anyway.
that us what I mean I have an external usb dvdrw drive but ubuntu on the gtablet will not mount anything off of it in other words it will not read/write off of the usb external drive
I can only hope that support will be able to be added with proper drivers unfortunately I don't know how that works so it won't be coming from me.
With the iso support compiled for the kernel, a linux load will see a cd/dvd. It may need external power as the tab may not provide enough through the usb port.
i have to concur
While android is a great tool for social apps, email, light webbrowsing. It fails at something as simple as copying an address from a website to spread sheet. The programs for linux are far more robust. Actually where is android gimp? The touch screen does not work as a mouse. And the key board is missing things as simple as ctrl left tohighlight
I am wondering if anyone knows of any way or if someone is working on a way to get ICS or JB to boot on a home-built PC? My PC is AMD 64, 8G RAM, etc. I have seen some instructions online, but they failed to mention that you must have a certain laptop or tablet. I would like to be able to tri-boot Android and run it whenever I feel like (probably use it the most). Thank you for any input.
Massive overkill. Why not simply run VMware and stick Android in a virtual machine?
android-x86
There is a project called "android-x86" - this might help you.
I tried android-x86. That is where I found out after several failures that you can only use a handful of specific Lenovo devices to boot into Android. Apparently there is a way to use Android 1.6, but who wants that.
As far as the overkill thing. Well I did build it as a workhorse PC. And I could run VM. But I would rather boot into it. I think it would be great for average tasks.
How difficult would it be to make it work for myself from AOSP?
Kernel build, hardware support etc. That's why I just run a VM for mime when I want to play. Also means I can access all my synched days such as SMS messages easily on my PC.
Sent from the darkest corner of my mind.
I have only been an Android user for a couple of months, but I've been a Linux user and software developer for almost 20 years so this might be a strange question; Is it normal to put up with so many random application crashes on this platform? I am not used to such instability with Linux except in the rare case when I have introduced a bug in some kernel driver I was developing.
In addition to force close messages and mainstream applications just disappearing with no message, this family of tablets or perhaps it is the Tegra, seem to have more than the normal problems running Linux distros via chroot.
I started with a TF300 and returned it after 30 days in part because I suspected flaky hardware was to blame for the application crashes. Now I see about the same behavior with the TF700.
It has already been reported that Unity and Firefox don't work in Ubuntu 12.04 and no one seems to have any idea why. In the process of investigating this, while building a debug version of Firefox inside a Ubuntu 12.04 chroot, I encountered several non-reproducible bus errors with gcc which it reported as possible hardware or kernel errors. Restarting the make succeeded in building that object, only to fail with another random signal 7 later in another part of the build. So I switched to a Debian image and found even stranger results with processes hanging randomly (ps shows they are sleeping in one of two places in the kernel).
I have also noticed that Ubuntu process such as the vnc server just dissapear sometimes. I would suspect Android of killing it thinking it was "managing" resource use, but given the other issues, I suspect it just encountered a random bus error or segfault. If this wasn't my second sample and if others hadn't reported problems with linux installs on the Tegra, I would assume I had a bad processor.
These are not the normal symptoms of application errors. So my question is: Do we have a nasty kernel bug which is causing these random crashes and hangs? Is it a hardware problem? Or are the Android application crashes typical and the chroot Linux environment behaviors caused by some incompatability between the generic ARM builds and our Tegra architecture or perhaps some processor errata?
I have searched the forums for clues but even though the Tegra and the Transformer families have been around for a little while, I can't find any answers.
Thanks,
--Brad
You definitely get much more of this than on a stable Linux distro (although I find X-Window generally unstable as compared to other parts of the system). I have used many Android devices and it seems both build/version- and device-specific, some of them had a lot of FCs, some of them almost none. Then there come many apps with a really bad code. It should be better from the JB onwards and current code control under Android.
I think so far the Infinity is on the worse side of this, but I'm not sure what to blame, some say Tegra, some say firmware. I really hate GMail app crashing (newest app / newest firmware), I feel it's just ridiculous.
I'm not sure how deep debugging is going to get you under Android (wouldn't even want to guess ;>). If you really want to know, I guess you'll have to find out by yourself. For now, I don't think the Infinity is particularly stable, but, having sad that, I believe it's getting better, as I don't experience more random reboots under .26 firmware now, my uptime is only a few days now, but just because my testing of some custom tweaks in /system/
I havent really experienced any of those issues running a chrooted debian. Perhaps your setup is a little too heavy ram wise? Try a lighter window manager like LXDE or fluxbox. Alternatively, perhaps you're running into the IO issues that seem to plague the Tegra 3 transformers.
Jotokun said:
I havent really experienced any of those issues running a chrooted debian. Perhaps your setup is a little too heavy ram wise? Try a lighter window manager like LXDE or fluxbox. Alternatively, perhaps you're running into the IO issues that seem to plague the Tegra 3 transformers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am already running LXDE which I installed on the large Ubuntu image from the complete linux installer project and I intentionally avoided doing anything else while I was building. The build slowed things down to the point that the tablet was not very fun to use anyway. Have you tried building any large programs? Other than an occasional mysterious exit of the VNC server, that's where I started seeing most of the nasty random bus errors. Unless someone knows of a reason low memory could cause bus errors, I don't think the slow I/O would be related. Though I suppose slow I/O could cause low memory as ram gets filled up with dirty buffers. But the kernel will start to put processes to sleep when it can't find a free page to satisfy an allocation and the writes should catch up so I don't expect allocations would actually fail due to slow I/O. I do wish I could enable swap without replacing the boot loader. And I wish I could replace the boot loader without voiding my warranty.
BTW, another irritation on this tablet is the huge number of messages the kernel is spewing out constantly about starting and stopping processors and other power management and routine events. There could be an interesting message in the kernel logs related to the bus errors but I would never see it in dmesg because of the noise which quickly flushes anything else out of the circular buffer. That fact that ASUS has not taken these debug messages back out of the kernel makes it feel like it is still in development.
Has anyone else tried to build anything large under Ubuntu chroot? BTW, Firefox is so large, I allocated another 4G file system just to put the debian source in so I could run dpkg-buildpackage without filling up the file system. It looks like I could have grown my image beyond 4G. I didn't realize until just now that sdcard wasn't a fat32 file system. Or I suppose I could reformat my microSD as ext3 and move my chroot work there.
I had whole servers running under FreeBSD's jails years ago, I think it is much better than chroot.
d14b0ll0s said:
I had whole servers running under FreeBSD's jails years ago, I think it is much better than chroot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That may be, at least in the case of multi-user systems where resource contention is a real problem. But in general there is no technical reason I can think of that chroot sandboxes should be unstable. The API which the kernel presents to the user level is very stable, even across major differences in kernel versions. I use linux chroot sandboxes all the time for my job and they are very stable and useful. I find that a library version mismatch (which chroot avoids) is far more likely to cause trouble than an older or newer kernel. There is something else going on here. Other ICS based tablets are able to run these chroot images with no trouble.
--Brad
An update in case anyone is interested:
I haven't learned anything about the tegra specific issues with chroot, but I do think I understand where at least half of the random android application crashes I experience are coming from.
I have been running dmesg after any android application crashes and I noticed that in over half of the cases, the kernel oops at the end of this post was reported. The oops report indicates that the nvidia driver was attempting to allocate a 64K block of physical memory. Examining nvhost_job.c in the kernel source makes it clear that the nvidia driver is poorly written with respect to dynamic allocation of large blocks of physical memory in order to satisfy dynamic application gl operations. A bit of research turned up that this bug has been reported previously way back in March on transformerforums.com. I'm not sure why it seems to have never been discussed here and I'm not sure why it has taken ASUS and Nvidia so long to fix it.
I believe this rather nasty and stupid bug explains many of the android application crashes I and others have seen, including google play, google maps (this one tends to persist until you reboot), various vnc viewers, etc. Note that this bug is more likely to be triggered the longer we go without a reboot. And stressing the system with respect to memory use, for example, by performing lots of output to the transformer's slow storage, or running lots of programs inside a chroot triggers the bug sooner.
The good news is I checked the recently available TF300 Jelly Bean kernel source on the ASUS site and was happy to see that the driver has been reworked to use virtual memory for this purpose which should solve this class of application crashes. I assume the same fix will be in JB for the TF700 when it is released.
I wish the root cause of the other Tegra specific problems I see inside the Ubuntu chroot including the compiler bus errors were as easy to debug.
--Brad
<4>[162943.445514] ogle.android.gm: page allocation failure. order:4, mode:0xd0
<4>[162943.445656] [<c004f4d0>] (unwind_backtrace+0x0/0x12c) from [<c00e86e4>] (__alloc_pages_nodemask+0x5f4/0x658)
<4>[162943.445778] [<c00e86e4>] (__alloc_pages_nodemask+0x5f4/0x658) from [<c010cddc>] (cache_alloc_refill+0x2c0/0x52c)
<4>[162943.445915] [<c010cddc>] (cache_alloc_refill+0x2c0/0x52c) from [<c010d0e0>] (__kmalloc+0x98/0xe0)
<4>[162943.446031] [<c010d0e0>] (__kmalloc+0x98/0xe0) from [<c024a874>] (nvhost_job_realloc+0x4c/0x134)
<4>[162943.446221] [<c024a874>] (nvhost_job_realloc+0x4c/0x134) from [<c024b494>] (set_submit+0x58/0x90)
<4>[162943.446336] [<c024b494>] (set_submit+0x58/0x90) from [<c024b714>] (nvhost_channelctl+0x248/0x44c)
<4>[162943.446406] [<c024b714>] (nvhost_channelctl+0x248/0x44c) from [<c011efb8>] (do_vfs_ioctl+0x500/0x57c)
<4>[162943.446544] [<c011efb8>] (do_vfs_ioctl+0x500/0x57c) from [<c011f068>] (sys_ioctl+0x34/0x54)
<4>[162943.446665] [<c011f068>] (sys_ioctl+0x34/0x54) from [<c00495c0>] (ret_fast_syscall+0x0/0x30)
<4>[162943.446801] Mem-info:
<4>[162943.446858] Normal per-cpu:
<4>[162943.446915] CPU 0: hi: 186, btch: 31 usd: 1
<4>[162943.447036] HighMem per-cpu:
<4>[162943.447094] CPU 0: hi: 186, btch: 31 usd: 0
<4>[162943.447180] active_anon:91412 inactive_anon:172 isolated_anon:0
<4>[162943.447184] active_file:31694 inactive_file:44876 isolated_file:32
<4>[162943.447187] unevictable:227 dirty:8 writeback:0 unstable:0
<4>[162943.447190] free:16204 slab_reclaimable:2875 slab_unreclaimable:3047
<4>[162943.447193] mapped:18781 shmem:208 pagetables:2670 bounce:0
<4>[162943.447635] Normal free:62760kB min:3224kB low:4028kB high:4836kB active_anon:172696kB inactive_anon:112kB active_file:82056kB inactive_file:109704kB unevictable:0kB isolated(anon):0kB isolated(file):128kB present:650240kB mlocked:0kB dirty:32kB writeback:0kB mapped:37376kB shmem:180kB slab_reclaimable:11500kB slab_unreclaimable:12188kB kernel_stack:7312kB pagetables:10680kB unstable:0kB bounce:0kB writeback_tmp:0kB pages_scanned:0 all_unreclaimable? no
<4>[162943.448281] lowmem_reserve[]: 0 2880 2880
<4>[162943.448608] HighMem free:2056kB min:360kB low:816kB high:1272kB active_anon:192952kB inactive_anon:576kB active_file:44720kB inactive_file:69800kB unevictable:908kB isolated(anon):0kB isolated(file):0kB present:368656kB mlocked:0kB dirty:0kB writeback:0kB mapped:37748kB shmem:652kB slab_reclaimable:0kB slab_unreclaimable:0kB kernel_stack:0kB pagetables:0kB unstable:0kB bounce:0kB writeback_tmp:0kB pages_scanned:0 all_unreclaimable? no
<4>[162943.450980] lowmem_reserve[]: 0 0 0
<4>[162943.451323] Normal: 3378*4kB 4302*8kB 901*16kB 40*32kB 2*64kB 0*128kB 0*256kB 0*512kB 0*1024kB 0*2048kB 0*4096kB = 63752kB
<4>[162943.452059] HighMem: 256*4kB 35*8kB 27*16kB 6*32kB 0*64kB 1*128kB 0*256kB 0*512kB 0*1024kB 0*2048kB 0*4096kB = 2056kB
<4>[162943.452864] 76613 total pagecache pages
<4>[162943.452924] 0 pages in swap cache
<4>[162943.452983] Swap cache stats: add 0, delete 0, find 0/0
<4>[162943.453091] Free swap = 0kB
<4>[162943.453149] Total swap = 0kB
<4>[162943.498866] 261632 pages of RAM
<4>[162943.498982] 17680 free pages
<4>[162943.499041] 11846 reserved pages
<4>[162943.499118] 5922 slab pages
<4>[162943.500755] 258372 pages shared
<4>[162943.500869] 0 pages swap cached