How to do Virtualization on Android - Android General

Disclaimer: This is an open discussion thread for How to do virtualization on Android! It's not a reference or guide! But hope this thread can lead us towards making a way to do it!
Intro: Once phones was a tiny piece of electronic device which was mainly used to talk and sending text messages! (I am talking about mobile phones off course! )
Then here comes smartphones like the symbian one and then iphones and Android!
They opened a lot more way to do on a device rather than only talking or texting!
But still we needed to rely on laptops or desktops to do extensive tasks which we couldn't do (yet) on smartphones!
The main reason was the lack of technology or the memory and processing power limitations on these device!
I remember I bought my first Redmi 2 at a cost of 200$ back in April 2015 which featured quadcore Qualcomm processor, 1GB of RAM and 8 GB of internal storage space!
But now the time has changed! Technology advanced exponentially! After 3 years of my first Xiaomi device, I bought another one (Mi A1) with almost the same price! Whuch features double (on the basis of cores) processors and 4X RAM and 8X internal spaces!
In the mean time on the mainstream computing counterpart, virtualization technology becomes so popular that if not all but most of the servers runs based on it! We have also docker now!
We can now use or test any software/OS on any device (mainstream computers off course) by the grace of virtualization!
On the other hand, Android devs still needs to do the hard work to port ROMs let the OS itself! And yet we can't run Windows on a Android device!
But wait! Android is also a Linux! Isn't it?
So, if Linux can run QUEMU/KVM, why not Android?
And most of the Android SOCs now are 64bit!
So, can't we just make it happen? Can't we just find a way to do virtualization and run any OS on a virtual environment right in our hand?
May be!
I don't know if any guys working on this or not!
But here's how to:
1) Enable virtualization support on kernel
2) Make an apps for Android for manging the virtual machines (like VirtualBox, VMWare etc.)
I think the Android kernels (most of them) supports virtualization already!
The hardest part is to make it compatible with the frontend Android! Which brings the apps and interfaces!
I know there's wine exist for Android! But that's just a complete different thing what I am talking about!
And I wasnt able to run wine on my tissot (Xiaomi Mi A1)!
Thanks everyone who is reading!
Give your valuable opinion and ideas!
Hope someone like @CosmicDan can make it!

ARMv8 (every phone) doesn't have hardware virtualisation extensions, so it would be as slow as emulation.
For that, we already have QEMU and KVM. But it's too slow to be of any practical use.
If you want proper virtualisation, you need ARMv8.1, which no phone has.

CosmicDan said:
ARMv8 (every phone) doesn't have hardware virtualisation extensions, so it would be as slow as emulation.
For that, we already have QEMU and KVM. But it's too slow to be of any practical use.
If you want proper virtualisation, you need ARMv8.1, which no phone has.
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Click to collapse
Hmm! I just realised the hardest part: it's ARM and not x86_64!

ProttoyX said:
Hmm! I just realised the hardest part: it's ARM and not x86_64!
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Click to collapse
That's emulation, not virtualisation.
You can use QEMU, Bochs or DOSBox to emulate x86 (x86_64 is probably impossible, idk but it's pointless to try). But it's dog slow and always will be.

CosmicDan said:
That's emulation, not virtualisation.
You can use QEMU, Bochs or DOSBox to emulate x86 (x86_64 is probably impossible, idk but it's pointless to try). But it's dog slow and always will be.
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Click to collapse
Hmm! Got it! This thing came into my mind when I was reading about servers based on ARM! Wondered if they provides virtualization/container service or not! And ARM provides more cores than x86_64! I guess it's it's related to RISC/CISC thing! Not sure though!
ARM servers uses ARMv8.1?
AND PLEASE DON'T MIND ABOUT ENDING EVERY SENTENCE WITH (!)! PLEASE!
No one can always be rude! ?
I am surely not!
Again thanks for what you’ve done for the tissot and other staffs! You are genius! ?

ProttoyX said:
Hmm! Got it! This thing came into my mind when I was reading about servers based on ARM! Wondered if they provides virtualization/container service or not! And ARM provides more cores than x86_64! I guess it's it's related to RISC/CISC thing! Not sure though!
ARM servers uses ARMv8.1?
AND PLEASE DON'T MIND ABOUT ENDING EVERY SENTENCE WITH (!)! PLEASE!
No one can always be rude! ?
I am surely not!
Again thanks for what you’ve done for the tissot and other staffs! You are genius! ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes those ARM servers would be 8.1. It's not so much a RISC vs CISC thing but more an SoC vs CPU thing. Our devices are SoC's - sure they have many GHz and cores but they're still a lot slower that a proper CPU which has countless of extensions designed for accelerating tasks, and have more IPC capability and other such things (in short GHz/core count is comparable across different platforms or architectures, it's more relative than that). Our SoC's simply don't have those extensions that would make this feasible.

CosmicDan said:
ARMv8 (every phone) doesn't have hardware virtualisation extensions, so it would be as slow as emulation.
For that, we already have QEMU and KVM. But it's too slow to be of any practical use.
If you want proper virtualisation, you need ARMv8.1, which no phone has.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Every ARMv8,and even ARMv7 has.On v8 it's called EL2 while on v7 it's HYP mode.However the biggest headache is that most SoC vendors do not allow users to enter it even with bootloader unlock.
On Qualcomm there are no way except a low level powerful exploit. On Exynos it is possible,needs a specific SMC to trustzone,and can be done only with an unlocked bootloader with custom kernel.

fxsheep said:
Every ARMv8,and even ARMv7 has.On v8 it's called EL2 while on v7 it's HYP mode.However the biggest headache is that most SoC vendors do not allow users to enter it even with bootloader unlock.
On Qualcomm there are no way except a low level powerful exploit. On Exynos it is possible,needs a specific SMC to trustzone,and can be done only with an unlocked bootloader with custom kernel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do you have any references links on this? maybe a cve for the qualcomm exploit?

Related

Linux on Kaiser

Hi
I was just wondering if anyone knew of a linux build for the Kaiser?
that would be awsome...wouldnt it be something like...Android? wait is android on linux....?...time visit google
Kaiser proved to be a tough nut
The MSM7500 phones can already boot linux ...
The Kaiser technical data is already added to wiki
cr2 said:
Kaiser proved to be a tough nut
The MSM7500 phones can already boot linux ...
The Kaiser technical data is already added to wiki
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wait what do you mean MSM7500 the processor? or a brand of phones?
thentertaina said:
wait what do you mean MSM7500 the processor? or a brand of phones?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MSM7500 CPU is used by many new HTC CDMA phones, and their hardware setup
seems to be mostly identical.
Ubuntu is also making a mobile OS. Right now it's aimed at Intel's chips.
http://www.ubuntu.com/products/mobile
nice link really looking forward to mobile ubuntu and maybe redhat or fedora some day
cr2 said:
MSM7500 CPU is used by many new HTC CDMA phones, and their hardware setup
seems to be mostly identical.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so they use different processors for gsm and cdma......i would have thought they just have different hardware and code for that hardware
thentertaina said:
so they use different processors for gsm and cdma......i would have thought they just have different hardware and code for that hardware
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is a different processor because the qualcomm chip has two cores. One is the radio and the other for the OS and other functions. Since the radios have to differ between gsm and cdma, they must use different processors.
hello,
at the moment, ubuntu project is just for intel device built with atom processor and is just specific device built by intel ( intel phone), but in the futur probably became reality for another device...
tyante said:
It is a different processor because the qualcomm chip has two cores. One is the radio and the other for the OS and other functions. Since the radios have to differ between gsm and cdma, they must use different processors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ahh that makes sense.
tyante said:
It is a different processor because the qualcomm chip has two cores. One is the radio and the other for the OS and other functions. Since the radios have to differ between gsm and cdma, they must use different processors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Had the TyTN 1 also had a dualcore processor?
Qualcomm or not both cores are ARM based and there are plenty versions of ARM linux. It's reverse engineering the drivers for all the various parts of the device that is hard, but it is definately not insurmountable.
The Mio A701 has a pretty usable linux port, everything works on it including the phone part and this is a fairly recent device.
http://handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/MitacMioA701
Looks like someone is working on this already:
http://handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/SupportedHandheldSummary
Android is just a layer on top of Linux and should be straight forward to port once some devices are out.
DeepThought said:
Had the TyTN 1 also had a dualcore processor?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hermes uses 2 separate CPUs: Samsung S3C2442 and Qualcomm MSM6275.
thentertaina said:
so they use different processors for gsm and cdma...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CDMA uses MSM7500, and WCDMA(UMTS) is MSM7200.
They have different DSP parts.
I found something very promising...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XbgzgJgTY8I
Anyone know who the person on the youtube video is?
marbalon said:
I found something very promising...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XbgzgJgTY8I
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wouldn't take too much from that video.
Firstly, they never show linux booting all the way...becuase it probably doesn't..no drivers to access anything.
Secondly they are launching linux from within WM6...basically emulating it. Even though a VM for WM6 that allows the booting of other OSes sounds like a neat idea, I can't believe it would be practical. The phones run slow enough without any emulation.
When you see a video of a straight boot all the way to a command shell...now that would be the beginning of something usable...
Personally, I don't think I would want linux on my Kaiser. I suppose if everything worked (touch flo, keyboard, all data connections, gps) and it had a faster speed then I would think about it. Otherwise I don't see the point. No one is trying to hack into my mobile phone...I don't have very good network options (no LAN, no promiscuous wi-fi) to use all the good linux tools. And, as much as I like command prompt...not on my Kaiser/Tilt.
If there are any valid uses (other than novelty) to have linux on a Kaiser I'd like to know, because it would probably be worlds easier to develop a WM application to get the functionality that you think linux would provide.
Don't get me wrong...I'd try it the day a first stable linux ROM came out, but if it didn't have all the features above, I would soon be flashing back to WM6+
bengalih said:
I wouldn't take too much from that video.
Firstly, they never show linux booting all the way...becuase it probably doesn't..no drivers to access anything.
Secondly they are launching linux from within WM6...basically emulating it. Even though a VM for WM6 that allows the booting of other OSes sounds like a neat idea, I can't believe it would be practical. The phones run slow enough without any emulation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your first point is probably right, your second is not quite. The software used to boot linux on Windows Mobile devices is called Haret and can be seen in that video, it is not an emulator but a boot loader.
http://www.handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/HaRET
The video stops because the rest of the drivers aren't there yet, probably. It's a pretty good start though.
ahh thanks Miles, i was unaware of that application.
I was squinting to try to read ANYTHING on that you tube screen. All i could really make out was the penguin I assumed based on the GUI look of it that they were in WM already.
I hate threads like this. Just when you think damn someones done it its a question not an answer lol. Got ubuntu on my laptop yellow dog on my ps3 would love a distro on my kaiser

Is there a true Open Source Android phone? (drivers)

The current situation with the Dream and missing drivers have made me think about the importance of open drivers also for embedded devices like phones. Anyone using the combo Ati card + a distro that upgrades Xorg or kernel more often than Debian stable (whics is most of them) have felt the urge to curse closed source drivers to the deepest levels of hell. Now the same **** hits the fans for G1 owners.
Even though tis post is not about Ati, I must say in their defense that they have released specs, which is great.
Qualomm however, has not released anything whatsoever when it comes to source or specs, as far as I can understand. I have been stalking enough development efforts on embedded devices to know that this is common practise from hardware vendors - and extremely annoying for any geek wanting to do some heavy development for them.
And now i finally reach the question, which has already been mentioned in the title: Is there any device, released or upcoming, that features a SoC with opensourced drivers and firmware for all components? If not (and guess it is so, unfortunately), is anyone better than the others?
Of the many phones/MIDs/ARM gadgets I evaluated before I got my Vogue, the only ones I saw that had even remotely open OpenGL drivers were based on TI's OMAP3 SoC or had a PowerVR SGX GPU. Unfortunately, none of the OMAP3/PowerVR devices I saw were cheap (OpenPandora, AI Touchbook, BeagleBoard, Nokia N900, etc.) enough for me. That, and I saw what happened with the TouchBook's OpenGL ES library, which apparently wasn't allowed to be distributed outside of TI's SDK - but I haven't been following that. I also saw that the Samsung S3C6410, used in the cheap made-in-China SmartQ5 and Q7 MIDs, has open enough specs for writing a driver, but no one has stepped up to write one yet. Aside from OpenGL, though, an OMAP3/4 based phone would be perfectly open... except there aren't many consumer OMAP3 phones I really wish reverse-engineering or converting the Qualcomm/ATI libhgl.so for "real" Linux wasn't next to impossible/illegal - if doing it was easy, you'd have an OpenGL ES library for Debian on the Dream by now. I would reverse engineer it if I had the resources, unfortunately I'm unsure how legal it would be to do that.
EDIT: as far as phones (as opposed to the non-phones I was talking about), the most open right now seems to be Qualcomm - not counting Marvell PXA or other feature-poor (opposite of feature-rich ) SoCs - as contradictory as that may seem. If you haven't guessed by now, I'm basing everything on OpenGL drivers, since as far as other hardware goes, I don't have much expertise. Also, I haven't looked hard enough to find any Freescale- or other ARM SoC-based phones, and I don't know of any Android phones (shipped with android, not ported by third-party developers) that DON'T use Qualcomm chips. For the moment, it seems you must pay a premium for openness.
Well, thank for an insightfull reply anyway.
The N900 is definitely on my watch-list, but yeah, it sure is a bit expensive. Then again, it IS cheaper than the N1, So it isn't that bad.
As for the legality, it really shouldn't be legal NOT to give out open drivers for hardware when you sell it to consumers. They should have a legal right to have it!
But seriously, these outdated qualcomm chips in most HTC phones is no competitor to Snapdragon or Tegra, so who do they think they are fooling when they keep the drivers closed for "competitive reasons". Thats pretty much what they all us as an excuse.
Sad to hear about the "free" Touchbook fate though. I had high hopes for it, but if that is the stance they're taking now, I'm glad i didn't buy it myself.
Soooomewheeereee over the rainbooooow, coooode iiiiiiiiis freeeeeee (likeinfreespeechnotfreebeer) Soooomewheeeeree over...
In paradise there is no binary blobs in any code running on any of my devices.
Acer has just released the "Acer Liquid kernel source code". http://www.acer.co.uk/acer/service....tx1g.c2att92=122&ctx1.att21k=1&CRC=2980211862 Liquid support under Document tab.
Hope that everything is there.
The GeeksPhone One is an open source Android device running on the MSM7225 processor, and worth checking out.
http://www.geeksphone.com/en/
The samsung moment uses the Samsung S3C6410 processor .... whitch is used in otehr windows mobile devices and i do belive samsung has a sdk advable but im not sure
I don´t know it exactly but shouldn´t be the OpenMoko a true opensource phone?
Isn't the Droid pretty decent? Doesn't Motorola even release the drivers for the hardware as open source here: https://opensource.motorola.com/sf/sfmain/do/home
The Moment has the same problem the SmartQ 5/7 have, unless Samsung released source code for the Android OpenGL drivers behind my back. That still wouldn't cover running Debian, sadly - I was hoping I could run Debian if I got one, but I know it won't be 3D-accelerated even if Debian does run. The Motorola Droid has pretty much the same SoC as the N900 and friends, hence the same PowerVR driver problems. IIRC, the SGX drivers are only partially open - I think most of the source code is available, but I remember hearing somewhere that there were redistribution problems. The infamous Intel GMA500 IGP (which was actually designed - and manufactured I think - by PowerVR) still suffers from poor-quality closed drivers, and Intel still hasn't done anything about it, pointing fingers at PowerVR for who knows what reason. I've come to a conclusion: hardware companies don't care about the consumer anymore
What's the status of this these days?
- how open are the n900 drivers?
The Nexus and i9000 both have a thing where the modem reads the CPU so that's as far as the reliant project goes.
Geeks phone is pretty cool but has binary blobs.
I remember reading about another project to make a phone like the Geeksphone but being prepared for compromise to achieve full openness. But I forget the name of the project. Anyone know what its called?
I'm really hoping there's a cheap Chinese phone out there that one can really own from driver level up now.

[Q] crazy idea about porting halo

ive just realised something. halo ce's minimum requirements are 800mhz processor and geforce 2 gtx and 256mb of ram. a lot of phones have more processing power than that (im mainly thinking about tegra 2 phones like the atrix)
So aside from the direct x issue would it be possible to port halo ce onto android?
thre3aces said:
ive just realised something. halo ce's minimum requirements are 800mhz processor and geforce 2 gtx and 256mb of ram. a lot of phones have more processing power than that (im mainly thinking about tegra 2 phones like the atrix)
So aside from the direct x issue would it be possible to port halo ce onto android?
Click to expand...
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...
thre3aces said:
...aside from the direct x issue...
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Click to collapse
That is kind of a big issue, but maybe. It would have to run as a native application, and it would need to be ported to run on openglES, It would also involve a lot of refactoring to make a java-based interface to the game.
Possible... maybe with the source code, and some talented devs.
Not likely to be coming soon, and then there is the whole IP issue on top of the difficulty of the porting... I know I value my sanity too much to work on such a project.
Not likely. You may think that our current processors are more powerful, but that's not necessarily true. Watt for watt they are, but those non mobile x86 processors run many more instructions than these mobile chips. Also porting a game in x86 to ARM is a massive undertaking, not really worth it.
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using XDA App
ive recently started a thread here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1195712
wouldnt this help if the interface is java-based?
Yay I have a atrix
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
This is relevant to my interests. I was wondering why a Diablo 2 style game couldn't be tried. I know my phone far overpowers my old pc. Lol
There are two main technological hurdles to overcomes when porting games from consoles/PC to a mobile platform are:
1. CPU Performance
Just because a ARM CPU has a higher clock-rate than a non-low-power CPU doesn't mean that it is more powerful. ARM is a RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) CPU which means that it is ideal for low-power limited memory devices. However some operations that could be completed in one clock-cycle on an X86 CPU may take two or more clock-cycles an ARM CPU.
Even when comparing ARM CPUs to RISC PPC CPUs included in game consoles, the PPC CPUs tend to implement optimisations that aren't available in mobile ARM CPUs.
2. Graphics
As previously mentioned the main problem is that console and PC games are all developed with OpenGL (or possibly DirectX) not OpenGL ES. Whilst OpenGL ES 2.0 does have support for programmable shaders it's still very limiting compared to what can be achieved with OpenGL (even old versions).
Other Issues
There are also other issues due to the limited (or different) input mechanisms available to mobile device. The smaller physically sized screens are also potentially a issue even if resolutions are similar.
yea ive taken that into account and i know that arm CPUs are slower than an intel/amd counterpart despite higher clock speed. but surely a 1ghz dual core arm cortex a8 is faster than a 800mhz intel cpu.
the open gl thing was something i completely forgot about and know that you mention it i think the whole idea may not be possible. BUT i found this on wiki "PowerVR's Series5 SGX series features pixel, vertex, and geometry shader hardware, supporting OpenGL 2.0 and DirectX 10.1 Shader Model 4.1".
maybe it is still possible.
the screen size is another big issue. but maybe it will be ok on a tablet like the zoom.
We need to start looking into this again
Qualcomm will be releasing the snapdragon 810 soon it supports direct X, is x64, and has 2.7+ghz I think porting pc games is becoming much more of a reality and I would love for someone to give me a reason ditch my pc for gaming
I'd hate to re revive but since android practically is Linux, couldn't we focus on wine for android? That would not only allow people to install direct x in the first place on android phones and tabs but also open up many many possibilities such as a PC version of steam for android. A fun way of this could be taking advantage of Samsung's multi window support. But yes there is no halo for android before wine. Once wine is existant there will be PC on android. And Gabe's 3 will be comfirmed.
I have DREAMED of Halo in my pocket, and this is why I started developing. I thought I could put in the hours to at least get it off to a good start and get people involved. Here are the main issues, and the reasons that I (and I bet any others who have tried) eventually gave up.
It's been pointed out the difference in processing and graphics. X86 processors just run many more instructions than mobile processors. Mobile processors are catching up, and have been more powerful for a long time, but even if one runs a comparitively adequate number of instructions it still communicates differently with graphics processors and ram etc. This alone is intimidating because means that the entire game would have to be redone from scratch and the assets either stolen (yikes) or a partnership arranged with Microsoft.
Enter Microsoft. I love ole Mikey Soft I do, but they are defensive about their Halo. They recently made it almost impossible to install a fan project rework of Halo 1 CE. Any attempts to port to Android would be met with similar treatment. *Cough* they don't trust fans, but they gave Master Chief to 343, killed Cortana, and then made her evil.* That was a long cough. In their defense they have probably not pursued this because of the last point here: porr end product = poor user experience.
So processor, graphics, Mike, and finally porting itself. Borderlands 2 was recently ported onto an arm (mobile) processor. I bought a PS Vita+BL2 bundle specifically to see if I could learn anything about porting other pc games, like Halo. If you've played it you know that it is AWESOME, but has a great deal of glitches, frame rate drops, and even later loading textures than the PC/console version. To be fair I'm SHOCKED that BL2 and all its dlc run as well as it does on Vita. Bravo yo!
My conclusion was that it would have to be completely remade which would require using assets from a zealously guarded IP, and if a partnership was struck the final product would likely be extremely hard to optimize leaving all of us nostalgic fans with dissapointment as we are trying to launch each other to the top of blood gulch but run into such low fps that we can't coordinate the required wart hoggery. This is also why there are several Halo-ish games on Android. It's tough to Port, but much easier to imitate. Sad pandasaurus.
sorry to revive an older thread but heres an apk. i found however its in Spanish if someone can change the language it would be great.

[Q] Why our generation cant support WP8?

I dont understand much about the architecture of software, im asking this because i dont get it, why the processors of our devices cant understand the new kernel and the instructions of WP8. in my head, its exacly the same saying that our pc desktops processors couldnt run the new Windows 8. i would like to know what are the barriers in this case. So guys, what they would be in your opinion?
This was posted by a dude on Reddit.
Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft. But not on Windows Phone.
Windows Phone 7 was built on top of Windows CE kernel (the same as Windows Mobile, and for those who are young enough to remember, Pocket PC and Windows CE Handhelds - this was in 1997).
Windows Phone 8 is moving to NT kernel, the same one as your desktop operating system is using. NT kernel requires radically different hardware - specificaly, TLB mappings in pre-v7 ARM CPU contained logical addresses and this does not work very well on symmetric multiprocessor OS.
So older ARM CPUs did not work with NT kernel, and move to the different OS kernel required radical redesign of the OS. Also, of course the desktop/server OS kernel requires significantly more RAM.
With the large generational shifts it is not uncommon for OS to lose compatibility with old software. These shifts do not happen very often, but they do happen.
For example, Windows NT did not support PCs with 286 CPUs (which were rather common when it shipped), or with less than 12MB RAM (something that is easily upgradeable on a PC, but much more difficult with the phone). Similarly, Windows NT 3.5 dropped support for 386 family entirely.
For Microsoft to have, as you call it, "foresight", it would probably have to drop Windows Phone 7 altogether and go to NT-kernel based solution. It would not have made Phone 8 to appear any faster, however - it would just have lost 2 years.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.reddit.com/r/gadgets/comments/vdjwe/designed_to_fail_all_windows_phone_7_handsets/c53rh01
I think that answers your question.
Beautifuly!!! Thanks!!
m125 said:
This was posted by a dude on Reddit.
I think that answers your question.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This answer is a complete bull****! MS already run NT kernel on the arm cpus for a years! This guy is referred to the "desktop" kernel but of course Apollo/WinRT/ (whatever the MS ****heads will call it in the future) has a different (from the desktop OS-es) kernel.
What the "older arm cpu" he's mentioned about??? Nokia Lumia 900 has Qualcomm APQ8055 Snapdragon cpu (google or wiki for that). What the hell "pre-arm"???
Sorry, it's not an explanation, just a stupid bull**** from ignoramus. He definitely needs a "radical redesign" of his brain
Oh c'mon, if our CPUs were the same old Qualcomms from Android 1.6 days I would believe it, but they are last-gen Snapdragons, goddamit!
I'm pretty sure Microsoft could support it as easy as adding two drivers, but it won't. Specially since all phones are the exact same hardware, with WP7.
The point about TLB mappings might be valid... if it weren't for the fact that these are all single-CPU, single-core processors (in WP7 devices). There's no need for a kernel to support SMP. In fact, you don't *want* a SMP kernel on such a processor; there are performance optimizations you can make for single-hardware-thead systems.
Historically, Microsoft has actually shipped two copies (per architecture) of the NT kernel on their desktop OS install media, one for SMP and one for single-core. The installer would use the correct one for the hardware. There is no technical reason that they couldn't do similar with WP8, shipping one NT kernel for single-core phones (which would be able to run on ARM v6) and one for multi-core (which would require ARM v7).
As for the RAM issue, that's a red herring. The RAM requirements of a basic MinWin system are far below the half-gig of WP7 devices. Even adding the phone's extra libraries and user interface, it should still be possible to implement msot if not all of the software features of WP8 while leaving a comfortable overhead for running and app or two at a time (that being all that WP7 officially allows anyhow).
@sensboston: The first that I'd heard of Microsoft running NT on ARM was 2010, when multi-core ARM v7 was already available.
Actually, I agree that the guy doesn't seem to know what he's talking about; according to Wikipedia (unreliable but in this case I see no reason to expect incorrectness), the Snapdragon processors use the ARM v7 instruction set anyhow.
@GoodDayToDie, last two days I've heard a lot of very different (but all BS and incompetent) explanations from MS employees... Seems like guys in marketing department don't have enough engineering knowledge, and can't announce any realistic-looking reason. But may be they don't have to: for general public some unknown "martian" words like "TLB mapping", "GDT and IDT" etc. sounds very "reasonable"
guilhermedsx said:
Oh c'mon, if our CPUs were the same old Qualcomms from Android 1.6 days I would believe it, but they are last-gen Snapdragons, goddamit!
I'm pretty sure Microsoft could support it as easy as adding two drivers, but it won't. Specially since all phones are the exact same hardware, with WP7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really agree with that!! how loudly do we have to yell? But in my point of view nothing about it will be done, microsoft need money and need for yesterday, and yes they will sacrificate the poor white sheeps (that would be us) and watch them bleed just to launch "a completely new OS" that our phones "doesnt support".

Voice of confidence.!

I am a beginner on this page. I am writing this to backup the other developers on this form. A lot of people who has been going around on the surface forum repeating over and over fat some functions will never work. I've been around modding phones since when Windows Mobile 3 came out back when I was in middle school. I remember when Windows Mobile came out a website called geekstoolbox.com whats the phone for many modders to build custom firmware for Windows Phones. I remembered and middle school it was difficult to make certain improvements because Windows Mobile phones were close systems. I remember then listen to visit on the forum who actually broken too the phone am I allowed a dump of data to flow in Internet of his phone start new custom ROM custom firmware revolution to begin. Afterwards, I begin saying revolutionary products such as wifi tether, Bluetooth tethering, Mobile sharing, and in custom OS. to those web visiting thi about s forum repeating over and over and over, that there would be no Windows based x86 programs on when does RT we'll be eating crow when it finally does happen within the next few months. I see it being possible when you consider if someone will, compile a virtual machine enabling many features of Windows 8 x86. Furthermore, suppose it becomes like parallels Macintosh. In addition, maybe someone will develop 8 translator package for Windows 82 windows Rt to understand each other's programs. all that I am saying is please do not be downers and out other people expressions about this tablet and is always
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I meant to end by saying, please do not doubt other people's expressions about this templates capabilities in with the wish to see on this tablet because the possibilities are there and if someone desires it enough it will come to fruition.
Continuously be blessed signing out!
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There are already two x86 emulators (Bochs and DosBox) for Windows RT. Bochs is slow to the point of being unusable, and DosBox is slow to the point of lagging while playing games from 1992.
x86 will likely never run (games) well on Windows RT, but it does in fact already run.
See,! It already possible . I have 1 questions, do they use virtual machines or do they do rely on the Internet
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befreshshaveivorysalesoap said:
See,! It already possible . I have 1 questions, do they use virtual machines or do they do rely on the Internet
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They use virtual machines, but they're slow to the point of complete uselessness. It takes half an hour to boot XP in them.
befreshshaveivorysalesoap said:
I meant to end by saying, please do not doubt other people's expressions about this templates capabilities in with the wish to see on this tablet because the possibilities are there and if someone desires it enough it will come to fruition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tempered with a dose of reality, when you acknowledge that even a dual core ARM cpu is still very underpowered to emulate a full x86 cpu/environment. If what you want is a good x86 experience, the Surface RT isn't what you want.
That's not saying you can't get a decent toy x86 environment, or really good recompiled for arm desktop apps. Those two work fine.
schettj said:
Tempered with a dose of reality, when you acknowledge that even a dual core ARM cpu is still very underpowered to emulate a full x86 cpu/environment. If what you want is a good x86 experience, the Surface RT isn't what you want.
That's not saying you can't get a decent toy x86 environment, or really good recompiled for arm desktop apps. Those two work fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe not the full experience but something like WINE on Linux. Most people who buys the RT version aren't power PC users and don't require much anyhow , except for a few apps
befreshshaveivorysalesoap said:
Maybe not the full experience but something like WINE on Linux. Most people who buys the RT version aren't power PC users and don't require much anyhow , except for a few apps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wine on x86 linux isn't emulating the CPU. This is a critical difference.
schettj said:
Tempered with a dose of reality, when you acknowledge that even a dual core ARM cpu is still very underpowered to emulate a full x86 cpu/environment. If what you want is a good x86 experience, the Surface RT isn't what you want.
That's not saying you can't get a decent toy x86 environment, or really good recompiled for arm desktop apps. Those two work fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe that all the Windows RT devices are quad core right now.
befreshshaveivorysalesoap said:
Maybe not the full experience but something like WINE on Linux. Most people who buys the RT version aren't power PC users and don't require much anyhow , except for a few apps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's really very unlikely that any x86 program bigger than Notepad will ever be usability fast/stable. I'd go read up a bit on emulation and the downsides regarding speed with it. This is the same reason that android tablets, which are quite arguably far more suited for this, can't do anything better than emulate 20 year old OSes, and do that poorly.
netham45 said:
I believe that all the Windows RT devices are quad core right now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
d'oh! flip flopping between windows phone 8 and windows RT Yep, 4 arm cores. Still like trying to emulate a V8 with an inline4.
netham45 said:
I believe that all the Windows RT devices are quad core right now.
It's really very unlikely that any x86 program bigger than Notepad will ever be usability fast/stable. I'd go read up a bit on emulation and the downsides regarding speed with it. This is the same reason that android tablets, which are quite arguably far more suited for this, can't do anything better than emulate 20 year old OSes, and do that poorly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Instead of emulating an entire OS, would anyone entertain the idea of a program translator; A program could be build with the libraries of some main OS'es. Within the translator, when an x86 program is called the programs determines what operating systems' library to use. The translator would then render a version of the program Windows with RT can understand.
Couldn't this be likely.
netham45 said:
There are already two x86 emulators (Bochs and DosBox) for Windows RT. Bochs is slow to the point of being unusable, and DosBox is slow to the point of lagging while playing games from 1992.
x86 will likely never run (games) well on Windows RT, but it does in fact already run.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe I no what the issue with these are.......... Bochs and DosBox do not allow users to control processing cores for each emulation. These emulators need to be updated to take advantage of this feature, it's a blessing for other OS'es
There's already a translator project much like what you describe, actually. It's early alpha quality right now, only able to run a few apps and those slowly and with stability problems, but it's a very promising proof of concept. The developer is using the DOSBox dynamic recompilation engine, optimized for THUMB-2 (ARM variant that Windows uses) with some hacks in it to remove support for stuff that only the kernel has to care about like page tables and whatnot (these hacks apparently substantially increase speed). The recompilation engine is not currently thread-safe, which means it has to run on a single core (although it's possible that the translated program itself might be able to run across multiple cores; I don't know for sure) but the possibility of fixing that is being investigated.
The project is on the Dev&Hacking sub-forum, and there's a download link for it and a (mostly playable) demo of Heroes of Might and Magic 3 as an example of what it can currently do.
Can someone point me in the duration to learn about building for ARM. I want to see if I can contribute. In school I am only learning about the x86 and x64 architectural
befreshshaveivorysalesoap said:
Can someone point me in the duration to learn about building for ARM. I want to see if I can contribute. In school I am only learning about the x86 and x64 architectural
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Currently this is the porting method: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2096820&highlight=arm
Requires visual studio to cross compile from a desktop windows machine.

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