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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.
Hi guys, is there a clean generic windows phone 7 os? just like desktops were we get a retail os, is there one for phones? and is it flash-able with all phone?
No
No.
It would certainly be interesting to get hold of the OS as Microsoft delivers it to OEMs to begin the process of adapting it to a certain phone model, writing or modifying device drivers, etc., but it seems nothing like that was ever leaked.
WP is closed, as is iOS; for the reasonably open Android there is of course something like a "generic" version; you could even compile and produce one yourself.
There isn't really any such thing as a "clean generic" phone OS, anyhow. Unlike desktop OSes, phone OSes don't ship with support for the massive array of hardware configurations that are found in the wild. Instead, phone OSes rely on a Board Support Package, commonly simply called the firmware, which has the various drivers needed to interface with that specific model's hardware. This is why, for example, even though the source code is available for the Android Open Source Project upon which CyanogenMod is based, it still takes a long time to get fully functional CM ports to each individual device. On things like WP7, where the source code isn't available (except for the kernel and some core libraries), it's even harder.
However, if what you really mean is you want a "clean" ROM that has no carrier customizations in it, there are "open market" ROMs available for many WP7 devices. These ROMs are still specific to the device whose BSP they contain, but are not specific to any mobile operator and usually not to any region.
thanks for the info guys, but it looks like there are no open market roms for the omnia w yet, well, not yet anyway, will keep an eye out now that i know what to look for,
thanks again guys
Answer is yes and no. No oem device created by Microsoft, but there is Nokia. As you know Nokia is part of Microsoft Windows Phone hardware partner. More options etc has Nokia.
Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express
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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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.
As advanced android users, we quickly became obsessed with rooting, unlocking, and controlling our phone. On the other side of the poker table, we have device manufacturers and carriers trying to lock the ecosystem down. It's curious to me how this came to be.
Looking at personal computers: I wanted to install linux on my personal computer because I am a developer by trade, so I installed linux. I took a USB, loaded the linux ISO, and followed the installer (actually I didn't, arch btw). I did not need to get unlock codes from my device manufacturer or my internet company, I just did it and no one complained (aside from windows who was glitching out as I tried to reboot)
This computer ecosystem feels healthy, it's my computer, and I can use it as I wish. I'm curious how and why android got to this point where 90% of manufacturers:
1. Don't allow unlocking
2. Make you jump through hoops to get an unlock code
3. Have hardware root checks
Of course, before we even start talking about verizon (they forgot to lock my pixel )
Is the fact that mobile devices are harder to unlock and modify them computers a flaw in android? Is there some actual reason life is like this?
That's even before we start talking about update cycles. I used my old computer for 10 years, going from god knows what to windows 10 before finally deciding that I just could not. My device manufacturer did not control the updates I got, they just came. Why is it the case that updates come from the manufacture, not directly from modifications to the android codebase? Shouldn't the manufacture just add "drivers" to the device to handle the peripherals?
I presume in some way google is complient with this, because android is based on linux, and linux has no such problems.
Many times, consumers that bootloader unlock their devices have no clue that they will lose features such as banking and Widevine D1; these users are oblivious as to what rooting truly does to their device and instinctively contact their OEM's support to get a device replacement as many times relocking the bootloader is impossible.
Verizon's thought process is somewhat similar, but there is likely a darker undertone to their practices: preventing bootloader unlocks and processes of the sort could aid them when blacklisting their devices, as there is no way to circumvent something tagged to a permanent IMEI kept by the same bootloader and firmware. There is a reason why T - Mobile requires you to have your device completely paid off before you can make any modifications to the system firmware.
Compared to laptops and computers, it is, generally, a one - time purchase and not an investment; carriers depend on their consumers to keep paying their devices off time and time again to make money.
Drivers are essentially non - existent on Android; the only thing that comes somewhat close is the kernel and any OEM modifications to the firmware.
Xryphon said:
Many times, consumers that bootloader unlock their devices have no clue that they will lose features such as banking and Widevine D1; these users are oblivious as to what rooting truly does to their device and instinctively contact their OEM's support to get a device replacement as many times relocking the bootloader is impossible.
Verizon's thought process is somewhat similar, but there is likely a darker undertone to their practices: preventing bootloader unlocks and processes of the sort could aid them when blacklisting their devices, as there is no way to circumvent something tagged to a permanent IMEI kept by the same bootloader and firmware. There is a reason why T - Mobile requires you to have your device completely paid off before you can make any modifications to the system firmware.
Compared to laptops and computers, it is, generally, a one - time purchase and not an investment; carriers depend on their consumers to keep paying their devices off time and time again to make money.
Drivers are essentially non - existent on Android; the only thing that comes somewhat close is the kernel and any OEM modifications to the firmware.
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Click to collapse
This explains why carriers do do this, and it makes sense, but how can they do this? The fact that should someone in the black box want to, loose control over my device no matter what I do is frankly scary. Could a laptop manufacturer do the same thing if they wanted to? (Ignoring the fact they could not because of the outrage). I had always thought somehow android as an operating system was connected to this, somehow complient, but perhaps it is really just a choice by the manufactures that android has nothing to do with. (Google could enforce this via GMS I think, but I don't expect them to)
Scaledish said:
This explains why carriers do do this, and it makes sense, but how can they do this? The fact that should someone in the black box want to, loose control over my device no matter what I do is frankly scary. Could a laptop manufacturer do the same thing if they wanted to? (Ignoring the fact they could not because of the outrage). I had always thought somehow android as an operating system was connected to this, somehow complient, but perhaps it is really just a choice by the manufactures that android has nothing to do with. (Google could enforce this via GMS I think, but I don't expect them to)
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Click to collapse
Chromebooks are a prime example of locking down the bootloader. So is the same with macOS laptops and related devices - albeit Apple lets you boot into other operating systems, the process to do so requires jumping through quite a bunch of loopholes due to Apple's Secure Boot, file system, etc.
Just to play devil's advocate for a moment (because in reality, I, too, prefer to own my equipment).....
Security can be a lot more critical on mobile devices than stationary devices like desktop computers. Even in *some* respects, compared to rackmount servers. This is because it can be pretty simple to grab someone's phone and do what you want with it. Having physical access to a piece of equipment is 99.999% of the task of breaking into it. Its relatively far fetched for someone to break into your home or a high security datacenter in order to gain physical access to your equipment, so the need to have it protected against the kinds of intrusions that become possible through physical access is much lower than it is on a phone, which you just might accidentally leave on the counter at a coffee shop.
And that is about the only part of the move towards lockdowns that I actually understand. The rest of it is either ill-conceived "security" or coercion to separate you from your money.
First off, I wanted to say I posted a few threads about this thing here asking questions about stuff I needed to get it working in the way I'd like and I'd want to thank you because I have made a lot of progress in getting it to be what I'd like it to be. I also don't know if this is the best forum to post this report because it's neither a question nor necessarily a tutorial but rather a summary and description of work already done so far, and especially because this device, while it sure runs Android (very well!) does not fit into any of the categories on this site neatly.
The story so far
This post concerns my experience working with the ITX-3588J, a board released just a few months ago by the Chinese manufacturer Firefly (or T-Chip Intelligent Technology Co. Ltd, based in Zhongshan) that is in the coveted mini-ITX form factor which means it can actually fit into a small-size desktop computer case and indeed has enough compute power to theoretically - and perhaps not so theoretically! - function as an honest desktop system with an ARM processor: namely the - also very new - Rockchip RK3588 system-on-a-chip.
About two months ago, I was looking into acquiring a new kind of computer to replace my somewhat longer on the tooth x86 machine that would be compact, low-power, and easy to transport while also being a fully capable desktop. And I certainly didn't want Apple. I had seen some very small form x86 desktops before, but I also knew there were many boards - like Raspberry Pi - that featured the ARM processor. Not content with the Pi, which is still very weak for this application at least when compared against modern software, I wanted to see if there was something else by now in a similar vein, and when I saw this board I thought it was an amazing option, esp. given I have not yet found a peer. Many ARM single-board devices exist but this is the only one I've found so far that looks to be in a proper desktop form factor and sporting a processor powerful enough to work at that level.
So I got the board, a case, and - noting it had SATA ports - a cheap 250 GB SSD, and put it all together ... and fired it up! And to my surprise, it booted up Android! Which was a real shocker because I generally thought this'd be like another PC board, not having had much experience with this ecosystem beyond phones, so that it would just give the usual "OS not found" stuff. Nope - pre-loaded on the board. Very minimal, very bare-bones though, not even the Google Play and similar essentials required for a usable Android experience. Yet with the little bit I had, I couldn't help but notice it was extremely fluid, responsive, and snappy, moreso than my aging 2018 era x86 box. Moreover, it was very, very interesting (and exciting!) to see Android booted onto a full-size monitor screen like Linux or Microsoft Windows - and actually and surprisingly, to see that it didn't look and feel all that bad!
However, of course, I wanted more. First, I wanted a fully-featured installation of Android. Second, I wanted to run Linux on it - especially given that, a short while later, I found that the board manufacturers were offering a stock Ubuntu 20.04 to be installable to it. Although, in the early stages, I didn't know how to do this at all, and then soon after learned how to reflash the embedded MMC chip to change the OS. And I did so, trying the Ubuntu and finding it also very performant, but not liking either that it was not quite the newest version but also more that it was mutually exclusive with Android - so far.
And that would begin a long - and at many times frustrating, especially given how much information out there is not at all tuned to a device like this being pressed into this application - learning journey toward exploring topics as diverse as how ARM processors and SoCs work under the hood, U-Boot, kernel features, the Firefly-Rockchip developer kit - and having to essentially single-handedly discover many of that kit's ins and outs given there was pretty much no documentation - and more, ultimately leading to where I've got it to now.
What it can do at this point
And that is, right now, I have it sitting here, loaded up with the stock Android 12 and Ubuntu 20.04 - with the former on the eMMC and the latter on the SSD hard drive. On the Android side, Google Play is now loaded and functional, though Google Chrome is not (it crashes with a "Telephony is null" exception for some reason, which seems to suggest for some reason it's trying to act like it's on a phone but isn't). Zoom - an app that I really, really wanted to have (and why I wanted to keep Android around on it) - works and works smoother and cleaner than my 2018 x86 Linux clunker. On the Ubuntu side, though, things are not yet coming - mostly because of seeming inability to use U-Boot to boot from the SSD. I managed to install GRUB, and given that Firefly's generous board SDK provides the full U-Boot source code was able to recompile it with the necessary "bootefi" command enabled which is not present in stock, but nonetheless alas this U-Boot seems to have its SATA support bugged or incomplete, because it would crash immediately upon trying to initialize that subsystem.
Where I'd like to go with it
Obviously, full dual boot of Android and Ubuntu, so getting U-Boot to boot the GRUB resident on the hard drive, is the biggest issue so far, and that means investigating whatever is the problem (or not?) in its SATA subsystem. Getting Google Chrome working on Android is another important step. Moreover - though it would cost extra money that I do not have right now - there's the very interesting possibility, owing to the fact that it has a built in M.2 slot on the board, and alluded to in the title - that the device could be made to act as a cell phone. And finally, the possibility of upgrading to a newer version of Ubuntu (ideally 22.04) - however from what I know so far, it looks like this will have to wait because the stock Linux kernels do not currently support the RK3588 fully - though I'd suggest the Linux kernel developers really should take a look at the SDK that came with this thing because it has lots of code in it including for the kernel, all under GPL.
Final note
One of the most interesting things I've learned from this project, and mentioned earlier, is just how well Android seems to work as a desktop OS. While there have apparently been some attempts to port it to x86, this is perhaps one of the first devices that is desktop-workable and which runs it natively. And one of the things I find that's nice about it is that ironically, because all the apps are designed for small screens, when they are run on a very big screen (and this monitor is not "very big" even by today's monitor standards, being a used and earlier LCD type), they are extremely easy on the eyes and have minimal UI clutter when compared to a typical desktop app on most Linux WMs and on MS Windows.
If you want to know more about the details, or anything else, feel free to ask any questions you might have!
UPDATE:
I believe I may have found an easier way to dual-boot Linux with Android, and that consists of configuring a custom ROM that will put both kernels, and GRUB, on the board's eMMC, while the rootfs for both OSes is placed on the hard disk. Will be seeing how it works.
UPDATE:
I have almost completed the custom ROM! I have now both Android and at least the base system for Ubuntu 20.04 (Kernel 5.10.66) bootable with Android now storing user data on the hard drive; though I'm still running into some hardware initialization issues in the latter that are keeping me from actually installing the desktop system. With regard to the Ubuntu system, there is some interesting issue in that for some reason the provided SDK kernel, which I had to rebuild, seems to build more Android-like because it wants to look in "/vendor" for some things related seemingly to the networking facilities, and it is possible this is preventing me from bringing up wifi, which I need in order to download the rest of the system.
But lots of progress overall - it seems that a full-fledged ARM desktop running simultaneously Android and Ubuntu is within reach to be wrung from this board!
Ignore my request for an update in another post. Seems you like you moving along. I don't need dual boot, just a working Android 12 with GPlay and Chrome. Did you get Chrome to work?
mebalzer said:
Ignore my request for an update in another post. Seems you like you moving along. I don't need dual boot, just a working Android 12 with GPlay and Chrome. Did you get Chrome to work?
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Thanks. Yeah, I want to say that I have pretty successfully gotten Android 12 working on it for sure, but Ubuntu is proving much more difficult due to graphics support issues, and I'm not sure if it will be possible until RK3588 is supported in the mainline Linux kernel tree which is still something under development. And yes! I got Chrome to work Everything works, actually - it's great as an Android system, though obviously Android is kinda funny to use as a desktop OS. I am wondering if I can't get a "pseudo" Linux using something like Linux Deploy in lieu of running it natively, at least until the kernel development catches up with this new processor.
(FWIW, I'm posting this post from that machine while it is running A12. )
Good to see someone else is interested in it, though. What are you planning on using yours for?
Insofar as getting Android 12 to work w/GApps - it depends on if you want to do it purely on the eMMC or you want to also put user data on an attached hard drive like I did. In either case, the best option, I feel, is to create a custom ROM - I could provide custom ROMs for it for download, but don't know because of Google's licensing conditions around the GApps and have heard of people getting in trouble with Google for distributing custom ROMs for phones that have GApps in them. You basically need to unpack the stock Android image, unpack the "super.img", then load the apps from a package like NikGApps into the "product" partition (NOT "oem" - that was a big mistake), then repack everything and flash to the eMMC again. You will need the board SDK from Firefly for all this as it has the custom ROM-packing and flashing tools.
Alternatively, it is possible to manually install the NikGApps GApps using the Android console - as it's a fully unlocked system, obtaining root access is trivial: just put it into Developer mode and you will find the root access in the "Developer options..." menu under "System".
Shimmy99 said:
Insofar as getting Android 12 to work w/GApps - it depends on if you want to do it purely on the eMMC or you want to also put user data on an attached hard drive like I did. In either case, the best option, I feel, is to create a custom ROM - I could provide custom ROMs for it for download, but don't know because of Google's licensing conditions around the GApps and have heard of people getting in trouble with Google for distributing custom ROMs for phones that have GApps in them. You basically need to unpack the stock Android image, unpack the "super.img", then load the apps from a package like NikGApps into the "product" partition (NOT "oem" - that was a big mistake), then repack everything and flash to the eMMC again. You will need the board SDK from Firefly for all this as it has the custom ROM-packing and flashing tools.
Alternatively, it is possible to manually install the NikGApps GApps using the Android console - as it's a fully unlocked system, obtaining root access is trivial: just put it into Developer mode and you will find the root access in the "Developer options..." menu under "System".
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Thanks I will keep this in mind. See my reply to you other reply on another post as well.
I would to run gplay as well please send me instruction the nikapps github doesnt say nothing