[Fremantle] Android inside chroot
 

This thread is continuation from brainstorming about chrooted-Android in this thread. So:

what?: the idea is the same (well, maybe a little different but still quite simmilar :)) as what easy-debian is doing with Debian, just with Android.
tl;dr: Android apps on Maemo!

why?: in order to run Android apps (.APKs) in the same way easy-debian is "emulating" (this is not emulation at all) apps from it's repos.
tl;dr: Because of Android apps?

how?: first of all we need chrooted (or "LXCded") Android (NITDroid probably, or some "cropped" version of it). Steps (aka TODO):

• Patch Maemo kernel with Android features / modules. [WIP]
• Compile LXC for Fremantle.
• Make Android run inside LXC.
• Modify pakesson's ParallelDroid, so it will render Android apps to the Maemo window.
• Profit!

<- tl;dr version for this not avaible..

So far, everything up to here, was done by thp. Also, liar has made some progress in this area (on Harmattan, as thp).

Chroid is simmilar project for WebOS.
Most promising is ParallelDroid by pakesson. -- GitHub.
(Thanks Hurrian for mentioning this!)

Progress:

• I'm trying to contact alex from N900 NITDroid dev team, because the N15 link provided by him is down. I recommend to wait, as N15 is really interesting, and seem to provide many interesting features, bugfixes etc. <- there were bugs inside N15. Let's use N14 for now, later upgrade to N15 will probably not broke anything.

• Wicket suggested use of LXC insted of chroot.
• Android was already booted inside LXC (we can drop the qemulating part as we are already on ARM device).
  -- older thread about Android in LXC

I will update continually this thread / post with more info. Expect lot of problems, bugs & glitches soon! :)
Also feel free to ask, answer and share your thoughts.

(If you want to test - there is nothing to test as of now, but if you want to develop, install scratchbox & grab a copy of NITDroid. And Go!)

Re: [Fremantle] Android inside chroot
 

doesn't android require a not-really-linux kernel? (or am I still living in the past?)

if so, this would require adapting fremantle first to run on android kernels.

Re: [Fremantle] Android inside chroot
 

Wow, how much I've missed NITDroid... If this will work it will be really cool! :)

Re: [Fremantle] Android inside chroot
 

Well, as we are not trying to "run" Android itself, just chroot inside him, so it will look like Android for it's apps & services, is some kernel-work really needed?

In easy-debian, the Maemo kernel is still used & so is in chrooted-BackTrack etc. Also thp's procedure isn't saying anything about kernel-moding.

Is Dalvik somehow connected to specific features of Android kernel?

Re: [Fremantle] Android inside chroot
 

Well, look at it this way: why does Android use a non-Linux kernel? If it wasn't really necessary, why do they do it?

(hint: power management in Android is so FUBAR that they actually need this kernel "tweaks").

Well thank $DEITY Maemo is, contrary to Android, still good-old Linux. It may not be upstream, but Maemo runs on Linux (as in "kernel") and Linux (as in "distribution") runs on Maemo-kernel.

Android is not a Linux distribution.

I don't know (nor do I care, just I don't care for crippling a phone with Android).

But if you're initiating this project, perhaps you should investigate this :)

Re: [Fremantle] Android inside chroot
 

Maybe it's better to run it inside VM. I heard that Xen got ARM support.

Re: [Fremantle] Android inside chroot
 

If we are talking about N900, VM with Android is sci-fi because of performance.

Re: [Fremantle] Android inside chroot
 

This is exactly what you want to do.

Some talking points:

• There is already an Android kernel adaptation for N900
• Fremantle uses GTK
• You can do exactly what he did, on ARM

Re: [Fremantle] Android inside chroot
 

Yes!

I've seen a comment about paralleldroid by thp on his blog.
Thanks!

Re: [Fremantle] Android inside chroot
 

Quote from the linked page: "You’ll need a kernel with the Android patches (binder, ashmem, logger etc.)"

You say there is an "Android kernel adaptation for N900". I take that to mean you can run Android on the N900 natively (Nitdroid, I guess).

However the goal of this project is Android running inside Fremantle.
Neither Fremantle will run on Android kernel nor Android will run on Fremantle kernel.

I think that sorta sums it up good enough.