[Android] Eclair NITDroid (WIP) - Page 2 - maemo.org

bri3d | # 11 | 2009-12-01, 05:12 | Report

Status update: got a working kernel based on 2.6.30 linux-omap and android - will probably have to set up git somewhere at some point because trying to describe all the cherry-picks, merges, and hacks I had to do to get it booting an Android userland init is going to be hard otherwise.

Some notes for future porters though:
Android userspaces need ASHMEM. They won't even start to do anything without it.
GCC 4.4.0 and 4.3.1 won't build a booting kernel easily. Using 4.2.1 to build the kernel seems a lot more stable.
linux-omap HEAD doesn't init the framebuffer - I think someone accidentally refactored it out when they moved from n800-board-xxx.c to n8x0-board.c and tried to put init in individual drivers. You have to use something from around 2.6.30 (my git will have the specific commit), before the n8x0-board refactor.
2.6.30 has some Android code merged to mainline that works, but not everything (notably ADB Gadget, GPIO Input, its dependencies such as switch and block_wake and ASHMEM will need to be cherry-picked and frontported - some USB name stuff was redone so ADB Gadget needs some love).

Now I'm just having much more straightforward rootfs mount / init script issues.

My new kernel has WiFi drivers built-in (still need firmware, obviously+sadly), and support for watchdog etc. was put into linux-omap mainline. Sound theoretically works too but I haven't even thought about testing it yet. So we'll have a lot less deps on a Nokia initrd, but they're still there (firmwares now, mostly).

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qole | # 12 | 2009-12-01, 18:02 | Report

Wow, I feel hope stirring within me again! Thanks, bri3d!

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JeffLuszcz | # 13 | 2009-12-02, 08:50 | Report

Wow, this is really great news. Thanks for spending the time on this

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ramersonw | # 14 | 2009-12-02, 13:24 | Report

Hi bri3d,

Great thanks for your development. I've already tested android on my n800 and I liked it too much. I hope you can make Android fully usable to us. Keep up the good work.

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sanjose | # 15 | 2009-12-02, 18:20 | Report

Hi,
Can you post which files are modified? I also got display issue when porting code to Eclair.
Thanks,
Jose

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Stskeeps | # 16 | 2009-12-02, 19:36 | Report

bri3d: You did notice http://elinux.org/N8x0 right?

Also, feel free to hang out on #mer , irc.freenode.net. We're also interested in later kernel versions on N8x0 and the Gentoo/N8x0 guys hang out there too.

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qole | # 17 | 2009-12-02, 19:56 | Report

Stskeeps: anything happening with that project since Kalle Valo's brief burst of activity on his summer vacation? Doesn't look like it...

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bri3d | # 18 | 2009-12-02, 20:12 | Report

@sanjose:
I had to cherry-pick a specific commit from the linux-omap repo before the n800-board-xxx.c files were refactored into individual drivers and n8x0-board.c was added - it looks like when this happened, some crucial part of Blizzard initialization got lost. I can let you know exactly which commit when I get home (actually, I'll just push up a git repo and gitweb so everyone can check out my kernel and see my nasty hacks).

@Stskeeps:
Yeah, but it doesn't look like it got anywhere since last summer, so I'm sticking to whatever working linux-omap I can get to boot with all devices.

And another status update: The MMC driver got really unreliable somewhere so I'm working on it - the Android userland that does load before my MMC decides to stop reading (init, adb, ADB USB drivers, etc.) is working fine though, so I think I've got the necessary Android stuff into the kernel.

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qole | # 19 | 2009-12-02, 20:19 | Report

Originally Posted by bri3d View Post

I can let you know exactly which commit when I get home (actually, I'll just push up a git repo and gitweb so everyone can check out my kernel and see my nasty hacks).

Oh please! That would be wonderful. It has become very apparent to me that open source projects aren't really open source until they've got a source code repository somewhere. Especially lone-coder projects.

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Bundyo | # 20 | 2009-12-02, 22:19 | Report

The MMC driver for 770 was broken too, I wonder if someone tests the changes that are commited

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