Database Develop

Android Devs: What are the biggest challenges in porting Android to Xperia X1?

The intent of this thread was to provide a consolidated answer to all of those waiting patiently (some, not so patient) for a complete Android ROM for the SE Xperia X1.
Many perceive Android as "a hacker's OS" because it is both open source, and supported on so many other HTC devices. Because of this, I suspect many of the "spectators" here (like me) incorrectly assumed that Android on Kovsky (or, any HTC smartphone) would be a straight forward affair, considering some of the amazing work done here with the Windows Mobile ROMs.
It seems, however, that creating a usable Android ROM for Xperia is far more difficult than creating WM6 ROMs? Android has been out for quite some time and there's still no widely available Android ROM for Xperia X1. It is for this reason that I've started this thread.
I'd like to hear from those that have/are working on Android about the challenges in putting together an Android ROM for Xperia X1. What has contributed to this being a difficult OS to port to Kovsky?
Is it driver support? Perhaps Kovsky has a unique selection of hardware that complicates the process? Or, has much of the effort been directed towards Haret vs. a native ROM? If so, why? Can the Haret work be merged into an effort to create an Android ROM or are these different approaches completely exclusive to one another?
Perhaps there are IP/DRM/license issues that are complicating the effort? I'd very much like to hear from ROM chef and devs working on this port.
While it may seem like a idealist perspective, I wonder if some dialog on the issues surrounding an Android port/ROM might result in greater community involvement, and ultimately a stellar Android ROM for one of HTC's most beautiful smartphones. I'm certain that interest in Android on Kovsky is very high. Are there areas where the community might be able to assist with direct hardware, financial or other contributions?
So please, sound off. I'm very interested to hear about chefs/devs experiences with Android and I'm certain there are many here that would like to hear more about this port.

I just didnt know how to tell all you told here... I really want to know because I love my x1 and I love Android.. but i can"t help

i have just check out the Kovsky project from Gitorious, but still don't know how to work on it. 'cause i don't have much knowledge about develop kernel and open source, why don't we have a tutorial thread about this?

You people asking when a Android rom is coming just about every day are so funny. First of all their are still major issues that need to be worked out. Android running from haret is not even every day usable yet so what is the freakin point of expecting a rom now or asking about it? Do you guys want a rom where you phone won't even last 2-3 hours, GPS dosen't work along with the camera etc......? We need All the issues fixed before we can even be thinking about a rom. When Android from Haret is everyday usable then lets start talking about a rom. So can we please give the Devs a break about this rom nonsense and let them work in peace, when their ready to release a Android rom they will release a Android rom.

wphoenix said:
i have just check out the Kovsky project from Gitorious, but still don't know how to work on it. 'cause i don't have much knowledge about develop kernel and open source, why don't we have a tutorial thread about this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
would like that too, i've only been reading for some good time about the advances, and would like very much to take part in the development of the kernel, but don't really know where to start from
Also, what Viper says its very true... the work is probably a long way from done, depending on how much help the dev's get, which is, from what i've seen, not much.
about Toe_Cutter's comment "I wonder if some dialog on the issues surrounding an Android port/ROM might result in greater community involvement, and ultimately a stellar Android ROM for one of HTC's most beautiful smartphones" ... well, yeah, i think it could... at least i hope so.
xD
cool down all your heads and lets just help in every way we can
...as (ilgreco112) does xD... cheering up isn always bad hahaha
ps: first post!! ... Hi!

Viper89 said:
You people asking when a Android rom is coming just about every day are so funny. First of all their are still major issues that need to be worked out. Android running from haret is not even every day usable yet so what is the freakin point of expecting a rom now or asking about it? Do you guys want a rom where you phone won't even last 2-3 hours, GPS dosen't work along with the camera etc......? We need All the issues fixed before we can even be thinking about a rom. When Android from Haret is everyday usable then lets start talking about a rom. So can we please give the Devs a break about this rom nonsense and let them work in peace, when their ready to release a Android rom they will release a Android rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As a dev, I bet it IS tiring hearing all the spectators asking about an Android ROM.
But what do you expect when spectators ask about the issues, and receive nothing in response?
In my original post, I chose my words very, very carefully, because if you go back and read it again, I never asked when, I only asked the why and how.
Why is it that no one can provide a response to this question? I searched the forum, and read thru dozens of posts trying to understand what this port might require, and I got nada (except several polls asking about an Android ROM, and a few more posts telling the spectators to quit asking about an Android ROM).
Anyone care to break the cycle and help the community understand the issues?

Well, the problem is that you can never guess what's required and how to achieve it. First of all, developers really know nothing about the hardware before they begin hacking it. Until you finish the job, you can't estimate the time it takes to complete. The major problem is that most of us devote just a tiny bit of our time to the porting, because there are lots of interesting things to learn and to do except it, but mostly because everyone's either studying or working (or even both).
But if you really want to know what's needed.. well
1. Fix the LCD panel (add the initialisation code)
2. Fix the power saving (that's the greatest PITA right now) and 3D (the latter should be easy and is not really critical)
3. Implement Bluetooth, FM Radio, Camera (Should not be really hard on the driver side, but rather on the RPC protocol side)
4. Fix USB (should be easy.. actually, everything's done on the device driver side, the problem seems to be with the msm usb driver itself.. just needs real debugging)
5.Make a version of rom that boots from NAND (well, once you get the LCD to work correctly it's not a problem. It actually boots very well off nand, but without LCD and USB working it's not much fun, to tell the truth)
6.Clean up the code, drop the ****ty-droid and head forwards to SHR/Maemo MER/Meego or some other real linux distro with X11 and other things
7.Write up misc stuff (like optical joystick, illumination, new keypad driver and others)
But really, it you want to help, just begin researching everything yourself and exploring wince drivers. You know, Theo de Raadt once said: "shut up and hack", and that's the only way to get things done.

full ack
@sp3dev
full ack your post. the main problems ar not at android 2.x this source we have. but the kernel an its's modules (for kovsky) are the problem.
regards

Toe_Cutter said:
As a dev, I bet it IS tiring hearing all the spectators asking about an Android ROM.
But what do you expect when spectators ask about the issues, and receive nothing in response?
In my original post, I chose my words very, very carefully, because if you go back and read it again, I never asked when, I only asked the why and how.
Why is it that no one can provide a response to this question? I searched the forum, and read thru dozens of posts trying to understand what this port might require, and I got nada (except several polls asking about an Android ROM, and a few more posts telling the spectators to quit asking about an Android ROM).
Anyone care to break the cycle and help the community understand the issues?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The ROM question has been answered time and again throughout various threads on xda-dev.
There is no real issue "porting" Android to kovsky. Android is a virtualized environment running on a linux
kernel and it is that kernel that has to be ported. "Android" runs 100% on kovsky with minimal modification.
So. There is only one issue with the linux kernel - that issue is when the linux kernel for kovsky
is good enough for someone to make the effort to pack up a ROM with that kernel,
a bootloader and the android system.
Now, the consensus is the kernel isn't as yet good enough for daily use -
if someone with the skills decides it is and makes a ROM, then they will
obviously do so.
The list of kernel stuff to be fixed is broadcast all over this board and asking kernel devs
to repeat themselves ad nauseum won't get it done any faster

linux

Hi all of you
I am a n00b when it comes to Linux and all related stuff. I want to install one this weekend with intention of developing, and learning it to level when i could start working on my own, or helping with other ROMs out there. So there it is my question:
is there any significant difference between linux distros that one would benefit me more with completing above task or i should just grab any it it would be ok?
I have a fedore 13, ubuntu and slackwware 13.1 ready to install. Is any of them good or i should look for something else?
Thanks to all of you in advance for replying and helping me here.
Sorry if i double posted.
Regards
Kirior

kirior said:
Hi all of you
I am a n00b when it comes to Linux and all related stuff. I want to install one this weekend with intention of developing, and learning it to level when i could start working on my own, or helping with other ROMs out there. So there it is my question:
is there any significant difference between linux distros that one would benefit me more with completing above task or i should just grab any it it would be ok?
I have a fedore 13, ubuntu and slackwware 13.1 ready to install. Is any of them good or i should look for something else?
Thanks to all of you in advance for replying and helping me here.
Sorry if i double posted.
Regards
Kirior
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can always start with Ubuntu as it is pretty user friendly and well supported/documented then later move onto other distros as you see fit.

Well, I don't know what Slackware's release cycle is, but 13.1 came out last May. It's nearly a year old now.
Fedora 14 is the current version, and (when my PC is actually functional) it works extremely well. You will want to refer to:
mjmwired.net: Fedora 14 Personal Setup Guide (this covers almost everything you need to get started);
mjmwired.net: MPlayer - Fedora Guide (this gives you the process of D/Ling, compiling and installing the LAME encoder, amongst other useful things); and
The Unofficial Fedora FAQ (which is another excellent resource for answering questions and setting things up, but I'd start with MJM's stuff first).
Ubuntu has two simultaneously-current versions: 10.04 LTS (which means it is the Long Term Support version that many businesses and individuals standardize on and is good for 2 years) and 10.10, which is the most current 6 month release version. Ubuntu releases in April and October of every year, which is why you get x.04 and x.10 version numbers. You will want to refer to help.ubuntu.com: Restricted Formats and I would also recommend going into the Synaptic Package Manager and installing all three of the following: Ubuntu Restricted Extras, Kubuntu Restricted Extras, and Xubuntu Restricted Extras, because each has a couple things the other doesn't.
As far as "which would I recommend", that's a really wide-open question, and I guarantee as others weigh in here, you will get a LOT of varied opinions from people. In general, I would simply tell you this:
Ubuntu is based on Debian's core components. Debian is noted for stability and wide ranging hardware support. Canonical has done a really good job adding a lot of "spit and polish" to this, and it is actually a very good distro, but they have rubbed a good portion of the existing Linux community the wrong way because of their "embrace and extend a huge tent" philosophy (the objection here generally being that the Linux community really doesn't want a bunch of "Windows idiots" and "Mac OS X idiots" as members) and because they have often not contributed their enhancements and other development efforts back up to the project sources they're using (this is referred to as "contributing upstream") like they should have. Nevertheless, Ubuntu does have a lot of positive things to recommend it.
Fedora, which is actually a spun-off project from RedHat, is amongst the older distributions, and is somewhat more cutting-edge than other distros, such as RedHat itself, or Ubuntu, etc. It is an RPM-based distribution and has one of the largest communities of users out there next to Ubuntu. It is renowned for contributing upstream and is a good and reliable distro. However, as you can see from the list I posted above, you will have to do a LOT of extra initial configuring work because Fedora's philosophy is to ship with pretty much only F/OSS components. Though they certainly don't prohibit or flat-out discourage their users from adding in other non-F/OSS components, such as commercial 3D graphics drivers, video/audio codecs, etc., they don't include them.
Whichever you decide, good luck!
Oh, and one more thing: Whichever you go with, become a member of the associated message board (Ubuntu = ubuntuforums.org; Fedora = fedoraforum.org; etc.) because there is a WEALTH of information and WIKIs and many many many questions already answered.

i would suggest linux mint.
it's a polished version based on ubuntu with its own, just excellent, control center.
It also has a bunch of nice graphical gimicks.

For new users I would recommend ubuntu our linux mint.
Sent from my Shoe.... I mean my Samsung Epic

Ok
Thanks guys, I will go with Mint for now.
My next question is what would be the best way to learn how to do everything from the command line level? I was thinking of opening one in background and searching, doing stuff in GUI. That way i should be able to see what commands open, copy and so on so on. So if i would go to settings and change something i should be able to see an line of commands in terminal window, is that correct or i am lost and this will never happen?
Thanks for bearing with me and all the advices.
Regards
Kirior

I've been using ubuntu for about 3 years. During this interval I tried other distros, but I found Ubuntu the best. I also develop on it and I don't have any problems.
Sent from my GT-I5700 using XDA Premium App

i went for ubuntu after all. Trying to get my head around. I have no idea if i have set my mount stuff correctly.
I did it like that
ext2 for system files mount /
ext 3 for jinkl something filesystem (or such) mount /usr
ext4 for same as above mount /usr/local
and swap and there was no mount stuff to assign.
hope it is ok.
is signing up to ubuntu one a good idea?

I'm using Debian (previous distribution Ubuntu) and I'm satisfied.

I use fedora, but I think ubuntu will be the right choose for you!

kirior said:
Ok
Thanks guys, I will go with Mint for now.
My next question is what would be the best way to learn how to do everything from the command line level? I was thinking of opening one in background and searching, doing stuff in GUI. That way i should be able to see what commands open, copy and so on so on. So if i would go to settings and change something i should be able to see an line of commands in terminal window, is that correct or i am lost and this will never happen?
Thanks for bearing with me and all the advices.
Regards
Kirior
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The terminal will not display what happens in the gui. The best thing to do is find a linux wiki that tells you basic commands and use them as often as possible. Even though Ubuntu uses Synaptic to install programs, you should learn to install things from source.

kirior said:
i went for ubuntu after all. Trying to get my head around. I have no idea if i have set my mount stuff correctly.
I did it like that
ext2 for system files mount /
ext 3 for jinkl something filesystem (or such) mount /usr
ext4 for same as above mount /usr/local
and swap and there was no mount stuff to assign.
hope it is ok.
is signing up to ubuntu one a good idea?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That will work fine, but it's a little odd, imo. You should definitely read the Ubuntu wiki and learn what you're doing. All of this stuff is explained all over the internet. I recommend using www.google.com/linux for all of your linux-related searches.

Even if you decided to go with Ubuntu, you can find a lot of info in the wikis of other distros. I use Archlinux myself, and their wiki is one of the best out there. The Gentoo wiki is also very good.

I've used Arch Linux as well in the past, and out of all the distributions I've tried it was my favourite. The only thing with Arch Linux is it's not a simple click and install process, you have to pretty much build the graphical interface yourself (which is half the fun in my opinion).

Not only do you have to build the GUI of your Arch system, but you have to decide on multimedia backends, networking tools and many other things that make a desktop system work. I agree that this is half the fun, and what you learn about Linux by installing and running Arch makes troubleshooting a lot easier when you run into problems.

thanks guys i will definitely have a look into that disrto.
thanks again to all that replied and still open to new suggestions
regards
kirior

Captainkrtek said:
You can always start with Ubuntu as it is pretty user friendly and well supported/documented then later move onto other distros as you see fit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Linux Ubuntu 10.10 FTW​

Compiling on the device

Hey guys,
Does anyone know if there is a way to compile source code right on the device? I remember some people asking for this way back in the day but it wasn't really practical on such small devices. With a xoom and a bt keyboard though, it's almost as easy as using a regular laptop. I know there are a few different compilers for the iphone(c, c++, java) so I'm sure it is possible. I haven't seen anything but perhaps I'm just looking in the wrong places.
Thanks,
Samuel Maskell

so I'll take that as a no..
I'd love to work on this but I wouldn't really know where to start
I do have some programming experience
but I don't really know anything about how compilers are made
besides a basic overview we did in my computer architecture course

In theory, if you rooted and installed ubuntu, you could install the dev toolchain/eclipse. But it's crappy enough on 2gb of memory, 1gb on the xoom would be ridiculous.
I installed Ubuntu/eclipse on my cr48. It's barely usable.
Developing for android requires a desktop.
That being said, sometimes I make small code changes and build from the cli on my cr48.
smaskell said:
so I'll take that as a no..
I'd love to work on this but I wouldn't really know where to start
I do have some programming experience
but I don't really know anything about how compilers are made
besides a basic overview we did in my computer architecture course
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Yeah, I really don't see eclipse running very well on a xoom
It doesn't even run that well on my desktop with 4gb of ram and 3.2ghz 6-core processor
like you said, developing for android requires a desktop
but I wasn't really thinking about making android apps on the xoom(although that would be awesome)
I'm mostly just thinking of simple cli programs
something like this would be great
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BDylxLzUEM
Edit: skip to about 1 minute in. the first part is just him writing the code on his desktop and then copying the source file over to his iphone. I don't see any reason why he couldn't have written the code on his iphone though

Your best bet would be to setup a box (with your compiler) somewhere and SSH in. Edit file locally, push to box, SSH in, compile, pull results back.
If you don't have a *nix box handy, you can try something like Slicehost.

that's actually not a bad plan
I use my school's computers to compile things through ssh sometimes anyways
still, I think would be pretty cool to compile right on the device
if it can be done for iphone, it can (and should) be done for android

smaskell said:
that's actually not a bad plan
I use my school's computers to compile things through ssh sometimes anyways
still, I think would be pretty cool to compile right on the device
if it can be done for iphone, it can (and should) be done for android
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you can compile applications using the NDK, but you still have to be on a non-Xoom box to do this.
In theory, it should be possible for you to cross-compile gcc for arm and push that to the xoom to do your compiling there. This is a bit more complicated, however, as you can't just specify --ARCH=arm to gcc's ./configure script.

Android Rom/Kernel build/compliling

Greetings, i was wandering if there were any devs out there that would like to help me out with some questions about building custom roms and set up, etc,
.
Once im able to get a full comprehensive knowledge i'm hoping to contribute to this community as it has contributed to me.
My first question is what are pros and cons from building from a Virtual machine compared to booting up an actual os?
Also, what linux OS is recommended and why?

det0xx said:
Greetings, i was wandering if there were any devs out there that would like to help me out with some questions about building custom roms and set up, etc,
.
Once im able to get a full comprehensive knowledge i'm hoping to contribute to this community as it has contributed to me.
My first question is what are pros and cons from building from a Virtual machine compared to booting up an actual os?
Also, what linux OS is recommended and why?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use both native and VM. Only difference you'll likely notice is updating the kernel on VM will take an extra step depending on the configuration. VM's will also have slightly less resources allocated than host, but will hardly notice with multi-cores and multi-threading.
Ubuntu 12.04 is good for compiling android since there is plenty of support and documention, however subjective. Try a VM first to find which distro compliments you.

jfbs said:
I use both native and VM. Only difference you'll likely notice is updating the kernel on VM will take an extra step depending on the configuration. VM's will also have slightly less resources allocated than host, but will hardly notice with multi-cores and multi-threading.
Ubuntu 12.04 is good for compiling android since there is plenty of support and documention, however subjective. Try a VM first to find which distro compliments you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the reply, i want to try native but idk how it would affect my PC. probably not in a harmful way. and well i was planning to use this guide i found on xda but idk if it was reliable? http://soupdawg.wordpress.com/2014/...4-04-lts-trusty-tahr-to-compile-android-roms/
either way im more confortable with ubuntu.
what would be a ood guide to follow or what would i need o learn first before anything?

I use native Linux not a vm. If you are new to Linux I would say use ubuntu since like jfbs said there is a lot of documentation for using it. The guide seems to include everything you'll need to compile.
@jfbs when you get time pm me I have a couple of questions for you
Sent from my HTC6500LVW using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

How hard can be the raspberry pi ?

Hi there,
It's been a while since I wanted to make a small project using newest 'raspberry pi'. But never had a time.
My question is how hard is to work with raspberry pi? Are there loads of phyton language involved? I would like to set up my own project and part of my final year do a thesis using some raspberry pi project. Are there any scripts involved (that I could adjust) and make a successful project? Or 6 months for testing and writing raspberry pi isn't enough? What are your experience and opinion

eddyys said:
Hi there,
It's been a while since I wanted to make a small project using newest 'raspberry pi'. But never had a time.
My question is how hard is to work with raspberry pi?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's just Linux, there's not so much Raspberry specific. It mostly depends on your own experience and if u have fun learn something new. I had already over 10 years daily Linux experience and there was nothing really new for me.
I've setup apache, nginx, samba just like on any other Linux Box I've used before. Python is the recommend language to learn programming on Raspberry, but you can really use almost anything that works on Linux/Debian. I use more Nodejs and ES6 this days.
I could write now even more but mmhhh, i would just repeat myself - its really really easy this days. When I started to learn Linux I've spent sometimes several days just to get my xserver and a GUI running, now you write your SD card, insert, run, done

dotpower said:
It's just Linux, there's not so much Raspberry specific. It mostly depends on your own experience and if u have fun learn something new. I had already over 10 years daily Linux experience and there was nothing really new for me.
I've setup apache, nginx, samba just like on any other Linux Box I've used before. Python is the recommend language to learn programming on Raspberry, but you can really use almost anything that works on Linux/Debian. I use more Nodejs and ES6 this days.
I could write now even more but mmhhh, i would just repeat myself - its really really easy this days. When I started to learn Linux I've spent sometimes several days just to get my xserver and a GUI running, now you write your SD card, insert, run, done
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply. I think I can deal with 'how to setup system etc.' The only worry is once you let's say have a sensor, you have to code that to fully work.

eddyys said:
Thanks for your reply. I think I can deal with 'how to setup system etc.' The only worry is once you let's say have a sensor, you have to code that to fully work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't worry! There's a large community and so many code examples! I am more interested in client/server apps so i can say much about it, but I remember there was even a app to do things without coding.

Thanks that really helps. I am about now to buy all necessary for the project. Any suggestions where to buy in the UK? Amazon/Ebay ?
I've found many tutorials but perhaps you have your favourite ones that explain the hardware part (what kind of items should I buy), then programming part for scripts etc.
Regards

anyone?