Android gingerbread in a pnd?

notaz · Jun 6, 2012

Yeah, maybe. Only tested on old 256M unit and a DM3730 (don't have a rebirth one, this matters as different SGX blobs are needed for each 3 of them). This started as an "can it be done?" experiment, after success I polished it a little and made this pnd. I don't have plans to maintain it though, not really a fan of Android in general (although it's probably the best of mobile platforms out there as I'm even more not a fan of Apple products) so it's rather painful to work with for me. This is based on TI rowboat project and needed rather minimal modifications (see this diff).

The main motivation doing this was to run Android games on pandora, however I only managed to run a few simple games, others will not install, complain about missing multitouch or just plain won't work, and I have no idea how to debug them (Android looks very unfriendly in that regard to me). Ohwell.

Requirements:

SuperZaxxon beta5a or later firmware running 3.2+ kernel (not older/2.6 one)
at least 300MB of SD card space

Notes:

card corruption has been reported, beware!
do not remove the SD card that contains the .pnd file, doing so will crash everything and corrupt data.
Android only supports one removable SD card, and that is set up to be SD2 (right slot). So if you want to swap cards while Android is running, and want it to see card change, place the .pnd in a card on the left slot.
It should be possible to return to pandora's OS by running "Kill Android" from Android OS itself.
wifi should work, enable in settings
external wifi sticks won't work due to Android limitations.

Changes

r2: fixed some startup issues
r3: included OI File Manager, busybox and Android-Terminal-Emulator
r4: fixed sgx driver (work around it really), migrated to CyanogenMod, fixed wifi reload, added preliminary keymaps
r5: fixed sound lag, added missing CyanogenMod packages
r6: launcher script tweaks for faster load (works on SuperZaxxon Final or later)

http://notaz.gp2x.de/releases/pandora/gingerbread_r6.pnd

Before using the PND, be sure to read this:

http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php/topic/8871-how-to-install-android-on-your-pandora/

Note: in case you are updating from r3 or earlier, it's highly recommended to delete appdata.
(edit: clarified requirements)

huniper · Jun 6, 2012

Wow, I wasn't expecting android anytime soon. Very nice work. Loading this up right away.

notaz · Jun 6, 2012

Hmh World of Goo is working at ~8fps.. there it gets ~20% of CPU time and ~70% is eaten by some "system_server".. What the hell is going on in that thing?

Orion4874 · Jun 6, 2012

It really sucks not having a Pandora with notaz around!

But seriously, is this similar to how they were able to get Android running on the n900 or was that something totally different?

eyecreate · Jun 6, 2012

Wow, even if it isn't working well, this is a neat application of android.

craigix · Jun 6, 2012

This does indeed sound exciting!

MarioPandio · Jun 6, 2012

Hi notaz, sounds like your upto your awesome tricks again and will no doubt be after that bounty soon

I'm running Beta5a kernel 3.2 from the NAND, freshly installed and its not working as of yet though.

I've only made a few alterations to the NAND instal to icon size, some keyboard shortcuts and adding trash and log out icons to the panel. Other than that, I reactivated a swap partition via fstab, which I thought maybe a culprit, so I tried both with and without this.

I put the gingerbread pnd on the SD1 desktop and gave it 300mb of space (from 550+mb available) and after SD light activity to make the space (which is now definitely allocated 300mb as far as the OS is concerned) the XFCE session, just seemed to reboot, as though I had logged out and back in again (Reloading the desktop).

Here's the tmp.pnd run out file from the first run.

http://www.mediafire...9pf4157ndmunw81

======================================================================================= PND             : /media/BOOT/pandora/desktop/gingerbread_r1.pnd PND_FSTYPE      : Squashfs APPDATADIR      : /media/BOOT/pandora/appdata/android_gingerbread APPDD_FSTYPE    : vfat PND_CPUSPEED    : <unset> EXENAME         : pandora/run.sh ARGUMENTS       : <unset> ======================================================================================= [ START ]--- Mount the PND ---------- Mounting : mount -t squashfs -o ro "/dev/loop0" "/mnt/utmp/android_gingerbread" Mounting the Union FS : mount -t aufs -o exec,noplink,dirs=/media/BOOT/pandora/appdata/android_gingerbread=rw+nolwh":"/mnt/pnd/android_gingerbread=rr" none "/mnt/utmp/android_gingerbread" [sUCCESS]--- Mount the PND ---------- [ START ]--- Starting the application (pandora/run.sh ) ---------- ++ id -u + '[' 1000 '!=' 0 ]' + gksudo -m 'Android needs root privileges to run, please enter your password' ./pandora/run.sh `pandora/default_rootfs.ext2' -> `rootfs.ext2' Filesystem label= OS type: Linux Block size=1024 (log=0) Fragment size=1024 (log=0) 76912 inodes, 307200 blocks 0 blocks (0.00%) reserved for the super user First data block=1 Maximum filesystem blocks=67633152 38 block groups 8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group 2024 inodes per group Superblock backups stored on blocks:     8193, 24577, 40961, 57345, 73729, 204801, 221185 Writing inode tables:  0/38 1/38 2/38 3/38 4/38 5/38 6/38 7/38 8/38 9/3810/3811/3812/3813/3814/3815/3816/3817/3818/3819/3820/3821/3822/3823/3824/3825/3826/3827/3828/3829/3830/3831/3832/3833/3834/3835/3836/3837/38done                             Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done This filesystem will be automatically checked every 34 mounts or 180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override. data.ext4: clean, 11/76912 files, 11777/307200 blocks rootfs.ext2: clean, 27/512 files, 385/1024 blocks have to change SGX kernel driver Stopping PVR Stopping Network connection manager daemon: NetworkManager. Starting WL1251 MAC80211 Wireless LAN driver: wl1251. Starting PVR Starting Network connection manager daemon: NetworkManager.

I then ran it a second time to see if it needed that, and after reboots.

http://www.mediafire...q77gkd8f3b5xx45

Then I replaced the default Beta5a fstab file, to deactivate my SWAP Partition and tried again.

http://www.mediafire...4frx4xncbc80uq4

I also tried from Beta5a on SD1 (it was the older 2.6 kernel though, which obviously failed)

http://www.mediafire...j2bkvxdztp7thht

Thought I'd post some testing feedback though.

Any ideas?

btw Many thanks to yourself and all others involved with the latest Hotfixes, as it kicks much butt

CAZMIESTER · Jun 6, 2012

do you have to partition your sd card for this to work im on super zaxxon 1.5 is that the right build as i cant get this to execute think us noobs need an install guide.Just want to try mame4droid reloaded.

MarioPandio · Jun 6, 2012

I dont think it requires a partitioned SD card. The idea is it creates an appdata folder of whatever mb size you offer it on the first run called 'android_gingerbread' and then runs an android image from that file on your SD card.

You need SuperZaxxon 1.5 beta5a (in the top right corner) and to boot into the default 3.2 kernel (which will also be displayed on the boot screen).

I've tried deleting the appdata folder several times, chckdisc in windows and different sizes of mb allowed but I always get this displayed :

'directorycan't read '/lib/modules/3.2.17/kernel/drivers/gpu/pvr/bufferclass ti:ko ' : no such file or directory'

as the last line of it trying to boot android, before the XFCE desktop reboots.

I think there's an issue with the pnd at the moment. But then what do I know? : lol

Neelix · Jun 6, 2012

I was able to boot into android ok... though am finding it kind of useless so far...

wifi works, but I accidently turned it off, and then I had to kill android to get it working again.

I really don't like the built in browser.

I think I need to find a way to install a file manager and google play before I'll be able to do anything useful with it.

- Neelix

Neelix · Jun 6, 2012

Ouch! I just killed the contents of my SD card.

Don't put an SD card with any data you want to keep in the right socket while running gingerbread.

- Neelix

thatgui · Jun 6, 2012

512 MB RAM Pandora with SuperZaxxon 1.5a => no luck

pnd_run out isn't very talkative

....

+ gksudo ....

data.ext4: clean ....

rootfs.ext2: clean ....

have to change SGX kernel driver

Stopping PVR

Stopping Network connection manager deamon ...

Starting WL1251 ....

Starting PVR

Starting Network connec....

Edit: Nevermind

Executed it a third time, now it runs..kind of.. really sluggish

EvilDragon · Jun 6, 2012

notaz said:
Hmh World of Goo is working at ~8fps.. there it gets ~20% of CPU time and ~70% is eaten by some "system_server".. What the hell is going on in that thing?

http://tthtlc.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/what-is-this-system_server-inside-android/

Seems like it's the main core of Android. Programs can add their own system servers, so maybe the one eating up 70% is part of the game?

notaz · Jun 6, 2012

MarioPandio said:
'directorycan't read '/lib/modules/3.2.17/kernel/drivers/gpu/pvr/bufferclass ti:ko ' : no such file or directory'

this one is not a problem

MarioPandio said:
I think there's an issue with the pnd at the moment. But then what do I know? : lol

Rebirth pandora I guess? Starting from xfce or minimenu?

Neelix said:
Ouch! I just killed the contents of my SD card.

Don't put an SD card with any data you want to keep in the right socket while running gingerbread.

Android is scanning the cards and writing weird stuff to them like crazy for no apparent reason (especialy if you had MAME previews on it), so I'm not surprised.

thatgui said:
Executed it a third time, now it runs..kind of.. really sluggish

That's "normal".

mcobit · Jun 6, 2012

Android scans the woile card for pictures to add to its gallery and audio to add to the audiolibrary *ugh* don't know if you can tell it not to do that...

EvilDragon · Jun 6, 2012

Just tried it (on the DM3730 Pandora).

It runs surprisingly well for me, not as sluggish as on my N900.

I haven't tried any games yet, as I never used Android before, so I first need to find out where to get some

Some things I encountered:

* When closing and opening the lid, the screen rotates... this can't be reversed though (unless you install an app where you can manually do that I guess

)

* Keyboard layout is not correctly set yet

Apart from that, it really looks promising

Thanks a lot

b3w · Jun 6, 2012

'directorycan't read '/lib/modules/3.2.17/kernel/drivers/gpu/pvr/bufferclass ti:ko ' : no such file or directory'

this one is not a problem

Rebirth pandora I guess? Starting from xfce or minimenu?

I have the problem with old pandora too ....

... but i modified the firmware with my own openbox environment

Btw there ist a Problem with GUI Switch or I did not modify enough

With 2.6 Switch between XFCE, MMenu and Openbox works

With 3.2 not

So it is a question how you answered the bootup question after installing clean firmware?

MarioPandio · Jun 6, 2012

notaz said:
MarioPandio said:

'directorycan't read '/lib/modules/3.2.17/kernel/drivers/gpu/pvr/bufferclass ti:ko ' : no such file or directory'

Click to expand...

this one is not a problem

MarioPandio said:

I think there's an issue with the pnd at the moment. But then what do I know? : lol

Click to expand...

Rebirth pandora I guess? Starting from xfce or minimenu?

I've got an original 256mb Pandora from the earliest 100. Starting android from xfce with the pnd in pandora/desktop.

gruso · Jun 6, 2012

You crazy Notaz. I'll be pretty stoked if this runs the F1 live timing app and nothing else.

notaz · Jun 6, 2012

MarioPandio said:
I think there's an issue with the pnd at the moment. But then what do I know? : lol

ok try this one, it should at least produce better logs:

http://notaz.gp2x.de/releases/pandora/gingerbread_r2.pnd

Android gingerbread in a pnd?

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