Announcing Droidora - - - HELP WANTED

[Cyberworm]

Hello everyone,


as part of my bachelor thesis I'm trying to port Android to the Pandora. I've been working on it since March and got some things to work, but now I need help. Your help! I started creating a Git repository and a Wiki page to finish this as a Pandora community project. Everyone is invited to participate and contribute! If you are just curious about how Android looks on the Pandora, fear not! There's a precompiled package. Just follow the instructions on the Wiki page (see below).


Here's also a small overview of what's currently working:

Here are some screenshots (sorry for the bad quality; cell phone camera):





And here are the project links:


Droidora Wiki page on pandorawiki.org


Git repository


I'm pretty new to this. I never ported anything before (okay, a small game to the NGW100 dev board). I never created a community project. So any feedback will be appreciated .


- Cyberworm

 

[darfgarf]

if you've truly never ported anything this is definately nice work


you'll get all the marks for the documentation though


i'll take a look in a couple of weeks once my placement year is over and done with, if i can tolerate yet more android work and low level driver crap

 

[(naw)mcx]

Very exciting! Can't wait to see this grow!

 

[Nintendo]

Oooh, adventurous and ambitious indeed. Exciting times ahead!

 

[levi1123]

AWESOME WORK! I can't wait to play with android on the Pandora. Watching this thread... =)

 

[DaMummy]

change name to Andora?

 

[Nintendo]

Nah, because that's just Pandora without the "P".


Maybe, Pandroid sounds more suited?

 

[FaeMinx]

Maybe, Pandroid sounds more suited?

+1

 

[sebt3]

Maybe, Pandroid sounds more suited?

Maybe he is free to name his work as he please.... Beside Droidora isnt that bad

 

[Prometheus]

Moved from Pandora Development General Talk to the regular Pandora General Talk, as I agree with Alerino's sentiment that it's likely to get more attention here.

 

[Cyberworm]

Thanks, I didn't quite know where to post the thread .


As to the name...


...it was originally called "Pandroid" but there's already a project with that name: Android on the Pandaboard


So I had to change the name .


Anyways, it will take a long time to get it to a usable state and I can't do that alone. I'll try my best to further improve things, get a proper key mapping etc. but some parts are just beyond me. I think for the graphics drivers we'll have to use kernel version 2.6.32 and that means backporting all Pandora drivers. Or maybe use the .27 drivers, I don't know. I'm not that experienced with the kernel stuff.


Oh, by the way, if you notice any spelling or grammatical errors in the wiki, feel free to correct them. And feel free to add new stuff, maybe some suggestion as to what to do next .


- Cyberworm

 

[eyecreate]

Great! I was hoping someone with the time and knowledge would be able to start on this. I'll be sure to try it out ASAP.

 

[Jourdy288]

I wonder who gets the bounty first...


Nice work so far man, I'm impressed!

 

[FRZ]

umm, I'll probably try it out when I get my unit though, I'm sick already of google everything. I don't see the big deal with android.

 

[MarioPandio]

This sounds great and cheers for the work already. I'd love to check it out but as a non ubuntu user is there anyway this root-fs.tar.bz + separate uImage and boot.txt, can be either grabbed from a Pandora, or perhaps uploaded zipped up somewhere, so windows users can then set up a bootable SD with it? Would be nice to see how far along it is

 

[PeeZapp]

this looks really cool nice work, i've never actually used android os before. so just a quick question feel free to abuse me if it's stupid as i'm sure it is. What will be the use of porting this over is it just an alternative operating system to the minimenu and desktop or will the user have access to the app store or what? i remember reading another thread about this but cant remember what it said about it

 

[PokeParadox]

If... this can get reasonable compatibility and can be setup as multiboot and has support for iControlpad compatible stuff in the appstores... then this could get interesting!

 

[darfgarf]

i take it porting libpnd over would be a pretty sweet addition right?


should be doable, might need some hackering to get the dependent libraries in there right though

 

[ManlyStump]

As to the name...


...it was originally called "Pandroid" but there's already a project with that name: Android on the Pandaboard


So I had to change the name .

Andy Pandy?

 

[Cyberworm]

This sounds great and cheers for the work already. I'd love to check it out but as a non ubuntu user is there anyway this root-fs.tar.bz + separate uImage and boot.txt, can be either grabbed from a Pandora, or perhaps uploaded zipped up somewhere, so windows users can then set up a bootable SD with it? Would be nice to see how far along it is

Well you can download the live CD of gparted and format your SD card with it. Then you'll need 7zip to open the archive. You'll also need some Windows EXT2 drivers to be able to access the EXT2 partition on the SD card.

this looks really cool nice work, i've never actually used android os before. so just a quick question feel free to abuse me if it's stupid as i'm sure it is. What will be the use of porting this over is it just an alternative operating system to the minimenu and desktop or will the user have access to the app store or what? i remember reading another thread about this but cant remember what it said about it

It's like having Arch Linux or Debian on the Pandora: it's another operating system. That's the great thing with the Pandora, you can have your own OS on it. As for the app store: No. Google has a document listing requirements for a device to be "Android compatible" and that includes things like an accelerometer. Only if the device is Android compatible it may get access to the Android Market.