Announcing Droidora - - - HELP WANTED

[Phawx]

As I understood it the script asks for the whole card, not only for one partition. But let's await Dave's answer.


I have good news:


Touchscreen inaccuracy is gone! I uploaded everything to the repository.


I'll start working on my thesis again so it may become quieter here. But I really want to get the graphics acceleration working sometimes .

Very excited for GPU acceleration.

 

[Cyberworm]

Yes that's right. It should be the whole device. Check if any partition on sdb is mounted. You'll probably find that at least one is and the script can't unmount it because something is using it.

Okay, I'll give it another try


€dit: Nope, doesn't work. No sdb partition is mounted and I still get the error message.


€dit2: Installing "gnu-fdisk" solves the problem. Looks like there's something wrong with the built-in fdisk... I'll tell you more when the installing is done.


€dit3: Okay, something's wrong. The installer is now at "Partioning card..." for 3 hours. CPU usage is 50 %.

Ah I'm glad! Did my info help at all?


Also I have another suggestion. You may have heard of the N900 phone, well it is very similar to the Pandora and it also has an Android port named NitDroid... it occurs to me that you may be able to share some of the work they have already done to improve your Droidora!

Well, kinda. You see I found this on the android-porting mailing list. I haven't exactly compared your solution to the patch but at first glance I think it does the same. The only difference is that with the patch I know where to put it exactly .


I'll look into that NitDroid project, maybe I can find something useful there. Thanks .

 

[Coldbird]

Im gonna give this work of yours some attention once Im back home, cant really tell yet whether I will be able to help a lot but we will see.


Ive been watching this project from afar for some time now... promising.

 

[Cyberworm]

I noticed that when using the SD installer (the Pandora OS version) I don't have any "kernel panics" anymore. Maybe using fdisk works better than using gparted. Or something like that, I don't really know. I sure hope that someday I can use the Droidora SD installer. Not having to reboot the Pandora until it finally mounts the root file system surely is a nice thing .

 

[coreyjohnson711]

Just checking in to see if anything is going on here

 

[Cyberworm]

Not really. I'm very busy with my thesis and work and stuff .

 

[Blue Protoman]

Not even an ETA on when you'll be able to return to this?

 

[Cyberworm]

Not really . You see, once I'm finished with my thesis I have to return the Pandora, because it is just borrowed. So you'll have to wait until I receive my own one. But I could talk to ED if it's okay if I return the Pandora when I receive my results. In that case I could continue after I handed my thesis in, which is end of November.

 

[Disco Devil]

As i wouldn't recognise the Android OS if it dropped on me from a great height, i'm wondering if someone can enlighten me, as far as what it would bring to Pandora's table is concerned, apart from the finger/stylus friendly interface .. for instance will we immediately have access to a huge Android game & emulator library etc..?


Thanks

 

[Jourdy288]

Precisely, we'll have a much, much bigger catalog of available software. This will also make the Pandora much more appealing to many more people. It's only a plus for Pandora.

 

[Farox]

Any news on this ?


Searching thru BeagleBoard site i've found this ...http://hdfpga.blogspot.com/2011/10/ti-android-gingerbread-234-devkit-21.html


So seems TI have developed a package (and provide sources and prebuilt images ) for build Android GingerBread 2.3.4 on AM37x, AM35x platforms.


This distribution cames with integrated SGX (3D graphics) drivers, Adobe Flash 10 support, TI hardware abstraction for video overlay, WLAN, Bluetooth support for WL1271, PowerManagement, S-Video, Camera on Beagle XM/AM37x EVM, RowboPERF performance measurement application, NAND (UBIFS), Fastboot and standard applications from Android.


Hope to see this also on Pandora...

 

[milkshake]

wow me too

 

[craigix]

Android is a superb OS (If you have not tried it recently, and your views are based on an old build, you should grab a 2S or similar and try it now).


Having the Pandora run Android would get two thumbs up from me, and would truly make the console mainstream.

 

[Caine]

Android is a superb OS (If you have not tried it recently, and your views are based on an old build, you should grab a 2S or similar and try it now).


Having the Pandora run Android would get two thumbs up from me, and would truly make the console mainstream.

In the past I have resisted Android as the main OS for the Pandora. These days I think of the Pandora in terms of four categories of devices.

| Entertainment   | Productivity    |

|-----------------+-----------------|

| Gaming handheld | Desktop/netbook |

| Media player    | PDA/organizer   |

In my opinion Minimenu & Panorama are best suited for the Gaming handheld, XFCE is best suited for the Desktop, a customized XBMC on top of X would be ideal for a media player and Android would be best for the PDA/Organizer.


I'm still not sure if I would like to have it as main OS, but having an Android version running on the Pandora would be awesome. If it can be made to work and it would fit on the NAND then having an Android boot option would be ideal.

 

[EvilDragon]

I'd love to have Android as optional OS on SD Card, as I think the NAND might be too small (AFAIK Android installs all apps on the same drive it's installed, or is that not the case?)


Also, the Pandora is the only real Linux device in that size, I wouldn't want to give that up.


But having a fully working Android, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, etc. as SD-Card installation would rock - that's what we've got the two SD Card slots for

 

[Farox]

I'd love to have Android as optional OS on SD Card

+1

 

[Prometheus]

Also, the Pandora is the only real Linux device in that size, I wouldn't want to give that up.

Me either. That's precisely what sold me on it.

But having a fully working Android, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, etc. as SD-Card installation would rock - that's what we've got the two SD Card slots for

Same here. Though I'd probably still stick to Ångström for the most part, it would be nice to be able to have optional OSes reserved for particular tasks that they're suited to.

 

[McLovin]

When craig asked for our opinion, I voted for angstrom linux as the preinstalled os.


Now I have my first android phone and it's simply stunning, how awesome it is and i wished to have pandora's input (both game&keyboard) with it all the time. I really think that android would be damn good on nand and real linux belongs on a sd-card.


We fight a fight for the pnd-system all alone with that small user and even smaller developer-base. We would probably be better of with using android on nand as it is designed for just that (most apps allow to be installed on sd these days).


We wouldn't be giving up on real linux, as linux is just better on sd. We would just have to pick a preferred distribution as a community.

 

[Prometheus]

We would be giving it up, because then those who want to use it (I'd wager an awful lot of people who bought it on the basis of it being a Linux system do!) would have to deal with the hassle of losing an SD Card slot.

 

[skeezix]

Getting units produced is the first trick; getting truly mainstream.. yeah, firmware needs work, but that means hands. As production comes back hopefully soon, units will flow out; a %age of those hands will be developers, and a %age of those developers may take an interest in the cause and work in tghe applications, firmware, additions and so on. Further, units selling gets more attrention, which gets more sales.


So really, units shipping will directly help get the software improving. With mroe $$ there comes leverage to help get things like DSP drivers and codecs licenses as options, instead of as impossibilities.


More hands means more OSes ported, or our kernel changes ported to those kernels, etc and so on.


The software is important, but right now all that matters is getting units out, and starting a predictable hardware lifecycle. And software.


jeff


C is right about one thing.. Android pre-3 is fuckign terrible; I've got a tablet from a year or two back, and its basicly dreadful tyo use, with a terrible terrible user experience. But the newer versions are not half bad. Android took a lot of years to get going. (and the OS upgrade problems due to carriers etc is a real problem.)