Pandroid - Android On Pandora

[truekaiser]

infact this place has a race on it's hands, for me at least, will you deliver what was promised before one of those arm based netbooks comes out?

Pandora != Netbook

looks pretty much like a mini netbook

anyway if you read my whole post either can fit my needs all i want is a portable arm based machine with long battery life.

 

[mali]

Nevermind, I know what you mean
For me an ARM Netbook is just not tempting enough, because of its size. A mini Netbook sound much better
Btw, I've spotted the first ARM Netbook already and posted in Off Topic about it. But unfortunately the battery life was dismal. It seems that the backlight and other factors are much more a battery killer than the processor. Pandora will beat most of those Netbooks in battery life, I suppose.

Edit:
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=45349&hl=

 

[truekaiser]

Nevermind, I know what you mean
For me an ARM Netbook is just not tempting enough, because of its size. A mini Netbook sound much better
Btw, I've spotted the first ARM Netbook already and posted in Off Topic about it. But unfortunately the battery life was dismal. It seems that the backlight and other factors are much more a battery killer than the processor. Pandora will beat most of those Netbooks in battery life, I suppose.

Edit:
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=45349&hl=


look at the specs it's a combo of a older arm design, the tft screen, and a very small battery for the size of the lcd.

 

[mali]

The Processor is slower, but not less efficient in it's power consumption. Cortex A8 is 2 to 4 times faster than ARM11 with about the same power consumption(if you downclock it, you will of course gain something compared to ARM11). Even if you double the capacity, you don't get Pandora's battery life. I'm pretty sure, that ARM Netbooks will try to roll up the market through aggressive low pricing. That might lead to selecting lower quality components, that take more juice. An ARM Netbook will possibly not make you that happy like you thought it would.

 

[dj51d]

JAVA is SLOW and bloated

Here we go again with 'java is slow', these aren't the days of applets in netscape 4 anymore. Any modern JVM with JIT enabled will be within a few percentage points of native code. Really, the only area you are likely to find java significantly slower than native code is startup time. There is an interesting possibility for java on the Pandora, some versions of the ARM architecture(not sure if it applies to the Cortex A8) have the ability to treat significant portions of the java bytecode as native instructions, which could provide us with some interesting options for java performance. For desktop apps, the startup time definitely matters, and you don't see much java there, but in the server space where startup times aren't much of an issue java is quite heavily used. The startup overhead of the VM is a small price to pay for portability, it isn't all that unusual to see an app developed on windows desktops and deployed to unix servers.

I won't argue that the standard library is quite large, but with that comes a great number of things you can do out of the box without having to hunt down or code your own library for the task.

and the api is always changing ie you can't code with all the same apis on 1.4 1.5 and 1.6 something changes whereas C++ and even python (3.0 is gonna break stuff they say) are fairly the same!!!!

It is interesting that you hold up C++ as an ideal here. With the upcoming release of the Pandora, I started dabbling with C++ again, and a simple hello world program from back when I used to do C++ won't even compile on a modern C++ compiler. While you do of course need the newest JDK to take advantage of the latest features(true of any language), Sun has done a good job maintaining backwards compatibility. The only example of backwards compatibility issues I can think of off the top of my head for java was the introduction of the assert keyword in 1.4.

 

[darkborn]

OK, read this: Android goes beyond Java, gains native C/C++ dev kit (http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/20...-cc-dev-kit.ars). It is also for Python & Lua.
There is also Euphoria interpreter. (http://jiggawatt.org/badc0de/android/eu/). So you got thousands of code already written. And speed should not be a problem: "NDK supports the ARMv5TE machine instruction set and provides stable headers for libc (the C library), libm (the Math library), the JNI interface, and other libraries." And there is always a way to port/produce native C/C++ code without NDK - like through this guide here.
Android is already ported at BeaggleBoard (youtube), why not to Pandora - as a 2nd OS?
IMHO, it should lies between Gento and Ubuntu here. Speaking of, Canonical is working hard to get Android apps working "natively" at Ubuntu (x86)... but this is OT.

 

[Pseudonym]

this argument will pile up, but what needs to happen is for someone to port it. this is pointless, but for the thought of it, i'll add my opinion

Android is linux, but just as you can't run Redhat apps on Ubuntu, NO other linux apps will work on it, so you may as well get a G-1.

 

[gruso]

There's really nothing to argue about. It's already listed here: http://pandorawiki.o...der_Development

Some people are interested, some aren't. But it will happen in time. There's no need for the hard sell.

 

[dflemstr]

Android is linux, but just as you can't run Redhat apps on Ubuntu, NO other linux apps will work on it, so you may as well get a G-1.

Huh? The good think about Java is that it IS cross-platform, and thus all the apps will be available... If we just make compatibility libs for Ångström for it, we'd even still be able to use all the linux apps officially released for the Pandora in parallel, too.

 

[valhalla]

I would be interested in an SD with android on pandora, mainly to be able to develop android apps with no need to buy an expensive phone that I don't need, but that's the main use I can think of that wouldn't be better served by dalvik under angstrom.

android IS linux, it just has it's own custom x-server, not the one from xorg.

android uses linux (the kernel) but mostly everything else is custom, from the C library up to the framebuffer based interface (not an x server)

JAVA is SLOW and bloated and the api is always changing ie you can't code with all the same apis on 1.4 1.5 and 1.6 something changes whereas C++ and even python (3.0 is gonna break stuff they say) are fairly the same!!!!

java, in its J2ME incarnation, is also in use in low resources cellphones all around the world: it's not ideal, but it does work, the fact that J2SE is bloated doesn't imply that everything else should be.

Also, Java does keep retroactive compatibility: you can still code using the 1.1 api and it will work on any modern environment; of course what you get will be ugly like java 1.1 was.

btw, python 3.0 does break backward compatibility, way more than java ever did, starting from the print statement (it has become a function).

Android is linux, but just as you can't run Redhat apps on Ubuntu, NO other linux apps will work on it, so you may as well get a G-1.

Actually, you have some chance to see a RedHat app work on Ubuntu, and anyway you are 99% sure that with a simple recompile it will work. On android, however, even with the C/C++ api you're 99% sure that any nontrivial app is not going to be able to compile as is.

Huh? The good think about Java is that it IS cross-platform, and thus all the apps will be available... If we just make compatibility libs for Ångström for it, we'd even still be able to use all the linux apps officially released for the Pandora in parallel, too.

Java is cross platform on all platforms where a JVM and java library for that java edition exists: you can't run J2SE apps in the standard java environment of your PC, and dalvik uses a different microcode, so libraries won't be enough.

That said, dalvik is open source, there are already attempts to port it to x86 computers under ubuntu, so it will take time, but an environment that is likely to run android apps on Angstrom pandora is quite likely, and probably way more useful than a full android system for most uses.

 

[dflemstr]

Huh? The good think about Java is that it IS cross-platform, and thus all the apps will be available... If we just make compatibility libs for Ångström for it, we'd even still be able to use all the linux apps officially released for the Pandora in parallel, too.

Java is cross platform on all platforms where a JVM and java library for that java edition exists: you can't run J2SE apps in the standard java environment of your PC, and dalvik uses a different microcode, so libraries won't be enough.

That said, dalvik is open source, there are already attempts to port it to x86 computers under ubuntu, so it will take time, but an environment that is likely to run android apps on Angstrom pandora is quite likely, and probably way more useful than a full android system for most uses.

Yes of course; I just wanted to point out that it doesn't have anything with processor architecture to do. With "compatibility libs", I meant Dalvik with an emulated pixmap drawing buffer so we can run it in parallel with X.

 

[darkborn]

Huh? The good think about Java is that it IS cross-platform, and thus all the apps will be available... If we just make compatibility libs for Ångström for it, we'd even still be able to use all the linux apps officially released for the Pandora in parallel, too.

Java is cross platform on all platforms where a JVM and java library for that java edition exists: you can't run J2SE apps in the standard java environment of your PC, and dalvik uses a different microcode, so libraries won't be enough.

I'm not sure about definiton of "standard java environment", but you can run J2SE apps in MicroEmulator @JVM @PC. It is also open source (LGPL), and you can easily redesign appearance ("skinning") as you wish.
http://www.microemu.org/ "MicroEmulator is a pure Java implementation of Java ME in Java SE."
Btw, it IS already used on iPhone , Android etc (e.g. live demo of Opera Mini)
Well, just see this: "LWUIT running on Android" (LWUIt is "The Lightweight UI Toolkit" for JAVA ME: https://lwuit.dev.java.net/)

 

[valhalla]

Java is cross platform on all platforms where a JVM and java library for that java edition exists: you can't run J2SE apps in the standard java environment of your PC

I'm not sure about definiton of "standard java environment", but you can run J2SE apps in MicroEmulator @JVM @PC.

Yes, I know of implementations of J2SE for the PC and that's what I was excluding from my definition of "standard java environment" as "what you get when you install the java package, with no additional software.

 

[Pseudonym]

Uhh, ok to clear up what I said:
1. I said theat android apps could work on Angstrom but Angstrom apps (most likely) will not work on android.
Redhat apps can use the tool alien to convert them, but they sometimes don't work.

2. Most features on angstrom work for phones, because the main angstrom platform is the G-1.

3. Java is only theoretically portable.

This is not to say I don't want Android, I'm saying there are problems with it being the main OS.

 

[darkborn]

Maybe this will sounds silly, but here is how I see it:
1. Android could be 2nd (not 1st!) OS at Pandora, but eh... "real OS" (boot etc)
2. Android could be run through virtual machine (Dalvik) "loaded" on ... Angstrom Linux.

1st is depending of Android popularity, support of Pandora community and community requests of Android as "real OS";
- depending of Mighty Google efforts involved at e.g. "Google Summer of code" and similar projects...
I would not underestimate this possibility. However, for now it is too early to expect full driven AndroidOS@Pandora.

2. Full port of Dalvik is what we could expect. And there is one more factor: Android apps - "weird java" or whatever "native application" they are - will start to appear exponentially.
At least, just because Mighty Google stands behind.

For (back-end) users there is no difference: is it just some fancy "window manager", or whole system. Performance could be a question, but - for few main, essential, simple apps - I think not.
And don't forget about easy multiboot possibility at Pandora: If you don't have e.g. Openoffice at Android, just - restart system.

 

[mukiex]

Once again, I'd rather dredge up an old topic than make a new one, but as anyone with a dev board tried the Embinux Android image?:

http://labs.embinux.org/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.embinux.com/download_beagle.php

In 2008 Android didn't look all that attractive, but at this point there's now a foo-ton of well-designed apps for it, and while it clearly wouldn't be for everyone, some of us could stand to benefit from it as an option.

 

[musicalwoods]

Whether Dalvik is ported or the OS is, the Android marketplace is going to really boom soon.

Currently you can only program in their Java-esce language, but Donut will have C/C++ and Python support.

Also, there are really only two phones out now (HTC G1 and myTouch), but that is going to quickly change by the end of Fall. HTC is bringing out the Hero and an unannounced phone that will be "free" with a plan. Sony Erricson has one, Motorola is pushing at least one out this year, Panasonic has one for China, Creative is releasing an MID that is supposed to be used for games as well, and who knows what else.

Plus, I'd really like having a wifi phone with Google Voice + Guava...


Oh well, I'll eventually be getting an Android phone when my current contract ends anyway.

 

[darkborn]

Whether Dalvik is ported or the OS is, the Android marketplace is going to really boom soon.

Currently you can only program in their Java-esce language, but Donut will have C/C++ and Python support.

It is not true. You can program in native C/C++, even reuse existing C/C++ code (in theory). (Beside, there is some Python wrapper also.)
It is called "Android NDK", NDK as "Native Development Kit":
"Android goes beyond Java, gains native C/C++ dev kit" - article at Ars technica (June 26th);
Official page with all info & "Getting Started".

Here is guide "dedicated to native application development for Android (primarily using C/C++)" - WITHOUT ANDROID NDK !
You can even program in Euphoria at Android: http://jiggawatt.org/badc0de/android/eu/

 

[mukiex]

Sorry guy, I think he meant "Donut will have native support to use C/C++ in any remotely meaningful capacity".

In other words, apps on the marketplace, where 98% of users will get programs they can actually run, will be capable of being NDK-enhanced when Donut arrives. Until then, doing so requires a lot of effort and a rooted device.

Sure, "rooted" is where Pandora will be on the spectrum, but the "lot of effort" part will probably turn most folks off, and "most folks" tends to mean developers as well, so until Donut, apps that are running natively will be a couple niche projects at best (or stuff in development for Donut's market).

 

[TheRain]

Actually, you have some chance to see a RedHat app work on Ubuntu, and anyway you are 99% sure that with a simple recompile it will work. On android, however, even with the C/C++ api you're 99% sure that any nontrivial app is not going to be able to compile as is.

Hey Valhalla- quick question-

When you're talking about Android being very much custom aside from linux kernel... It would surprise me if at least posix, C standard libraries and STL for CPP would not be very close to pure Linux variants. Do you think that is not the case?

I mean, I wouldn't expect to be able to compile against QT, X libs or SDL for instance... but surely the most basic standard libs are similar?