Setting up Android on my Pandora but need a few questions answered first...

[Barnaby]

Hi all, I've been away from the Pandora scene for a while due to having a faulty LCD cable in my Pandora. It'll be repaired soon so I've come back to the forums, flashed the OS to SuperZaxxon and been reading all the juciy updates and improvements since I last properly used my Pandora almost half a year ago. I have to say I'm wowed by a lot of the new stuff and the latest OS is great. Just saw that we can run Android through an app now (I think it's through a PND?) but I had a few questions before I try it. I'm quite excited as the only Android device I have is an HTC Wildfire S, which is too slow to run most applications.


Firstly, do I need to run Android off an empty SD card or can I just stick it on my current Primary card? As far as I can tell it just seems to be a PND that you run, and it'll load up Android - is that correct, or do I have to install it to the NAND as an alternate OS?


I have an original CC 256MB Pandora too, so I was wondering what would and wouldn't work on the device. I saw someone say they ran Mass Effect: Infiltrator which made my heart skip a beat as I'm a huge Mass Effect fan - but it seems it will only work on a 512MB 1GHz unit, which saddens me. Other games I'm interested in trying are Angry Birds: Space and Peggle (yes, my phone is too slow to run Angry Birds properly...). I don't want to buy something that someone says works, only to find out they had a 1GHz unit so it won't work on mine.


Lastly, to an Android newbie like me, once I have it set up is there anything that I should know, or something that's really a must have on the device?

 

[mcobit]

There is a thread on howto install android in the Androidsection of the boards.


Explains everything in detail.


Just have a read through that section and all your questions should be answered.

 

[Barnaby]

This one?


I read through it but I've seen some people posting how their cards got wiped after using Android (cards in both slots). I'm not sure if it was just some error that's been removed in newer versions of the pnd or if there's something specific they were doing that caused the glitch so I thought I should ask first to make sure.


I've read that Angry Birds works well but again, not sure if that was on a newer unit or not.

 

[mcobit]

There is no newer version afaik, but if you think it is too risky, just install android on a separate card and remove the others.


Angrybirds works good on all units. A swapfile is recommended though on older units, that is activated from angstrom.

 

[Barnaby]

I'm a pretty big Linux noob, how do you go about activating a swapfile?

 

[mcobit]

That is explained a thousand times in the threads in this section, please, read and learn. Also googling does wonders


Edit: also there is a tool on the repo, that helps you with this task.

 

[Mr_Loon]

how do you go about activating a swapfile?

This helped a fellow noob set up a swapfile.


I also have a CC256Mb Pandora, a lot of android stuff runs well but I could not get Angry birds space to run, with or without a swapfile. Have a read of the best games / apps thread for stuff that does run well.

 

[mcobit]

Angrybird space runs on my 256mb Pandora, but it has problems with the original one. Strange...