Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

Someone is making progress porting Dalvik (the Android runtime) to Ubuntu ... seems like this could be an opportunity for someone to leverage that work to get Dalvik on Maemo (and/or Mer).

http://mjfrey.blogspot.com/

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

Super-moderators: please move this (very interesting) thread to "Alternatives".

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

Why Alternatives?

This would run ON TOP of Maemo, not instead of it.

Putting it under Alternatives makes NO sense. Maybe in one of the software forums...

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

Moved to Alternatives... I think it works here too (not to be argumentative).

Tim

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

Yes, it would run "on top" of Maemo, but it is an alternative software runtime. My Easy Debian runs "on top" of Maemo too.

Just like my Easy Debian, some users would want to only run one or two Android/Dalvik apps from within Maemo, but many more would want to shut down the Maemo desktop entirely and use the Android desktop instead.

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

Seems like odd logic to me... do gameboy emulator discussions go in Alternatives, as well? :-}

(I'm not trying to just be argumentative, it really does strike me as an odd organizational decision, but I do accept that it has been done)

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

That depends, can a gameboy emulator replace all of maemo?

Anyways, got to say that this is a interesting development, if it pans out. But it would really surprise me if one gains access to the app store...

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

The first Android port used a chroot to get it working, which is somewhat similar to the technique used here. Later ports have used a new kernel entirely. Does Dalvik need features in the newer kernels to work properly? If not, then this could really be a good idea.

Emulators of things that are considered to be operating systems or desktop environments should go here. Most game system emulators are a bit too limited in their scope to be considered "Alternatives".

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

No, but neither can Dalvik. :-)

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

You'd have to ask that guy (Michael Fey) what it does or doesn't work with. I know he had to re-compile part of it to use Ubuntu's libc, instead of the custom libc in Android.

I agree that it could be a good thing: the best of both worlds, if it works out (Android's apps and strong Google integration, Maemo's full Linux environment and Maemo apps).

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

android interprocess communication requires some kernel bits google wrote. They are open source and don't modify existing features, only add new ones so applying the patches to an omap kernel shouldn't be too hard

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

So, is it possible to get those Google Android kernel patches, make them into .ko binaries for the Diablo 2.6.21 kernel, and then "insmod android1.ko" ? Or would we have to flash a new, modified kernel?

I'm just suspicious about the Android patches applying cleanly to our tablets' kernel. If it worked that way, why would Solca and others try so hard to get the new kernel working on the tablet?

If someone could get Dalvik running on the Diablo kernel, preferably in Maemo, that would make headlines for sure.

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

For what it's worth, I read about this on Ars. The good news is that there seems to be official Canonical support behind at least some of the efforts so, if done right, this could get mainstream real fast.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/n...-on-ubuntu.ars

Android's sophisticated interprocess communication system, which is called Binder, requires a special kernel driver in order to run properly. The driver is in the kernel staging tree and is not enabled—a problematic impediment for the Android execution environment developers. Their current prototype is using a temporary workaround to bypass Binder, but they hope that the necessary patches can be enabled in the kernel for the next Ubuntu release so that the execution environment can work properly.

The developers have built a working prototype of the execution environment. They successfully compiled it against Ubuntu's libc instead of Android's custom libc and they are running it on a regular Ubuntu kernel. They intend to cut out Android-specific components that are not needed to make the software run on Ubuntu.

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

And Engadget is covering it now, as well. The guy whose blog I posted about is a canonical employee, I think. And the engadget article does seem to be saying that this is an official canonical effort.

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

Well, NITDroid uses a new kernel. I thought the Diablo kernel was too hard to backport for.

But with mer, which is open source(so we can get new kernels right?) and based on Ubuntu... This would be awesome!

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

Hopefully Canonical will find some way to work out access to the Android Market for their project... since the default open source Android doesn't include that.

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

I'd like to revive this interesting thread.
I think it would be really cool to be able to
run Android apps on Maemo, even they run on
a separate screen or window.

Here are some interesting links which I found:
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubu...on-environment

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Specs/Androi...ionEnvironment
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/specs/KernelKarmicAndroid
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Specs/Mobile...droidPackaging

Now that Karmic Koala is out, I couldn't find any news or source code for that project.
Michael Frey's last post form August complains about missing
Google login service code
http://mjfrey.blogspot.com/

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

Have you tried emailing him to ask for status?

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

yes. I'll let you know when I get an answer.

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

No answer yet, so I consider the project dead ;-(

Re: Android on Maemo and/or Mer
 

really interesting topic!

any update on this one?

btw, out of topic, but is there any emulator in maemo that can run other mobile OS/system, like android, symbian, windows mobile, etc?