Develop Bugs

Getting started in Driod Dev

What is a good Linux flavor to run the tools in? Is there a virtual image available for a fast start?
Thanks,
Jim

+1.. I'd love to get my hands dirty and try to contribute.

ive been using ubuntu, always seems to have the best support
but any distro should really work afaik
just download the android-sdk and set it up, its not quick and easy unless you know what you are doing. gotta learn sometime though

I've been playing around with this for basic ROM editing... Good intro just to get your feet wet and see what the components are. Also a lot of information linked to in the forums for experimenting with different elements.
This link will get you to a guide to setup a basic kitchen put together by dsixda- you can run ubuntu on virtual box or edit in cygwin (which is a little easier on windows machine)...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=633246

+1 for Ubuntu, i use that everyday!

Loke

Is anyone else looking at interfacing with or generally into how Loke works? If you're reading this and you don't know what Loke is then the answer is no

Well, learn us something, what is Loke?

mbr01 said:
Well, learn us something, what is Loke?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
isnt loke the slang for something that is more than like but not quite love. i hear teens using the word from time to time lol

Well, in Norse mythology, just as Odin is the ruler of the gods, Loke (or Loki) is generally accepted to be some sort of god-like figure.
How is this even remotely related to the Galaxy S? Well it appears the Samsung developers have used Norse mythology as a naming scheme for some critical Samsung-specific software components. We're probably all aware that Odin is the tool we use to flash ROMs onto our Galaxy S. However, I'm yet to hear anyone else publicly make mention to Loke.
Loke is the software component that runs on the Galaxy S and is responsible for communicating with Odin during the flashing process. It is initialised in the second stage boot loader (when Volume Down + Home are held). Odin is then able to issue a series of commands to Loke to instigate the flashing process.
Whilst I don't know too much about the exact commands, as that would require some more variables and probably various devices to test with. I have basically worked out the process of how to flash a ROM onto a (non-rooted) Galaxy S.
Odin only runs on Windows, is unreliable and generally we don't know much about it. As such I've started writing a cross-platform (Windows, OS X and Linux) tool to flash ROMs onto the Galaxy S which I am presently calling Heimdall, continuing with the Norse mythology naming scheme. It's actually reasonably simple but I haven't had much time yet to work on it as I'm preoccupied with work. So I was interested to see if anyone else has made any progress in this regard.
I'm not just interested in mimicking Odin, I'm also curious to see what else Loke can be used for and how Kies interfaces with Loke. Hence why in other threads people may have seen me ask about flashing to "old" firmware so I can use Kies to upgrade.
Anyway, if anyone else has made headway in this department or is generally interested in cross-platform flashing tool let me know.
Also... No, I didn't know anything about Norse mythology until I became aware the software on the Galaxy S was called Loke. It's pretty cool though.

Benjamin Dobell said:
Well, in Norse mythology, just as Odin is the ruler of the gods, Loke (or Loki) is generally accepted to be some sort of god-like figure.
How is this even remotely related to the Galaxy S? Well it appears the Samsung developers have used Norse mythology as a naming scheme for some critical Samsung-specific software components. We're probably all aware that Odin is the tool we use to flash ROMs onto our Galaxy S. However, I'm yet to hear anyone else publicly make mention to Loke.
Loke is the software component that runs on the Galaxy S and is responsible for communicating with Odin during the flashing process. It is initialised in the second stage boot loader (when Volume Down + Home are held). Odin is then able to issue a series of commands to Loke to instigate the flashing process.
Whilst I don't know too much about the exact commands, as that would require some more variables and probably various devices to test with. I have basically worked out the process of how to flash a ROM onto a (non-rooted) Galaxy S.
Odin only runs on Windows, is unreliable and generally we don't know much about it. As such I've started writing a cross-platform (Windows, OS X and Linux) tool to flash ROMs onto the Galaxy S which I am presently calling Heimdall, continuing with the Norse mythology naming scheme. It's actually reasonably simple but I haven't had much time yet to work on it as I'm preoccupied with work. So I was interested to see if anyone else has made any progress in this regard.
I'm not just interested in mimicking Odin, I'm also curious to see what else Loke can be used for and how Kies interfaces with Loke. Hence why in other threads people may have seen me ask about flashing to "old" firmware so I can use Kies to upgrade.
Anyway, if anyone else has made headway in this department or is generally interested in cross-platform flashing tool let me know.
Also... No, I didn't know anything about Norse mythology until I became aware the software on the Galaxy S was called Loke. It's pretty cool though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How come you know so much about norse mythology..

didnt he pretty much state he does not just in the last sentence of his post?
edit:btw well chosen name: "Heimdall is the guardian of the Bifrost Bridge (i.e. the rainbow), and thereby the link between Midgard and Asgard."
edit2: bad chosen name: "Loki assists the gods, and sometimes causes problems for them." lol

FadeFx said:
edit:btw well chosen name: Heimdall is the guardian of the Bifrost Bridge (i.e. the rainbow), and thereby the link between Midgard and Asgard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad you picked up on that, that's exactly why I picked the name.

lol, also read my second edit...

Yes, but in Ragnarok Heimdall and Loki are supposed to slay each other.
EDIT: Come to think of it I hope my PC and Galaxy S don't kill each other

we will see when the day of ragnarok rises...

Just a quick update.
Heimdall is coming along nicely. I haven't had much free time to work on it however I'm having no problems at all sending and receiving necessary files between Loke and Heimdall. I'm expecting to release an alpha sometime in the next 24-72 hours.
EDIT: For all those people that are having trouble getting their device recognised in Odin, Heimdall doesn't appear to have any such problem. If you can get into download mode on your phone then you can flash with Heimdall as I'm not using Samsung's temperamental drivers.

this is excellent, i'm tired of windows bugs.
part of the reason i moved to Android, as i wanted to be fully Linux base
Benjamin Dobell said:
Just a quick update.
Heimdall is coming along nicely. I haven't had much free time to work on it however I'm having no problems at all sending and receiving necessary files between Loke and Heimdall. I'm expecting to release an alpha sometime in the next 24-72 hours.
EDIT: For all those people that are having trouble getting their device recognised in Odin, Heimdall doesn't appear to have any such problem. If you can get into download mode on your phone then you can flash with Heimdall as I'm not using Samsung's temperamental drivers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

very nice.. i have been unable to get flash working on 3 different computers (one of which used to work).. the only one currently working is 32 bit windows 7 go figure... my 64 bit no longer works and i cannot get anything working on my 32 bit xp machines..
what type of hardwware will you s/w run on?

lgkahn said:
what type of hardwware will you s/w run on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heimdall itself should run on any Windows (XP, Vista, 7 etc.), Linux and OS X.
At the moment I've tested it with my phone which is an international (UK) GT-I9000. I'm going to need people to test the alpha release on other devices, assuming someone is game. I'd much rather test it on other devices myself so that I can properly monitor the communication but I don't have access to any other devices.
Speaking of which, if anyone has a Galaxy S/Vibrant/Captivate that is bricked/semi-bricked or that they're generally willing to part ways with that would be immensely helpful.

Very interesting! It will be a great asset to the community!
Will you share some technical details on how the protocol works later? I'm just curious

gazabi said:
Will you share some technical details on how the protocol works later? I'm just curious
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A lot of it is still guess-work. This is the main reason I need more devices, so that I can see how different phones respond to different requests. However the final release will be open-source (MIT license).

i am also very interested. i use only linux but had to set up a virtual box with winsdoze xp which is a pain in the ass ... thanks for your work. i am looking forward to test heimdall

Loke is such a bad name for a program. Loke is the lying, cheating, no gooder of nordic mythology.
Come to think of it, it would have been an excellent name for Kies.

hehe, but loke is already there on our galaxy s, you cant change it....

Looking forward for an alpha release
@Benjamin: looking forward to get a look at your code aswell as it sounds very promising

OLPC OS on Zync Z930 Tablet

Hi there,
I am planning to start some project in the NGO I am currently working in, a child aid organization in India. Therefore I bought some Zync Z930 tablet with 1,2Ghz CortexA8-CPU, 512MB DDR3 Ram and a capacitive touchscreen. Currently Android Ice-Cream-Sandwich (4.0) is running on it, but I want to install OLPC OS on it which is a Fedora-based distribution especially developed for the needs of children.
Actually, I don´t know how exactly to unlock the bootloader, root the device and install some other OS on it. Is there a general way or is this specific for every device? What about the driver support for the touchscreen etc.? Will it be the same as with Android? Furthermore, how can I make the device boot from SD-Card or USB?
To my knowledge: I have got some knowledge on GNU/Linux, I´m quite familiar with the terminal etc. and I have programming knowledge (C++), too, but none in Kernel or other low-level programming.
Sorry for not posting links to further information, but as this is my first post, I cannot post them...
If further information is required, please let me know it.
Thanks a lot,
badday

We're working on very similar lines
badday2 said:
Hi there,
I am planning to start some project in the NGO I am currently working in, a child aid organization in India. Therefore I bought some Zync Z930 tablet with 1,2Ghz CortexA8-CPU, 512MB DDR3 Ram and a capacitive touchscreen. Currently Android Ice-Cream-Sandwich (4.0) is running on it, but I want to install OLPC OS on it which is a Fedora-based distribution especially developed for the needs of children.
Actually, I don´t know how exactly to unlock the bootloader, root the device and install some other OS on it. Is there a general way or is this specific for every device? What about the driver support for the touchscreen etc.? Will it be the same as with Android? Furthermore, how can I make the device boot from SD-Card or USB?
To my knowledge: I have got some knowledge on GNU/Linux, I´m quite familiar with the terminal etc. and I have programming knowledge (C++), too, but none in Kernel or other low-level programming.
Sorry for not posting links to further information, but as this is my first post, I cannot post them...
If further information is required, please let me know it.
Thanks a lot,
badday
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello badday,
I'm from Mumbai ...
We're working on getting Sugar on similar devices..
We kind of have made some progress..
The idea is to get the kernel sorted out for the particular device, and the base rootfs over which the system can be installed over.
Want to participate in the effort?
Kindly join the mailing list at gnowledge.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/swarm
Happy hacking!

jquip said:
Hello badday,
I'm from Mumbai ...
We're working on getting Sugar on similar devices..
We kind of have made some progress..
The idea is to get the kernel sorted out for the particular device, and the base rootfs over which the system can be installed over.
Want to participate in the effort?
Kindly join the mailing list at gnowledge.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/swarm
Happy hacking!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi jquip,
yes, I would be interested to join ur project, just need a little introduction and some more information. Do u guys have a git repo with the code on it?
Best wishes from Delhi,
badday

So I finally managed to install Sugar on top of Ubuntu on top of Android. First thing I did was rooting the tablet with adb commands, using "Complete Linux Installer", downloaded Ubuntu core, manually enlarged it to have enough space, installed lxde and sugar 0.90 from the official Ubuntu sources, started the xserver and vnc server and finally vnc-ed on the tablet into the graphical UI and started sugar.
However, currently I am facing the problem that e. g. turtle art will fail to start out of sugar but works fine when started just out of LXDE, so let´s see what the problem will be, stay tuned.

As I faced too many problems with Ubuntu, I changed to Fedora. Now activities can be started and it works like a charm...
Here are some pics: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hcnpkf4a83dczea/dZCr0Rc4U9

Photos are great.
Those pics really motivate me to want to make this happen on the Yeahpad Pillbox7 I am working on to do the same.
I am curious about your work there in India.
I would like to network with you further and beyond the scope of xda-developers. That we can cooperate together on educational goals for children internationally using computer protocols is fascinating. Consider putting me in your Google+ circles (I am at j dot mp slash paulplus) and on facebook i am fb dot com slash paulgydos. you can reach me directly by email at paul at gydos dot com. also I am on twitter @paulgydos and for the tablet project the twitter is @yeahpad. I am about to mention you over there at @yeahpad. I particularly like Google+ lately as it is currently a more serious platform than facebook which on the other hand has the benefit of so many users.
Thanks again for your posts.

I sent you a friend request on facebook as I am not at Google+ and not frequently on twitter.
Nice to have somebody in the same boat.

joined the mail list
this get
"kernel sorted out for the particular device, and the base rootfs over which the system can be installed over" business
and getting ARM architecture away from proprietary-software like constraints seem like incredibly good goals.
so I joined the mail list and I'm reading through some of the archives.
What other places are people gathering around and working on such ideas?
I want to participate!
paul at gydos.com // twitter dot com slash paulgydos // fb dot com slash paulgydos // and also G+ address is j dot mp slash paulplus
bring me into it!

hopes of being a dev.

Ok so here goes I'm sure some will laugh at this and others will tell me to search, but I am fully aware of how things work here and I have done alot of reading and searching. Now I'm looking for a devs perspective and maybe some advice. I am building an ubuntu pc system for development. I have always used windows and have been playing with jdk and smali me. If there are any devs out there willing to teach a new dog old tricks I would be very open to suggestions. What programs do you guys use? Is ubuntu the best route to go? I have done a few searches and tried android developement tools but so far had best luck with apk tools and windows cmd shell. Anyways if willing I would appreciate any help. Btw nothing I make will be posted here until thoroughly tested my phone first.

Not a Dev, but the few Andriod Devs I know on Linux use Eclipse. I'm sure others will give you different suggestions. It's one of things you ask 4 people and get 5 answers. I prefer Linux Mint to Ubuntu since:
1) I like the interface better (Cinnamon FTW)
2) It seems to be a bit more end-user ready out of the box.
3) It seems like it tends to have fewer major bugs than Ubuntu. YMMV
4) The community is quite helpful and usually pretty patient. Also, most of the Ubuntu fixes and tricks work in Mint.
Try both and see which one you like. You can test them as much as you want before you ever commit to one.

Call for help in porting PostmarketOS to OPPO Find 7/7a

Dear XDA members,
if you feel the same as the friends at https://postmarketos.org/ :
"We are sick of not receiving updates shortly after buying new phones. Sick of the walled gardens deeply integrated into Android
and iOS. That's why we are developing a sustainable, privacy and security focused free software mobile OS that is modeled after
traditional Linux distributions. With privilege separation in mind. Let's keep our devices useful and safe until they physically break!",
then it is time for you to step forward!!!
Last night initial support for the OPPO Find 7a was commited to the postmarketos pmaports git repo
https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/pmaports with commit https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/pmaports/commit/1f8095771c4659d31e8b228dd85018e9ca9963ca.
It was a pain to get this committed as I'm not used to the git workflow, nonetheless with the help of the maintainers over there
and after deleting a few merge requests ( a no-no, don't do that!!) at the end we got it done.
At the moment the device port is only for the Find 7a for the simple reason that I own one but I'm sure it can be extended to the
Find 7 and Find 7s.
The answer to the question that you dear reader have in your mind now: "what works?" is easy: NOTHING WORKS YET!!!
The only thing working so far is that the kernel compiles, you can flash it or fastboot boot it, start a rootfs on the microsd card
and ssh into the system over a usbnet connection to look at all that lovely processes running.
Lots of work still needs to be done, I'm pretty shure that I will not be able to do this myself as my knowledge about the hardware
part of the device is minimal and I would need to reinvent the wheel for every little progress.
As I'm sure that there are still a lot of knowleadgeable develepers (THAT'S YOU!!!) lurking around this list my hope is to lure them
to contribute to this project.
I personally dream of the Find 7 running postmarketos and KDE plasma-mobile but even maemo would be ok!!!
Come on, let's do it!!!
Best regards,
farmatito
Links to get more info:
https://postmarketos.org/
https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/OPPO_FIND_7a_(oppo-find-7a)
https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Porting_to_a_new_device

Screen and touchscreen working!!!
Still a lot of work to do. Help is appreciated!

Progress report
New package for installing various firmware blobs merged!
Next big thing should be to try to make video hardware acceleration work,
if there are any experts here help is appreciated!!!!.

Progress report
The attached photo shows my Find7a running the XFCE4 desktop.
The interface is fast enough even without hardware acceleration.
As the Desktop is not optimized for mobile devices it is not
a such a great user experience, but the basics work.
Still a lot of work to do, help is appreciated.

Progress report
Wifi Works!!! and you can browse the internet!!!
Help is still appreciated!!

No progress
This time there is no progress to report:
video acceleration not working yet due to the fact that the kernel is rather old (3.4.113), backporting newer drivers did not work out as the codebase differs to much (so no KDE plasma).
making the various sensors work is also rather difficult as the kernel uses a Device Tree and so even if there are drivers for the sensors you need some board specific info to create the device tree nodes.
last but not least the last version of xfce4 in alpine linux is not touchscreen friendly. GTK combo-boxes are now unusable (will eventually try maemo).
Help is very, very appreciated.

Saw this post, has a Find 7 and want to know more.