Posts Tagged ‘archos5it’

Invitation / FAQ: Honeycomb on gen7/gen8? – YES! Once there is source in AOSP

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

We’d like to clarify something here and at the same time invite people to join efforts.

A question we get asked a lot in one form or the other is:

“When will there be Honeycomb on gen8 devices?”

Our answer to this is that:

Serious Honecomb adaptation can only start once there are sources for it in AOSP. This is valid for every device out there, not only Archos.

Some people might start screaming “But hardware XYZ runs Honeycomb!” – the answer to that is “No it does not!“, what some people managed to do is take binaries meant for the emulator contained in the Honeycomb SDK and run them on actual hardware. This is nowhere near what properly adapted software can do. Without checking, I’d bet it’s not even properly GLES accelerated.

openAOS would like to invite everyone interested in bringing the Honeycomb version of Android to Archos hardware to join forces!

There is a lot to be gained by everyone working together. We have learned a lot about Archos hardware and this would benefit both gen7 and gen8 as a target. There are many similarities.

We also have a good contact to Archos and this has always helped us to figure out hardware specific bits and pieces. This has helped many projects around Archos hardware, even commercial ones. The debian adaptation to gen6 hardware wouldn’t have been possible without the reference work by Kevin Boone, Smoku’s MeeGo efforts benefited from our groundwork, we have spent time working on making FroYo more than a proof-of-concept on gen7 etc.

All openAOS wants to do is help community projects that want to build around Archos hardware. So if you want to join in, contact us, preferably on IRC (see the chat button, talk to dm8tbr). We’re happy to offer our resources:

Webspace (also for large downloads)
Wiki (currently intended for developers)
Issue tracker
Blog
Android on Archos hardware mailing list
gitorious hosted Archos GPL Buildroot environments, including the Archos/TI kernel source, that are open for patch submissions and improvements.
you-name-it (your ideas, our server hardware )

Tags: a101, a28, a32, a43, a70, android, archos5it, gen7, gen8, Honeycomb, Linux kernel, sde, sources
Posted in gen6, gen7, gen8, Uncategorized | 11 Comments »

Here we come again, alpha3 of FroYo for A5IT

Saturday, October 30th, 2010

It’s been a while, we all were very busy and as nobody new stepped up to help with things this alpha3 took longer than it was expected. It would have taken even longer but we decided to make a cut and release what we have so far.

The following tickets were resolved on our way to alpha3:

Ticket	Summary	Resolution
#103	Continuous reboot	worksforme
#104	most recent initramfs/zImage seems to break MSC under Archos Android	fixed
#112	live wallpaper make device hot (also in standby)	worksforme
#72	Audio not working	fixed
#111	browser crashed occasionally	duplicate
#115	lsusb showing wrong ID and ADB not working	worksforme
#117	Native ABI mismatch from package file	fixed
#94	strace from alpha1 broken	fixed
#95	update busybox+busybox config	fixed
#113	adobe flash 10.1 plugin not supported	duplicate
#114	Full Screen Feature Needed: Same Feature Like in 1.6 (Full Screen For All Appz)	duplicate
#89	dpi 195 is correct, but results in large ui elements and text	fixed
#118	permissions on /mnt_data/download restricts market	defect

The following tickets sadly didn’t get fixed/resolved yet. If you see one where you could help. PLEASE do so!

Ticket	Summary	Type
#107	Menu Line Missing: Even after duplicating lines	defect
#126	need to provide encrypted storage for some apps	enhancement
#93	sitting idle with power disconnected turns off	defect
#92	brief press of power button does not put unit to sleep	defect
#100	openvpn support	enhancement
#109	Wifi unable to stop	defect
#110	browser crashed occasionally	defect
#116	GPS not working	defect
#71	Accelerometer not working	defect
#73	Bluetooth not working.	defect
#84	Add IPv6 module	enhancement
#122	Notification bar in Google Maps	defect
#123	Sleep Error	defect
#77	Touch Screen Calibration App	enhancement
#101	external sd card does not get automounted on boot	defect
#120	AppsLib does not recognize the device as an Archos device	defect
#121	Change mount location of internal storage	defect

and for the beta1 target:

Ticket	Summary	Type
#125	grep logic in boot menu doesn’t do exact match, tries to mount e.g. two rootfs’	defect
#105	Update Battery code with new algorithm for higher accuracy.	defect
#108	DSP link	enhancement

Again: Send patches! Discuss on the mailing list! Show some support by investing some time into this. Things don’t do themselves magically.

Keep in mind:

In general this is still alpha grade code so don’t expect wonders in stability and functionality.
If you find an issue that is not yet reported then file a new issue! If you do not report it we don’t know it and nobody can notice it and try to resolve it!
This is still not really intended for the average end user. If you are one, don’t come complaining that “stuff doesn’t work”. Just be happy that some ‘stuff’ works.
Please note that we had to disable the Android root console on cdc-acm-serial1 due to stability problems. You should use ADB instead!
We require a working installation of the regular 1.6 Archos firmware as FroYo depends on a few files found in it!

Alpha3 is tested and works together with this zImage and this initramfs.
Please install those or preferably most recent before reporting bugs.

Oh yeah, if you just want the image: here it is and the md5sum.

Everyone else please follow the guide on the wiki which will help you install the most recent release.

Special thanks to Janis605 for creating the wonderful boot animation for us!

Tags: android, Android 2.2, ArchDruid, archos5it, Froyo, gen7, sources
Posted in ArchDruid, gen7 | 18 Comments »

Flash 10.1 anyone?

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

This just in: There is an Adobe Flash 10.1 binary by TI to showcase flash on Cortex A8.

Who’s going to be the first to send us a video of Flash working in Firefox or Fennec under Ångström? Or someone could even try if replacing the plugin of the original opera browser would work.

Note: This is most likely not going to work on gen6. Supposedly needs Alsa while gen6 was OSS, also those units are quite RAM-limited.

Tags: adobe, archos5, archos5it, archos7, avos, binary, Flash, gen6, gen7, gen8
Posted in Ångström, gen6, gen7, gen8 | 6 Comments »

JBMM announces a bounty for 3G/UMTS drivers for gen7/gen8

Monday, September 20th, 2010

We’ve been in contact with JBMM over this for a while now on a certain subject. Now they went public and have announced a bounty for the first person to bring an full featured driver for a mobile-broadband-USB modem to gen7/gen8.

We don’t know yet how this will look on gen8 or if maybe Archos did some more work on gen8 than on gen7, but we are eager to see how things develop.

This is more than just compiling a few kernel modules, this needs also actual Android-support.

Here’s the full announcement and in english courtesy of google translation.

Tags: android, Android 2.2, ArchDruid, archos5it, bounty, gen6, gen7, gen8, Linux kernel
Posted in bounty, gen7, gen8 | No Comments »

openAOS Froyo Alpha2 for Archos5 IT

Friday, September 17th, 2010

We’ve had a busy time and are happy to have the next release – Alpha 2 – for you to play with over the weekend!

Important note: This needs up to date zImage and initramfs to work properly! See further on in the text.

Here’s the Image for you and here’s a md5sum if you want to verify it.

Make sure that your Menu entry contains the words ‘froyo’ or ‘android’ OR the line in menu.lst ends with ‘|0′ – this is needed for now to address the framebuffer fix (see previous post).

We need more developers! There’s plenty of work and not many people! In addition Al Sutton will not be available for the coming weeks. So go ahead, send patches! join us on IRC! file issues! find solutions! help us! etc. etc. pp.

ReleaseNotes/ChangeLog:

resolved issues:
- #75 Power management not working correctly
- #81 Adb driver
- #83 Fix USB gadget
- #86 make sure modules.* files don’t end up in initramfs
- #87 One blanked the screen doesn’t come back
- #88 cannot change backlight
- #90 SSD not detected
- #91 enable GRE in kernel
- #98 No Russian and other translations & inputs
- #99 Battery always reports 75%
- #76 SD Card not recognised
- #78 Improve status bar
- #85 WiFi Settings overwritten on boot
- #102 maildroid application using a subset of available screen – invalid (broken app)
- #80 Powers off randomly – duplicate
- #82 adb not available – duplicate
unresolved issues (rescheduled for Alpha 3):
- #92 brief press of power button does not put unit to sleep
- #71 Accelerometer not working
- #94 strace from alpha1 broken
- #95 update busybox+busybox config
- #77 Touch Screen Calibration App – The calibration tool works, but the resulting data is not yet applied.
- #89 dpi 195 is correct, but results in large ui elements and text – decision postponed needs further consideration and discussion
Keep in mind:
- If an app appears in a large black box, it’s broken! Notify the author that they should fix it for ‘hdpi-large’. See #102
- Yes, sound still does NOT work. #72 Audio not working – moved to Alpha 3 (and fixed in git, so it will be in Alpha 3).
- Battery indicator is not that good/accurate yet. #105 Update Battery code with new algorithm for higher accuracy.
- Currently the initramfs breaks USB in Archos firmware. Sorry, debugging has priority over that. We hope to fix it soon, check the blog for updates. #104 most recent initramfs/zImage seems to break MSC under Archos Android fixed in more recent initramfs/zImage. Please follow this guide to set things up.
- In general this is still alpha grade code so don’t expect wonders in stability and functionality.

Alpha2 is tested and works together with this zImage and this initramfs.
Please install those or preferably most recent before reporting bugs.

Tags: android, Android 2.2, ArchDruid, archos5it, build, gen7, image
Posted in ArchDruid, gen7 | 19 Comments »

openAOS

Open Source Archos Operating Systems