Where/when will this madness end? — right here, right now… ;p
This was my final proof of concept attempt at a windows OS on the Archos 5.
I successfully managed to boot Windows 95 using dosbox, and an image file of win95.
Dosbox is a really hefty program on the A5imt (taking up over 70% cpu usage and over 40% ram), so this was a crawling process. Im sure it would work better with other emulators, but none have yet to be successfully compiled for the A5IMT. With that said, and keeping in spirit of the original hardware this was meant to run on — the load time is like watching paint dry.
Video: (8 minute long vid, so grab some coffee)
Process:
–Make directories “/dos/95″ on root of unit (mnt_data || rootfs_source)
–Copy image of win95 (in this case W95.IMG) to /dos/95
–Start up dosbox
Run the following commands in dosbox:
Then wait….
It will perform scandisk upon booting, let this run.
wait some more….
Ahh… Success!
Touchscreen is nerfed, and the start menu doesn’t show, so good luck with that. I haven’t tested out a mouse with it (nor will I) – only a keyboard, and that seems to have basic functionality (asides from the cursor keys not doing what they’re suppose to do), albeit extremely slow.
Have fun, and remember, this is for educational purposes only!! >=]
~Spz0
As a follow-up post to the Demo build of Enlightenment 17, I have made a new keyboard layout specifically designed for the Archos 5/7’s screen resolution. I have also addressed a few troubling issues in regards to the illume kbd itself.
List of improvements:
Some Screenshots:
custom e17 kbd container (800×220)
e17 topshelf keyboard icon
Since I had to recode the illume bits to make changes to the top shelf and the letter sizing/placement, it is necessary to download the new beta version, as opposed to just releasing a .kbd file. Props go out to raster from #e for some advice on edje 
**note: I’ll be updating the parent post with the new beta2 build as well.
Note::
[ If you wish to run this along side your current build, rename image to "illume.img" and make the appropriate entry in "menu.lst" Otherwise just overwrite your "rootfs.img" and your good to go.]
As always, input and suggestions are welcome.
~Cheers
Spz0
Hello all.
I’ve been wanting to make angstrom more user friendly for some time, so I decided to start working on an e17 Illume build. There were a bunch things I didn’t like about the current gpe build — the xkbd being too small, midori web browser being too chunky, the lack of overall user friendliness of the UI, amongst other small issues mostly revolving around functionality of Angstrom.
This image that I’ve compiled addresses these issues as well as others such as:
This image is base on Kevin’s build of the revision 199 of openAOS Ångström overlay. All additional packages have been installed from the regular Ångström package feeds with the exception of Dillo, Woosh, NumptyPhysics and Quasar (which I modified together with some help from Thomas, dm8tbr [thanks m8!!]) and for which sources and bitbake recipe are available here.
Some screenshots (desktop will look different on the downloaded image due to additional software installation):
Main Desktop
Archos gen6 running e17 - main view
Illumes “Top-Shelf” (note: Vkeyboard button is located in the top-right corner “qwerty“)
OptimSMS2 Keyboard (Switch between kbd layouts by hitting “ABC” [above letter"P"])
Archos gen6 running e17 - OptimSMS2 on-screen keyboard
Quasar UI
OptimSMS keyboard still needs a bit more work, it’s a bit too large right now, but still very usable. I may get around to finding a way to reduce the size of the container. Look for that update. I also kept the “transparent keyboard” active for use, and I have my custom xkbd layout defaulted (mimics OptimSMS2 layout).
There is also a known issue with the Battery Meter being broken. Hopefully we can fix that soon. If anyone wants to try, go right ahead.
This image should need minimal adjusting, as we have worked to import all my custom e17′s settings into your home.img, so you should not have to go through the initialization process. However, if you with to do so, goto “Settings->Settings->Profiles” and select the “Default” profile to run through the initialization process. I would also suggest increasing the Terminal font size (click the “Look and Feel” icon, goto the “Terminal” tab and increase to the desired font size). You will have to restart in order for those changes to take effect.
**updated to beta2 build as described HERE
[ If you wish to run this along side your current build, rename image to "illume.img" and make the appropriate entry in "menu.lst" Otherwise just overwrite your "rootfs.img" and your good to go.]
~Cheers
Spz0.
We are proud to be the first ones to have a public preview of Android 2.0 (eclair) on 7th generation Archos devices (Archos5IT).
Mind you, this is not an Archos build and none of the multimedia functionality would work right now. It just shows that even with the current 2.6.27.10 Linux kernel the device is able to boot an Android 2.0 user-space and bring up the UI. I’ll repeat this. If Archos releases an Android 2.0 firmware it will be very much different!
home screen
Given the ease with which I was able to modify an existing build of Android 2.0 to run on my device and get rid of most of the error messages – I have to say I have no idea why nobody else has done this yet. But this is kind of symptomatic for the Archos “community”. The loudest to cry out and demand but no one is even able to get their behind up and try it themselves. It took me less than an hour to have the GUI up and running.
locked screen
One major downside at the moment is that the touchscreen driver is not cooperating. If someone wants to help and try to make it work – please contact me.
I/InputDevice.ReadPointercalFile: ( 956): t.x1=796.0 t.y1=0.0 t.z1=-95501.0t.x2=0.0 t.y2=508.0 t.z2=-116804.0t.s=3830.0 I/KeyInputQueue( 956): Device added: id=0x10002, name=ADS784x Touchscreen, classes=14 I/KeyInputQueue( 956): X: unknown values I/KeyInputQueue( 956): Y: unknown values I/KeyInputQueue( 956): Pressure: unknown values I/KeyInputQueue( 956): Size: unknown values
If all you want to ask is “Can haz newist Image!?” – shove it, don’t even bother, if there will be updated images you’ll find the information about it on this blog.
Meanwhile you have something nice to look at:
boot animation
and you can brag how you were among the “fr!st evar!” to boot Android 2.0 outside of Archos R&D on an Archos5IT.
Disclaimer: If this image makes your Archos bite your dog or eat your cat or otherwise damages the device or causes the Doomsday Machine to activate. – Tough luck, no cookies.
That said nothing bad has happened to my unit yet, but you never know.
That all said, if you still want to try or god forbid even want to help: here’s a bzip’ed image for you. Use something like this for the menu:
Android_2.0|/dev/sda1|/archdruid_0_0_1.img|/init
Ah and the original build is from here (qdroid).
That’d be all for today folks. Check back for a video soon.
Thomas, your friendly openAOS Archdruid