Android On RasPi

[RaspiDeveloper]

Hey Guys,

I am new to the Forum but I have been following Raspberry Pi for ages.

I am currently trying to port Android onto a Raspberry Pi. I found that the only one that would run smoothly with 256MB of RAM is 1.6 Donut. The 700MHz Processor would work with Gingerbread (2.3), it is just a shame that the RasPi doesn't have atleast 512 MBs of RAM.

Tell me what you think of my project and I will keep you updated on here.

-Matt

[benzeman]

Only 1.6? Really?

On my HTC Wildfire with 384MB of RAM (533Mhz processor!!) I was able to go up to 2.3.3 before selling it. I would've thought you'd be able to get 2.1 at least...

[RaspiDeveloper]

benzeman said:


Only 1.6? Really?

On my HTC Wildfire with 384MB of RAM (533Mhz processor!!) I was able to go up to 2.3.3 before selling it. I would've thought you'd be able to get 2.1 at least...


You could get 2.1, thanks for pointing that out.

I can't get 2.3 or 2.2 because of the RAM.

I am working on it so keep posting,

-Matt

[neufena]

I run 2.3.3 on my HTC Wildfire using Cyanogenmod.  Maybe it's worth looking at doing an unofficial port to the Pi?

[RaspiDeveloper]

Porting WITH the mod? That would take up quite a bit of RAM. It would be good to have ICS... I will keep looking into it.

[fodi]

thanks for the work in porting android to the pi!

actually there are some devices with armv6 and 256 mb ram with although not official, but community-ported gingerbread/cm7 roms

htc tattoo actually has even cm9 ported (but reported to be verrrry slow), and cm7 on 256 mb ram and a weaker cpu
htc hero has these also (but with slightly bigger 288 mb ram)
motorola droid with cm7 (although it is armv7 but 256mb ram)
plus there must be some chinese tablets with official ginger on them

[neufena]

I think CM9 (ICS) will be a stretch but CM7 (Gingerbread) should be posible in theory.  There's quite a few unofficial ports for phones/tablets that aren't supported by the official releases.

[fodi]

i did some research and found that these tablets probably have 256 mb ram and gingerbread on them:

alcor ace, yarvik tab250/211, huawei u8650 sonic (phone), gpad g15 tablet

[bredman]

Don't forget that the RPi GPU needs a significant amount of RAM. You will not have 256MB available for Android to use.

[rmm200]

GPU only needs ram if you use the GPU...  Android might not.

[secretreeve]

rmm200 said:


GPU only needs ram if you use the GPU...  Android might not.



GPU = graphics processing unit.

so basicaly as this is what outputs your visual interface the second you turn it on the gpu is being used wether you have a screen plugged in or not.

if you dont use the gpu you dont get a visual interface.

pretty simple really

[danfoshizzle]

My t mobile pulse mini also ran gingerbread on 256 ram, and it ran it pretty well too.

[rmm200]

Android is not likely to have access to the Broadcom blob for 3D and video processing. Allocating 32M to the GPU frame buffer should be more than adequate - and LXDE should run. To me that is Android not using the GPU.

[jamesh]

The GPU needs 32MB to work properly, and it needs it even if you are not using acceleration - after all you are still using the frame buffer, and all the ancillary memory that requires in order to function correctly.

[lewmur]

JamesH said:


The GPU needs 32MB to work properly, and it needs it even if you are not using acceleration – after all you are still using the frame buffer, and all the ancillary memory that requires in order to function correctly.


According to this link, I see no reason that even ICS shouldn't run with 256mb – 32mb = 224mb of RAM.  It says that with less than 256mb, some services may shut down from time to time, rather than remaining in memory.  But that shouldn''t prevent it from running.  Setting up a swap partition on the SD card, should minimize this.

The original Android spec only required 32mb of RAM.  After all, it was originally meant for smartphones with very limited resources.

[Jim Manley]

According to the official Android 4.0 hardware requirements at http://static.googleuserconten......0-cdd.pdf :

"Device implementations MUST have at least 340MB of memory available to the kernel and userspace.  The 340MB MUST be in addition to any memory dedicated to hardware components such as radio, video, and so on that is not under the kernel's control."

Why do people keep trying to violate the laws of physics in light of such cold, hard facts?  Just because you can boot an environment doesn't mean it's usable.  Anyone who has tried to run ICS on devices more than about 18 months old with more CPU and RAM resources than the Pi has (not to mention a built-in touchscreen, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, etc.) knows how much of a waste of time and effort that is.

[fodi]

Jim Manley said:


According to http://static.googleuserconten.....


yes, these documents are interesting:

for GB it says Device implementations MUST have at least 128MB of memory available to the kernel and userspace. The 128MB MUST be in addition to any memory dedicated to hardware components such as radio, memory, and so on that is not under the kernel's control.
for ICS it is:Device implementations MUST have at least 340MB of memory available to the kernel and userspace. The 340MB MUST be in addition to any memory dedicated to hardware components such as radio, video, and so on that is not under the kernel's control.
unfortunately there are no honeycomb documents available

[RaspiDeveloper]

You want Android,

I got Android.

I found out that I can simply port 2.2 (Froyo) onto the RasPi! I have the files etc.. As soon as I get it onto my Raspberry Pi, I will show you screenshots and I will give you a tutorial on how to do it.

[fodi]

niiice

[hcomplyr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Dream

for all of you doubting the capabilites of the pi with android, this device

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Dream

my current phone BTW has experimental support for ICS and runs gingerbread just fine with it's 192MB of RAM, enabling a swap file should fill the gap nicely

[Aux]

ICS CM9 is running on my Acer Liquid with 256 megs. Far from perfect, but there are a lot of ways to optimize memory usage. For example, switching to 16 bit rendering instead of 32 bits and use software GUI (without HW). That will make ICS run the same as GB - just fine.

So it is possible to put any available version of Android into RasPi.

[abishur]

So has anyone actually done this or is this more of a "the theory is sound" situation?

[teh_orph]

So has anyone actually done this or is this more of a "the theory is sound" situation?

ICS runs fine in qemu with < 256 MB of RAM. I've done that myself! Around the 128 MB mark it starts to croak.

[abishur]

So has anyone actually done this or is this more of a "the theory is sound" situation?

ICS runs fine in qemu with < 256 MB of RAM. I've done that myself! Around the 128 MB mark it starts to croak.

Sorry for belaboring this point, but that a qemu set up to run ICS or qemu set to run the R-pi distro ontop of which has been placed ICS? If it's just qemu running ICS that's nice and fine, but I don't know if that actually proves it will run on the r-pi....

[teh_orph]

So has anyone actually done this or is this more of a "the theory is sound" situation?

ICS runs fine in qemu with < 256 MB of RAM. I've done that myself! Around the 128 MB mark it starts to croak.

Sorry for belaboring this point, but that a qemu set up to run ICS or qemu set to run the R-pi distro ontop of which has been placed ICS? If it's just qemu running ICS that's nice and fine, but I don't know if that actually proves it will run on the r-pi....

That's ICS directly on top of the Linux kernel in qemu. No extra stuff.
In Feb I spent about 3 weeks merging the last-used Android Linux kernel with the then-current rpi patches and brought it up in qemu with the same sort of resources. I then got bored of waiting for my kit and haven't bothered pick it up since! ICS should run fine on a rpi, IMO.
My primary reason for being lazy is that ICS with a mouse/keyb is not a good fit.