Arch Linux

tricksterr

Member

Registered: 2011-04-01

Posts: 18

Android and MeeGo

Hello,

Is there any project which would bring meego to android? Dont get me wrong I dont mean the dalvik, what I have read so far my understanding
is that maemo (nokia) made thier kernel modifications and added all their drivers for N900, and on that they put glibc
and qt and all other normal linux libraries and tools as well as their call/sms-applications.
Android is an android kernel, a strange libc and a dalvik jvm.

Would it be possible, if my phone is an android phone, to boot it with an android kernel, but use another init (the standard one)
and have a normal linux distribution, such as arch, or meego libraries and tools?

I understand I would maybe not get Xorg to work, but I would be happy with glibc+bash and other base tools.

Then the next question is, what would stop one from running all the meego applications? Would it be possible to call and sms with
the meego applications?

Thanks for your answers.

MurdersLastCrow

Member

Registered: 2010-10-04

Posts: 74

Re: Android and MeeGo

'Unauthorized' builds of Android work just fine with the hardware on these machines. The real issue is getting the correct drivers for those devices, but as Android is working to come back to the main Linux tree, I don't see why the drivers for your sim card and other peripherals would be incompatible with any other kernel. It's still Linux.

Aside from that, the main issue preventing us from running a normal Linux distro on these phones already is that they don't have Xorg/mesa/gallium/etc-supported drivers. So long as we have drivers compatible with the traditional set up, we can put Linux on our phones right now. That's why people who run Debian on their smartphones are actually forced to create a chroot environment and send the desktop through VNC, since VNC is one protocol Android can display through various applications.

There's not much incompatibility preventing you from installing all sorts of normal Linux applications on Android- the only issue is that they don't have backends to display Qt and GTK in Android. In fact, they're working on it, and they're getting pretty close to getting all this working. Then, the only real issue will be getting a package management system to work in tandem with Android, or to run all those applications chrooted. Then there's the matter of scaling applications to tiny screens, which MeeGo has done well.

So yes, you can run CLI applications so long as you have root access on your phone. You can either install them directly on Android, which isn't always easy, or do a virtual chroot setup of Debian/Arch/whatever. You could probably do LFS in a chroot if you're careful, although I don't advise it.

Dated Debian chroot on Android tutorial. It's bound to get easier in the coming years, provided Android keeps growing as it is (Alien Dalvik might make traditional Linux phones a bit more realistic by then).