Arch Linux

FenDanT

Member

From: Chamoson- Wallis - Switzerland

Registered: 2007-11-13

Posts: 58

HTC Hero (Android) and Archlinux...

Hey all

If nothing special happens, tomorrow i will be proud owner of an HTC Hero, running under Android.

I was just asking myself if someone of you has an experience with mobile phone under Android and Archlinux.

Is it possible to connect the phone under Archlinux ?

Is it possible to make a synchro with apps under Linux ? (seems to be very difficult)

Is it possible to see the content of the phone under Arch ?

If yes what do i have to install to push files from Arch to the MicroSD card for example ?

So many questions at the same time

Just hopping not to be the only one qith such a phone under Arch

drtoki

Member

From: {x ∈ A | p(x) = 1}

Registered: 2009-07-22

Posts: 95

Re: HTC Hero (Android) and Archlinux...

I don't have experience with the Google G1 mainly because I hate GSM technology, but I would assume it's like any other modern phone. Based on the Blackberry and Palm Pre, I would say connecting the G1 would be like connecting any other USB storage device. You don't need anything extra, provided that you already have some way of detecting removable storage. A lot of the syncing would be best through Google, eg. gcal, tasks, android API, etc. You can use Banshee to sync music and I've seen guides on adding ebooks. The only thing I'm not sure of is the phone's database browsing. There are probably guides on that too, I would think.

Last edited by drtoki (2009-07-29 13:26:19)

jun

Member

Registered: 2009-02-27

Posts: 19

Re: HTC Hero (Android) and Archlinux...

After connecting my G1 to my PC I get an alert on my phone asking me if I want to 'mount' the SD card to my PC. Confirming this disables the SD card for the android phone, freeing it up to be mounted by your PC.

I believe there are no apps yet that synchronise directly with what is stored locally on your PC but there are lots of programs that synchronise with your accounts for various web services. Therefore it's possible to have synchronisation going on indirectly via 'the cloud'. For instance, my phone is linked to my Google account so I have Thunderbird sync with Google Mail and Google Calendar directly. Another example would be using the Astrid application to sync your tasks with your Remember the Milk account, and then having something on your computer sync with this account (such as the Remember the Milk plasmoid for KDE 4.3) .

Modifying the onboard memory of your phone requires the Android SDK tools: http://developer.android.com/sdk/. One of the tools (adb) allows you to install software packages you have downloaded to your computer to a USB connected Android phone. This is particularly useful when you are trying to install something that isn't available on the Android Market for one reason or another (e.g. http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/).

Certain programs (such as android-wifi-tether) require root access to be usable. This is done through the installation of an unofficially modified phone firmware. However, such a firmware has yet to be released for the HTC Hero (only the HTC Dream, or G1). You would do well to follow the forums at xda-developers (http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=508) if you are interested in waiting for this feature.

With root access it is even possible to have an unadulterated version of Debian running on your phone by following a very simple guide:
http://www.androidfanatic.com/cms/commu … =9&id=2248.
I'm sure it would be possible to put Arch on the phone but that would be a more involved process than simply downloading the image in the guide linked above.
I tried using Firefox under IceWM but the phone is too underpowered to make using this practical. However, it works great with CLI apps and this alone makes this hack worth doing.

Anyway, I hope this at least somewhat answers your questions. I am sure someone with more experience of using Android will be able to provide you with better information than I.

Last edited by jun (2009-07-29 22:55:40)

print

Member

Registered: 2007-02-27

Posts: 174

Re: HTC Hero (Android) and Archlinux...

@FenDanT

>> If nothing special happens, tomorrow i will be proud owner of an HTC Hero, running under Android. lol
>> I was just asking myself if someone of you has an experience with mobile phone under Android and Archlinux.

Yes, I do.

>> Is it possible to connect the phone under Archlinux ?

Yes.  It's vfat-formatted, so it can be mounted like any other usb storage device.

>> Is it possible to make a synchro with apps under Linux ? (seems to be very difficult)

Haven't tried this.  usb is good enough for me

>> Is it possible to see the content of the phone under Arch ?

See above.

>> If yes what do i have to install to push files from Arch to the MicroSD card for example ?

You should be able to mount it like so:

mount -t vfat /dev/android_device /mnt/g1

Then cding to /mnt/g1 will show you the contents.

Here's my mount line from /etc/fstab:

/dev/sdb1 /mnt/g1 vfat rw,umask=077,gid=1000,uid=1000,noatime,user,defaults 0 0

---

% whereis whatis whence which whoami whois who

wolvieh

Member

From: Austria

Registered: 2008-04-01

Posts: 44

Re: HTC Hero (Android) and Archlinux...

I've got a question too.

- Is it possible to use the HTC Hero as a modem for my Archlinux computer?
It's called tethering and with Ubuntu it seems to work out of the box. The Hero is recognized as a network adapter in networkmanager.

But what about Arch. Is it possible to use wicd instead of networkmanager? Are there any drivers?

slaveriq

Member

From: Copenhagen

Registered: 2008-05-25

Posts: 3

Website

Re: HTC Hero (Android) and Archlinux...

yes it is possible:
on your HTC HERO go to "Settings" --> "Wireless controls" and activate "Mobile network sharing"

on your arch linux box you need to install the "usb-rndis-lite" package from the aur.

or look at this how to http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Win … et_Gateway

and yes it is the same driver as the windows mobile network  sharing.

ps i had problems with the DNS server provided by my ISP so i changed it to be opendns. if you are using NetworkManager you can do that by adding

prepend domain-name-servers 208.67.222.222;
prepend domain-name-servers 208.67.220.220;

to your /etc/dhcpd.conf and restart the networkmanager deamon

ps ofc you can use wicd or you can use the rc.conf

Last edited by slaveriq (2009-09-04 13:10:22)

brendan

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2009-05-16

Posts: 130

Website

Re: HTC Hero (Android) and Archlinux...

its easy, et up an ssh server on the phone and them bam you can just use SCP.