Android release on HTC Apache *CDMA Works!*

tekkdrone · #1 (**permalink**) 11-07-2008, 11:04 PM

First, Thank You Colonel, Helmi, and all of the kitchen contributors, your efforts and ROM releases have easily made this the best phone I've ever owned.

I dunno what happened to the Android poll thread and its' creator, but I was motivated by that thread, and after many hours of research, patching, porting, compiling, packaging, and several pots of coffee... Android m5 (slightly older than the version in SDK 1.0) boots and is navigable. This is my first step towards getting the release version up and running on the Apache, though to what degree I am uncertain.

I'll post some video later tonight/this weekend. All major updates will be edits to the original post.

p.s. woot.

For those of you having trouble try these tips from other users:
- Make sure you are NOT extracting the archives
- Make sure the rootfs file ends in tar.bz2, some folks have had issues with extensions getting cut off
- Make sure the phone radio is on, bt and wifi off.
- Run HaRET as soon as you can after a fresh soft reset
- Wait at least 5 minutes for it to pass jumping to kernel if you think it's hanging, it shouldn't take this long but some users have noted longer waits depending on what's running and installed on the Windows Mobile side at the time of execution.

6th Update: CDMA Steps into the ring ppcgeeks.com loads for the test. Connection is unstable as hell (unusable) at the moment. Pics in thread. http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=43753&page=9

5th Update: Proof of concept build released to the masses for fiddling around.

4th Update: Touchscreen is now up and fully functional.

3rd Update: Android release compiled from source boots via native init on HTC Apache!

Most of the information below is outdated since I've moved from M5 to full release Android, I'll leave the info up here for now though for reference.

The quick and dirty:
- NO FLASHING REQUIRED. It boots from an SD card
- Underlying kernel based on a modified version of Handhelds.org's 2.6.21 kernel source for htcapache
- Android system is from the m5 SDK distribution
- Uses Kevin O'Connor's HaRET for chainloading the kernel from CE
- Uses backported binder, log, power, etc drivers from m5 distro (I'll have to look at the patch, can't remember who ported them)
- Eats batteries like I'm running Prime 95... (See item 1 of "What doesn't work")

What doesn't work (not much testing done yet):
Power Management (kernel)
Cell/Radio/Data (kernel)
Touchscreen is flaky (kernel)
Sound? (unknown)
Several unmapped or incorrectly mapped soft keys (mainly android) (FIXED)
Framebuffer issues -> should have a fix (kernel/pxafb driver) (FIXED)

What works:
Basic navigation with the action button
Cursor Keys
Power Button
Touchscreen (Flaky, intermittent)
RTC
Softkeys
DoubleBuffering on the framebuffer

Current Goals:
- Port apache-specific kernel code to 2.6.25 (In-Progress, 2.6.25 kernel now boots and we are able to mount the img on the SD card.)
- Get beta .9 running (Skipping in favor of custom compiled Android Release)
- Get 1.0 release code running (Step 1: The kernel is well underway.)
- ... and more

/etc:
This was the first step, and it's giving me a chance to work out the kernel and HW issues on an older setup. I'll probably need some help at some point in time, if anyone has any kernel hacking or device driver experience that'd be the most helpful, anyway, more info as I have it to share.

Credits:
This work was only possible due to:
Kevin O'Connor and the rest of the handhelds.org kernel maintainers
Benno Leslie and Benno's blog
alextreme.org (android on nokia n8xx information)
elinux.org (android on omap information)
androidzaurus (from Japan? whose work on the pxa based Zaurus led to the framebuffer patch for 2.6.23 I just ported over to .21)