Re: [gentoo-embedded] Android phones

[Christopher Friedt <chrisfriedt@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 8:34 PM, wireless <wireless@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> Can the gentoo embedded, openmoko, or any other
> embedded linux stack run on the (verizon) Android
> (verizon droid) phone?

yes.

my suggestions would be to

1) cross-compile busybox statically for armv5tel
2) push the busybox binary (and symlinks) to the device using adb
3) download a gentoo stage3 filesystem for armv5tel
4) extract the filesystem to a suitable memory card
5) log in to the device using 'adb shell'
6) execute '/bin/ash' (the busybox shell)
7) mount proc sys dev -o bind to your memory card, where the gentoo
root is installed
8) chroot to the gentoo root filesystem

If you do that, you'll have android and gentoo 'running' on the device
at the same time. I'm not sure how easy it is to do all of that on a
Motorola Droid, and you might need to make some software modifications
to start the adb (android debug bridge) service on the device.

You can of course do the same with an OpenMoko filesystem image
instead of a Gentoo filesystem image. Unfortunately, you won't be able
to use the framebuffer while Android is using it (AFAIK).

> Isn't the Android(2.0) phone just somebody's Linux
> stack? If so, is it an open/hackable embedded
> linux stack for an Arm?

I would suggest that you ask Motorola to release the source code for
their Droid Linux kernel. Aside from that, all of the available source
and documentation for Android is at http://source.android.com . Note
that most of the 'good' Android apps are not open source - they (e.g.
Google, Motorola, HTC) can get away with that because the userland is
made available under an Apache-2.0 license.

If you really want to experiment, then try to modify the Droid boot
loader so it will boot into your Gentoo root on /dev/mmcblk0p1 or
something instead of /dev/mdtblockX (where Android resides). You'll
probably want to check out mtd-utils to do that. Warning: You'll most
likely void your warranty by doing so, and you might end up with a
bricked device.

IMHO - the best (current) device you can use for a hackable handheld
is the Nokia N900 - I wish I had one myself.

Good luck!