Re: [9fans] Announcing Inferno for Android phones

[Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com>]

One Inferno phone I have from China has two sims and a TV receiver.
And DIY documentation.

brucee

On 17 September 2011 12:40, John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
> We've only had one device with an actual radio in it, so we haven't
> been able to test on anything but the Nexus S, but there's probably a
> total of 100 lines of device-specific code. Mostly, you have to figure
> out:
>
> 1. The screen dimensions and the color depth
> 2. Which devices are for the touchscreen, which are for the buttons
>
> emu/port/main.c and emu/Android/screen.c contain all the
> device-specific code, I think. If there is any justice, the radio
> interface will be the same--we talk to "rild", the radio daemon,
> rather than directly with the hardware.
>
> John
>
> On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 7:35 PM, Devon H. O'Dell <devon.odell@gmail.com> wrote:
>> How difficult is it to get specs and port this to other android devices? I'd
>> love to run this on my motorola droid if I could get all the radios working.
>>
>> --dho (via said droid)
>>
>> On Sep 16, 2011 10:25 PM, "paul.a.lalonde@gmail.com"
>> <paul.a.lalonde@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> For all these plan9ish things on OSX I run a case-sensitive file-system in
>>> a file; just use the Disk Utility to make one and then mount it. I link mine
>>> into my home directory and use it for all case-sensitive apps.
>>> Paul
>>>
>>> Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T
>>>
>>> ----- Reply message -----
>>> From: "John Floren" <john@jfloren.net>
>>> To: "Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs" <9fans@9fans.net>,
>>> <inferno-list@vitanuova.com>
>>> Subject: [9fans] Announcing Inferno for Android phones
>>> Date: Fri, Sep 16, 2011 7:01 pm
>>>
>>>
>>> One caveat that I just came across: If you're trying to set up your
>>> phone from Mac OS X, it's quite possible that the case-insensitive
>>> filesystem will bite you. We have two directories at the same level,
>>> named "android" and "Android". If you do an adb push from OS X,
>>> they'll both end up in a directory called "android". Here's how you
>>> can fix it:
>>>
>>> (run adb shell)
>>> # mkdir /data/inferno/Android
>>> # mv /data/inferno/android/arm /data/inferno/Android/
>>>
>>> There may be other problems lurking, but I'm pretty sure all of the
>>> stuff Inferno needs is all lowercase.
>>>
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>> On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 3:23 PM, John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
>>>> We would like to announce the availability of Inferno for Android
>>>> phones. Because our slogan is "If it ain't broke, break it", we
>>>> decided to replace the Java stack on Android phones with
>>>> Inferno. We've dubbed it the Hellaphone--it was originally Hellphone,
>>>> to keep with the Inferno theme, but then we realized we're in Northern
>>>> California and the change was obvious.
>>>>
>>>> The Hellaphone runs Inferno directly on top of the basic Linux layer
>>>> provided by Android. We do not even allow the Java system to
>>>> start. Instead, emu draws directly to the Linux framebuffer (thanks,
>>>> Andrey, for the initial code!) and treats the touchscreen like a
>>>> one-button mouse. Because the Java environment doesn't start, it only
>>>> takes about 10 seconds to go from power off to a fully-booted Inferno
>>>> environment.
>>>>
>>>> As of today, we have Inferno running on the Nexus S and the Nook
>>>> Color. It should also run on the Android emulator, but we haven't
>>>> tested that in a long time. The cell radio is supported, at least on
>>>> the Nexus S (the only actual phone we've had), so you can make phone
>>>> calls, send texts, and use the data network.
>>>>
>>>> The Inferno window manager has been re-worked with cell phone use in
>>>> mind. Windows are automatically sized to fill the whole screen. The
>>>> menu has been moved to the top and the menu items have been made
>>>> significantly larger. Physical buttons on the phone are now used to do
>>>> many common tasks:
>>>>
>>>>    (these keys are for the Nexus S, different bindings are used for
>>>> the Nook, which has different keys available)
>>>>    * Back: Close the current window
>>>>    * Menu: Toggle the onscreen keyboard
>>>>    * Home: Minimize the current window
>>>>    * Power: Turn off the screen
>>>>    * Power+Volume Up: Open the screen brightness widget
>>>>    * Power+Volume Down: Turn off the phone
>>>>    * Power+Home: Restart Inferno
>>>>
>>>> Installation is reasonably simple. You'll need the Android SDK
>>>> (http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html), with the platform-tools
>>>> package installed for the adb and fastboot utilities. We also strongly
>>>> recommend installing CyanogenMod on your phone before
>>>> proceeding--that's what we use to test.
>>>>
>>>> First, make absolutely sure you have the "adb" and "fastboot"
>>>> commands in your path--see the previous paragraph regarding the
>>>> SDK and try running "adb" to be sure. Download the tarball from
>>>> http://bitbucket.org/floren/inferno/downloads/hellaphone.tgz and
>>>> unpack it in your root. You should end up with a /data/inferno
>>>> directory (we put it there because of the Inferno build
>>>> process). Then, go to the /data/inferno/android directory and run
>>>> the Reflash-Nexus-S.sh script (assuming you have a Nexus S. Run
>>>> Reflash-Nook-Color.sh if you have a Nook). This will
>>>> automatically set up the phone to boot into either Inferno or the
>>>> regular Java environment--during bootup, the screen will go solid
>>>> white; if you touch the screen at this point, it will boot into
>>>> the regular Android environment, otherwise it will timeout and go
>>>> to Inferno. However, at this point you're not yet ready to boot
>>>> into Inferno, so reboot the phone and touch the screen to go into
>>>> the regular Android UI. The final task is to run the command "cd
>>>> /data/inferno; ./parallel-push.sh". Reboot, let it boot into
>>>> Inferno, and you're ready to go.
>>>>
>>>> You can also clone the repository
>>>> (http://bitbucket.org/floren/inferno/) and build it yourself, but this
>>>> is a significant effort. I do not recommend it if you wish to simply
>>>> try the system, but if you want to do development you should get the
>>>> repository.
>>>>
>>>> Disclaimer: If you break your phone, it's not our fault. Don't email
>>>> us, don't come knocking on our door, and don't call us--oh wait, you
>>>> won't be able to do that anyway, your phone is broken!
>>>>
>>>> Credit where credit is due: Ron Minnich came up with the initial
>>>> idea--we've been kicking the idea of a Plan 9/Inferno phone around for
>>>> years. Our summer interns, Joel Armstrong and Joshua Landgraf, did the
>>>> lion's share of the work of making Inferno into a usable cell phone
>>>> OS--no small feat, considering that neither had any Limbo or Inferno
>>>> experience before the start of the summer! They re-wrote the UI,
>>>> puzzled out the undocumented cell radio interface, figured out audio,
>>>> worked to make Inferno more portable across phones, and generally
>>>> figured out how to make Inferno and the Android kernel coexist
>>>> peacefully. Andy Jones, another intern, also did some very early work
>>>> with Android that helped us figure out the Android init process and
>>>> how to build for Android. I took care of getting Inferno running on
>>>> the phone in the first place and have been adding things occasionally
>>>> since then. We would also like to thank Andrey Mirtchovski for
>>>> providing the OLPC framebuffer code (which ported to the Android
>>>> phones relatively easily), and of course Charles Forsyth for keeping
>>>> the Inferno torch lit all these years (and helping me figure out some
>>>> puzzling problems throughout the summer)!
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
>



-- 
Don't meddle in the mouth -- MVS (0416935147, +1-513-3BRUCEE)