Re: [9fans] Announcing Inferno for Android phones

[andrey mirtchovski <mirtchovski@gmail.com>]

this is cool!

On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 4:23 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)!
>
>