Re: [9fans] Announcing Inferno for Android phones

[John Floren <john@jfloren.net>]

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)!
>>>
>>
>