Android on Freerunner

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Contents

Android.png

Introduction

This page is dedicated to the installation of Android (an Open Handset Alliance Project) on the Neo 1973 and Neo FreeRunner handsets.

Freerunner-android-01.png

You can find other information, such as porting, development and day to day usage here : Android

Configuring the Bootloader

The Android kernel image can be more than 2MB in size. The UBoot environment that comes with your FreeRunner is only able to boot a kernel less than 2MB in size. To use a kernel larger than 2MB you need to:

  • Change to the Qi Bootloader. It supports 2MB kernels out of the box.
  • adjust your Uboot environment to support a Kernel of more then 2 MB [[1]]

Installing Android on the Internal Flash

Preparing the SD Card

The SD Card in your FreeRunner needs to be configured with two 2 primary partitions before Android will boot. First a VFAT/MSDOS (16 or 32) which acts as the '/sdcard' storage area (for pictures, movies, music, etc). Second an ext3 primary partition which Android uses as '/data' with in which it stores settings, caches, etc.

On Linux

Insert the Mico SD Card from your FreeRunner into your Linux desktop then bring up a Terminal and type

   $ dmesg | grep sd

You will get an output like this, in this instance we can see that the SD Card has been assigned the device name 'sde'

   ...
   sd 9:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk
   ...
   

Now, as root, use 'fdisk' to partition the device.

  # fdisk /dev/sde 

Pressing 'p' will show you the current partitions on the SD Card 'd' will delete them and 'n' will create a new one. Create a primary partition for your media. Then another primary partition for Android to store it's data on.

On a 1Gig card I used 768MB for the first partition ('+768MB' in fdisk) and the remainder for Android data. Here is fdisk's partition output:

      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
   /dev/sde1               1         769      750513+  83  Linux
   /dev/sde2             770        1016      241072   83  Linux

Now all that's left to do is format the partitions with the appropriate filesystem But first hit 'w' in fdisk to write the changes to the SD Card.

Then format like this:

   # mkfs.vfat -v -n and-media /dev/sde1
   # mkfs.ext3 -v -L and-data /dev/sde2

That's it, you can now remove the SD card from your desktop. If you re-insert it you will have two new usb disk devices.

NOTE: After Android has booted you will only be able to access the 'data' disk as root.

There is no need to populate the ext3 partition at all. The VFAT partition can be populated with media content (ring tones etc.) if you so desire.

NOTE: It can be worth reformatting the data partition when you upgrade the Android OS on your phone. Old settings can result in problems, wifi for example. But remember that formatting the Data partition will result in your preferences, text messages and contacts etc. being erased.


On FreeRunner (2008.x)

The SD card can be formatted from within an existing 2008.x installation on your FreeRunner. SSH as root into the FreeRunner and use 'fdisk' to partition the device.

  # fdisk /dev/mmcblk0

After this create the partitions as described in the step above.

To format the new vfat partition you will need dosfstools which can be downloaded from

   dosfstools_2.11-r0_armv4t.ipk

Use any SCP client to copy this file to your FreeRunner and install using

   opkg install dosfstools_2.11-r0_armv4t.ipk

Once the installation is complete format the partitions:

   # mkfs.vfat -v -n and-media /dev/mmcblk0p1
   # mkfs.ext3 -v -L and-data /dev/mmcblk0p2

NOTE: In case you are unable to format the partitions because they are already mounted for some reason you can get a list of process IDs that are using it by running:

   # fuser -m /media/card

Then kill all the processes that were using the card and try formatting again.

On other OS's

There are no open source or free partition editors on Windows or Mac that can manage an ext3 partition. If you do not have Linux installed you can use the GParted bootable CD. This CD will boot into a graphical environment with which you can partition your SD Card. You may have to boot with the SD Card inserted for GParted to recognize it as a drive.

Downloading Android Images

Grab yourself the latest Android images. There are two parts you need to flash, the kernel (uImage*.bin) and the root fs (android*.jffs2). Koolu are releasing images regularly at the moment and you can get them here:

   Release files (Android FreeRunner)

Koolu are not the only people working on porting Android to the FreeRunner and although collaboration is coming, there are other places to get images:

Michael Trimarchi's images with latest fixes Sean McNeil images

I have placed an older 2.6.26 kernel with Android support at:

   uImage-android

I have put up a jffs2 image that replaces rootfs on the Freerunner at:

  androidfs.jffs2

Flashing the FreeRunner

On Lnuix

To flash your FreeRunner, replace what ever phone stack you have on there at the moment with Android, first download dfu-util, this is the program that will flash your phone.

Once you have that installed (whether by simply downloading the binary or installing an rpm)

Now open up a terminal and cd to where you downloaded the images too eg.

   # cd /home/joe/Downloads

Plug your FreeRunner into a USB port and boot it into the nand boot loader; Hold down the aux button and then the power button until nand appears.

NOTE: The FreeRunner will only stay in in the nand bootloader state for about 30 seconds with no activity.

Now Flash the kernel image (you will need to be root) with this command:

   # ./dfu-util -a kernel -R -D uImage-moredrivers-GTA02.bin

and finally the root fs with this one:

   # ./dfu-util -a rootfs -R -D androidfs-koolu-beta3.jffs2
NOTE: './dfu-util' assumes you downloaded the binary to the same place as your images - remember to make the dfu-util binary executable!


Installing Android on an SD card

Images

There are currently a few prebuild images: Radek Polak's SD card images (install on ext3, first partition on SD must be FAT16)

Using jffs2 images

You can also boot from the SD Card using the pre built images like so :-

  • Mount the image using this script like so
  sudo ./Mntjffs.sh freerunner-v5.jffs2 image/
  • Then copy (cp -R) the files in directory image/ to any of the first three partitions on the SD Card (if using Qi) eg cp -R /your-path/image/* /media/android/
  • cd /media/android.
  • wget http://activationrecord.net/radekp/openmoko/android/init.rc .
  • mkdir boot
  • copy the kernel here and name it uImage-GTA02.bin


Some notes about booting android from sdcard :

Setup

  • Build android from source. See koolu website for directions.
  • Use the first script in this mail (adapt to your filesystem) to stage your android install.
  • copy the contents of this directory on a ext3 partition on your sdcard.
  • add a /boot directory on your sdcard.
  • copy the uImage-android kernel (see above) and copy it inside your /boot with the exact name uImage-GTA02.bin
  • I changed the init.rc (in your root on the sd) to remove mounts that could be problematic (/data for example) :
--- filesystem/root/init.rc	2008-12-15 17:51:14.000000000 +0100
+++ phyce.init.rc	2008-12-19 15:56:25.000000000 +0100
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
     mkdir /sqlite_stmt_journals 01777 root root
     mount tmpfs tmpfs /sqlite_stmt_journals size=4m
 
-    mount rootfs rootfs / ro remount
+    mount rootfs rootfs / rw remount
 
     write /proc/sys/kernel/panic_on_oops 1
     write /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs 0
@@ -38,14 +38,14 @@
 #    mount yaffs2 mtd@system /system ro remount
 
     # We chown/chmod /data again so because mount is run as root + defaults
-    mount ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /data nosuid nodev
-    chown system system /data
-    chmod 0771 /data
+#    mount ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /data nosuid nodev
+#    chown system system /data
+#    chmod 0771 /data
 
     # Same reason as /data above
-    mount yaffs2 mtd@cache /cache nosuid nodev
-    chown system cache /cache
-    chmod 0770 /cache
+#    mount yaffs2 mtd@cache /cache nosuid nodev
+#    chown system cache /cache
+#    chmod 0770 /cache
  • Install Qi on you NAND flash. You can still boot whatever distro you've got on internal flash using the NOR bootloader. You should try the magic file in /boot to show kernel messages.
  • boot the GTA02, and pray.

Status

Most of the hardware on Freerunner seems to work on latest Android images, but not always perfectly.

If you want to see details of what is already usable, please have a look at: Android_usage


Android Debug Bridge

To assist in debugging and to gain shell access to the phone with Android, you can use the instructions found here: Android debug bridge

See also

Personal tools


Contents

Android.png

Introduction

This page is dedicated to the installation of Android (an Open Handset Alliance Project) on the Neo 1973 and Neo FreeRunner handsets.

Freerunner-android-01.png

You can find other information, such as porting, development and day to day usage here : Android

Configuring the Bootloader

The Android kernel image can be more than 2MB in size. The UBoot environment that comes with your FreeRunner is only able to boot a kernel less than 2MB in size. To use a kernel larger than 2MB you need to:

  • Change to the Qi Bootloader. It supports 2MB kernels out of the box.
  • adjust your Uboot environment to support a Kernel of more then 2 MB [[1]]

Installing Android on the Internal Flash

Preparing the SD Card

The SD Card in your FreeRunner needs to be configured with two 2 primary partitions before Android will boot. First a VFAT/MSDOS (16 or 32) which acts as the '/sdcard' storage area (for pictures, movies, music, etc). Second an ext3 primary partition which Android uses as '/data' with in which it stores settings, caches, etc.

On Linux

Insert the Mico SD Card from your FreeRunner into your Linux desktop then bring up a Terminal and type

   $ dmesg | grep sd

You will get an output like this, in this instance we can see that the SD Card has been assigned the device name 'sde'

   ...
   sd 9:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk
   ...
   

Now, as root, use 'fdisk' to partition the device.

  # fdisk /dev/sde 

Pressing 'p' will show you the current partitions on the SD Card 'd' will delete them and 'n' will create a new one. Create a primary partition for your media. Then another primary partition for Android to store it's data on.

On a 1Gig card I used 768MB for the first partition ('+768MB' in fdisk) and the remainder for Android data. Here is fdisk's partition output:

      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
   /dev/sde1               1         769      750513+  83  Linux
   /dev/sde2             770        1016      241072   83  Linux

Now all that's left to do is format the partitions with the appropriate filesystem But first hit 'w' in fdisk to write the changes to the SD Card.

Then format like this:

   # mkfs.vfat -v -n and-media /dev/sde1
   # mkfs.ext3 -v -L and-data /dev/sde2

That's it, you can now remove the SD card from your desktop. If you re-insert it you will have two new usb disk devices.

NOTE: After Android has booted you will only be able to access the 'data' disk as root.

There is no need to populate the ext3 partition at all. The VFAT partition can be populated with media content (ring tones etc.) if you so desire.

NOTE: It can be worth reformatting the data partition when you upgrade the Android OS on your phone. Old settings can result in problems, wifi for example. But remember that formatting the Data partition will result in your preferences, text messages and contacts etc. being erased.


On FreeRunner (2008.x)

The SD card can be formatted from within an existing 2008.x installation on your FreeRunner. SSH as root into the FreeRunner and use 'fdisk' to partition the device.

  # fdisk /dev/mmcblk0

After this create the partitions as described in the step above.

To format the new vfat partition you will need dosfstools which can be downloaded from

   dosfstools_2.11-r0_armv4t.ipk

Use any SCP client to copy this file to your FreeRunner and install using

   opkg install dosfstools_2.11-r0_armv4t.ipk

Once the installation is complete format the partitions:

   # mkfs.vfat -v -n and-media /dev/mmcblk0p1
   # mkfs.ext3 -v -L and-data /dev/mmcblk0p2

NOTE: In case you are unable to format the partitions because they are already mounted for some reason you can get a list of process IDs that are using it by running:

   # fuser -m /media/card

Then kill all the processes that were using the card and try formatting again.

On other OS's

There are no open source or free partition editors on Windows or Mac that can manage an ext3 partition. If you do not have Linux installed you can use the GParted bootable CD. This CD will boot into a graphical environment with which you can partition your SD Card. You may have to boot with the SD Card inserted for GParted to recognize it as a drive.

Downloading Android Images

Grab yourself the latest Android images. There are two parts you need to flash, the kernel (uImage*.bin) and the root fs (android*.jffs2). Koolu are releasing images regularly at the moment and you can get them here:

   Release files (Android FreeRunner)

Koolu are not the only people working on porting Android to the FreeRunner and although collaboration is coming, there are other places to get images:

Michael Trimarchi's images with latest fixes Sean McNeil images

I have placed an older 2.6.26 kernel with Android support at:

   uImage-android

I have put up a jffs2 image that replaces rootfs on the Freerunner at:

  androidfs.jffs2

Flashing the FreeRunner

On Lnuix

To flash your FreeRunner, replace what ever phone stack you have on there at the moment with Android, first download dfu-util, this is the program that will flash your phone.

Once you have that installed (whether by simply downloading the binary or installing an rpm)

Now open up a terminal and cd to where you downloaded the images too eg.

   # cd /home/joe/Downloads

Plug your FreeRunner into a USB port and boot it into the nand boot loader; Hold down the aux button and then the power button until nand appears.

NOTE: The FreeRunner will only stay in in the nand bootloader state for about 30 seconds with no activity.

Now Flash the kernel image (you will need to be root) with this command:

   # ./dfu-util -a kernel -R -D uImage-moredrivers-GTA02.bin

and finally the root fs with this one:

   # ./dfu-util -a rootfs -R -D androidfs-koolu-beta3.jffs2
NOTE: './dfu-util' assumes you downloaded the binary to the same place as your images - remember to make the dfu-util binary executable!


Installing Android on an SD card

Images

There are currently a few prebuild images: Radek Polak's SD card images (install on ext3, first partition on SD must be FAT16)

Using jffs2 images

You can also boot from the SD Card using the pre built images like so :-

  • Mount the image using this script like so
  sudo ./Mntjffs.sh freerunner-v5.jffs2 image/
  • Then copy (cp -R) the files in directory image/ to any of the first three partitions on the SD Card (if using Qi) eg cp -R /your-path/image/* /media/android/
  • cd /media/android.
  • wget http://activationrecord.net/radekp/openmoko/android/init.rc .
  • mkdir boot
  • copy the kernel here and name it uImage-GTA02.bin


Some notes about booting android from sdcard :

Setup

  • Build android from source. See koolu website for directions.
  • Use the first script in this mail (adapt to your filesystem) to stage your android install.
  • copy the contents of this directory on a ext3 partition on your sdcard.
  • add a /boot directory on your sdcard.
  • copy the uImage-android kernel (see above) and copy it inside your /boot with the exact name uImage-GTA02.bin
  • I changed the init.rc (in your root on the sd) to remove mounts that could be problematic (/data for example) :
--- filesystem/root/init.rc	2008-12-15 17:51:14.000000000 +0100
+++ phyce.init.rc	2008-12-19 15:56:25.000000000 +0100
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
     mkdir /sqlite_stmt_journals 01777 root root
     mount tmpfs tmpfs /sqlite_stmt_journals size=4m
 
-    mount rootfs rootfs / ro remount
+    mount rootfs rootfs / rw remount
 
     write /proc/sys/kernel/panic_on_oops 1
     write /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs 0
@@ -38,14 +38,14 @@
 #    mount yaffs2 mtd@system /system ro remount
 
     # We chown/chmod /data again so because mount is run as root + defaults
-    mount ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /data nosuid nodev
-    chown system system /data
-    chmod 0771 /data
+#    mount ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /data nosuid nodev
+#    chown system system /data
+#    chmod 0771 /data
 
     # Same reason as /data above
-    mount yaffs2 mtd@cache /cache nosuid nodev
-    chown system cache /cache
-    chmod 0770 /cache
+#    mount yaffs2 mtd@cache /cache nosuid nodev
+#    chown system cache /cache
+#    chmod 0770 /cache
  • Install Qi on you NAND flash. You can still boot whatever distro you've got on internal flash using the NOR bootloader. You should try the magic file in /boot to show kernel messages.
  • boot the GTA02, and pray.

Status

Most of the hardware on Freerunner seems to work on latest Android images, but not always perfectly.

If you want to see details of what is already usable, please have a look at: Android_usage


Android Debug Bridge

To assist in debugging and to gain shell access to the phone with Android, you can use the instructions found here: Android debug bridge

See also