Android

Android is an operating system based on the Linux kernel, and designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers.

Android 4.3.1 (Jelly Bean) for XO-4

OLPC is preparing an Android, Sugar and Gnome dual-boot system for the XO-4.

An early development release of an Android-only build is available. It is yet to be optimised for performance. In particular, the graphics are very slow.

The build is based on our arm-3.5 kernel, with changes which can be found in the arm-3.5-android branch of our olpc-kernel repository.

Installing

• make a backup of anything you want to keep on the XO-4, because it will be erased by this test,
• ensure the firmware is upgraded to Q7B37,
• determine the size of your eMMC internal storage; it will be either 4GB or 8GB, and is shown by the firmware just before the ok prompt,
• download the corresponding .zd file, from the build directory,
• at the ok prompt, type this:

fs-update u:\a4g.zd

• when the installation completes, type this:

boot

Known problems

• very slow screen response due to graphics driver needing work, to the point of being impractical,
• the power button may not be operational, or may not operate in the fashion that Android devices normally provide,
• Bluetooth is not operational,
• USB may not be operational,
• the touchpad is not implemented,
• the ambient light sensor is not implemented,
• the e-book switch is not implemented,
• the microphone jack may not be operational,
• the headphone hack may not be operational,
• does not coexist with Sugar and Gnome,
• does not automatically upgrade firmware to latest,
• does not coexist with deployment security.

Do not rely on this build for any critical data.

See Also

• Announcement on devel@ mailing list,
• Android (operating system) on Wikipedia,
• How to build Android for the XO-4,
• Kernel patches for the XO-4 to enable Android.