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 jack 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,
- How to build an Android kernel for the XO-4,
- Kernel patches for the XO-4 to enable Android.
- Sugarizer for online use,
- org.olpc-france.sugarizer.apk Sugarizer for offline use.