SurfacePro

1,198 views
Skip to first unread message

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Nov 5, 2013, 7:07:21 PM11/5/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Tested android 4.3 image on my surfacepro
Installed using grub efi to a fat32 boot partition and android on an ext3 12gig partition

working:

Touch e pen with pressure sensitivity (wow)
Typecover (microsoft detachable keyboard)
Battery indicator 
3D Accelleration (i`ve tested dead trigger2 fifa14 maxpayne)
Usb ralink2870 Wifi
Sleep (random problems on wake)
Audio (had to make an smanager script to gain the main channel audio)
Usb

Not working:

Integrated WiFi Bluetooth combo card
Sensors (no proximity or accelerometer feedback to apps)
Camera (app see the cameras and they are switchable but no image)

It`s really a great distribution!! 
I`m not a developer but i`m into hackintosh and installing android on this win8 tablet reminded me that
Sadly i`m not a developer so i cannot help a lot but if anyone need a more detailed installation guide just ask :)

Is there something i can do to fix internal wifi or others errors i`ll be happy to test 

I`d like to thanks everyone involved in the project, keep on guys, you are doing a great job!!!

Masaki Muranaka

unread,
Nov 7, 2013, 3:17:46 AM11/7/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Hello,
Sounds interesting.

Probably sensors support is not difficult.
Ubuntu guys have already fixed Wi-Fi driver issue.
Dual cameras support is not also hard.
I can fix them ... if I had SurfacePro. ;-)

Just I can add Marvell 88W8797 (SurfacePro) wifi fixes without targets.
I'll do it later.

Thanks,

2013/11/6 Claude Dreamer <clagua...@gmail.com>:
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Android-x86" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to android-x86...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to andro...@googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-x86.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.



--
--
Masaki Muranaka
Monami-ya LLC, Japan.

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Nov 7, 2013, 11:29:52 AM11/7/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com

Hi, thanks for the quick answer.


i hope you can get a surface soon, it’s a great machine, i’m running only osx 10.9 with very minor issues and android

and that’s a great combination, this is my guide on getting 10.9 running on it.


btw the biggest issue right now in android is the wifi, so if it’s fixable we are on the right way!

i’m waiting for your help, i could then make guide for newbies like me :)


Thanks again.

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Nov 13, 2013, 12:48:49 PM11/13/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Hi there,
i've updated the guide for installing osx on the surface, now it have android installation steps too. :)
btw is there any news about wifi support?

Masaki Muranaka

unread,
Nov 14, 2013, 11:17:08 PM11/14/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Hi Claude,

I checked Marvell Wi-Fi support on Android-x86. And possibly it is detected
by Linux kernel (and maybe not detected by your Android system).
Could you show the result of netcfg?

How-tp:
1. Execute Terminal app on your Android-x86 system.
2. type "netcfg" on the shell in Teminal and type return.
3. You'll get results like this.
```
# netcfg
netcfg
gre0 DOWN 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 0x00000080
tunl0 DOWN 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 0x00000080
eth0 UP 10.0.2.15 255.255.255.0 0x00001043
lo UP 127.0.0.1 255.0.0.0 0x00000049
```
4. Please show us results like above.

Thanks,


2013/11/14 Claude Dreamer <clagua...@gmail.com>:

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Nov 15, 2013, 7:54:04 PM11/15/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
hi,
this is the output from terminal with my usb wireless connected, can the integrated wifi be mlan0?
thanks a lot

u0_a0@x86:/ $ netcfg
ip6tnl0  DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00000080 00:00:00:00:00:00
mlan0    DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00001002 28:18:78:32:bd:6b
wlan0    UP                                     0.0.0.0/0   0x00001003 e8:4e:06:0c:59:66
lo       UP                                   127.0.0.1/8   0x00000049 00:00:00:00:00:00
p2p0     DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00001002 28:18:78:32:bd:6b
uap0     DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00001002 28:18:78:32:bd:6b
sit0     DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00000080 00:00:00:00:00:00
u0_a0@x86:/ $

Masaki Muranaka

unread,
Nov 15, 2013, 9:28:43 PM11/15/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Hi Claude,
Thank you for your information.
As you see, mlan0 will be Marvel's. And (at least recent versions of)
Android-x86 requires wlan0 as Wi-Fi device name.
It can be fixed by some kernel patches. I'll try to make it within a week.

2013/11/16 Claude Dreamer <clagua...@gmail.com>:

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Nov 16, 2013, 8:55:07 AM11/16/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Hi Masaki,
thanks for your help. :)
Message has been deleted

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Nov 24, 2013, 11:37:29 AM11/24/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Hi, 
i know that you busy,
but is there any news?
thanks :D

Masaki Muranaka

unread,
Nov 26, 2013, 10:00:23 PM11/26/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Hi Claude and hackers,
Sorry for late reply. I broke my Conservadroid repositories and
concentrated to recover them.

At the first I planed patching to the kernel.
But now I think it's better to use ifrename command bundled in wireless tools.
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Tools.html
http://linux.die.net/man/8/ifrename

I built it for Android-x86 and uploaded to
https://bitbucket.org/monami_ya/conservadroid-x86/downloads/wireless-tools-bin.tgz
Please try it and report your result when you have time.

Thanks,

2013/11/25 Claude Dreamer <clagua...@gmail.com>:

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Nov 27, 2013, 9:15:26 AM11/27/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Hi there,
i'm sorry for this newbie question, but how can i install this file
thanks

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Nov 27, 2013, 10:02:48 AM11/27/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Actually i`ve placed uncompressed files on data/local/tmp and changed permissions but
iwconfig run
iwlist run
ifrename gives a error /etc/iftab/ not found
:|

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Nov 27, 2013, 11:03:52 AM11/27/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
ok, i was able to rename the interface to wlan0
using

./ifrename -n wlan0 -i mlan

iwlist

is able to scan 

but the wifi gui still don't work.

sorry for posting multiple times, but i'm a newbie and i'm learning step by step.

Masaki Muranaka

unread,
Nov 27, 2013, 9:16:33 PM11/27/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Hi Claude and hackers,

Thank you for your report. You did it correctly. (At least same as I expected.)
It seems we must have something additional works.

Could somebody tell me about USB Wi-Fi dongles that uses Marvel chipsets?
I can't get SurfacePro immediately. Because Santa won't come to me. ;-)
But I guess I can purchase the USB dongle in my budget.


2013/11/28 Claude Dreamer <clagua...@gmail.com>:

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Nov 28, 2013, 11:11:41 AM11/28/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Hi Masaki,

i'm really thankful to you for your work on this,
it seem's that there isn't any usb dongle that's using that combo bt wifi chipset, here a link to the marvel site,
but i can be wrong...
Then i can suggest you to open a fund on gofundme, to get a surface pro to work on it and fixing everything
actually there is a fund that's promising providing a guide to install osx 10.9 on the surface pro 2 here(thing that i can't understand, since there is already a working guide, i've posted on a older post).
Btw i think that a fund for androidx86 on surface pro
(something like full kitkat support and all his whistles)
would be fulfilled in a month. 
And it'll look more regular than the osx one.

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Nov 29, 2013, 9:53:16 PM11/29/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Hi Masaki, 

sorry for bothering,
i'd just like to know if wife could be fixed without an usb device for testing,
just to know if i have to wait a little or if i can lose hopes, wifi is the only big thing missing for such a powerful androidx86 solid tablet.

thanks again

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Nov 30, 2013, 4:28:53 PM11/30/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Hi Masaki and others interested,
i've found this chinese page they have a working image of android with wifi, rotation and camera working!
can we take the drivers to use them with 4.3 or the future release of 4.4 x86?
Thanks again!

Masaki Muranaka

unread,
Dec 1, 2013, 12:20:35 AM12/1/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Hi Claude,
Thanks for your information. It's interesting.
I have a snapshot of Android-IA code repo.
I'll take a diff between them later.

2013/12/1 Claude Dreamer <clagua...@gmail.com>:

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Dec 1, 2013, 11:43:00 AM12/1/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
there is a user with a pending request to access the discussion group that wrote me this email:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My membership is pending so I can't post on the thread, I would appreciate if you can post this. 

1- I have patched the wifi driver (mwifiex.ko) so that it only reports wlan0 and not mlan0,uap0 and p2p0. Getprop reveals the wlan.interface correctly as wlan0 now. (Before it was uap) 
2- wpa_supplicant doesn't seem to start, the chinese ROM has the init.svc.wpa_supplicant property as stopped or running but in our case this service doesn't exist. 
3- I analyzed the chinese rom and the init.rc starts the wpa_supplicant with:
service wpa_supplicant /system/bin/wpa_supplicant -Dnl80211 -imlan0 -c/data/misc/wıfı/wpa_supplicant.conf
  class main
  group wifi
  disabled
  oneshot

4- I change init.x86.rc and repack the ramdisk.img but the service (wpa_supplicant) doesnt start. I tried both the original driver with mlan0 and patched driver with wlan0.

If we can get wpa_supplicant service up, I think we solve this. 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i thought that this informations was good, hope this helps and that the user get approved soon.

thanks

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Dec 1, 2013, 8:41:53 PM12/1/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
I'm sorry for asking help here,
but i had reformatted my surface pro and now i've osx
i used to burn a ubuntu image to a 1 gb partition (to use grub efi) and run android installed on another ext3 partition,
but now when i try to run the bootloarder it gives me this error:

Unsupported image type
Failed to read header
Failed to load grub

can you help me? thanks

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Dec 2, 2013, 10:02:09 AM12/2/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
i've fixed my boot issue,

any news about wifi?

Claude Dreamer

unread,
Dec 15, 2013, 8:30:01 AM12/15/13
to andro...@googlegroups.com
Hi there, 

i cannot help, so i'm sorry to ask again,
but since the android ia support the device (accell, wifi, sleep)
is there the possibility to "copy and paste" drivers across android ia to android x86?

thanks for every effort.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages