Android interface for Ubuntu (or any other Linux version)

[Dooitze de Jong]

Whats up?

I was wondering if it would, practically, be possible to port Android as a sort of Gnome, Unity or KDE. That would make it a lot easier to install and could give a boost to usage of Android on Desktops.

Any thoughts?

Dooits

[Chih-Wei Huang]

2012/11/3 Dooitze de Jong <dooitz...@gmail.com>:

Of course that's possible.
Would you like to contribute it?

Actually Intel had done that long time ago.
I have such a demo CD in hand.
Unfortunately Intel won't open source it.

Since ICS this could be done via OpenGL ES emulation.
(read sdk/emulator/opengl/README for details)
If you are familiar with these topics,
that is not difficult.


--
Chih-Wei
Android-x86 project
http://www.android-x86.org

[Ikem Krueger]

> 2012/11/3 Dooitze de Jong <dooitz...@gmail.com>

> Android as a sort of Gnome, Unity or KDE.

> Any thoughts?

 

Android is a system. 

Gnome, Unity and KDE is a desktop environment.

I don't get what you're asking for.

--
My blog: http://linux-workers.posterous.com/

[Dooitze de Jong]

I am asking for suggestions how integrate the Android system AS a desktop environment!

[Dooitze de Jong]

I am currently downloading the source code to see what is possible.

[Dooitze de Jong]

Maybe the project should redirect itself to building android as a desktop instead of just porting it to x86. What im trying to say is that it would maybe be a could idea to leave the kernel to Ubuntu and the interface to Android.

[shumifan schumacher]

Android as a desktop window manager will be quite useless as it is geared to touch screens which is the last thing I want on my desktop.
Wait until Ubuntu has finished their window manager as it will, much like Windows 8, be geared to both desktop and mobile device.

Android is controlled by Google and if they want/need a special kernel they will implement it.
Further, Ubuntu is just one flavour of Linux, most businesses use Redhat and their employees normally would go for Fedora which is similar.

So whatever version of Linux you choose there will always be a LOT of people out there that don't use that version.

[Nuno Inacio]

I don't agree.
I'm posting from a x86 notebook with tablet functions and multitouch running.
Besides android-x86 and windows 8 I have my ubuntu partition with some tweaks for touchscreen.
But android as a desktop (the right word would be 'shell') would bring huge advantages.
A solid, updatable linux base, an valid and easy option for all linux users like KDE, gnome or others, and a real linux alternative and competitor for windows 8 as there are so many apps!!!
Imagine using yum or apt-get to update to the latest release of android, direct driver support from linux.

I can even tast it already!!!! :P

[Dooitze de Jong]

And that is exactly what I meant. Bring Android to the user-space!!!

[shumifan schumacher]

You are still missing the point. Ubuntu, for one, is trying to create a touch friendly interface, while still supporting normal keyboard/mouse desktops.
Android, on the other hand, is geared only to touch devices (even though you can tediously use it with a mouse/touchpad).
Google controls Android, even though it is open source, a bit like Ubuntu controls Ubuntu desktop and server - you love it or lump it and go somewhere else.
Android is layered over Linux, but because of the size of device it has to run on, it is very stripped down and only includes drivers for the device it is targeted at in a specific build.
The service providers rely on this 'closed' shop mentality to build their bespoke Android's for their devices to try to gain market control, which is why it takes a long time for a new Android to reach the end-user, if ever, after it being released by Google(each provider has to adapt and test their version before it will be released).

Instead I would like to see Ubuntu develop to a stage where it replaces Android IOS and all the other OS's out there on desktops and mobiles devices. And they are getting much closer, although I dont like the new interfaces, at least I can choose what I want to run and it can be different on my desktop(lots of CPU, memory and disk and installed software) and mobile(much less of everything).

It is simply not viable to run the same software on a device with 1GB memory and 32GB storage as what you would run on a device with 8GB memory, 4x3.6GHz CPU's and terabytes of disk. When mobile devices approach desktop size and speed (and need to be plugged in all the time). it will be more feasible, until then they will have to be stripped down.

And then there is the support for totally different architecture CPUs. And this is only going to get worse when Intel/AMD enter the mobile CPU market to compete with the ARM processors.

[Dooitze de Jong]

Like you said: 

Android is layered over Linux

Why isn't it viable to run Android as a desktop environment? It is perfect when you lay on your bed and want to use Android as a kind of XBMC because of its large buttons. 

I am not talking about Ubuntu specifically but about integrating it as a desktop environment as KDE, Gnome and Unity upon the often sophisticated kernels of Ubuntu or any other linux operating system so that drivers will not be a problem!

I think it is useless to port Android to x86 as an OS because you will not often use it. To make it productive it should be converted to a environment in the userspace, for GDM, KDM or LightDM to start up. Than it becomes relevant.

[Frank van Beek]

@Dooitze

Have you tried running Android-x86 in VirtualBox? You can get installed images here:

  http://androvm.org/blog/download/

It almost does what you are looking  for:

  - VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Mac and Solaris.

  - It is compatible with all audio / graphics / network hardware your OS supports.

  - You can start and stop it without loosing any work. No need to reboot.

It is slower then running Android x86 natively. But it is faster then running BlueStacks, another solution you could try. I'm not really sure about touch support, but I know VMware is working on it for supporting Windows 8.

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[Dooitze de Jong]

yeah i have but the graphical acceleration isn't the best and it doesn't really contribute to the idea because it would be just an alternative

[Iggy Budiman H.]

The main problem is Android doesn't run on top of X11/Xorg.

----------------
salam
-iggy

Sent from Samsung Hercules

--

[Frank van Beek]

On 18 November 2012 20:30, Iggy Budiman H. <iggy.budim...@gmail.com> wrote:

The main problem is Android doesn't run on top of X11/Xorg.

That's not the main problem....

On 4 November 2012 15:18, Chih-Wei Huang <cwh...@android-x86.org> wrote:

Of course that's possible.
Would you like to contribute it?

 

Someone has to invest time and effort and start programming (looking at you Dooitze :)).

I'm still not convinced that turning Android into a Linux Window Manager is worth the effort. It might solve some of the problems we're currently seeing, but it will undoubtedly come with its own set of new problems.

But I've been wrong before. :)

[Ikem Krueger]

> 2012/11/17 Nuno Inacio <arq.nun...@gmail.com>

 

> I have my ubuntu partition with some tweaks for touchscreen.

What tweaks exactly?

Greetings

Ikem

[Ikem Krueger]

> 2012/11/5 Dooitze de Jong <dooitz...@gmail.com>

> How integrate the Android system AS a desktop environment!

I know of several approaches to run Android apps on other platforms:

2009:

Hacking Android on Ubuntu:

http://mjfrey.blogspot.de/2009/05/hacking-android-on-ubuntu.html

Android Full Screen on Ubuntu:

http://mjfrey.blogspot.de/2009/05/android-full-screen-on-ubuntu.html

2011:

Myriad Alien Dalvik

http://www.myriadgroup.com/software/android/myriad%20alien%20dalvik.aspx

2012:

OpenMobile's Application Compatibility Layer:

http://openmobileww.com/products.php

ACL for Ubuntu Data Sheet:

http://openmobile.co/pdf/Data_Sheet_ACL_for_Ubuntu_4.pdf

[Frank van Beek]

I installed BlueStacks again today. It has improved a lot since the last time I tested it.

It comes with Google Play store installed but that app is hidden in de BlueStacks launcher. After installing and running LauncherPRO all apps are visible.

BlueStacks supports two finger gestures. It runs an unrooted Android 2.3.4 and uname -a reports:

 Linux localhost 2.6.38-android-x86+ #1 PREEMPT .... i686 GNU/Linux

I believe a previous version of BlueStacks still used an ARM emulator. I couldn't find any reference to libhoudini on the disk. Which makes sense as BlueStacks is supported by AMD.

[Ed Carp]

I don't see why it wouldn't be - after all Android is just a UI and libraries running on top of the kernel just like any other application.

[Ravi]

That's a pain..  That code would be really useful.

Out of interest, can you show us some screenshots of the LinuxAndroid demo CD in action?  Or is that not permitted?

[Paulo Salgado]

If android was maked same like KDE, gnome and others linux desktop, it is superior to windows, ubuntu and others O.Ss.

In my country Touch Screen was begining to gain the stores now and my prevision is that all people knows how to operate a android smartphone but not all people in my country have computers and the people not have easy  and good internet access, so use android computers was very more easy to very much peoples and they are trained to use a computer with android when this is sold on stores.

This will be the future, working on this is the way to upgrade android to all home desktop computers in the world.

Sorry my poor english.

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[midi jari]

Now if I'm getting straight: you are tying to run Android on top of ubuntu (as a runtime system) and execute Android apps straight from ubuntu?

[Ravi]

Yes.

It's been done successfully by Canonical and others, but they won't release it.

I'm putting my hopes on the guys at LinuxOnAndroid to finally create a solution, which we can then port to x86.

[Christopher Price]

So, to clarify, what most people are thinking of is probably not what you're looking for.

I can't say specifically what Intel or Canonical has come up with in the labs (party due to NDAs, and partly because I'm not in the labs), but technically speaking what most people are envisioning, wouldn't work.

I think a lot of people want the Android UX to ride atop Ubuntu, similar to what Open webOS 1.0 achieved in their PC build.

Today, to do that, you would need SurfaceFlinger to run atop Debian and then fire up bionic and Dalvik (or ART). Not straightforward, and certainly not with modern Android versions (KitKat).

In the Gingerbread era, it was much easier to run SurfaceFlinger atop Debian because hardware acceleration was not required.

Open webOS was able to achieve this by using Debian-compatible components and X-windows compatible video drivers. And, even they've been unable to maintain that (LG reps at Apps-World this week didn't expect an update any time soon, and Open webOS hasn't been updated significantly in 18 months.

P.S. That said, I do expect Google to have more in this field in the future. ART is a major code cleanup for making things more modular (think Chrome OS).

Christopher Price

iConsole.tv

[Michael Speth]

Why wouldn't it be possible to just port the Dalvik or ART JVM's to desktop linux? Than, Android apps could be run like ANY java app regardless of window manager. I must be missing something.

[Fajar A. Nugraha]

On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 12:04 PM, Michael Speth <con...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Why wouldn't it be possible to just port the Dalvik or ART JVM's to desktop linux? Than, Android apps could be run like ANY java app regardless of window manager. I must be missing something.

The kernel is also different. From a quick google search:
http://elinux.org/Android_Kernel_Features

--
Fajar

[Hypo Turtle]

I think those have been merged in the mainline kernel anyway, so not sure if that's still a restriction.

Haven't seen it mentioned; but is Chrome's ARC or the custom version ARChon or use to anyone.

[Michael Speth]

That is why ART or Dalvik would need to be ported to linux desktop.  OR instead of porting ART or Dalvik, why not create an interface layer between DEX and OpenJDK?  OR, go the route of Roboelectric?

[vasant...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, November 3, 2012 at 4:08:05 AM UTC-7, Dooitze wrote:

Whats up?

I was wondering if it would, practically, be possible to port Android as a sort of Gnome, Unity or KDE. That would make it a lot easier to install and could give a boost to usage of Android on Desktops.

Any thoughts?

Dooits