Not An Emulator

[Grench]

To my understanding - WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator) works on an X86 environment because it provides an interpretive layer between X86 code and an X86 processor. It intercepts what would otherwise be Windows calls and converts them to Linux calls. Not an Emulator.

The Pandora runs Angstrom (Linux) on ARM. Several other operating systems run on ARM (iPhoneOS, Android, etc...)

Would it be possible, in theory at least, for someone to build an interpretive layer for ARM Linux (Angstrom) to execute Android (Linux derivative) applications (compiled for ARM) on an ARM Linux Pandora?

I don't have the time or skills to attempt it. Just wondering about possibilities. It would be cool to be able to load up the Google navigation apps on a Pandora - even cooler if it could work with a bluetooth GPS. Other apps too.

 

[second exodous]

This has been talk about before and yes, as long as it's Linux it's possible. Making a compatibility layer for a non-Linux ARM os would be a lot of work though.

 

[Mithrildor]

Why use a WINE-like app for linux apps? Most linux apps are open-source

 

[droneb]

Why use a WINE-like app for linux apps? Most linux apps are open-source

1) because not every pp knows programming.
2) because "MOST" but not all apps are Open Source.
3) because some apps require special assets on some OS's

 

[second exodous]

Why use a WINE-like app for linux apps? Most linux apps are open-source

1) because not every pp knows programming.
2) because "MOST" but not all apps are Open Source.
3) because some apps require special assets on some OS's

I also got the feeling he was talking about Android stuff, you would need some sort of compatibility layer for Android apps.

 

[renwils]

I'm not sure how functional this is yet, but here is a project that supposedly has the Dalvik Virtual Machine running to some extent on arm-powered devices.

http://code.google.com/p/dvk/

And an ancient google groups discussion:

http://groups.google.com/group/android-porting/browse_thread/thread/6e37e43be675222f?pli=1

 

[neko]

Canonical said they were working on something like that.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/05/canonical-developers-aim-to-make-android-apps-run-on-ubuntu.ars

 

[Grench]

Canonical said they were working on something like that.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/05/canonical-developers-aim-to-make-android-apps-run-on-ubuntu.ars

That is along the lines I was thinking.

The article said they were doing this in a netbook remix - which could, but isn't necessarily, be running on ARM. If it is, then it's an interpretive layer and should run nicely. If it isn't, then it's an ARM on X86 emulator - which is all cool in it's own right, but not what we're after.

So, who's going to build PAIL? (Pandora Android Interpretive Layer)

That would be a good one to sell for $10 - $20 in the application store.

 

[ldesnogu]

Use the QEMU emulator that comes with Android SDK. Of course it will be slow.

 

[laurencevde]

Eehm, Android-apps are written in java, with a custom VM. You only have to port the VM...

 

[rabidpoobear]

Does porting the VM still let you use the binary apps that Google doesn't open-source?

 

[laurencevde]

Not legally, no. AFAIK, you're not allowed to use those on anything but a "powered by google"(or whatever they call it)-device.

 

[rabidpoobear]

Not legally, no. AFAIK, you're not allowed to use those on anything but a "powered by google"(or whatever they call it)-device.

And what about illegally? Would it work? Is the Dalvik VM really their only dependency? All the hardware they access (GPS, etc.) is all virtualized?
(I'm not saying you're wrong, I think it's probably likely, I'm just curious to know for sure.)
And there's not some sort of encryption-something involved? The apps are just bytecode or something?

 

[conso]

Android isn't just linux-kernel + java-vm. Probably a lot of google's own apps are written in C++ and maybe some of those already made their way to the app-store. With a port of the java-vm you could probably get most java-apps working, but the native apps are a different story, as android doesn't use the gnu-environment.

 

[Etinin]

Android isn't just linux-kernel + java-vm. Probably a lot of google's own apps are written in C++ and maybe some of those already made their way to the app-store. With a port of the java-vm you could probably get most java-apps working, but the native apps are a different story, as android doesn't use the gnu-environment.

They still use ELF and are binary-compatible.
Although controls could get awkward, it should be possible to run the applications with the proper libraries copied to the Pandora.

 

[laurencevde]

You could set up a chroot with all of the google-userland in it...
But andriod apparently also needs a custom in-kernel messaging system which is currently in the staging(WIP)-tree in the kernel, and I read that they're planning on throwing it out again because google doesn't maintain it...