I was wondering why you usually need an specific Android build for pratically each device in the market. With Desktop OSes like Windows and Linux-based we have the convenience of being able to install them in any PC as long as they have the minimum requirements and you have all the drivers. With Android, you need to download an specific build for your device, and sometimes there are absurd situations like users who have a 4G or dual-chip version of certain device having to wait longer for an android update.
So what do you think is the reason we can't just download Android and install it in any device we wish? Drivers? Lack of some sort of comom BIOS/UEFI/Firmware? Lack of standards for mobile devices?
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Hi all,
I am wondering if it it would be possible with a kind of light virtualization tool, to run some very simple Windows applications (a .exe file with no installation required, no registry, no .dll, etc.) within Android.
Of course it would'nt be to use it on a smartphone but on a tablet.
Does it already exist ?
Use Bosch (I think that's what it's called) and install windows 95/xp.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA
There are emulators like Bochs and DosBox that will emulate an x86 system. But its going to be pretty slow feeling. ARM and x86 use different instruction sets so everything has to basically be translated between the two which slows things down. If its a modern or big program you'll be better off running through a remote desktop program.
Thanks Guys,
In fact it is only simple .exe files which don't need powerful calculations.
But you mean that it will need to install a full Window OS ?
I'll have a look to these two softwares you mentionned.
Limerick_fr said:
Thanks Guys,
In fact it is only simple .exe files which don't need powerful calculations.
But you mean that it will need to install a full Window OS ?
I'll have a look to these two softwares you mentionned.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, but you might be able to use a slimmed down version of the OS though.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA
Yes you would need to install a emulated OS which is probably limited to Windows 9x or older. I don't think there is anything out there that can emulate the newer non DOS based versions of Windows like 2000, XP, etc.
WINE works without installing an OS since its x86 on x86. Makes you wonder if it would be possible to build WINE for Android x86.
Well then, these solutions are too heavy for what I want to do.
I don't want to emulate a full OS.
Maybe later, if there are more and more needs like mine, some developpers (or Google itself) will create such a too to run some simple Windows apps on Android without installing Windows...
as many of you know, android and Linux kernels started re-merging at version 3.3. People said that a short way down the road, android apps would be able to run natively in linux. the kernel is now version 3.6 and I've heard nothing more about running android apps in linux. people on these and other forums put a lot of great work into getting linux running on android devices. now with windows 8 coming out, the market will be full of both ARM and x86 based touch devices of all sizes and shapes. I for one would love to be able to boot up ubuntu on one of these devices, and use either traditional linux apps or android touch apps as my mood and situation dictate. so- any new word on when we will be able to run android apps in linux?
we are exploring this possibility, and did some work, but nothing to release yet.
I assume you already know that for now, you can run Android as a virtual machine on Linux host.
cool to hear the work is progressing, good luck!
I heard about using a VM but was never able to find where to get it.
nothing substantial yet, we wanted to run android apps directly on desktops, Linux or Windows. Using a virtual machine is really an over kill.
You can download a prebuilt vm from ours:
http://www.vmlite.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=158&func=view&catid=9&id=8838
it has been downloaded millions of times. You can search "Android vm" on google to find instructions.
interesed
I am also hoping to see a solution to this question also. I understand that Debian, fedora and Arch Linux all have different packaging systems i always thought is was a smiler difference with android with more Java worked into the core of things. So i would think that adding the proper Java support to any Linux distro to support the apk package it should work but i am not a programmer.
HI,
The other day i was thinking while flashing a rom onto my galaxy nexus and i thought Why thres no one only android that can be installed in all the mobile phones, i mean like when you install linux you can choose between a lot but it can be installed on every computer it adapts itself to the computer.
Why can't it be done in android?, its because that will take a lot of space?
sorry if its a silly cuestion XD.
now i feel curious too.
but you mean why can't android be installed in every phone/device right?
maybe because if we try to install android in a windows phone or iphone, android doesn't have the driver for the hardware or android can't access the hardware.
which means the device is rendered useless.
but that's just my newbie opinion.
I mean why roms have to be always adapted to every phone, a computer os is mor or less universal, my wonder s if its possible to make a rom that can be install in all phones(obviusly is hard to do it in windows phoner nor iphones but), so the rom just addapts herself to the phone you've flashed to taking the info about the device and if needed download the drivers or something like that.
Hello everyone,
In brief I was wondering if I could somehow turn an Android installation into a GNU/Linux distribution, given that Android uses the Linux kernel. Maybe I can install the GNU libraries and the rest of a distribution on top of the kernel, then deactivate the Android libraries that get on its way? I'm thinking of doing this because the Linux kernel already has all the required drivers for my device so perhaps the only thing that I should do is to tweak some files.
Here is my story:
At work I was given an old and unsupported industrial touchscreen module from a largely unknown company. The screen itself is connected to a computer module in the back, which has connectors for several peripherals, an embedded ARMv7 processor, and runs Android 2.2 (rooted) as its operating system.
I was given the task of finding out in a short time if I can install another operating system in the computer (say, Debian) to use it as a PC.
So I looked for information about this device, but I could only find the document attached.
So far, I have been able to turn it on, to connect it to the internet, to get it to read an SD card, and to connect USB peripherals such as a mouse and a keyboard.
But as for installing a different operating system, I haven't had any luck. I've tried different things. For example, I tried to boot into recovery mode by pushing several combinations of keys, but with no success so far. I've looked at the circuit board, but I haven't seen anything illuminating.
Also, I think that installing a Linux distribution from scratch would be painful, even impossible, because this device is not supported in any form and it doesn't come with a user guide or a software package, so it would be impractical to get the drivers for the device, as they are most likely non-standard.
I mean, is it even possible to accomplish this? Is it practical? How should I proceed? I think it is technically possible, but I'm not a Linux expert, not an Android expert, and not an embedded systems expert so I may be wrong.
I have also looked into other options. For example, the "Complete Linux Installer" Android app. I don't think this would work. The device only has ~100MB of free space in the internal flash memory.
There is also a way to install a GNU/Linux distribution that runs on chroot simultaneously with Android and communicates with it via VNC, called "Linux Deploy", but this sounds like it is not optimal. I don't think it would be a good option because of the limited resources of the device.
Any help will be appreciated.
Hi everybody. I'd be very keen on an hypothetical Ubuntu for Android like ROM. I've searched it without success. Is there any project like this? If not, could you tell me which should be the way to go? I mean, I've played a bit with ROM development, but of course I don't have any idea of how to start a project like this.
I'd be very grateful if you could provide any information about it. How Canonical created Ubuntu for Android? How Motorola created Webtop? There are ways to install a Linux distro on a phone, but they are usually virtualized. Basically, what I'd like to have is an Android ROM that, when docked, started a GNU/Linux environment with all the power that a distro has. Package manager, desktop apps and so on. Something like Ubuntu Edge software or Microsoft Continuum, but with Android.
I know that I'm noob but I'd really appreciate you're orientations
It's possible to run (most of) a desktop Linux distro and Android concurrently under the same kernel. The main issue is how to unify the GUI - Android uses SurfaceFlinger and X11 needs its own drivers which are not available for most/all Android devices. You could play with the XSDL app.