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Android Everywhere!

Issue 186

From Issue #186
October 2009

Oct 01, 2009  By Bill Childers
 in
Put Android where you'd least expect it—from phones to virtual machines.

Disclaimers and Waivers

I can't stress enough: take extreme care when hacking mobile devices. Besides the obvious peril of bricking the device and making it unusable, there is the even greater danger of causing yourself an extremely large cellular bill. This is a really good way to test to see if your “unlimited” data plan truly is unlimited. You'll find out the hard way that most aren't. Take precautions, and try to find hacks that other people have done and reported success doing. Unless you have unlimited funds, blazing a trail in this area can become expensive quickly.

x86 Specifics

I had a difficult time getting Android going on my Netbook, but that doesn't mean you will. In particular, the ASUS Eee PCs (701, 900, 901, 904 and 1000) are known to work fairly well under Android. Brock Tice has made a ready-to-go USB installer image for the Eee PCs, although the Wi-Fi support in his build doesn't work at the time of this writing. If you have a different model of Netbook (like my Acer Aspire One) your experience may vary. This is still very much proof-of-concept code.

Breaking News

Just before press time, a team of Android developers released a live CD for Android. If you want to test drive Android on your Netbook, laptop or even a virtual machine, it's extremely easy now. Simply download the image, burn it to CD, and boot from it—no compiling needed. Check it out—you may get hooked on it enough to buy a G1 phone!

Where Are You Using Android?

We want to know what devices you're running Android on. Share with our editors in the Android Everywhere forum at www.linuxjournal.com/forums/hot-topics where author and LJ Virtual Editor Bill Childers will be moderating.

Resources

The Open Handset Alliance: www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html

JF's Blog (Android Developer Extraordinaire): jf.andblogs.net

Hacking Your G1/Dream: forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=442480

Android for the HTC Touch Pro: connect-utb.com/index.php?option=com_rokdownloads&view=folder&Itemid=68&id=3:htc-raphael

Porting Android to x86: code.google.com/p/patch-hosting-for-android-x86-support

Setting Up Your Machine to Build Android: source.android.com/download

Getting the Patched x86 Version of Android: svn checkout http://patch-hosting-for-android-x86-support.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ patch-hosting-for-android-x86-support-read-only

Brock Tice's Eee PC Build of Android: virtuallyshocking.com/2008/12/20/building-android-for-the-asus-eeepc-701

Bill Childers is an IT Manager in Silicon Valley, where he lives with his wife and two children. He enjoys Linux far too much, and probably should get more sun from time to time. In his spare time, he does work with the Gilroy Garlic Festival, but he does not smell like garlic.

______________________

Bill Childers is the Virtual Editor for Linux Journal. No one really knows what that means.

Comments

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android on a touch pro

metal's picture
Submitted by metal (not verified) on Tue, 11/10/2009 - 14:30.

I love the g1. my contract is not up with Sprint till 2011.
I tried to load Android to my touch pro to no avail.
I will try again I am sure it will be working soon.
maybe I will just get an unlocked G1 lol

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