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Android OS


openuser

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Please, can someone point me to the right forum here at Scot's to discuss Android topics.I very much enjoy the members activities here, and although I post very little I read every day.Thanks to all.

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Well I guess that would depend on what you are posting about Android. If it is hardware related, then maybe it should go into the Hardware section. Although if the thread is about using the Android SDK tools, open source apps and/or other Linux-based tools to interact with Android, then I think it would be appropriate here in BATL. I personally have a tablet running Honeycomb and two Android smartphones that I have modded with various roms and rooted. I personally would be interested in discussing various aspects of the Android OS on the forums but I am curious on what others here think about it.Hope this answers your question B)

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Well I guess that would depend on what you are posting about Android. If it is hardware related, then maybe it should go into the Hardware section. Although if the thread is about using the Android SDK tools, open source apps and/or other Linux-based tools to interact with Android, then I think it would be appropriate here in BATL. I personally have a tablet running Honeycomb and two Android smartphones that I have modded with various roms and rooted. I personally would be interested in discussing various aspects of the Android OS on the forums but I am curious on what others here think about it.Hope this answers your question B)
I have a couple of Android pads and the problem as I see it is that the Android OS differs drastically with each manufacturers hardware. If you check out the Slatedroid forums you will find that there is a separate sub-forum, not only for each manufacturer, but different models from same manufacturer. Throw in the fact that a lot of the popular ones have clones imitating them and the confusion becomes massive.edit: Remember too that, unlike GNU/Linux, the kernel for most of the pads are proprietary and the source is NOT available. Edited by lewmur
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Well if I understand correctly, they are required by the GPL to release the source for the kernel. A bunch of us in XDA, pressured ViewSonic to release the source for the Gtablet and they ended up complying. I do know what you mean about seperate sub-forums for each device, XDA does the same thing. That said one of the major ROMS, Cyanogenmod, works on pretty much all devices. Its not the Android OS that differs so much as to the crap they put on top of it on different devices.

Let's set things straightThe confusion occurs because of bad/incorrect use of the term 'Linux.' Often people term GNU/Linux operating system distributions as 'Linux,' which is incorrect. The greater percentage, by some margin, of such distributions is the GNU element and not the Linux kernel. Android is as much Linux as a GNU/Linux distribution given that both use the same kernel, but GNU/Linux distributions use the GNU tool chain and Android adds Java and related items to Linux and does not employ the GNU tool chain.
Are Android and Linux the same thing?
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Well I think discussing Android topics is a great idea, but creating a new forum area for it is a Scot sort of thing, isn't it? It certainly seems like it really NEEDS its own area. BATL seems to be handling most of the Android traffic so far, but I suspect that's just because it has the most traffic. That's why THIS thread is here, after all...I don't own any Android stuff, but I've never found the lack of ownership to be a barrier to talking about it! B)

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Well if I understand correctly, they are required by the GPL to release the source for the kernel. A bunch of us in XDA, pressured ViewSonic to release the source for the Gtablet and they ended up complying. I do know what you mean about seperate sub-forums for each device, XDA does the same thing. That said one of the major ROMS, Cyanogenmod, works on pretty much all devices. Its not the Android OS that differs so much as to the crap they put on top of it on different devices.Are Android and Linux the same thing?
Tell that to the Chinese. Then stand back and watch them giggle. Maybe if you spend $500 for a tablet, the co. will be international enough to give into that kind of pressure. But the "low-end" devices tend to come from China and don't really pay that much attention to the niceties. Both my zt-180 from Zenithink and my Suprepad II from Ibex, fall into the latter category. Check their forums and you'll find that the communities have been begging for the kernel source code. To no avail.
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Tell that to the Chinese. Then stand back and watch them giggle. Maybe if you spend $500 for a tablet, the co. will be international enough to give into that kind of pressure. But the "low-end" devices tend to come from China and don't really pay that much attention to the niceties. Both my zt-180 from Zenithink and my Suprepad II from Ibex, fall into the latter category. Check their forums and you'll find that the communities have been begging for the kernel source code. To no avail.
Well that may be the case. While I was searching for a tablet, I wanted something with high enough specs where I could run the latest version of Android and have a capacitive screen. While researching, I seen all the cheaper (chinese clones) models but they either had a really old version of Android or the specs were not up to par. So I spent ~400 because I wanted a dualcore Tegra2 tablet that was fast enough to do pretty much anything I wanted. Granted this tablet also came with an older version of Android 2.2 but I easily upgraded it to HoneyComb. So yes I did spend around $500 but I also got a tablet with a huge modding community behind it even though the stock interface was sub-par OOTB. That said, I should of waited till about now to buy a tablet but I had to get one as soon as I could, so I bought mine at the beginning of December. Then again the only difference between my tablet and the currently selling models is I only have 512 of ram whereas the other 10inch models come with 1gb of ram now. They use the same Nvidia Tegra2 processor but they have the added ram and sometimes a better screen. The reason I never went with one of the Chinese clones is because for one, you do not know really what you are getting hardware wise and secondly the lack of support for things like kernel source are very slim to nonexistent.
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Well that may be the case. While I was searching for a tablet, I wanted something with high enough specs where I could run the latest version of Android and have a capacitive screen. While researching, I seen all the cheaper (chinese clones) models but they either had a really old version of Android or the specs were not up to par. So I spent ~400 because I wanted a dualcore Tegra2 tablet that was fast enough to do pretty much anything I wanted. Granted this tablet also came with an older version of Android 2.2 but I easily upgraded it to HoneyComb. So yes I did spend around $500 but I also got a tablet with a huge modding community behind it even though the stock interface was sub-par OOTB. That said, I should of waited till about now to buy a tablet but I had to get one as soon as I could, so I bought mine at the beginning of December. Then again the only difference between my tablet and the currently selling models is I only have 512 of ram whereas the other 10inch models come with 1gb of ram now. They use the same Nvidia Tegra2 processor but they have the added ram and sometimes a better screen. The reason I never went with one of the Chinese clones is because for one, you do not know really what you are getting hardware wise and secondly the lack of support for things like kernel source are very slim to nonexistent.
To each his own. I was more interested in getting pad that would do what I wanted at a price I could afford. $400 wasn't in my budget. What I got was a pad with two USB ports, Webcam, GPS and Android 2.2. All for $175. Yeah, it's from China and the maker won't release the kernel source. But it still has a good community that has greatly enhanced the OS over what the maker furnished. It does a very good job of providing the experience I bought the pad to furnish. I don't need a Dual Core processor to read ebooks, keep up with my email or check the latest news and keep up with my favourite forums, on the web.edit: And because it has USB ports, I was able to get a keyboard and leather case for $25 and can access my 1tb Passport drive. What would an iPad user pay for that? Edited by lewmur
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Sounds like you got a great deal. B)
I'm happy with it. But my original point was that you wouldn't get much use from the forum about my pad and I wouldn't get much from the forum about yours. And seeing that Android is just another Linux, this forum should suffice for any general discussion about Android. I just don't see where Scot needs to add anything for Android users.
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I'm happy with it. But my original point was that you wouldn't get much use from the forum about my pad and I wouldn't get much from the forum about yours. And seeing that Android is just another Linux, this forum should suffice for any general discussion about Android. I just don't see where Scot needs to add anything for Android users.
Oh I agree about not adding anything, I was just referring to general Android discussion here at BATL.
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  • 4 weeks later...

I've had a Motorola Atrix 4G for about 3 months now. I've been patiently following the modding going on over at xda for this model.I did purchase the lapdock, as this was the main use for me.The modders have got what I want done, now that the bootloader is unlockable.I now have a laptop replacement that weighs under 2 pounds, has an 11.6" screen, keyboard, speakers, and 2 USB ports.After unlocking the bootloader, updating to Gingerbread, and rooting it, I have installed an app called webtop2sd. This allows moving the full Ubuntu OS from the manufacturer provided partition, only 0.8 GB, to a user created partition on removable sd card. Also, unlocks the AWN dock/launcher built into the webtop app (webtop is the app that launches the full Ubuntu from within Android). I now have LXTerminal and Synaptic installed and working. Quite a few useful programs are currently known to work and more are being added every day.Eventually we will be able to run any distro on the device, the work is progressing very quickly.What is really weird is that a bunch of the Atrix Android modding community is virtually Linux illiterate. I know virtually nothing about how Android internals function. Kind of works out.

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