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Hackers Get Android Running on Real Hardware

Posted by timothy on from the some-subjects-make-confusing-headlines dept.

nerdyH writes "Google's Android stack for Linux phones has been successfully hacked onto several actual hardware devices, including Linux-based Sharp Zaurus PDAs and a high-end development board. Google's preview release of Android last fall included a software emulator based on Qemu, but you can't beat real target hardware when writing applications for devices, because emulators may not accurately reflect real-world performance. Plus, it appears that Android's modern UI could really breathe some new life into lots of Linux-friendly hardware with ARMv5TE or better cores."

4 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Great feat, wish ... by primadd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Google would work together with OpenMoko / aka Freerunner. The OpenMoko release date gets pushed back every few weeks, they could use some serious help.
    --
    bookmark me

  2. Re:Android stack? by ortzinator · · Score: 5, Insightful

    More people use Java than you want to admit.

  3. Of course it's QVGA by pslam · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Do you have any idea about the rarity and expense of small VGA resolution LCDs? There's a reason most mobile phones don't have a lot of pixels.

  4. Re:Too bad about the QVGA by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article's link shows the Armadillo-500 board running Android full-screen on a desktop LCD, and at least one of the Zaurus models mentioned has a 640x480 display.

    Apparently, even when shoe-horned into untested hardware, Android has no trouble adapting the UI to the dimensions of the screen that Linux reports. So why are people whining about screen size, and why is it being mod'ed up?