Android Possible on K4?

[TheArtfulDodger]

Hello:

I am trying to put HunkyPunk on my K4 so that I can run Zork, among others. In order to do that I need to load Android. I can't find any reference on here that describes how to do it (mostly because when I search for 'Android on K4' the search machine ignores the 'on K4' part) so I was wondering if anyone that sees this could direct me to the process. I have already done the jailbreak procedure successfully, but nothing past that.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer!

Sparky

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by TheArtfulDodger

Hello:

I am trying to put HunkyPunk on my K4 so that I can run Zork, among others. In order to do that I need to load Android. I can't find any reference on here that describes how to do it (mostly because when I search for 'Android on K4' the search machine ignores the 'on K4' part) so I was wondering if anyone that sees this could direct me to the process. I have already done the jailbreak procedure successfully, but nothing past that.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer!

Sparky

Short answer: there is no Android for the K4 (or any other e-ink Kindle).

Long answer: it should theoretically be possible to get Android to run on those machines. But you'd be in for some major (and I mean MAJOR!) development -- probably dozens of man-years, and requiring expertise from ARM assembly and kernel-level drivers to UI programming and polishing.

[TheArtfulDodger]

Hello, ixtab:

Thanks for being honest - the difficulty must explain why I can't find anyone that has done it. Having said that, before you started making your contributions, you were likely looking at a similar period of work!!

Thanks again - I'll have to re-think my problem.

Sparky

[knc1]

Can you just re-build the source of (or get for standard 32bit, Linux/ARM) what you want to run?
That would be an easier problem to solve.

Note: Some of the developers here DO HAVE Android development experience - if what you ask was easy - it would have been done years ago.

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by TheArtfulDodger

Hello, ixtab:

Thanks for being honest - the difficulty must explain why I can't find anyone that has done it. Having said that, before you started making your contributions, you were likely looking at a similar period of work!!

Well, the stuff that I enjoy doing may be a bit scary for some, but it's still several orders of magnitude less complex than porting Android to a new device - the very initial, proof of concept version of JBPatch was developed in 3 or 4 days and was only ~ 400 lines of code (but yes of course, a couple of years of experience in reverse engineering and a solid background with Java and JVM helps... as with everything, it gets easier with time...)

[TheArtfulDodger]

Originally Posted by knc1

Can you just re-build the source of (or get for standard 32bit, Linux/ARM) what you want to run?
That would be an easier problem to solve.

Note: Some of the developers here DO HAVE Android development experience - if what you ask was easy - it would have been done years ago.

If I may ask a stupid question: I guess the processor is ARM, for which compilers must exist, but what OS does the K4 run?

Thanks for the suggestion.

Sparky

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by TheArtfulDodger

If I may ask a stupid question: I guess the processor is ARM, for which compilers must exist, but what OS does the K4 run?

Thanks for the suggestion.

Sparky

Linux, I think with one of the 2.6.x kernels, but I may be wrong concerning the version.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by TheArtfulDodger

If I may ask a stupid question: I guess the processor is ARM, for which compilers must exist, but what OS does the K4 run?

Thanks for the suggestion.

Sparky

Ah, yeah, since most common processor in Android devices is ARM.
They got compilers for ARM (so do we, and the rest of the world).

Each of the OSs (Google/Android and Amazon/Kindle) use a Linux kernel.
With a few specializations, but 99.99% the same.

The difference is in the applications build -
Android uses its own breed of system C library,
Kindle uses one of the standard system C libraries.

So an Android application must first be re-built to use the same, standard, system library as the Kindle.

I.E: Android build != Standard Linux build.

As I posted, get the sources and re-build against the same library used on the Kindle,
OR,
Go to the vendor of what you want to run, see if they have already built a version against a standard library.
(Your only choice if it is "closed source").

[icantbebothered]

Or put debian on your kindle, apt-get the app, and rip it out.

[h1uke]

Originally Posted by TheArtfulDodger

the difficulty must explain why I can't find anyone that has done it.

BTW, when it comes to K4 model, the main difficulty/obstacle is the lack of an
adequate input device on it.

[TheArtfulDodger]

Originally Posted by icantbebothered

Or put debian on your kindle, apt-get the app, and rip it out.

Hello, i:

You mentioned Debian and I just found a version of the program that is a port to Debian. Here's the description: "Sfrotz 0.02, an SDL-based port of Frotz to Debian Linux, by Aldo Cumani. Based on Frotz 2.40 by Stefan Jokisch and Windows Frotz by David Kinder. Supports Blorb graphics and sounds, and includes partial support for the Standard 1.1 extensions."

Does this sound to you like it might work? If so, my first question is whether or not there is a version of Debian that can be run from a CD/DVD, much like Ubuntu? I would very much like to make sure the program actually does what I hope it does on my desktop prior to loading on the Kindle.

Then, my next question will be: how does one load Debian onto the Kindle and then how does one load a program into that Debian on Kindle?

I realize some of this might be on this forum but I don't seem to have a lot of luck finding what I'm looking for.

Thanks for the information and in advance for any further information you can provide.

Sparky

[knc1]

"Sfrotz 0.02, an SDL-based port of Frotz to Debian Linux, by Aldo Cumani. Based on Frotz 2.40 by Stefan Jokisch and Windows Frotz by David Kinder. Supports Blorb graphics and sounds, and includes partial support for the Standard 1.1 extensions."

Already ported to the Kindle - just search for it here.

[TheArtfulDodger]

Already ported to the Kindle - just search for it here.

Hello, knc1:

As I indicated earlier, I can't seem to find much using the search function. When I searched the "Amazon Kindle" and the "Kindle Developer's Corner" for "Sfrotz", the only hit I got was this thread. If I'm doing something wrong I'd sure like to know what it might be!!

Thanks.

Sparky

[icantbebothered]

Originally Posted by TheArtfulDodger

Hello, i:

You mentioned Debian and I just found a version of the program that is a port to Debian. Here's the description: "Sfrotz 0.02, an SDL-based port of Frotz to Debian Linux, by Aldo Cumani. Based on Frotz 2.40 by Stefan Jokisch and Windows Frotz by David Kinder. Supports Blorb graphics and sounds, and includes partial support for the Standard 1.1 extensions."

Does this sound to you like it might work? If so, my first question is whether or not there is a version of Debian that can be run from a CD/DVD, much like Ubuntu? I would very much like to make sure the program actually does what I hope it does on my desktop prior to loading on the Kindle.

Then, my next question will be: how does one load Debian onto the Kindle and then how does one load a program into that Debian on Kindle?

I realize some of this might be on this forum but I don't seem to have a lot of luck finding what I'm looking for.

Thanks for the information and in advance for any further information you can provide.

Sparky

You have to (from linux on a pc) debootstrap debian 7.2 into a .img, then put it on the USB stirage on your kindle. Dos1 made a handy script to mount and launch debian(dosowisko.net/kindle/debian). It expects the directory mnt/debian. More info on tis somewhere on the mobileread wiki.

Once debian is instaled and launched on your kindle, run apt-get install whatever. Debian ports you find outside of the debian repositories on't work due to a) architectures, and b) the kindle's cpu being niether 32x or 64x. Then you can use twobob's script to get the binary and libs of whatever program you installed, which will now run outside debian.



Alternatively , grab baf's port of gargoyle.

[icantbebothered]

And to your first question, yes, any linux will run from a CD.