raspnoobfan wrote: ↑Sun Nov 04, 2018 11:11 amWhy don't you people support android on a pi. What's wrong with you.
hansotten wrote: ↑Sun Nov 04, 2018 12:02 pmThe RPi Foundation point of view is not as black and white as Dougie or Mahjong in the sticky state, look at the statement on Android Things e.g.
Quote from from raspberrypi.org:
WILL IT RUN ANDROID OR ANDROID THINGS?
Raspberry Pi themselves do not support the consumer version of Android that you may be familiar with from your mobile phone. There are community efforts to make a version available that can be found online.
Google supports Android Things on the Raspberry Pi 3 as a development platform. Android Things is a variant of the Android platform enabling developers to build software for embedded and Internet of Things (IoT) devices with the Android SDK. To learn more about the platform and how to get started, visit developer.android.com/things.
Eben has said that half of all Pi sold go to commercial customers and I don't see how Android "goes completely against their educational mission".DougieLawson wrote: ↑Sun Nov 04, 2018 11:16 amIt's clearly defined why the Educational Raspberry Pi Foundation have no interest in Android. It goes completely against their educational mission.
Running KongstaKANG's LineageOS 14.1 (Android 7.1.2) build for the Pi 3B was far from horrible for me.
You (generally) don't write code ON an Android device, you RUN code on an Android device. Android app development is done on a host PC. Unfortunately IIRC, its done on Eclipse, which does not have a recent ARM version. If anyone is able to compile the latest Eclipse for Pi, you are a certified genius. Even Debian have given up with Eclipse.hippy wrote: ↑Sun Nov 04, 2018 3:49 pmEben has said that half of all Pi sold go to commercial customers and I don't see how Android "goes completely against their educational mission".DougieLawson wrote: ↑Sun Nov 04, 2018 11:16 amIt's clearly defined why the Educational Raspberry Pi Foundation have no interest in Android. It goes completely against their educational mission.
I don't see how writing code, or learning to write code, targeted at Android is any different, any less educational, or has less value, than writing code for any other platform or framework.
Most criticisms levelled at Android can be pretty much applied to any OS, programming language or framework.
Running KongstaKANG's LineageOS 14.1 (Android 7.1.2) build for the Pi 3B was far from horrible for me.
Android on a Pi won't suit everyone but it rests on what one wants to do. If one wants to write apps for Android, learn how to do that, and have those apps run on a Pi, it's perfectly good for that.
If one wants other than that then Android is probably not the best choice for the job.
I used an old, slow, x86 laptop. Eclipse was too slow, so I did my builds using gedit and the general android tools, then transferred to the android device for testing. I only wrote one app (a customised RFID tag reader/writer for some specialist tags), and it worked.
I'm a bit different, I dislike using my Pi to do this sort of work - it's too slow / unsupported.rpdom wrote: ↑Sun Nov 04, 2018 10:24 pmI used an old, slow, x86 laptop. Eclipse was too slow, so I did my builds using gedit and the general android tools, then transferred to the android device for testing. I only wrote one app (a customised RFID tag reader/writer for some specialist tags), and it worked.
I prefer to work on my Pi.
That's true, but that's how a lot of software development is done. In fact it has been the historical model for development of embedded systems and some still recommend it even when developing for a Pi.
Android Studio is what is currently recommended for Android code development.
It seems to me it's up to each individual to decide whether it's worth bothering with or not. I don't believe anyone should have to justify what they want to do; "because" is good enough for me.
And that's fair enough and I think the current situation is acceptable; Android Things supported by Google, Android supported by the community.
I'd like to advise everyone to stay away from _any_ release by Arne Exton. See viewtopic.php?f=73&t=224852#p1381343 & https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/commen ... s_9_build/.Void Frost wrote: ↑Sun Nov 04, 2018 10:35 pmRaspAnd by Exton(android for pi)
Raspis(Android and other things for pi)
Any open source development can be very educational.
Graphics was always (but not exclusively) the main issue with Android on the Pi. The VC4 graphics system doesn't really match up to that requried by Android. Of course, there have been VC4 firmwares that ran Android on things like Samsung phones (I worked on the camera stuff), but the amount of work required was huge. Of course, that work was done (8 years ago?), but we don't have much of it in the current image, and bringing it in after 5 years of firmware development without it would be a horrible job. And of course Android has changed massively in that time, so most of the work would need to be redone anyway.Konsta wrote: ↑Mon Nov 05, 2018 5:42 pmAny open source development can be very educational.While I agree that any official Android support/release by Broadcom/Pi Foundation is too much to ask, I'd still hope Broadcom/Pi Foundation could find ways to support open source efforts to run Android on the Pi. Main issue with running Android on the Pi has been graphics performance (RAM limitations only come second). Broadcom doesn't provide Android specific GPU drivers (as it's not an Android device to begin with) and using open source VC4 driver has its issues (well, we're using "old" kernel and old mesa version with LineageOS 14.1 so there's that, too). With Linux 4.14 used in newer Android versions (Oreo, Pie), using mainline graphics stack with Android (VC4 DRM, mesa, libdrm, drm_hwcomposer, gbm/minigbm_gralloc) should be possible(?). It would be great to see some effort from Broadcom/Pi Foundation to make this happen (or documentation if there's already been some efforts). If I'm not mistaken, it would also mean graphics on new Android versions could be supported with minimal effort pretty much indefinitely.
Even many LineageOS users have misconception what Android should be on the Pi. Somehow just because it's running Android, they think it should be a media/TV device or something that they can use for intensive gaming. It works for some users for some usecases and if it doesn't, that's just something they have to deal with. Mainly I've just viewed it as an open source development project and it's already allowed me to have some cool stuff (e.g. Linux 4.14 with Android that we'll maybe see on first retail Android devices next year and more commonly years after that). And it's just cool to have Android running on a device that isn't supposed to have Android.
I'm personally moving away from Android development on the Raspberry Pi because of certain toxicity in the community. I see no reason why I would do any work for free and open source my efforts just that someone can take it and sell it for their own personal profit (while violating GPLv2 as well). I'll just rather eat that Pie myself.I of course hope _open source_ efforts to run Android on the Pi continue.
Android Things is very much Android but the main difference is that it is intended to run only one specific Android app at start-up rather than a Launcher or Home Screen app. It is much like any other OS used in 'kiosk mode'.