Friday, August 30, 2013
Very Little Time...
This week I started a new schedule at work. So, far I have had very little time to work on the project. I hope to get in a few hours tomorrow and Sunday...
Monday, August 26, 2013
Virtual Machine Built and Ready to Go!
I have an Ubuntu Virtual Machine that runs on 32-bit Windows. I cleaned it up and updated it with all the required software for building pre-Gingerbread Android. Uncompressed, it is 12 GB!
It is now available on my Google Drive . I had 7Zip compress it and break it into 8 chunks. That way, if you download it, you should only have to re-do one or two parts if something gets corrupted in transit.
You can read the ReadMe without having to download the entire VM.
If you use it and find it helpful, please leave me a comment and let me know!
It is now available on my Google Drive . I had 7Zip compress it and break it into 8 chunks. That way, if you download it, you should only have to re-do one or two parts if something gets corrupted in transit.
You can read the ReadMe without having to download the entire VM.
If you use it and find it helpful, please leave me a comment and let me know!
Friday, August 23, 2013
Hardware Buttons
I added the hardware buttons to the Hardware page.
My best guess is that the TI TPS65921B Mulitpurpose IC is handling I/O from these. If so, getting the short- and long-press behavior to work on the Power Button would rely on the driver for this chip -- yes?
Android 2.2 requires 3 hardware buttons: Back, Home and Menu. A 4th Search Button is optional. Assigning 4 of the NST's buttons to these functions and leaving the 5th user configurable would be ideal. A second best choice would be to disable the 5th button.
I seem to recall seeing some posts about the Nook Button causing power drain problems with some modified kernels. I will revisit that tomorrow...
My best guess is that the TI TPS65921B Mulitpurpose IC is handling I/O from these. If so, getting the short- and long-press behavior to work on the Power Button would rely on the driver for this chip -- yes?
Android 2.2 requires 3 hardware buttons: Back, Home and Menu. A 4th Search Button is optional. Assigning 4 of the NST's buttons to these functions and leaving the 5th user configurable would be ideal. A second best choice would be to disable the 5th button.
I seem to recall seeing some posts about the Nook Button causing power drain problems with some modified kernels. I will revisit that tomorrow...
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Need Help Finishing Hardware List
Finished the Hardware page with the info I have as of August 20, 2012. Posted on Phandroid and XDA Developers looking for volunteers to clarify chip differences on the NST and NST w Glow.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Source Code Obtained
I downloaded the B&N source code this morning! I am hoping I can find the drivers I will need in there as I peel open this onion...
1.2.1 is just an update to 1.2.0 so I got both files.
1.2.1 is just an update to 1.2.0 so I got both files.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
What Hardware Do I Need?
I have seen comments in fora and on websites that suggest that you do not want to build Android unless you have a 64-bit Linux Übermachine.
I am proceeding on the assumption that this is an overstatement. I am hoping that if you do not have this kind of machine, it will just take longer -- many hours and possibly even days -- rather than crashing the system, compiler, etc.
I plan to do this on an Ubuntu VM on my PC. If these assumptions are wrong, I may need a new strategy.
Comments, thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Comments, thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Saturday, August 17, 2013
How I Got Here
Some time ago, a friend gave me a Kindle Touch. I have been reading fiction for pleasure for the first time in a long time -- Thanks, Harvey! I wanted to put a basic spreadsheet on it to use when I am at work and for managing shopping lists, but there was no App for that!
I did a little research, and saw that the Nook Simple Touch runs Android! I saw that it would have to be rooted to get apps from the Google Market. No problem.
What I did not know was that the NST comes with a modified version of Android, and doesn't just work with just any App once it is rooted.
Kingsoft Office installed without any problem. It has the spreadsheet I was looking for. I have been completely distracted from that onto other issues, as I have become more informed, though.
This trip down the rabbit hole really got started when I tried to install Firefox for Android. I am a Firefox fanatic for one reason: NoScript. If you don't know, NoScript is a plugin that creates a whitelist of whom you allow to run scripts in your browser. Most browsers only let you turn scripts on and off completely, but with this add-on you get much more control over how that all works. I also use FlashBlock, but other browsers offer the ability to get some control over Flash.
After much hacking around, I discovered that the latest release of Firefox for Android that will run on my rooted nook is 4.0.b2. (There are a couple of nightly builds that will run on it after that, also.) Through talking with people at Mozilla, I discovered that builds after that point require armeabi-v7. Now I still don't really understand why they wont run; since, the NST has an ARM7 processor. I assume it has something to do with the way the OS was built.
My first plan was to rebuild Firefox for Android for armeabi and see if I could find a build that would work with one of the alphas from NoScript Anwhere. That is still my fallback plan.
I also discovered that although it installs and browses pages as expected, Firefox's sync feature did not work. At first I thought it was just because it was a buggy old beta. What I have since learned, though is that B&N modified the OS and how it interacts with Android's built in AccountAndSyncSettings. (Thank you straygecko -- developer of GSAppsAttack!)
That and the strong suggestion from the guys over at Mozilla that I should upgrade my OS to Android 2.2, have set me on this journey.
I did a little research, and saw that the Nook Simple Touch runs Android! I saw that it would have to be rooted to get apps from the Google Market. No problem.
What I did not know was that the NST comes with a modified version of Android, and doesn't just work with just any App once it is rooted.
Kingsoft Office installed without any problem. It has the spreadsheet I was looking for. I have been completely distracted from that onto other issues, as I have become more informed, though.
This trip down the rabbit hole really got started when I tried to install Firefox for Android. I am a Firefox fanatic for one reason: NoScript. If you don't know, NoScript is a plugin that creates a whitelist of whom you allow to run scripts in your browser. Most browsers only let you turn scripts on and off completely, but with this add-on you get much more control over how that all works. I also use FlashBlock, but other browsers offer the ability to get some control over Flash.
After much hacking around, I discovered that the latest release of Firefox for Android that will run on my rooted nook is 4.0.b2. (There are a couple of nightly builds that will run on it after that, also.) Through talking with people at Mozilla, I discovered that builds after that point require armeabi-v7. Now I still don't really understand why they wont run; since, the NST has an ARM7 processor. I assume it has something to do with the way the OS was built.
My first plan was to rebuild Firefox for Android for armeabi and see if I could find a build that would work with one of the alphas from NoScript Anwhere. That is still my fallback plan.
I also discovered that although it installs and browses pages as expected, Firefox's sync feature did not work. At first I thought it was just because it was a buggy old beta. What I have since learned, though is that B&N modified the OS and how it interacts with Android's built in AccountAndSyncSettings. (Thank you straygecko -- developer of GSAppsAttack!)
That and the strong suggestion from the guys over at Mozilla that I should upgrade my OS to Android 2.2, have set me on this journey.
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