subject: Android X86 2.2 Froyo on an Ecafe EC900 Netbook, an evenings experimentations [print this page] Android X86 2.2 Froyo on an Ecafe EC900 Netbook, an evenings experimentations
The Android operating system is also available for X86 based CPU's. Known as Android x86 it is available from the Androidx86.org website.
After downloading both the eee and generic CD images I burned them to disk and equipped with my external DVD writer and a Hercules Ecafe 900 netbook I started my exercise in testing Android 2.2 Froyo. I would like to say it was a breeze, however, it wasn't! Neither of the CD's would boot up correctly and disappointment was creeping in, after all I haven't had any other issues running Live Linux CD's on my netbooks and Android runs atop of the Linux kernel.
Not to deterred I thought I would create a bootable USB pen drive with the CD image installed and test to see if it would work from a USB pen. After downloading Unetbootin from http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ I was able to create the bootable pen drive ready for testing. Unetbootin is available for both Windows or Linux operating systems.
Hitting the F11 key on the netbook to bring up the boot menu screen I selected the pen drive and away it went. A few seconds later and up came the selection screen to run as a live installation or to install to hard drive. After selecting the top menu item to run Android as a live installation HDMPI the system continued to boot up and after about 30 seconds I was sitting looking at an Android desktop.
The touchpad is still the mouse cursor on screen as after all I haven't installed a touchscreen on my netbook. The home desktop page has no icons linking to any installed applications and so it looked very sparse. However, they are all but a mouse click away on a different screen.
Off to 'settings' I headed to configure the wifi. Oops it doesn't recognise the inbuilt wifi of the Ecafe. After trying to load the wifi module from a console window (It has the same virtual consoles of more standard Linux desktops) and after copying the firmware from my hard drive I was unable to enable the wireless connection. The ethernet connection worked fine, but who wants to use a netbook on ethernet unless they have no choice?
Next was to reboot and test the install to hard drive on a partition I had made available at the end of my drive. The drive is a 60GB unit and has been split in such a way that the computer already has Windows XP and Mandriva 2010.2 (Linux) installed. As I always use Mandriva the default boot item is set accordingly. On selecting to Install the Android to hard drive I followed the prompts and when asked selected to install to one of my partitions. In my case this was sda9. For those unfamiliar with Linux sda is traditionally the device name for the first SATA or SCSI disk drive, sda1 would be the first primary partition as the partitions count upwards, sda5 is the first extended partition and within this are to be found my 6,7,8 and 9 partitions. During the install it asked me if I wanted to mount the system as read only or read and writeable. I selected the latter, it warns that it may take longer to install, however, it still only took a few minutes.
Now one of the items it asks during the install is do you want to install GRUB. GRUB is a very powerful boot loader that allows you to boot many different operating systems, there are a few things to be wary of if you already have a GRUB boot loader installed. Which due to having a dual OS system already I did! As I am able to boot my Mandriva or XP. The Android boot loader recognised my Windows XP but not my Mandriva and so after installation was completed I could now only boot in to XP or Android. Not what I wanted as I had just lost the OS that I use nearly all the time.
After rebooting and testing the Android options I still had no wifi, although it now started more quickly than from the pen drive. I really wanted my Mandriva back and to also be able to boot XP or Android.
Back to the external DVD drive and my Mandriva install DVD. Select rescue system, select re-install GRUB boot loader. 5 minutes later I am back in to my main OS, wonderful!
Starting my system in Mandriva I was then able to see the Android partition and the directory and file structures. By using a text editor and copying and pasting the items in my menu.lst from the Froyo partition in to the menu.lst file for my Mandriva with a small amount of further editing I then had the boot menus and options that I wanted.
Re-starting the computer yet again, GREAT! All 3 operating systems are now available and all boot correctly.
Still no wifi though is a little bit of a nuisance, however, I had up to now only used the generic Android x86 image. So may be if I tried the eee specific image. I have an eee but this was for the Hercules so would it work? Swapping the image on the pen drive using unetbootin I booted the live eee image. A warning came up during boot saying it wasn't an Asus product. After boot up and in to settings and hey ho the wifi works. Not too much of a surprise as the eee and the Ecafe use the same hardware for the wifi.
A second hard drive install of Android later, but this time using the eee image. I chose not to install GRUB as everything was already in place, it only needed to change the files on the partition.
After an evening of experimenting and being patient I now have what I wanted. A system that is able to boot in to 3 very different operating systems.
Now an operating system by its self is not of much use, you need to have applications to make use of. Google control which devices are able to connect to the Android Market and so the x86 version on my netbook as one that is excluded from the party would be useless except for anything but basic browsing. Yes it has a Youtube App installed, however, the playback is very jumpy and stilted in comparison to that on my wifes Zenithink Apad. Yet the browsing and screen updates for non video content is actually faster than on the Apad. It is a work in progress and should there be a range of x86 based tablets or netbooks released running Android then I am sure many of these issues will be rectified. The netbook does have a way to install extra apps using Andmarket, there aren't as many apps available as they have to be compiled to be able to work on the Intel CPU instead of the ARM based processors commonly found using the Android OS. There are certainly enough available for someone like my self as I'm not a big games, movie or music buff. The one game I have played on my wifes Apad that I would of liked to install and that is available on Andmarket is Angry Birds. Oddly enough it wouldn't install, neither is there a flashplayer plugin available, so I can't play the Scrabble against friends on-line. The apps installed start very quickly and with the 1GB of memory of the Ecafe it doesn't start to grind to a halt as quickly as the 256MB of the Apad.
As more applications become available for x86/netbook users then this 'port' of Android would be ideal for parents with children that wanted to use the same interface on their phone as on their computer. Children or adults that already have Android devices will find the system starts up very quickly and if you want to install an after-market touch screen to their netbook they wouldn't have to use the touchpad or keyboard at all.
Will I keep the x86 version of Android installed on this computer? Yes I think I will, in my case just so I can have a play around and keep up top date with how it is developing in the months to come. My wifes website at www.inpedia.co.uk works the same as on a desktop or as the other OSes on the netbook behave. Because it believes it is a portable/mobile device the BBC, Facebook and certain other pages load special 'mobile' versions of the web pages. I find them annoying in their screen resolution, although I am sure other users may not! The pages I have tested can all be told to switch back to their full site page from links normally found on the page. Some games such as Jewels run in only part of the screen, not only that but they run in portrait mode rather than landscape. Luckily as they have been uninstalled after testing them they can't annoy me any further.
For everything serious, as well as the non serious things that computers get used for I will still be booting the Ecafe in to Mandriva 2010.2. It has all the applications that I need to use every day (even if I take it to my work with me). The one thing I can be certain of is that the Windows XP is likely to stay as the OS that gets used the least. Not because of any fanatical reason, I have made a good living supporting Windows in the past, simply that with Mandriva I have no need to and with the Android I have something new to tinker around and learn.
If Android (Froyo) had been available or something of similar quality on the early eee's and other netbooks then may be now the market would not be so full of computers creaking at the seams with poorly maintained factory installed Windows. The advantage a vanilla Linux or Android has is that they can both be fully installed and run from a pen drive. With XP a specialist image is available or you can even install XP to boot from a USB drive or SD card using a utility such as Usboot, however, the speed is somewhat lacking, especially compared to the very nimble Android x86 on the same hardware.
