I have been working on brew platform from a long time now. For a change I am now presently looking into the android platform. Intially I was thinking that android platform would be similar to that of J2ME. But it isnt so. Only the basic J2ME libraries are supported in android. The application structure, activites, tasks and threading mechanism is quite different than J2ME. This means that for an application to port from J2ME to android is as tough as porting it from any other platform. But the number of API's supported by android is very good which makes porting to this platform easier. This is only my first impression of this platform, have to see how it goes...
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Learning android platform
To learn android platform it would be better first to go through the presentations in the android website.
There are four presentations that give the detail about the components of the android platform. After understanding this you can choose your area of expertise and dig deep into the same.
I felt it would be better to learn about the platform by first concentrating on the kernel. The kernel is essentially the Linux kernel with some modifications for the mobile environment. Modifications include the binder (IPC driver), Power manager, bionic libc etc.
Android has tried to remove all the disadvantages of various software platforms and designed this platform to find a way around it. This is why I feel android would be a great success in the market. Also this has the added advantage of being open source. This would make the development much faster as more eyes will look into the code. This has even forced nokia to consider making symbian open source.
Looks like the telecom world is going through the phase of open source. Whether this will make telecom market better or kill it completely needs to be seen...
There are four presentations that give the detail about the components of the android platform. After understanding this you can choose your area of expertise and dig deep into the same.
I felt it would be better to learn about the platform by first concentrating on the kernel. The kernel is essentially the Linux kernel with some modifications for the mobile environment. Modifications include the binder (IPC driver), Power manager, bionic libc etc.
Android has tried to remove all the disadvantages of various software platforms and designed this platform to find a way around it. This is why I feel android would be a great success in the market. Also this has the added advantage of being open source. This would make the development much faster as more eyes will look into the code. This has even forced nokia to consider making symbian open source.
Looks like the telecom world is going through the phase of open source. Whether this will make telecom market better or kill it completely needs to be seen...
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
downloading git and android source in ubuntu
1. Install ubuntu 6.06 or above.
2. while installing linux if you are inside the firewall you need to modify /etc/apt/source.list. comment the first line and uncomment all other links.
If you are inside a firewall and the links to ubuntu updates are blocked while installing linux then you need to modify the above file. The first link will be prompting you to insert cdrom which needs to be commented and the other links will be commented if there is no access to it while installing linux. This can be later modifed by the root.
3. sudo apt-get update - this would update the sources.list with the latest packages available in the ubuntu public sites and the dependencies of each software to be installed.
4. sudo apt-get install git-core to install git. -This step will install git along with the dependent libraries. Alternately you can download the deb file and install in which case u need to install the dependent libraries yourself. I would prefer installing it this way first to install all the depending libraries first and then installing the required revision of git.
5. specific version of git is available at http://git-scm.com which can be downloaded and installed.
6. Follow the steps as given in http://source.android.com/download
With all this steps I was able to download the source of android at work :-)
2. while installing linux if you are inside the firewall you need to modify /etc/apt/source.list. comment the first line and uncomment all other links.
If you are inside a firewall and the links to ubuntu updates are blocked while installing linux then you need to modify the above file. The first link will be prompting you to insert cdrom which needs to be commented and the other links will be commented if there is no access to it while installing linux. This can be later modifed by the root.
3. sudo apt-get update - this would update the sources.list with the latest packages available in the ubuntu public sites and the dependencies of each software to be installed.
4. sudo apt-get install git-core to install git. -This step will install git along with the dependent libraries. Alternately you can download the deb file and install in which case u need to install the dependent libraries yourself. I would prefer installing it this way first to install all the depending libraries first and then installing the required revision of git.
5. specific version of git is available at http://git-scm.com which can be downloaded and installed.
6. Follow the steps as given in http://source.android.com/download
With all this steps I was able to download the source of android at work :-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)