Android – Froyo port for OMAP-3530 BeagleBoard

Android – Froyo port for OMAP-3530 BeagleBoard

The objective of this project is to deliver a stable release of Android – Froyo port for TI’s OMAP-3530 BeagleBoard 

The major new features that are incorporated in this Android – Froyo release are :

• Integrated Rowboat 2.6.32 kernel for TI OMAP-3530 BeagleBoard
• Portable Hotspot and USB Tethering : Use mobile phone as a portable hotspot & run internet / share data with upto 8 devices
• Select Text on Web Pages in Email : Writing Emails simplified, just select text that’s not in a text field and copy it to clipboard
• Flash Support : Plugin for flash 10 browser available @ Android Market
• Gmail Auto-Advance : Easy to navigate between your old & new conversations on Gmail using left and right arrow buttons at the bottom of an open message
• Improved Application Manager : New tabbed interface enables user to view the activities like application being downloaded, installed, what’s running, and what resides on the SD card.
• Better Camera Controls : Support for orientation, zoom controls, access to exposure data etc
• Enhanced performance : Browser, Dalvik & Kernel Memory Management performance boost

Download & build instructions

Download Android source

1. Make sure you have a ~/bin directory in your home directory, and check to be sure that this bin directory is in your path:

     $ cd ~
     $ mkdir bin
     $ echo $PATH

2. Download the repo script and make sure it is executable:

     $ curl https://android.git.kernel.org/repo >~/bin/repo
     $ chmod a+x ~/bin/repo

3. Download from CoreDruids Android repository – http://gitorious.org/android-enablement

    $ repo init -u git://gitorious.org/android-enablement/omap-3530-manifest.git
    $ repo sync
    $ make TARGET_PRODUCT=beagleboard 

Prepare Root file system

     $ cd out/target/product/beagleboard
     $ mkdir android_rfs
     $ cp -r root/* android_rfs
     $ cp -r system android_rfs
     $ cd android_rfs
     $ chmod -R 777 *
     $ chown root.root *

prepare tar file for android_rfs directory

Prepare uImage

     $ cd <android_root_dir>/kernel
     $ make ARCH=arm omap3_beagle_android_defconfig
     $ export toolchain path
     $ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-eabi- uImage

For enabling USB EHCI port

1. Follow the steps in the following link to compile u-boot – http://elinux.org/BeagleBoard#U-Boot
2. copy u-boot.bin in FAT partition of SD card

Prepare SD Card

To boot Android from SD card you need to create a dual partition card.

1. Follow the link for creating SD card partitions
http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/LinuxBootDiskFormat

2. Untar root file system in ext3 partition of SD card.

3. Copy the uImage to SD card's FAT partition.

On Beagleboard

Execute the following commands in bootloader console to boot android on BeagleBoard

     $ setenv bootargs console=ttyS2,115200n8 noinitrd root=/dev/mmcblk0p2
 video=omapfb.mode=dvi:1280x720MR-24@50 init=/init rootfstype=ext3 rw rootdelay=1 nohz=off androidboot.console=ttyS2
     $ mmc init
     $ fatload mmc 0 80300000 uImage
     $ bootm 80300000

Known Issues

The kernel gives panic after couple of reboots (We observed that after re-flashing problem gets resolved)