Development Thread Dolphin on Android in Linux

[Sonicadvance1]

As you all know. I've been working on Dolphin for ARM/Android for quite a long while now. The Android port is still on its way, I've been working on it steadily.
So in the meantime, I'll give you some information to tide you over.

So you can currently run Dolphin on your Android devices through these next couple of steps.
There is a application on the Android market place called LinuxOnAndroid.
Basically this application lets you install a full ARMv7 Linux desktop environment on to you phone.

Website: http://linuxonandroid.org/
Play Store Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zpwebsites.linuxonandroid
Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1233981955/linuxonandroid-to-the-next-level?ref=live

So basically, since this application lets you run a full desktop environment on your native Android device, you can actually run Dolphin on your phone without me pushing a native Android APK currently.

So, steps to get this working.
Download LinuxOnAndroid from the Play store on to you phone.
Now install Linux by following the instructions. I would recommend using Ubuntu 12.10 because that is what I use to build, but if you know what you're doing. Obviously do w/e
The application allows you to /very/ easily install Linux on your phone by following the on screen instructions.

Once you have the environment running, and you're connected to it via VNC, you need to build Dolphin.
I currently have instructions on how to do so on the googlecode wiki page here: https://code.google.com/p/dolphin-emu/wiki/ARMBuild

Once you have Dolphin built via those instructions, you should be able to just run it.

Now some notes on this, it doesn't have sound support. So you won't hear anything.
The environment isn't hardware accelerated, so it'll be slower than running on hardware that does have hardware acceleration.
Input might be hard unless you're connecting to your phone via VNC on your computer.

The reason why I include his kickstarter is, that if he gets up to £3500 in his kickstarter, is that he is going to work on native hardware acceleration, getting sound output and more things. So if your Android device supports GLES3 in the future, it would be pretty awesome to have a full desktop suite to debug Dolphin on with hardware acceleration in the OGL plugin.

The good news about doing it this way, is you don't require stupid high end phones to run it. It should run on any phone that provides VFPv3-D32 which is quite a bit of them.

You do NOT need OpenGL ES 3 hardware to run Dolphin on your phone right now!
...You do need VFPv3-D32 though. basically any phone that has NEON.

[umjammerlammy]

You are a very beautiful man
Though I think I will wait for devices to become stronger and for the project to move along before I fiddle with it

[Legit1240]

I should give it a try on my S3 once I can find it again, thanks for giving us a chance to try it out

[Sonicadvance1]

No problem. On the Linux On Android's kickstarter, he has a update showing he has audio running. Which would be pretty fun to hear.

[carre]

Sonicadvance1 Do you plan to release an APK soon?. I tried a lot of times to do as you say but I get a lot of errors On the Linux On Android's .

[Sonicadvance1]

I plan on releasing a Dolphin APK. It is just taking a while since I'm not used to Android development.

[carre]

Thank you so much Sonicadvance1!!, I can't wait to try it even though it is a very early versión.

[bl0]

(03-01-2013, 08:20 AM)Sonicadvance1 Wrote: Now some notes on this, it doesn't have sound support. So you won't hear anything.
[...]
The reason why I include his kickstarter is, that if he gets up to £3500 in his kickstarter, is that he is going to work on native hardware acceleration, getting sound output and more things.

I had a look at the LinuxonAndroid website and it simply uses chroot. I wonder, then, what exactly is the problem with sound and why such a high price tag for it?
I don't know much about Android but I've used sound from inside chroot on desktop GNU/Linux. I don't remember encountering any problems.
Does your Android kernel use ALSA drivers for sound? Is /dev properly bind-mounted into your chroot, or else, are the required device nodes made available in some other way? Do you have the userspace parts of alsa (libs, configs...) installed in the chroot distribution?

[Sonicadvance1]

LoA isn't my project. The problem with getting sound on it is due to supporting a large number of devices with multiple configurations. I've heard the creator of the project has had problems getting certain Qualcomm devices working, but I can't say for certain.

[bl0]

I know LinuxonAndroid isn't your project. The device on which you're working is your device. It's certainly possible to take steps to find out why sound isn't working.
I took one Android device. (It's actually a Windows Mobile device to which Android has been ported unofficially.) I set up a minimal chroot with only glibc, busybox and alsa.

Code:

# cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [msmaudio ]: MSM-CARD - msm-audio
msm-audio (MSM-CARD)
# ls -l /dev/snd
crw-rw---- 1 1000 1005 116, 0 Mar 23 11:07 controlC0
crw-rw---- 1 1000 1005 116, 24 Mar 23 11:07 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw---- 1 1000 1005 116, 16 Mar 23 11:07 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw---- 1 1000 1005 116, 33 Mar 23 11:07 timer
# mount --bind /dev /tmp/chroot/dev
# chroot /tmp/chroot /bin/sh

BusyBox v1.17.1 (Debian 1:1.17.1-8) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

/ # aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: msmaudio [msm-audio], device 0: ASOC CODEC_DAI-0 []
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
/ # aplay -f cd sample.wav
Playing WAVE 'sample.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 44100 Hz, Stereo

Sound is played successfully. If you use LinuxonAndroid and it sets up a chroot, it should be similar. I don't see any problems here. Maybe this hardware configuration is an exception rather than the norm?