android-x86 1.6 stable release is ready for download

The Android-x86 project is glad to release the new stable version 1.6 to the public. The live cd iso and usb image are available from our site, as usual:

* http://www.android-x86.org/download
* http://code.google.com/p/android-x86/downloads/list

Test reports (success or fail) are welcome as always. Please send the reports to the Android-x86 discussion group. If you are working on Android for x86 platform, welcome to join us. See the below contact information.

Key Features

Android-x86 1.6 is based on the Android 1.6, aka the Donut branch. We fixed and added many x86 specified code to let the system runs smoothly on x86 platforms, especially for netbooks. The key features of this release contain

* Kernel 2.6.29 with KMS enabled. Most netbooks can run Android-x86 in the native resolution.
* Hardware OpenGL support on i915/i945 family chipsets. This feature improves greatly the performance of 3D effect and video playback. It is turned on by default if the i915 driver is available. However, if you have trouble with it, you can disable it by adding HWACCEL=0 to the cmdline. (by olv from 0xlab)
* Wifi and Ethernet support. Both are configured from the GUI.
* A new text based GUI installer which supports ext3/ext2/ntfs/fat32 filesystems.
* Support basic bluetooth for builtin device and external bluetooth dongle.
* Keyboard layout is configurable. Ten layouts are supported in this release. To use this feature, you have to install Android-x86 to harddisk and reboot after changing the setting.
* Fn hotkeys support for Eee PC platforms.
* Add touch features to simulate Home/Menu/Back keys, useful for touchscreen only devices.
* Add software mouse cursor. Mouse wheel is also supported.

In addition to the key features, here is the list of all other improvements

* Better keyboard support, including PageUp, PageDown, and so on. The Ctrl key is usable in the Terminal emulator.
* Touchscreen support for Eee PC T91 and Eee Top.
* External usb drive and sdcard are auto mounted on plugging.
* Add shutdown and reboot dialog. To invoke it, press the power button.
* A hotplug tool to load driver firmwares.
* Audio and Camera support.
* Drivers auto detection.
* Battery status.
* Suspend to RAM and wakeup.
* Adjustable Alarm Clock volume.
* Add proxy setting.
* Be able to su in the Terminal emulator.
* Software keyboard is workable.
* Support larger resolutions.
* Chinese Pinyin IME works correctly.
* Add video player.
* Add more sample applications.
* Add third party applications, include
o OpenIntents File Manager.
o ConnectBot ssh client.
o AndAppStore client 1.5.8.
o LIME IME 1.6.3.
o RockOn 1.4.8 For Android.
* Compressed filesystem (squashfs).
* Debug mode including busybox.
* NDK for x86 platforms is supported.

Released Files

* Live CD iso: android-x86-1.6.iso

sha1sum: 9201e1eae9c4d48bc4436bce163c3eb12052603b
* Live USB image: android-x86-1.6_usb.img.gz

sha1sum: 9070bd35835f0790acfe30adef7dc21ef5a4537f

Source code

As uaual, the source code is available in our git server:

$ repo init -u git://git.android-x86.org/platform/manifest.git -b donut-x86
$ repo sync

Read this article for how to compile the source code.
Contact us

* Google group: Android-x86

http://groups.google.com/group/android-x86?hl=en

* IRC channel at irc.freenode.net #android-x86

android-x86 20091113 test build is released

The Android-x86 project is glad to announce a new test build
20091113 for public testing. A live cd ISO and USB image are
available from our site:

http://www.android-x86.org/download
http://code.google.com/p/android-x86/downloads/list

Features:
Build 20091113 is Android 1.6 (Donut) based and it is a release candidate for android-x86 1.6 stable release.
In addition to the features available in previous release, the new build contains

* Hardware OpenGL support from olv in 0xlab.
* Fn key support for EeePC platforms.
* External USB bluetooth support.
* NDK for X86 platforms is supported (based on the original work from guillaume.etievent@laposte.net)
* new touch features to simulate home/menu/back keys to support touch only device.
* Improvement on the keyboard support. User can use ctrl+c directly from terminal simulator now.
* A lots of bug fixes.

Released Files:
* Live CD iso: android-x86-20091113.iso

sha1sum: dec0b99a6fe1e33e05b665e82f3020f612eb14bf

* Live USB image: android-x86-20091113_usb.img.gz

sha1sum: ce040ced2da92c278c7df2527b5f3498a68afbfa


Source code:
The source code is available in our git server:

$ repo init -u git://git.android-x86.org/android-x86/platform/manifest.git
$ repo sync

Test reports (success or fail) are welcome.
Please send the reports to the Android-x86 discussion group.
http://groups.google.com/group/android-x86

The new feature for the touch only device

Swan_Wang has pushed in a new feature for the device that only has a touch screen. For these kind of devices, user need to have a way to get into menu, home or going back to the last screen. To do it, user only need to touch the right end of the status bar and then use following touch actions to simulate menu,home and back keys

* Home: Touch the status bar.
* Menu: Touch the statusBar from left to right.
* Back: Touch the statusBar from right to left.

You can touch the right end of the status bar again to disable the feature.

Yi

The NDK tarball is ready for test

I have released a NDK tarball. It is based on the original work from guillaume.etievent@laposte.net.
The tarball includes following things:
1. original arm NDK that built from android-x86 source tree.
2. the x86 NDK support.

To use the x86 support from the NDK tarball, the only extra thing you need to do is to add TARGET_PRODUCT=eeepc to your compile command line. I hope that we could have a better compile flag to tell the targeted CPU type. But I would rather to collect some feedbacks before I moving further.

Please send your comments/questions/suggestions to android-x86 discussion group.

Yi