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Intel, Google don't support Android to PC port
Sylvie Barak
12/2/2011 9:45 PM EST
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--A developer in Taiwan has been making internet waves with his new but unauthorized release of a Google Android Ice Cream source code for x86 devices, aimed specifically at PCs.
Chih-Wei Huang runs the Android-x86 group, which is not part of Google’s official Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Instead, Huang’s initiative is being funded and supported by Intel Corp’s chip rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD).
Neither company has made any significant inroads into the smartphone or tablet market, but Intel has been making significant efforts on the mobile front, with plans to release Atom based smartphones and more commercially appealing tablets within the first half of 2012.
Intel has also spent a year and a half working directly with Google Inc. to port the Android OS to x86. The port was first achieved on Android version 2.3.7 (Gingerbread) with Intel’s manager of the Google Program Office, Alec Gefrides, saying the firm had submitted some 120 patches to Google, which had all since been integrated into the source code, freely available on AOSP.
Intel’s code contributions have also been carried forward into the Ice Cream Sandwich build.
“We’ve been working with Google for a long time,” said Gefrides, explaining, however, that Intel’s efforts were squarely aimed at smartphones and tablets, not PCs, for which different drivers would be needed to make all the components work.
“If you pull the x86 version of Android down from the AOSP and compile it, it will run on any x86 device, but that’s not the intent, neither ours nor Google’s,” said Gefrides. “Our focus is to get phones and tablets on our Atom product line up and running on Android. That’s what we’ve been focused on, that’s what we’ve been working with Google on.”
“What’s been happening [in Huang’s case] is he bought an off-the-shelf notebook, downloaded Android off the Android open source project, and then tried to compile it. Of course it runs on x86, because it’s all the same architecture but it doesn’t have all the driver support for a PC,” Gefrides explained.
Intel typically sends out board support packages to OEMs building products on its reference design which would have all the necessary drivers included. Without these drivers, certain parts would simply not work.
“We could definitely get our drivers to go and do that, but it’s not our focus,” he said.
All parties officially using and experimenting with a variant of Android sign an agreement with Google to say they will contribute everything back to the firm’s open source project, to avoid such fragmentation. Intel is signatory, AMD on the other hand is not.
Huang’s non-authorized version has not been submitted to Google for integration into the wider Android open source effort, which has raised concern that it could cause fragmentation.
AMD has also seemingly gone out of its way to provide resources for Huang, who notes in a forum thread, “AMD provides great support to us, including device donation and engineer's support.” Huang complains that Intel, on the other hand, does not support his efforts to port Android to PCs.
“Intel still refuses to provide any help to this project. They closed all contact windows I've ever tried,” said Huang, going on to recommend to his followers that should they want his code to work, he recommends using it on an AMD platform.
An Intel spokeswoman told EE Times there was no way the company could support the fragmentation of the Android platform, nor would Intel want to go against Google’s intent for how its Android platform best be used. Intel has also been very clear that its focus for Android is on Atom, as opposed to its Core products.
Chih-Wei Huang runs the Android-x86 group, which is not part of Google’s official Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Instead, Huang’s initiative is being funded and supported by Intel Corp’s chip rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD).
Neither company has made any significant inroads into the smartphone or tablet market, but Intel has been making significant efforts on the mobile front, with plans to release Atom based smartphones and more commercially appealing tablets within the first half of 2012.
Intel has also spent a year and a half working directly with Google Inc. to port the Android OS to x86. The port was first achieved on Android version 2.3.7 (Gingerbread) with Intel’s manager of the Google Program Office, Alec Gefrides, saying the firm had submitted some 120 patches to Google, which had all since been integrated into the source code, freely available on AOSP.
Intel’s code contributions have also been carried forward into the Ice Cream Sandwich build.
“We’ve been working with Google for a long time,” said Gefrides, explaining, however, that Intel’s efforts were squarely aimed at smartphones and tablets, not PCs, for which different drivers would be needed to make all the components work.
“If you pull the x86 version of Android down from the AOSP and compile it, it will run on any x86 device, but that’s not the intent, neither ours nor Google’s,” said Gefrides. “Our focus is to get phones and tablets on our Atom product line up and running on Android. That’s what we’ve been focused on, that’s what we’ve been working with Google on.”
“What’s been happening [in Huang’s case] is he bought an off-the-shelf notebook, downloaded Android off the Android open source project, and then tried to compile it. Of course it runs on x86, because it’s all the same architecture but it doesn’t have all the driver support for a PC,” Gefrides explained.
Intel typically sends out board support packages to OEMs building products on its reference design which would have all the necessary drivers included. Without these drivers, certain parts would simply not work.
“We could definitely get our drivers to go and do that, but it’s not our focus,” he said.
All parties officially using and experimenting with a variant of Android sign an agreement with Google to say they will contribute everything back to the firm’s open source project, to avoid such fragmentation. Intel is signatory, AMD on the other hand is not.
Huang’s non-authorized version has not been submitted to Google for integration into the wider Android open source effort, which has raised concern that it could cause fragmentation.
AMD has also seemingly gone out of its way to provide resources for Huang, who notes in a forum thread, “AMD provides great support to us, including device donation and engineer's support.” Huang complains that Intel, on the other hand, does not support his efforts to port Android to PCs.
“Intel still refuses to provide any help to this project. They closed all contact windows I've ever tried,” said Huang, going on to recommend to his followers that should they want his code to work, he recommends using it on an AMD platform.
An Intel spokeswoman told EE Times there was no way the company could support the fragmentation of the Android platform, nor would Intel want to go against Google’s intent for how its Android platform best be used. Intel has also been very clear that its focus for Android is on Atom, as opposed to its Core products.
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tb1
12/2/2011 10:07 PM EST
I think an Android PC makes a lot more sense than a Chrome PC. Google combined the phone and tablet versions of Android to create the "Ice Cream Sandwich" rev of Android.
Maybe they can do the same thing with Chrome and Android to create a PC Android.
We have Android tablets, why not Android portables?
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2/6/2012 4:41 AM EST
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tb1
12/2/2011 10:13 PM EST
Heck, Android can be the new Linux for PCs! It's a heck of a lot easier to use than Ubuntu.
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chanj
12/6/2011 1:16 PM EST
Android has so much constraints compared to Ubuntu. For everyday desktop PC, Android could be a good option. For high performance computing, any kind of servers or cloud based computing, Ubuntu, in general Linux, will be a better option.
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VNP
12/4/2011 9:43 AM EST
Well, AMD wants to be in the pink and tries to port Android to own chips. May be before making decision about cooperation with Google. It seems to be reasonable. Actually I do not understand why this topic is discussed by the community. No news?
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yalanand
12/4/2011 9:53 AM EST
Is Huang refusing to submit his version back to Google for integration? why he is opposed to merging his version with the google ?
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Neo1
12/5/2011 5:03 AM EST
Android for evrything they can lay their hands on seems to be the mantra for freelance developers with free time these days. There are sevral reasons it has been adopted for smartphones without much of fight but the same cannot be said of PCs which has seen many tens if not hundreds of OSes come and fade away.
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Sheetal.Pandey
12/5/2011 5:50 AM EST
wow if Intel get into tablet market with Android ported,,it would be interesting.
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iniewski
12/5/2011 1:46 PM EST
why would Google not support this move?
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SylvieBarak
12/5/2011 3:11 PM EST
Because Google has it's Chrome OS for notebook form factors. Android is supposed to be for mobile Internet Devices only. Also, a lot of its functionality is a bit redundant without touchscreen.
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tabletsx86
12/5/2011 2:56 PM EST
"Android version 2.3.7 (Gingerbread) with Intel’s manager of the Google Program Office, Alec Gefrides"
Where can one download a working version
of this intel port???
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SylvieBarak
12/5/2011 3:11 PM EST
From the Android Open Source Project.
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tabletsx86
12/5/2011 3:28 PM EST
so you mean Intel really doesn't have a port like
the android-x86.org project does??? Like
MS old vaporware I guess..LOL
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beyounn
12/5/2011 4:02 PM EST
"Huang’s non-authorized version has not been submitted to Google for integration into the wider Android open source effort, which has raised concern that it could cause fragmentation."
Whoever said this is totally misleading. Chih-wei has tried very hard to summit any of our changes to the ASOP and many of them have been accepted by the ASOP.
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selinz
12/5/2011 5:37 PM EST
With open source, it is likely for a 1 company (Intel) to make a large contribution to an effort and another company (AMD) to take advantage of their work. That's the nature of the beast. It sort of sounds like Intel is whining...
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beyounn
12/6/2011 2:32 AM EST
Woo ya, talking about taking advantage of others work, one of the intel guy took a patch from android-x86 and submit to ASOP under his name, what about that ?
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collin
12/6/2011 11:28 AM EST
Android OS, very popular in China now. Many projects start to choose android as the first option OS.
I focus on embedded linux, as I know, the android is based on linux kernel, so i wonder why it is better than linux.
If you want to use android, you must be familiar with Java language. It is boring for me, only have interest on C,so i still use linux to develop new embedded projects. Of course, not phone and tablet.
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Luis Sanchez
12/6/2011 12:31 PM EST
Well, what would be Google’s official statement? I think as a comment mentions, the Chrome OS is the one for PC’s. Netbooks actually. But… haven’t hear much about it. I remember it was making a big buzz about a year a go but looks like Android is keeping Google engineers busy.
And… is fragmentation bad? Linux got all fragmented didn’t it? I think is a matter of time to hear about a fragmentation from Android, new distro’s and the like.
Anyway, looks like someone in the group actually says this fragmentation isn’t happening as Huang’s intentions as they have submitted changes to the ASOP group and some have been accepted. Interesting, we’ll soon have notebooks with Icecream on top.
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beyounn
12/6/2011 12:49 PM EST
Some feedbacks from the android-x86 discussion groups
http://groups.google.com/group/android-x86/browse_thread/thread/ffbbb9562de75dce?hl=en_US
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SylvieBarak
12/6/2011 7:13 PM EST
Guys, I'm writing a follow up to this. It's taking me a while because Intel won't comment and Google hasn't replied yet. I'm working on it. Want to bring you the complete story.
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iniewski
12/6/2011 7:26 PM EST
thank you Sylvie, looking forward...Kris
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Simon7382
12/10/2011 5:15 AM EST
" “We could definitely get our drivers to go and do that, but it’s not our focus,” he said. "
Something is fishy here. This does not sound like Intel.
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sureshkrshukla
4/13/2012 5:04 AM EDT
Android replacing Ubuntu Linux could be very interesting turn for PC OSs.
The fragmentation of open-source development because of 5-10 options for language, libraries, fragments these projects quickly. Nobody wanting to merge them.
These alternate projects start with some itch and do bring new ideas. But sadly many of these projects die slow death and dissapear because of lack of developers/interest. Surviving projects are not able to merge the freshness these ones brought, because of differences in language/library/design choices etc.
Less is more !!!
The strength of Android/x86 would be common language platform Java and big pool of Java libraries, including GUI, sound etc.
Slowly but surely this port will appear as leader of PC OS pack.
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KYRealtor
11/19/2012 3:42 PM EST
Why not partner instead with Ubuntu? They already have most of the drivers for Intel-based PCs, and you could produce a dual-boot or switch-desktop solution that would allow the end user to chose their favority interface. Otherwise, there will be a lot of Windows XP computers that will be thrown away. Most will be in the garbage, not recycled, if MicroSoft really discontinues support for their most popular release ever, and we do not have an Android solution ready for installation.
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zeromartz
3/11/2013 9:32 PM EDT
I have got the Android tablet from http://www.zeromartz.com/android-gadgets-c-64.html , work perfects. Recommend
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