Android LiveCD Part 2
Well.
I got the Android LiveCD running in VirtualBox on my other machine now. Must say, I like having the mouse!
Been having fun installing applications (finally) into Android. I’ll whip up this short little pictorial to help.
The biggest thing i didn’t realise when I was first trying is that for whatever reason the Android LiveCD will not resolve DNS, so when you try to use handy CLI tools like wget (to punt our apk right into the phone!) it won’t resolve, tricking you into thinking it cannot be done. (Note: I tried the DNS workaround listed here
Not only can it be done, if you happen to run a development environment on the same machine (in my case, XAMPP) you can punt your apk’s right into the phone w/o having to route them outside the machine.
The rest of this post assumes you have such a system!.
That being said, Xampp isn’t that hard to set up.
Start xampp & Apache & Copy your .apk somwhere into the htdocs folder
Start the virtual machine:
Get your IP:
Hard Part!!
find an .apk to install
I have tried android market, androidfreeware, etc.. and have not found an intuitive way to download apk’s to my PC! This is a very aggravating portion of all of this. I spent a considerable amount of time combing the internet for apps to install, that i could get outside of the marketplace. If Android is to work as a pseudo-desktop sort of experience there needs to be an easy way to get the free apps you need, otherwise, whats the point?
Next thing you have to do is:
———————————–
press Alt+F1 (drops you to the shell)
cd /system/app
[enter]
wget http://(IP)/(file name, etc..)
[enter]
You should see it xfer over.
Now press Alt+F7 (takes you back to the GUI)
————————————
check to see if it is showing up correctly:
Now launch it and see if it works!
Congrats…
Rinse, Wash & Repeat when you happen to come across actual apk’s to install
For Reference:
Familiarize yourself with the Android Shortcuts Here
Browser shortcuts:
Open Go to window MENU + s
Open Bookmarks MENU + b
Open Windows MENU + w
View history MENU + h
Refresh or stop page MENU + r
Go back a page MENU + j
Go forward a page MENU + k
Find on page MENU + f
Go to home page MENU + ENTER
Zoom in MENU + i
Zoom out MENU + o
Go to Settings MENU + p
Page down SPACEBAR
Page up SHIFT + SPACEBAR
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Notes:
Yes, I believe there will be a much easier way when 0.3 comes out, and i hope to god they have an SD card emulation going on. That is by far the biggest problem I have has is with the lack of SD card (unless someone can clue me in on how to pull the mount off in this version (plenty of help files for the SDK Emulator)).
You’re making good progress with Android. That’s pretty lame that they make is so hard to get apps.
I went and checked out the G1 gPhone, I wasn’t to impressed with the hardware. The keyboard keys are super tiny, and very flat, nothing to snag with my flat fingers.
Odd that it was bigger than my smartphone keyboard, bit slower to type on, slower than the iPhone soft keyboard too…
So if I think i might just wait and get the G2 with no keyboard since the real keyboard sucks so much!
BTW, FlatPress needs comment notification, like WP
I’m not sure why its so lame though. It’s been a really frustrating experience with trying to get apps.
I’m checking out a few torrents that might be able to help me out (collections of free stuff).
One of these days I’m going to try out all of the android live cd’s (yes, there are mutiples).
Oh, and maybe on that day I’ll finally migrate this site to WP. It’s on my todo.