Rockbox/Android on Freescale i.MX31 based PDA+PMP player.......developers wanted

[portable]

Hi everyone,

Some of you, especially the admins might remember me............(from the attempted CEC X8 port player).

After the previous unsuccessful attempt to port Rockbox onto the CEC X8 players due to the lack of source code, we are now going to make a PMP player (and maybe cell phone as well) based on Freescale i.MX31.

For those who do not know, Freescale i.MX31 is used in Motorola Rizr Z6, Agio MP5 P881, Toshiba Gigabeat S series, Microsoft Zune and other devices......

Specifications and detailed information of MX31 available from Freescale

Current specification (subject to change) of our MX31 PDA+PMP unit can be found here.

Anyone who is interested in obtaining pre-production engineering sample can contact me directly or discuss here.

We are posting here to ask if there is any developer out here who would be interested to assist us to use Rockbox as the MX31 OS or PORT Rockbox as an application to run on Android.
Currently, there is a Google's summer of code 2008 project for Rockbox which aims to make Rockbox to run as an application. The current proposal aims to build a Rockbox port to Motorola ROKR cell phone. However, I am sure it will be of interest to the Rockbox community to Port it as an Android application or run natively as MX31 operating system.

To assist your effort, depending on your needs, we can provide either the
1) MGN MX31 development board, with Linux BSP and drivers (this item should be return on completion of the work because it is expensive!!)
or
2) the production/sample PMP units (you may keep the unit depending on agreed terms)

Development board, production or sample units will come preloaded with the latest Android OS.

We are currently preparing to produce the sample units, expected to be available in 2-3 months. Development board is still being used to port the Android OS and other purposes, but maybe available for loan in 1-2 months. Production units expected to be available around end of 2008.

We are happy to provide free production hardware if Rockbox developer is interested to pursuit this target. Toshbia Gigabeat S which also uses MX31 is already capable of running Rockbox.

Reply here or message me directly if you are interested.

Thanks

Update:
From discussion with various Rockbox developers, seems like there is significant difficulty in porting Rockbox to Android because Rockbox is based on C whereas Android is based on Java.

[Llorean]

This is a Rockbox board, not a place to request developers to work on your project.
You even posted in the "New Ports" section, just to pretty much say explicitly that this is NOT a New Port.

[portable]

This is a Rockbox board, not a place to request developers to work on your project.
You even posted in the "New Ports" section, just to pretty much say explicitly that this is NOT a New Port.

Why would it not a new port? when Rockbox does not work on it? I know there are other threads on discussion of running Rockbox on Microsoft Zune or Toshiba Gigabeat, but those have went nowhere due to inability to break the encryption...........

Same idea here, developers can port Rockbox over if they see suitable (it will probably work better than other current ports since the source code for original OS will be provided and the CPU is "over-powered") or modify the existing Linux OS which is provided. And supposedly, the same port might work in other MX31 based devices? (Am I correct or not?)

(Isn't this the same the other thread "Project to design and build a Free/Open hardware audio player", except we are building the hardware and let developers make the software if they wanted to.................I don't see why I am on the wrong board to start with....)

[Llorean]

1) Rockbox is not a modified Linux, so a Rockbox port for it would not be a modification of it.

2) You explicitly said you didn't think Rockbox was suitable for it.

3) You asked people to help you work on "an operating system" while stating you wanted Linux, NOT Rockbox, so you are asking for help on a non-Rockbox project.

We'd be more than interested in putting Rockbox on open hardware, but your post isn't about Rockbox, and explicitly says you think Rockbox is unsuited. How am I supposed to read that as a new port for Rockbox, if you're talking almost entirely about Linux?

The other thread is making hardware with an explicit intent to run Rockbox on it, not an intend to create a Linux based DAP and ask Rockbox developers to help you write Linux for it.

[portable]

2) You explicitly said you didn't think Rockbox was suitable for it.

because for current Rockbox "Video playback in Rockbox is still in early stages, see PluginMpegplayer."

We are trying to build a video/PDA device. Rockbox by itself still lacks too many features needed and I don't see those would pop up just like that. Plus, I don't think Rockbox is build mainly as a music player. So it is probably better to run linux as the OS but any developers who might want to run Rockbox on it are welcomed, e.g. Rockbox on top of the linux, or boot directly as Rockbox.

You may treat this an early expression of interest for any developer who may want to work on it. Anyone else have an opinion on it?

[Llorean]

Again, what does

In short, what we need someone to help us create the GUI, install Mplayer and Opie.

have to do with Rockbox, at all?

It sounds like you just want to use our boards to recruit people to a different project entirely.

[portable]

Hi Llorean,

I am back and have just updated the first message on this thread which you may found more interesting and relevant now......

(Maybe you can delete the older messages on this thread to shorten it to the first message I posted? so not to make it confusing to others?)

[portable]

For whoever interested to port Rockbox to Android.....

Question:
Is it possible to run SDL (C/C++) based applications on Android?

Answer:
yaa..It's Possible ,But  you need set the configurations...

Where is it from:
http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss/browse_thread/thread/62be8fcc7887fea4?hl=en

Native C++ "Hello World" working in emulator
http://www.anddev.org/native_c_-und-quothello_world-und-quot_working_in_emulator-t61.html

[casainho]

I am not being reading nothing about Android... but If a Open Hardware and Software, I would for sure buy it and would like to have Rockbox on it -- however I prefer dedicated hardware to audio, I prefer to put my energies on that, not on a PMP - so I am busy with Rockbox Player idea.

I wish you good luck!!