Regarding running Android LXC guest in Ubuntu touch by using Mir

[Thomas Voß]

with attachment now :)

  T

On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 2:49 PM, Thomas Voß <thomas.voss at canonical.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 2:55 AM, Daniel van Vugt
> <daniel.van.vugt at canonical.com> wrote:
>> That all said, there might be a short-cut. If you accept that it may
>> only work on Ubuntu phones that were formerly Android phones, then with
>> maybe some weeks/months of effort you might be able to build the
>> required translation layers for graphics and input etc...
>>
>>
>
> The approach would not necessarily be limited to phones (or devices
> that used to be Android devices).
> I illustrated a hypothetical stack (and a bigger picture) in the
> diagram attached to this mail. In that diagram:
>
>   * orange boxes refer to services and middleware provided by Ubuntu.
> Please note that
>      the respective layer in the diagram refers to arbitrary system services.
>   * green boxes refer to Android drivers (binary blobs). Please note
> that we are able to consume those drivers
>     without modifications and as they ship for Android (built against
> bionic etc.).
>   * the dotted rectangle refers to a potential container hosting the
> app and its runtime. It is not strictly required, though, depending on
> the
>     type of app (pure java would likely not require a container, apps
> using the ndk might likely need one to provide necessary elements like
> bionic).
>     Please note that the "Android container hosting apps" is a thought
> experiment only, we haven't done this for Android apps, only for
> legacy X11 applications.
>
> With that, we are able to swap out the Android (driver) layer and
> replace it with alternatives (e.g. on vanilla linux setups).
> The app could follow along together with the emulation layer and "just
> keep on working". This is subject to a few unknowns though,
> specifically
> on the set of services that an app requires. If the app was deeply
> integrated with Android, there is a fair chance that one or more
> services provided by Android cannot be
> mapped to the Ubuntu platform.
>
> A closing remark on the "Android emulation layer": It could
> theoretically be Android itself (with the app and the layer running in
> an LXC container) in which all
> required system services have been patched to talk to the Ubuntu side.
> It would require significant effort, but I think it *could* work.
>
> HTH,
>
>   Thomas
>
>> On 08/01/16 09:21, Daniel van Vugt wrote:
>>> Support for Android apps is unlikely to happen any time soon.
>>>
>>> You have to remember that Ubuntu Touch is not Android, but is a full
>>> Ubuntu system. The fact that Ubuntu Touch uses an Android kernel is not
>>> sufficient to support Android apps.
>>>
>>> Although parts of Android remain and are visible in the Ubuntu Touch
>>> filesystem, they are unlikely to function correctly. Certainly even if
>>> you could run an Android app right now then it would not appear on the
>>> screen. That would require significant work. And even still, not all
>>> Ubuntu Touch devices will be based on Android devices. So you would
>>> really need to start from the ground up and build a self-contained
>>> Android emulator.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 07/01/16 17:53, 유재용 wrote:
>>>> Come to think of it, by replacing surfaceflinger, would it be possible to
>>>>
>>>> run Android apps as it appears as a native application in Ubuntu touch?
>>>>
>>>> In other words, if you run Angry bird in Ubuntu touch, it will launch
>>>>
>>>> Angry bird in Android and the screen output is composed to the application
>>>>
>>>> inside Ubuntu touch?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Jaeyong
>>>>
>>>> ------- *Original Message* -------
>>>>
>>>> *Sender* : Andreas Pokorny<andreas.pokorny at canonical.com>
>>>>
>>>> *Date* : 2016-01-05 03:07 (GMT+09:00)
>>>>
>>>> *Title* : Re: Re: Regarding running Android LXC guest in Ubuntu touch by
>>>> using Mir
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 6:50 AM, 유재용 <jaeyong.yoo at samsung.com
>>>> <mailto:jaeyong.yoo at samsung.com>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>      Oh, I see. That is more interesting.
>>>>
>>>>      Just for the curiosity, could you tell me more about the early days
>>>>      before Mir?
>>>>
>>>>      I'm wondering why you choose to remove surface flinger.
>>>>
>>>>      Is there some constraint if you keep using Surface flinger and
>>>>      another graphics server?
>>>>
>>>>      Thanks,
>>>>
>>>>      Jaeyong
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hi Jaeyong,
>>>> Replacng surfaceflinger with a mir based system compositor - next to the
>>>> obvious idea of making the android driver based stack similar to the
>>>> mesa/kms based stack - allows us to separate the user session from the
>>>> output and input devices allocation. With that it will be easy to have a
>>>> seamless switch between user sessions or have them running in parallel
>>>> and move devices between sessions .. and more.
>>>>
>>>> regards
>>>> Andreas
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
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