If you release the next version of Emteria.OS, is it possible to improve the activation of the GPS-USB-Dongle? Because my Dongle won´t start every time, somehow it is a lottery. But perhaps it is a problem of the APP. I´m using GNSS commander - GPS status.

yes, we have been thinking about this solution. It would indeed create a pretty big overhead, so we would like to evaluate other possibilities first. Its not that the RGBA isn't compatible with the touchscreen's driver, it actually is. But it isn't compatible with the fkms overlay we are using. Switching to kms leads to a very limited color depth and/or issues with the i2c touch driver. The fkms even supports other color modes (like RBGA8888), but not the one we need

There are two different solutions: asking Broadcom to extend their firmware to support RGBA8888 (Stefan has already opened an issue somewhere) or stop using fkms. In the meantime we are evaluating the newest Linux kernel 4.14, which apparently supports full color mode for the touchscreen, but still has problems with the i2c touch driver. I think Stefan was already in contact with their developers, so if we get some support from either Broadcom or the Linux community, we will be able to fix this very quickly.

@kai, 0.4.6 didn't have auto-update functionality included, so you can't update from 0.4.6 to anything else. Starting with 0.5.0, in-place updates should be possible. It is still beta, though. We hope we didn't forget something important

@kalkov said:@kai, 0.4.6 didn't have auto-update functionality included, so you can't update from 0.4.6 to anything else. Starting with 0.5.0, in-place updates should be possible. It is still beta, though. We hope we didn't forget something important

i reinstalled 0.5.0, but i find it will halt when i just run system. but not sure just accidentally or not.

one thing i'm wondering why so many TV box run android system very well but it's so hard to run on raspberry pi?

TV box and raspberry pi no big diference one is bring system from cmos to ram, one is from SD card to ram.

@Igor, thank you for replying and for explaning the problem.
I hope it can be fixed soon, however i'm not using a touch screen hence if that issue isn't fixed within 2-3 weeks then please postpond RGBA support for touch screens then release RGBA support version for HDMI screens

@roxette said:@Igor, thank you for replying and for explaning the problem.
I hope it can be fixed soon, however i'm not using a touch screen hence if that issue isn't fixed within 2-3 weeks then please postpond RGBA support for touch screens then release RGBA support version for HDMI screens

I'm following the issue too. In one or 2 weeks, it will condition buying a licence or changing my strategy.

@David, the kernel log shows that the dongle was detected correctly. No problems so far. The Logcat output includes a bunch of SELinux warnings, but they shouldn't be the reason for your problems. SELinux is set to permissive, which logs probable security issues, but still allows the operation to be executed. To test it, you can try to run "setenforce 0" in the terminal or set the SELinux to disabled in the file cmdline.txt on the boot partition.

@AlJan, this sounds like a very cool application. To get there, we need to finish 2 different things: (1) support for Android's native color mode (see my replies to roxette) (2) hardware acceleration for video decoding (we have a semi-working solution, which will be released soon).

@obero, sorry, I didn't understand your question. We will release 0.5.1 with fixed GApps support today or tomorrow. We hope, that you will be able to do an in-place update without using the installer. However, we didn't test it in production yet, so there is a chance something may go wrong

@kai, it is a complex topic I can write a whole book about. The main difference is: most TV boxes rely on i.MX, Snapdragon or Intel CPUs, which have huge communities and ready-to-use Android distributions. There is no such thing for Raspberry Pi, so Stefan and I have to implement a lot of existing drivers and adapters from scratch, as we can't reuse existing ones. Another problem is Broadcom's closed-source firmware, which heavily obstructs the development (see my replies about the color mode). Yet another problem is the limited performance: RPi3 has a very slow sdcard interface (in comparison to eMMC) and only 1GB of memory, which is shared between CPU and GPU. This means we have to optimize the platform even further, since all modern TV boxes have at least 2 GB of RAM and dedicated GPU memory.

@roxette, @juanitomaille, I'm afraid 2-3 weeks won't be enough for us to release a generic fix for both setups. The biggest order we have received so far is for a touchscreen-based product, so we have to keep this functionality in focus for now. On the other hand, if we can close this deal, we might be able to hire an additional developer to handle this issue.

@Igor, That period was an estimated time for you to think whether the i2c touch driver issue could fixed or not.
If not then you can move on and fix the RGBA issue for HDMI screens.
I was not asking for a generic fix for both setups within 2-3 weeks
Nevertheless, you are the boss , so it's you who should decide what to do next, just please don't forget about the voice calls which is a lot more important for me that vnc server.

Hi,
one comment regarding the hardware comparison, would it be possible to install Emteria Android on a BananaPi Pro or a BananaPi M3 maybe? The first one has more CPU Power and the advantage to use a SSD for example (real HDD speed, no USB channel break). The M3 has much more CPU power and 2GB of RAM (but the HD connector uses a USB channel internally again - how stupid).
I'm using a BananaPro as mail- and file server with Debian, but never tried to install Android on that platform.

We are working on support for a couple of other boards, but BananaPi is not in the list for now. The main reason is the high overhead. Supporting a new platform may require several months of work, which has to be somehow financially covered. The RPi is the most popular maker board out there, so the demand is sufficiently high. Developments for other boards will be covered by our cooperations with hardware manufacturers.