How to determine requirements for porting Android?

[ppmoore]

Hello.

I just found this site via Google ;<)

I work for a portable entertainment products manufacturer, and we are looking at porting Android to one of our handheld audio-visual devices. My initial task is to determine if Android can be ported to the device. I've been browsing through the various Google-sponsored Android sites, looking for hardware porting and requirements information, and haven't been able to find anything.

The device is promarily an entertainment device, so we will need to support the various audio, still-picture and video applications and codecs normally found on such a device. The device is not a mobile phone, so we will not be supporting GSM/3G. The device supports connectivity through USB/Ethernet/Wi-fi, and the related applications such as web browsing, VOIP, and possibly IPTV.

At this stage, I need to determine if Android can be successfully ported to the device. I guess that this should include an evaluation of whether the hardware is already supported. Does Android already include device drivers for various low-level hardware? Or is it expected that each manufacturer has to implement the necessary device drivers and codecs? I apologise because I don't have much experience of embedded Linux, so I'm learning on the fly here.

Can someone please point me in the right direction?

Many thanks,
Paul

[liamw]

I am not a developer but I would think your best bet would be to contact the google android team directly, though it seems difficult to find any sort of contact details for them. This may of some use, it's a mailing list: taken from the following url: http://source.android.com/discuss

Android porting - You want to port Android to your favorite device. You have downloaded the Android source code, now you're wondering how to combine it with your hardware to create the best Android device ever. Discuss here the specifics of porting Android to individual devices, from obtaining toolchains and merging kernel drivers all the way to configuring applications for your specific configuration.

• Subscribe using Google Groups: android-porting
• Subscribe via email: android-porting-subscribe@googlegroups.com

I think depending on your hardware you may well need to develop your own drivers, but as I said I am not a developer so I base this purely on what I've read.

[ppmoore]

Thanks Liam.

I posted a message over there, still waiting for a response.

Paul