G1 celebrates it's 4th birthday

Today four years ago the first G1s were put to the market. Ok, my G1 is no longer in it's first configuration (Android 1.5 Cupcake) because I've upgraded to ADS_Magpie (Gingerbread 2.3.7), but I am still using and loving it ... ;-) More on the G1's history you can read on: T-Mobile G1 Celebrates Its 4th Birthday (That’s 80 In Smartphone Years)

Nexus 7 MTP automount on OpenSuse 11.4

Unfortunately Android 4.x devices cannot be mounted as a VFAT device any longer. While with 4.0 only the PTP mode is supported (which can be used to transfer photos only), on 4.1 you can switch between PTP mode and MTP mode in the settings.

While Windows has an acceptable MTP support, on Linux systems MTP is not supported out of the box, even worse if you want to automount your android device when connecting it. Looking around, I found Han-Wen Nienhuys go-mtpfs project on Github.

install mtpfs support

go-mtpfs is based on libmtp. For OpenSuse 11.4 you need to download the latest rpm from pbone.net and to install it on your system

After that, you can either checkout the go-mtpfs project from github and compile it by yourself or, probably more easy, download the binary from here.

You can install the binaries in every place you like, but it should be either on your path configuration or you need to define the full path to the binary when using it.

configure automount

Automount on current Linux systems is initiated by the udev system. In /etc/udev/rules.d/ you will find a set of rules which define what should happen when a new device is added, removed, ...

Create or modify a new ruleset, i.e./etc/udev/rules.d/50-android.rules. Here we need to add the following rules regarding the Nexus 7 device:

# Google Nexus 7 16 Gb Bootloader & recovery mode
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTR{idProduct}=="4e40", MODE="0666" # Bootloader
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTR{idProduct}=="d001", MODE="0666" # Recovery

# Google Nexus 7 16 Gb PTP mode (camera)
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTR{idProduct}=="4e43", MODE="0666" # PTP media
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTR{idProduct}=="4e44", MODE="0666" # PTP media with USB debug on

# Google Nexus 7 16 Gb MTP mode (multimedia device)
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTR{idProduct}=="4e41", MODE="0666" # MTP media
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTR{idProduct}=="4e42", MODE="0666" # MTP media with USB debug on

# Google Nexus 7 MTP mode : automatic mount when plugged
ENV{ID_MODEL}=="Nexus", ENV{ID_MODEL_ID}=="4e41", ACTION=="add", RUN+="/usr/bin/sudo -u /go-mtpfs /media/nexus7"
ENV{ID_MODEL}=="Nexus", ENV{ID_MODEL_ID}=="4e42", ACTION=="add", RUN+="/usr/bin/sudo -u /go-mtpfs /media/nexus7"

# Google Nexus 7 MTP mode : automatic unmount when unplugged
ENV{ID_MODEL}=="Nexus", ENV{ID_MODEL_ID}=="4e41", ACTION=="remove", RUN+="/usr/bin/fusermount -u /media/nexus7"
ENV{ID_MODEL}=="Nexus", ENV{ID_MODEL_ID}=="4e42", ACTION=="remove", RUN+="/usr/bin/fusermount -u /media/nexus7"

Be sure, that the mount point /media/nexus7 exists and is accessable for your user.

After sudo /etc/init.d/boot.udev restart your Nexus 7 device should be mounted automatically to /media/nexus7 when plugged to your PC.

If you want to mount other devices, you only need to add the corresponding rules, i.e. you need to know the corresponding idVendor/idProduct values. Those you can figure out using the dmesg command after the device is plugged.

compile android 4.x on a 32-bit environment

Compiling Android from the sources should be the basis for your own modifications / improvements the the Android system. Unfortunately Google removed 32-bit support with Gingerbread (Android 2.3), but nevertheless with some minor modifications to the build scripts it was still possible to build on 32-bit Linux systems. When I got my Nexus 7, I intended to compile the Jelly Bean sources, but unfortunately I still have a 32-bit OpenSuse Linux machine and compilation failed. I dearched the web, but the only answers I could get were: "you need a 64-bit environment", "yopu need to buy a new machine", ... I was very disappointed, but then I found Yath's project on Github. Following his instructions compiling Jelly Bean on a 32-bit Linux machine is still possible and I can wait soem additional months to buy a new machine ... ;-)

Nexus 7 partition sizes (16Gb model)

Partition Name	Partition Description	by_name	Size in Blocks	Size in MB
mmcblk0p1	recovery	SOS	12288	12
mmcblk0p2	boot	LNX	8192	8
mmcblk0p3	system	APP	665600	650
mmcblk0p4	cache	CAC	453632	443
mmcblk0p5	misc	MSC	512	0.5
mmcblk0p6	staging	USP	10240	10
mmcblk0p7	provisioned	PER	5120	5
mmcblk0p8	unknown	MDA	512	0.5
mmcblk0p9	userdata	UDA	14103552	13773
mmcblk0boot0			2048	2
mmcblk0boot1			2048	2

remote debugging over TCP/IP

You can debug your applications on your Android device not only over USB, but also over a TCP/IP (LAN / WLAN) connection. To enable tcp debugging you have to enter the following commands on your device:

setprop service.adb.tcp.port 5555
stop adbd
start adbd

To start debugging enter on your PC:

adb tcpip
adb connect <ip of device>
...

now you can debug as you are used to debugging over USB.

To disable debugging you have to enter the following commands on your device:

setprop service.adb.tcp.port -1
stop adbd
start adbd

More info can be found on Android Debug Bridge