TI-Android-ICS-4.0.3-DevKit-3.0.1 UserGuide

TI-Android-ICS-4.0.3-DevKit-3.0.1 UserGuide

User Guide - April 05, 2012

About this manual

This document describes how to install and work with Texas Instruments' Android ICS DevKit release for AM335x platforms running Android. This release package provides a stable Android distribution with integrated SGX (3D graphics accelerated) drivers, TI hardware abstraction for WLAN, Bluetooth and standard applications from Android. The package also includes Linux Android kernel, boot loaders, debug & development tools and documentation to ease development, deployment and execution of Android based systems. The product also forms the basis for all Android application development on AM335x platforms.

This document contains instructions to:

• Install the release
• Set up the hardware
• Use the pre-built binaries in the package
• Run Android on the supported platforms
• Set up the Android debugger “adb” with the hardware platform
• Install and execute Android (out of market) applications on hardware platforms

Installation

This section describes the list of Software and Hardware requirements to evaluate the DevKit release.

Hardware Requirements

This release of TI Android ICS 4.0.3 DevKit 3.0.1 can be evaluated on the platforms listed below. This package should be easily portable to other platforms on similar TI devices.

TI Device	Platform Supported	Version	Other Accessories
AM335x	AM335x Evaluation Module	Rev 1.1A or greater	USB HUB, USB Keyboard, USB Mouse, Ethernet, UART Cable, Audio Speakers, MMC/SD Card (2GB min)
AM335x	BeagleBone	Rev A3	USB HUB, USB Keyboard, USB Mouse, Ethernet, Mini-B USB Cable, MMC/SD Card (2GB min). Also tested with beaglebone cape for DVI-D and LCD.

This release is tested with beaglebone cape for DVI-D and LCD. Beaglebone capes provide additional functionality to the Beaglebone.

BeagleBone DVI-D Cape

The DVI-D Cape adds DVI output for BeagleBone.

BeagleBone LCD Cape

The LCD Cape adds 7-Inch LCD output, Touch Screen and 4-Key Keypad for BeagleBone.

Software Host Requirements

The host and target software dependencies and requirements are described below.

Host PC requirements

If you are an Android application developer or would like to use Android SDK Tools then refer to Android SDK Requirements for Host PC requirements.

To evaluate this release we recommend you to have a Linux "Ubuntu 10.04 or above" Host machine, See Ubuntu Linux installation notes

TI Android DevKit Software Release

The TI Android ICS 4.0.3 DevKit 3.0.1 release for AM335x evm and BeagleBone is available as online download from http://software-dl.ti.com/dsps/dsps_public_sw/sdo_tii/TI_Android_DevKit/TI_Android_ICS_4_0_3_DevKit_3_0_1/index_FDS.html

Setup

This section gives the instructions to quickly prepare an SD Card image and get an experience of TI Android ICS 4.0.3 DevKit 3.0.1 on TI AM335x platforms/devices.

Getting Pre-built Images

Prebuilt images can be obtained from

• TI_Android_ICS_4_0_3_DevKit_3_0_1 Release Page, for the platform you own AM335x EVM or BeagleBone

Use below commands to untar/uncompress the pre-built image

  $ tar -xzvf <Board name>.tar.gz
  $ cd <Board name>

The tree structure for uncompressed pre-built image directory should be as:

  <Board name>
      |-- Boot_Images
      |   |-- MLO
      |   |-- START_HERE
      |   |-- u-boot.img
      |   |-- uEnv.txt
      |   `-- uImage
      |-- Filesystem
      |   `-- rootfs.tar.bz2
      |-- Media_Clips
      |   |-- Audio
      |   |-- Images
      |   `-- Video
      |-- README.txt
      `-- mkmmc-android.sh

NOTE: <Board name> will be am335xevm for AM335x EVM and beaglebone for BeagleBone.

Procedure to populate MMC/SD Card

• Get an SD Card of minimum size 2GBytes (Class4 minimum) and a USB Card reader

• Insert the USB SD Card reader (with SD Card) in your host Linux PC

• Prepare the MMC/SD card with pre-built images:

  $ cd <Board name>
  $ sudo ./mkmmc-android.sh /dev/sd<device>

• Above step will create a bootable MMC/SD card which can be used to boot up the device.

Setting Up Hardware

This DevKit release supports two different platforms AM335x EVM and BeagleBone. While they are different devices the hardware setup will almost remain the same.

AM335x EVM

• Connect the UART port (J12 of base board) on AM335x EVM to the Host PC and have a Terminal software like TeraTerm, Minicom or Hyperterminal.
  • Baud rate settings: 115200 8-N-1
• Connect the Ethernet (J15 of base board) on AM335x EVM.
• Connect Audio Speakers (J26 on daughter card) on AM335x EVM.
• Connect Audio Line-In cable (J27 on daughter card) on AM335x EVM.
• Connect USB Host port (USB1) (J18 on base board) on AM335x EVM to USB Keyboard or USB Mouse.

• Select Appropriate DIP Switch settings on AM335x EVM to boot over MMC/SD
  • For MMC/SD boot the DIP switch should be set as (SW3(1:8)=00010111) shown below:

Switch	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
State	OFF	OFF	OFF	ON	OFF	ON	ON	ON

• Insert SD card into MMC/SD slot on AM335x EVM.
• Connect power cable to J1 on AM335x EVM.
• Switch ON the (SW13)on AM335x EVM.

BeagleBone

• Connect USB cable to the mini-USB port(P3) on BeagleBone to the Host PC and have a Terminal software like TeraTerm, Minicom or Hyperterminal.
  • Please refer BeagleBone-Android-DevKit Guide for detailed instructions for serial port setup.
• Connect the Ethernet (P10) on BeagleBone.
• Connect USB Host port (P2) on BeagleBone to USB Keyboard or USB Mouse.
  • Connect USB keyboard and USB Mouse to the USB HUB for use with BeagleBone.
• Insert Micro SD card into MMC/SD slot on the BeagleBone.
• Power ON the BeagleBone by connecting power cable to (P5).

Booting Android

• Setup the board/platform
  • For AM335x EVM, Do the DIP switch settings to boot from SD Card, see the DIP switch setting under Setting Up Hardware section.
  • Insert the Micro/SD Card into the Board
  • Switch on the platform
  • Wait for 35sec to get Android up on the UI screen
    

NOTE: For the first time boot the System might take few minutes to boot.

NOTE: If your NAND flash is not empty the system might not boot with MMC, in that case do the following with Serial Console / Terminal prompt in u-boot

  U-Boot# mmc rescan
  U-Boot# fatload mmc 0 0x81000000 uEnv.txt
  U-Boot# env import -t 0x81000000 $filesize
  U-Boot# boot

Boot Arguments

  AM335X:
setenv bootargs 'console=ttyO0,115200n8 androidboot.console=ttyO0 mem=256M root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rw rootfstype=ext4 rootwait init=/init ip=off'

  BeagleBone:
setenv bootargs 'console=ttyO0,115200n8 androidboot.console=ttyO0 mem=256M root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rw rootfstype=ext4 rootwait init=/init ip=off'

Display Options

Using LCD output

On AM335x EVM the on board LCD is used as output device by default. On BeagleBone with LCD cape, the LCD on the LCD cape is used as the default output device

Using DVI Monitor

On BeagleBone with DVI-D cape, a DVI display connected to the DVI output port is used as the default output device, if connected.

Using VNC Viewer

Display output device is not available on BeagleBone if not using LCD cape or DVI-D cape. Please run Android VNC server on device console and experience the Android UI using VNC viewer on host machine.

Please refer to Android Display through VNC guide for more details.

NOTE: AM335xEVM does not support the DVI Monitor

Android Home Screen

UI Navigation

• There are five ways to navigate the UI screen:
  • Matrix Keypad (Only available on AM335x EVM)
  • LCD Cape Keypad (Only available on BeagleBone)
  • USB Keyboard
  • USB Mouse
  • Touch Screen (Only available on Am335x EVM and BeagleBone with LCD cape)

Note: The soft keyboard will not appear to enter text/data when USB keyboard is connected

Keys mapping

The below table lists the keypad and USB Keyboard mappings for using Android UI functionality.

Functionality	USB Keyboard	USB Mouse	Keypad on AM335x EVM	Keypad on Beaglebone LCD Cape
Home Screen	Win+Esc
Left	Left Arrow		SW3
Right	Right Arrow		SW4
Up	Up Arrow
Down	Down Arrow		SW6
Volume Up	Volume Up (Multimedia)		SW9
Volume Down	Volume Down (Multimedia)		SW10
Power			SW5	S3
Back	Esc, Back (Multimedia)		SW2	S5
Menu			SW1	S2
Select	Enter	Left / Right / Middle Click

Note: There is no keypad available on BeagleBone with DVI-D cape or without any cape, you need to use USB Keyboard/USB Mouse.

Out of the Box Demo

Multimedia Experience

• Using browser and android applications

Swipe across the screen to access more applications and widgets.

• Image browsing and media playback

View Image

Select "App Launcher" -> "Gallery" -> "Images". Click any thumbnail to view the image.

Double click the image to zoom in/out. Slide the image to view next image.

Play Video

Select "App Launcher" -> "Gallery" -> "Video". Click any thumbnail to play the video.

You can use the UI controls to Pause/Play/Seek the video. To stop playback and exit press the back key button.

Play Music

Select "App Launcher" -> "Music" -> "<Artist>" -> "<song-name>" to experience the music.

Control Volume

• There are two ways to control volume:
  • Using volume up/down keys
  • Select "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "Sound" -> "Volumes"

Record Sound

Select "App Launcher" -> "Sound Recorder". Press Record button to start recording audio. Press Stop button to stop recording.

Playback the recorded audio by pressing Play button on Sound Recorder GUI.

TI RowboPerf Experience

Running 2D/3D Demo

Select "RowboPERF" -> "3D" -> "Chameleon" or "App Launcher" -> "RowboPERF" -> "3D" -> "Chameleon" to view 3D demo.

Select "RowboPERF" -> "RowboatBench" -> "2D Tests" -> "Run" to view 2D demo.

Select "RowboPERF" -> "0xBenchmark" -> "2D" -> "Run" to view 2D demo.

Running CPU Benchmark

Select "RowboPERF" -> "ARM" -> "Dhrystone" to get CPU dhrystone values.

Refer to RowboPERF User Guide for more details.

Browser Experience

Ethernet Configuration

Ethernet is configured by default for DHCP. Use below command to verify Ethernet configuration

  # netcfg
  e.g.
  lo       UP                                   127.0.0.1/8   0x00000049 00:00:00:00:00:00
  sit0     DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00000080 00:00:00:00:00:00
  eth0     UP                               172.24.191.26/22  0x00001043 96:cd:df:8b:c6:2b

You can configure ethernet from the Settings menu.

• Select Ethernet configuration. Here you can enable/disable ethernet and perform any additional configuration.

• Choose between DHCP and static IP based on your network configuration

• Optional If you need to set up proxy, configure this from Ethernet proxy settings:

Enable Video Frame Per Second logs in Logcat

To print the FPS in logcat dump, type this command on the console before starting playback:

  # setprop debug.video.showfps 1

To disable the prints, type:

  # setprop debug.video.showfps 0

Wireless

AM335x EVM supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on Android.

Note: BeagleBone doesn't support wireless (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) module.

Wi-Fi

Enabling Wi-Fi

• To turn on Wi-Fi, browse to "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "Wi-Fi".
• Enable Wi-Fi by sliding the ON/OFF tab to the ON position and wait for few seconds.
• The device scans for the available APs and displays them.

• Connect to desired AP by clicking on its name and enter required details (username/key etc) and click Connect

• The following appears on console

[ 1270.525207] wl1271: loaded
[ 1271.494323] wl1271: firmware booted (Rev 6.3.6.0.79_2)
[ 1271.499694] wl1271: Driver version: R4_SP2_03_00
[ 1336.340881] cfg80211: Calling CRDA for country: IN
[ 1336.379425] cfg80211: Regulatory domain changed to country: IN
[ 1336.385559] cfg80211:     (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
[ 1336.394287] cfg80211:     (2402000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm)
[ 1336.402160] cfg80211:     (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm)
[ 1336.410064] cfg80211:     (5250000 KHz - 5330000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm)
[ 1336.417968] cfg80211:     (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm)
[ 1340.068145] wl1271: Association completed.

• when successfully connected, you will see status as connected under the respective AP name

Disabling Wi-Fi

• To turn off Wi-Fi, browse to "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "Wi-Fi".
• Disable Wi-Fi by sliding the ON/OFF tab to the OFF position.
• Following message appears on console and the Wi-Fi status is shown as OFF.

[ 1459.324127] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
[ 1459.381622] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
[ 1459.386993] cfg80211:     (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
[ 1459.395721] cfg80211:     (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[ 1459.403991] cfg80211:     (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[ 1459.412261] cfg80211:     (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[ 1459.420501] cfg80211:     (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[ 1459.428741] cfg80211:     (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[ 1459.438476] wl1271: down

Wi-Fi Hostspot (SoftAP)

TI-Android-ICS-4.0.3-DevKit-3.0.1 supports Wi-Fi hostspot (SoftAP) feature with TI WL1271 Wireless module.

• To turn on Wi-Fi hotspot, browse to "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "More..." -> "Portable hotspot"

• Click "Configure Wi-Fi hotspot" to configure the hotspot settings..

Note: Do not enable Wi-Fi Hotspot before configuring the settings. Changing the settings after enabling Wi-Fi hotspot may result in hotspot malfunction

• Click the checkbox next to "Portable Wi-Fi hotspot" to start hotspot. You will see the message "Tethering or hotspot active" in the notification bar once the hotspot is fully functional.

• The following screenshot shows the hotspot being detected from another evm.

Note: Tethering with another network interface like ethernet is not currently supported in this DevKit release

Wi-Fi Direct

TI-Android-ICS-4.0.3-DevKit-3.0.1 supports Wi-Fi Direct with TI WL1271 Wireless module.

• To turn on Wi-Fi direct, browse to "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "More..."
• Click checkbox next to "Wi-Fi direct".

• After Wi-Fi direct is enabled, click "Wi-Fi direct: Set up peer-to-peer connections". This window shows any nearby devices with Wi-Fi direct enabled.

Note: Wi-Fi station mode or SoftAP/hotspot mode, if enabled, shall be disabled when Wi-Fi direct is active. The earlier state is restored when Wi-Fi direct is disabled

Changing WLAN MAC address

The devices loaded with TI-Android-ICS-4.0.3-DevKit-3.0.1 will have the same MAC address which is encoded in wl1271-nvs.bin file. This may result in Wi-Fi not operating correctly when multiple devices are simultaneously in use. For optimum results, we recommend to modify the MAC address to ensure unique MAC for the devices before use

Note: Ensure that Wi-Fi (STA mode), hotspot (SoftAP) or Wi-Fi direct is not enabled when you are changing the MAC address

To change the MAC address, perform the following on the serial console of device:

• First get the current MAC address for WLAN:

  root@android:/ # calibrator get nvs_mac /system/etc/firmware/ti-connectivity/wl1271-nvs.bin

• Then update the MAC address for WLAN:

  root@android:/ # calibrator set nvs_mac /system/etc/firmware/ti-connectivity/wl1271-nvs.bin <MAC Address>

You need to reboot the board after changing the MAC address.

Bluetooth

Enabling Bluetooth

• To turn on Bluetooth, browse to "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "Bluetooth".
• Enable Bluetoth by sliding the ON/OFF tab to the ON position and wait for few seconds.
• Bluetooth icon appears on taskbar.
• When BT is enabled the status shows Turning Bluetooth ON and lists out the available Bluetooth devices.

• Select the desired device to pair with.
• A popup dialog with pin will appear.

• Click Pair button to confirm pairing.
• Verify that the desired device shows the same pin. click OK. And then the device gets listed under the paired devices category.

Note: When pairing with Bluetooth headset, pin may not be displayed. Android attempts to pair automatically with Bluetooth headsets. Pin dialog will be shown only if auto-pairing fails.

Disabling Bluetooth

• To turn off Bluetooth, browse to "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "Bluetooth".
• Disable Bluetooth by sliding the ON/OFF tab to the OFF position.

Bluetooth Object Push profile

Using Bluetooth, it is possible to send / receive files (pictures, media files etc).

Sending files

Note: 'Share using Bluetooth' is not enabled by default in the Gallery app. You need to install a third party application like BlueFTP to enable the sharing option. Follow the instructions from http://www.medieval.it/blueftp-android/menu-id-68.html to download BlueFTP

• browse to "App Launcher" -> "Gallery" -> "Images".
• Select a picture to share.
• Click share icon (top bar), select bluetooth from the options
• select paired BT device to send to.
• The BT device will prompt to accept. Accept incoming file at the other device.
• Once download finishes, check file.

Receiving files

• On paired device (e.g. phone), select send via Bluetooth, click on AM335XEVM.
• On evm, notification appears about incoming connection.

• Open the task bar and select "Bluetooth share: Incoming file".

• A pop up appears asking for confirmation. On popup click Accept.

• Once download completes, check file.

Bluetooth A2DP

You can listen to Media audio on Bluetooth A2DP headset.

• Pair A2DP capable bluetooth headset with device. Android uses the stereo headset icon to denote A2DP headset.
• After pairing succeeds, the status is updated to 'Connected'.

• Open Music player and play any audio clip.
• Audio will be heard on the Bluetooth headset.

Bluetooth HID

You can connect to Bluetooth keyboard or mouse.

Bluetooth Keyboard

• Pair with the Bluetooth keyboard, by providing the suitable pass-code from the keyboard matching to the code shown on the device.
• After the successful pairing of the keyboard with the device, the keyboard will be listed under the paired devices category.
• The supported functionality of the paired keyboard can be used on the device.
• For disconnecting the keyboard from the device, select the keyboard under paired devices category, and agree to disconnect message.

Bluetooth Mouse

• Pair with the Bluetooth mouse, by providing the suitable pass-code from the device, matching to the supported code of the mouse.
• After the successful pairing of the mouse with the device, the mouse will be listed under the paired devices category.
• The supported functionality of the paired mouse can be used on the device.
• For disconnecting the mouse from the device, select the mouse under paired devices category, and agree to the disconnect message.

Bluetooth AVRCP

You can control Media playback with Media player keys on Bluetooth headset with AVRCP capabilities.

NOTE: The following steps assume Bluetooth A2DP headset with AVRCP.

• Pair the BT headset
• The following text appears on the debug serial when the pairing is successfully completed. This confirms that AVRCP feature is registered with android

 [ 3291.281250] input: AVRCP as /devices/virtual/input/input4

• Open Music Player and go to playlist view. Check that there are multiple clips in the playlist.
• Press the Play/Pause button on the BT headset - The currently queued clip begins playing on the headset.
• Press the Play/Pause button again on the headset - The currently playing clip is paused.
• Press the Next button on the headset; the next clip in the playlist begins to play on the headset.
• Press the Prev button on the headset; the currently playing clip restarts from the beginning.

Accelerometer Sensor

TI Android ICS 4.0.3 DevKit 3.0.1 supports the accelerometer sensor on AM335x EVM.

Auto-rotate screen

• Browse to the "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "Display".
• Enable the "Auto-rotate screen" feature. Ensure the Check box gets ticked.
• Now hold the device in horizontal or vertical orientation to find the screen getting rotated.

Note: The device should be kept vertically for best results

Amazed Application

• Launch the Amazed application by browsing to the "App Launcher" -> "Amazed".
• The game starts. Tap the screen to begin.
• Hold the device in different orientation to move the ball to the destination and hence test the accelerometer.

Light Sensor

TI Android ICS 4.0.3 DevKit 3.0.1 supports the light sensor on AM335x EVM.

Auto Brightness

• Browse to the "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "Display"
• Click on "Brightness". Below mentioned pop will shown to the screen.
• Enable "Automatic Brightness" - for brightness to be set automatically based on light sensor input

Temperature Sensor

TI Android ICS 4.0.3 DevKit 3.0.1 supports the temperature sensor on AM335x EVM.

Temperature Widget

• Browse to the "Widget" section
• Tap & Hold "Temperature Widget" icon to bring it on home screen
• Temperature value will be updated every 10 sec based on surrounding temperature

Power Management

Power management is supported on BeagleBone and AM335x EVM.

Note: The Suspend to memory feature can not be demonstrated on BeagleBone with DVI-D cape or BeagleBone without any cape. This is because there is no input key/device connected to wakeup domain on these devices

Below are the features supported in TI-Android-ICS-4.0.3-DevKit-3.0.1:

BackLight Control

• Change of LCD backlights based on Wake Locks and Screen Timeouts
  
• LCD back light brightness control from Settings Application
  
• Auto Brightness Control

Suspend and Resume

• Suspending the device to Memory.The following features are supported

1. Suspend by pressing the POWER key or by a screen timeout.
2. Prevent Suspend based on Wake Locks.
3. System Resume on Key Press or Touch 

CPU Freq or Dynamic Voltage Frequency Scaling(DVFS)

• A PM feature to automatically increase / decrease frequency and drop voltage based on CPU usage.
• There are four different governors which can be used to control this feature, namely ondemand, performance, powersave and userspace governors.

CPU Idle States

• There are two deeper power states introduced by CPU Idle namely Wait for interrupt,WFI and DDR Self Refresh.

Basic Settings

Enable PM

By default we have disabled PM with the setting "setprop hw.nopm true" in init.rc.

Replace the line with "setprop hw.nopm false" to enable suspend/resume features.

Remove the selection "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "Developer options" -> "Stay awake" if selected already.

To go in suspend mode

• Press POWER (SW5) key on the keypad or wait for screen time out.

To resume from suspend mode

• Touch the LCD screen for 3 to 4 second .
• Press the volume up or down key

To set the Screen Timeout to go suspend

• Select "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "Display" -> "Sleep"
• Select one of the options from the list.

To set set the screen always on preventing suspend

• Select "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "Developer options" -> "Stay awake"

To set Screen Brightness

• Select "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "Display" -> "Brightness"

Auto brightness Control

• Select "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "Display" -> "Brightness" > "Automatic brightness"

To set Alarm in Android

• Select "App Launcher" -> "Clock "
• Click "Set alarm" -> "Add Alarm". Set the alarm as per requirements.

Device will be woken up from suspend at Alarm Time.

Advanced Settings

To Disable Power Management

• Edit init.rc file on the root directory.
• Set the property hw.nopm to true
  

This will prevent POWER key suspend and screen timeout based suspend.

Enabling ondemand frequency governor

The ondemand governor enables DVFS(frequency/OPP) transitions based on CPU load.

  #echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

Enabling performance frequency governor

The performance governor keeps the CPU always at the highest frequency.

  #echo performance > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

Enabling powersave frequency governor

The powersave governor keeps the CPU always at the lowest frequency.

  #echo powersave > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

Enabling userspace frequency governor

Once this governor is enabled, DVFS( frequency) transitions will be manually triggered by a userspace application by using the CPUfreq sysfs interface

  #echo userspace > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

See all the available operating points

  #cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies

Application can select any of the available frequency from the above

  #echo <Desired Frequency> > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed

CPU Idle settings

All states of Cpu Idle are enabled by default. System enter deeper states when the cpu is idle. The usage and time count for these different states can be checked via

  #cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpuidle/state*/time
  #cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpuidle/state*/usage

To minimize the power consumption in runtime

The maximum power reduction in runtime is achieved when dvfs option is set to “power save”.

Power Consumption Analysis

Please check the power consumption analysis at TI-Android-ICS-4.0.3-DevKit-3.0.1 Performance Benchmark page

Limitations

• If "ondemand" governor enabled for Cpu Freq (a PM feature to automatically increase / decrease frequency and drop voltage based on CPU usage), then the system may hang anytime after boot-up

    The following messages are observed before crash.

platform mpu.0: omap_target: unable to set voltage to 1260000 uV (for 720 MHz)

    A CPLD firmware update is expected to fix this issue.

• Alarm to wake up the device from suspend will not work since there is no Real Time Clock functional when the device is put into suspend.
• To wake the device from suspend, the user need to tap the touch the screen a little longer (2 seconds) or need to press the Volume keys hard.

• System never enter "WFI and DDR Self Refresh" cpu idle state since display is always active and preventing this state to enter in runtime.

• Some of the beagle bones are not resuming after they have been put in to suspend.

• In BeagleBone with LCD cape, the keypad is not connected to the wake up domain. So wake up is not possible by pressing keys.

Booting Android over NFS

Prepare file system on network machine (PC/server)

Android filesystem can be mounted over network. Follow the procedure explained below:

• Extact the android filesystem

  $ mkdir /home/workdir/Android_nfs
  $ cd /home/workdir/Android_nfs
  $ tar -xjvf ~/rootfs.tar.bz2

• Change the permission of target rootfs else it will give permission denied errors

   $ sudo chmod -R 777 /home/workdir/Android_nfs

• Export filesystem using NFS

Edit /etc/exports file and add following line

  /home/workdir/Android_nfs *(rw,sync,no_subtree_check,no_root_squash)

• Run exportfs command

  $ sudo exportfs -a

• Restart the NFS server

Run the following command to restart NFS server

  On Ubuntu 10.04 machine:
  $ sudo service nfs-kernel-server restart

Booting over Network Filesystem

Below are the complete bootargs for different boards using NFS:

  AM335x:
setenv bootargs 'console=ttyO0,115200n8 androidboot.console=ttyO0 mem=256M root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=<server-ip>:/home/workdir/Android_nfs rw rootwait init=/init ip=dhcp'

  Beaglebone:
setenv bootargs 'console=ttyO0,115200n8 androidboot.console=ttyO0 mem=256M root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=<server-ip>:/home/workdir/Android_nfs rw rootwait init=/init ip=dhcp'

NAND Booting

Booting NAND Prebuilt Images

SD card image for installing NAND images (SPL, U-boot, kernel and ubi.img) is provided for AM335x EVM.

Steps to install NAND images on AM335x EVM

• Download SD card image AM335xEVM_UBIFS.tar.gz from TI_Android_ICS_4_0_3_DevKit_3_0_1 Release Page
• Untar AM335xEVM_UBIFS.tar.gz

 $ tar -xzvf AM335xEVM_UBIFS.tar.gz
 $ cd AM335xEVM_UBIFS

• The tree structure for uncompressed pre-built image directory should be as:

 AM335xEVM_UBIFS
     |-- START_HERE
     |-- Boot_Images
     |   |-- MLO
     |   |-- u-boot.img
     |   |-- uEnv.txt
     |   |-- boot.scr
     |   `-- uImage
     |-- Filesystem
     |   `-- ubi.img
     |-- Media_Clips
     |   |-- Audio
     |   |-- Images
     |   `-- Video
     |-- README.txt
     `-- mkmmc-android-ubifs.sh

• Prepare the MMC/SD card with pre-built images:

 $ sudo ./mkmmc-android-ubifs.sh /dev/sd<device>

• Follow the Steps in README.txt to proceed further

• After successfully installing NAND images
  • Change DIP Switch settings on AM335x EVM to boot over NAND
  • For NAND boot the DIP switch should be set as (SW3(1:8)=10110111) shown below:

Switch	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
State	ON	OFF	ON	ON	OFF	ON	ON	ON

Fastboot and UBI rootfs

Fastboot flashing utility is for updating the different software components of Android. Here is a guide to reflash the xloader, u-boot, kernel and root-filesystem (UBIFS image). This guide assume that Rowboat has been compiled before trying out these instructions.

Establishing Fastboot connectivity

Setup on Device

• Connect serial port to host PC via null modem cable.
• Serial port settings: 115200 8N1, No flow control.
• Connect USB cable between USB OTG port of the board and host PC.
• Apply power to the board.
• Press any key in serial port utility during boot and get U-boot command prompt.
• Run "fastboot" on u-boot command prompt (u-boot will echo "fastboot initialized").

Setup on Linux host

• On command prompt, run

   $ export ANDROID_ROOT=<rowboat top level directory>

   $ cd $ANDROID_ROOT/out/host/linux-x86/bin

   $ sudo ./fastboot devices

if a device number is echoed, fastboot is working.

Setup on Windows host

• Refer ADB over USB on Windows Machine
• Edit android_winusb.inf - under section [Google.NTx86], add line as below:

   %SingleBootLoaderInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_0451

• Proceed installing, with the difference that device to be selected is "Android Bootloader Interface" instead of "Android ADB Interface".

Creating ubifs images

• Extract the built rootfs.tar.bz2 file with sudo permission:

   $ sudo tar -xjvf <path-to-rootfs.tar.bz2>/rootfs.tar.bz2

Important extract with sudo permissions, otherwise you may face issues with booting of Android.

• Install the following packages, required for building mtd-utils:

   $ sudo apt-get install uuid-dev libacl1-dev liblzo2-dev zlibc zlib1g-dev

• Download and build mtd-utils. For more information on mtd-utils, follow the link: http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/MTD_Utilities

   $ git clone git://git.infradead.org/mtd-utils.git
   $ cd mtd-utils/
   $ git checkout v1.5.0
   $ make

Important Tested with the "v1.5.0" tagged version of mtd-utils.

• Creating ubifs image:

   $ sudo mkfs.ubifs/mkfs.ubifs -r <path-to-rootfs>/ -F -m 2048 -e 126976 -c 1580 -o ubifs.img

• Create/Edit ubinize.cfg:

   $ vim ubinize.cfg
   [ubifs]
    mode=ubi
    image=ubifs.img
    vol_id=0
    vol_size=192MiB
    vol_type=dynamic
    vol_name=rootfs
    vol_flags=autoresize

• Creating ubi.img to be flashed:

   $ sudo ubi-utils/ubinize -o ubi.img -m 2048 -p 128KiB -s 512 -O 2048 ubinize.cfg

For more details on ubifs http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/UBIFS_Support

Important Use either Fastboot to flash ubi.img over System partition of NAND or do it manually from u-boot prompt.

Fastboot commands

   $ export ANDROID_ROOT=<rowboat_top_level_build_directory>

   $ cd $ANDROID_ROOT/out/host/linux-x86/bin

• List connected devices:

   $ sudo ./fastboot devices
  

• Update xloader:

   $ sudo ./fastboot flash spl <spl_binary_path>/MLO
   

• Updating u-boot:

   $ sudo ./fastboot flash uboot <uboot_binary_path>/u-boot.img
  

• Updating kernel:

   $ sudo ./fastboot flash kernel <kernel_image_path>/uImage
  

• Updating filesystem:

   $ sudo ./fastboot flash filesystem <rootfs_image_path>/ubi.img
  

• Erasing partition:

   $ sudo ./fastboot erase <partition name> (eg. spl)

• Display fastboot variable:

   $ sudo ./fastboot getvar <variable>

• Exit fastboot mode in uboot:

   $ sudo ./fastboot
   resuming boot...
   OKAY [  0.001s]
   finished. total time: 0.001s continue

Booting with UBIFS rootfs

• Set the bootarguments from u-boot prompt.

   # setenv nandboot 'echo Booting from nand ...; nandecc hw 2 ; nand read ${loadaddr} ${boot_nand_offset} ${boot_nand_size}; bootm ${loadaddr}'

   # setenv bootcmd 'run nandboot'

   # setenv bootargs 'console=ttyO0,115200n8 androidboot.console=ttyO0 mem=256M root=ubi0:rootfs rootfstype=ubifs ubi.mtd=7,2048 rw rootwait init=/init ip=off'

For example the boot arguments for the AM335x EVM, will look like:

   # setenv nandboot 'echo Booting from nand ... ; nandecc hw 2 ; nand read 0x81000000 0x00280000 0x00500000 ; bootm 0x81000000;'
   # setenv bootcmd 'run nandboot'   
   # setenv bootargs 'console=ttyO0,115200n8 androidboot.console=ttyO0 mem=256M root=ubi0:rootfs rootfstype=ubifs ubi.mtd=7,2048 rw rootwait init=/init ip=off'

ADB Android Debugger & Downloader

Android Debug Bridge (adb) is a versatile tool lets you manage the state of the Android-powered device. For more information about what is possible with adb, see Android Debug Bridge page at http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/adb.html. The ADB tool can be used to

• Download an application from a host machine, install & run it on the target board.
• Start a remote shell in the target instance.
• Debug applications running on the device using the debugging tool DDMS ( Dalvik Debug Monitor Server) which runs on top of adb connection.
• Copy files to and from the board to host machine

Downloading "ADB" & Host setup

The adb tool is a part of Android SDK package located at http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html. For an overview of how to install and set up the Android SDK, follow download & setup instructions from http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html. Once you install Android SDK, the directory contents look like this.

  .
  |-- SDK Readme.txt
  |-- add-ons
  |-- google-market_licensing
  |-- platform-tools
  |   |-- NOTICE.txt
  |   |-- aapt
  |   |-- adb
  |   |-- aidl
  |   |-- dexdump
  |   |-- dx
  |   |-- lib
  |   `-- source.properties
  |-- platforms
  |-- temp
  `-- tools
      |-- NOTICE.txt
      |-- adb_has_moved.txt
      |-- android
      |-- ant
      |-- apkbuilder
      |-- ddms
      |-- dmtracedump
      |-- draw9patch
      |-- emulator
      |-- etc1tool
      |-- hierarchyviewer
      |-- hprof-conv
      |-- layoutopt
      |-- lib
      |-- mksdcard
      |-- monkeyrunner
      |-- proguard
      |-- source.properties
      |-- sqlite3
      |-- traceview
      `-- zipalign

The adb tool is located in paltform-tools/ directory under the Android SDK installation. Export the platform-tools and tools directory path as shown below.

  $ export PATH=<android_sdk_path>/platform-tools/:<android_sdk_path>/tools/:$PATH

Connecting Host machine & board through adb

This release of DevKit has been tested for three different methods of connecting a given board with host machine

• adb over USB
• adb over USB Ethernet
• adb over Ethernet

The below sections describe each of these methods and provides necessary instructions for the same.

adb over USB

• Make sure that the mini-usb cable is connected between the host usb port and the target’s USB OTG port
• Turn on "USB Debugging" on your board. On the board (UI screen)-
  • Browse to "App Launcher" -> "Settings" -> "Developer options".
  • Enable "USB debugging". Select OK for confirmation. Ensure the Check box gets ticked.
• Setup host machine to detect the board. On Ubuntu Linux host machines this is done by adding a rules file to configure device vendor ID of on-board OMAP device.
• For the EVMs and Boards covered here, the vendor ID is "18d1".
  • Log in as root and create this file: /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules

   SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="18d1", MODE="0666"

• Execute the following to change the user mode for the rules file.

    $ chmod a+r /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules

• Execute the following command to restart udev service.

    $ sudo service udev restart

Note: We recommend to reboot the host, if restarting udev does not work.

• Verify the adb connectivity between host and target board

    $ adb devices 

If device is connected, then output on screen should list the device, example:

    List of devices attached
    20100720    device

adb over Ethernet

• Make sure Ethernet port on board and host machine are connected to the network
• Check Ethernet configuration for the board

  # netcfg                                                                        
  lo       UP                                   127.0.0.1/8   0x00000049 00:00:00:00:00:00
  sit0     DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00000080 00:00:00:00:00:00
  eth0     UP                               172.24.191.26/22  0x00001043 96:cd:df:8b:c6:2b                       

• If Ethernet was not configured, ensure that Ethernet is enabled and configured correctly in Android Settings and reboot. See Ethernet Configuration section for more details.

• Configure the ADB Daemon on target to use an Ethernet connection using setprop as shown below.

  # setprop service.adb.tcp.port 5555

• If network is configured successfully (above steps) then Restart service adbd on the target,

  # stop adbd
  # start adbd

• On the host machine use following commands to establish adb connection

  $ export ADBHOST=<target's ip address>
  $ adb kill-server
  $ adb start-server
  $ adb connect <target_ip_address>:5555

• Verify for device connectivity by executing the following command:

  $ adb devices

If connected, find the device name listed

  List of devices attached 
  172.24.191.26:5555	device

Invoke the shell of the target

  $ adb shell 

For more information about adb commands, see Android Debug Bridge page at Android ADB

adb over USB on Windows Machine

Follow the below instructions to get ADB over USB work on a Windows PC

• Download latest Android SDK

(http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html) and uncompress it in a local folder (i.e. c:\android_sdk).

• Optionally, you may want to add the location of the SDK's primary tools directory to your system PATH. Right-click on My Computer, and select Properties. Under the Advanced tab, hit the Environment Variables button, and in the dialog that comes up, double-click on Path (under System Variables). Add the full path to the tools\ directory to the path.

• Download Android USB Driver

(https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/repository/usb_driver_r03-windows.zip) and uncompress it in a local folder (i.e. c:\android_sdk\usb_driver)

• Edit (or create and then edit if it doesn't already exist) file in

"%USERPROFILE%\.android\adb_usb.ini":

  > echo 0x18D1 > "%USERPROFILE%\.android\adb_usb.ini"

• Edit android_winusb.inf to match EVM/Beagle vendor and product ids:

Under [Google.NTx86] section add:

   ;TI EVM
   %SingleAdbInterface%      = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_D002
   %CompositeAdbInterface%   = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_D002&MI_01

Note: Be careful to add it under Google.NTx86 and not under Google.NTamd64 unless your machine is AMD 64 bits. If you skip this step you won't be able to later install the driver as windows will reject it.

• Boot the board as normal and wait until shell prompt is available (micro-B USB cable must be disconnected).

• Connect micro-B USB cable between board and Windows PC.

• If it is proceeding as planned, Windows will tell you it found a new hardware asks you to install the driver. Install driver that was downloaded as described in step 3 above:

Answer "No, not this time" to the question about running Windows Update to search for software.

• Choose "Install the hardware that I manually select from a list (Advanced)" this is the 2nd option, then click "Next"
• Select "Show All Devices", then click "Next"
• You are going to see a grayed-out text box with "(Retrieving a list of all devices)", click the "Have Disk..." button
• Browse" to your driver folder (c:\android_sdk\usb_driver). It will be looking of a .inf file so select "android_winusb.inf" and click "Open" then "OK". It's the only file there so you shouldn't go wrong.
• Select "Android ADB Interface" then click the "Next" button.
• A warning will appear, answer "Yes" but read the warning anyway.
• Click the "Close" when the wizard is completed.

• Disconnect and reconnect micro-B USB cable from Board(probably reboot it as well).

• Open command prompt and restart adb server just to make sure it is in a proper state:

  > adb kill-server
  > adb start-server

• List the attached devices with "adb devices". It should show your board/device with a random number.

• Type "adb shell". You should see the "#" indicating it works.

Operations over ADB

The Root File System provided in this DevKit release contain only standard Android components and applications.

To install and run Android application follow steps mentioned below:

Installing (.apk files) application on Target Platform

• From the host: You can use adb tool for package installation.

  $ adb install <package>.apk. 

NOTE: Use -s option with the adb tool, to install the package on external storage.

On successful installation adb tool will report SUCCESS on host terminal, and the application would be listed on the android main menu.

Un-installing applications (.apk) using adb

• To un-install non-default components (that were installed later)
  • Method 1: On the host machine execute the following

  $ adb shell pm list packages
  $ adb uninstall <package name>

• Method 2: On target:

Main menu -> Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications -> Find the package Tap on it -> Uninstall -> OK -> OK

• On successful removal, the application would have been removed from the android main menu. All the short-cuts to the application also removed.

• To un-install default components, use the following commands from abd on host machine

  $ adb shell
  # rm /system/app/app.apk

On successful removal, the application would have been removed from the android main menu.

Copy any files to and from the board over ADB

• Using the adb commands "pull" and "push" copy files to and from the board.
• Unlike the install command, which only copies an .apk file to a specific location, the pull and push commands let you copy arbitrary directories and files to any location on the board.

• To copy a file or directory (recursively) from the board, use

  $ adb pull <remote> <local>

• To copy a file or directory (recursively) to the board, use

  $ adb push <local> <remote>

In the commands, <local> and <remote> refer to the paths to the file or directory on your development host (local) and on the target instance (remote).

  Here's an example: 
  $ adb push foo.txt /sdcard/foo.txt

Install the Rowboperf Appplication on Target Board

• Download the Rowboperf installer on your Host Pc.

PATH:

• Untar the rowboperf_install on your Home folder.
• Start the adb server on your Host Pc.
• Start the adb on your Target Board.
• Connect the Target Board through adb.
• Run the install.sh script on your Host Pc.
• Above these step install Rowboperf application on your target Board.

Compatibility Test Suite (CTS)

This section describe the procedure to run CTS on any platform.

• Pre-requisites
  • Download and extract the CTS package from here
  • Android SDK is installed and adb command is in the $PATH . See ADB section above

• Refer to Google CTS Guide for information on setting up the host and android device for CTS testing.

• Setup an ADB connection between Host and platform as mentioned in ADB section above.
• Launch the CTS.
  • Change to android-cts directory
  • Start cts

  android-cts$ ./tools/cts-tradefed

• • On CTS prompt check the available plans

  cts-tf > list p 

• Start a specific Test Plan

  cts-tf > run  cts --plan <test plan name>

Once all the tests are executed, the results can be browsed in an browser by opening [android-cts/repository/results/<session-name>/testResult.xml] and use the results to adjust your design.

Note: Sometimes when CTS is restarting the board, adb connection to CTS, may not happen automatically. In that case, execute the following command on the console, soon after the board has restarted.

  # stop adbd;sleep 1;start adbd;

Building Android Sources

Refer to TI Android DevKit Developer Guide at http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/TI-Android-ICS-4.0.3-DevKit-3.0.1_DevelopersGuide for building Android sources and setting up the platform for booting.

TI provides Android sources for all the supported devices in multiple locations, developers can download the sources from the rowboat repository or use the pre-packaged repo in the DevKit TI-Android-ICS-4.0.3_AM335x_3.0.1.bin.

SD Card Recommendations

Some brands or models of SD cards are observed with poor performance on AM335x platforms. The symptom could be one or some of the followings.

• the boot-up time is much longer than normal (3x of normal or even longer);
• the reaction of UI operations is unacceptably delayed;
• the Gallery app cannot find the media files to create the albums;
• the video playback is sluggish.

The table below lists the SD cards tested which have no issue on performance.

	Brand/Model	Type	Class	Capacity
	SanDisk	SDHC	4	4GB
	SanDisk Ultra	SDHC	4	4GB
	SanDisk Ultra	SD	4	2GB
	Sony	SDHC	4	4GB
	Sony	SD	4	2GB
	Sony	micro SDHC	4	4GB

The table below lists the SD cards tested which have poor performance.

	Brand/Model	Type	Class	Capacity
	HP Invent	SDHC	4	4GB
	Kingston	SDHC	4	4GB
	Kingston	micro SDHC	4	4GB
	Lexar MULTI-USE	SDHC	4	4GB
	Lexar PLANTINUM II	SDHC	6	4GB
	PNY Optima	SDHC	4	4GB

Versioning

This release is available from http://software-dl.ti.com/dsps/dsps_public_sw/sdo_tii/TI_Android_DevKit/TI_Android_ICS_4_0_3_DevKit_3_0_1/index_FDS.html
The release notes is available at http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/TI-Android-ICS-4.0.3-DevKit-3.0.1_ReleaseNotes

Technical Support and Product Updates

For further information or to report any problems, contact http://e2e.ti.com/android or http://support.ti.com.
For community support join http://groups.google.com/group/rowboat
For IRC #rowboat on irc.freenode.net