VIA Technology unveiled the low cost APC (Android PC) board based on WonderMedia WM8750 processor (ARM11) back in May, and started to ship the Android board this month (I think since that was their plan).
The company has just released Kernel 2.6.32.9 and U-Boot source on github. Here’s how to retrieve the code provided git is already installed on your machine:
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git clone git://github.com/apc-io/apc-8750.git |
You can then build U-Boot (provided you’ve already installed an ARM toolchain in your path):
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cd $CURRENT_PATH/u-boot make wmt_config make all |
and the Linux kernel:
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cd $CURRENT_PATH/kernel make 8710_defconfig make ubin |
The availability of the source means we should see Linux distribution like Debian, Fedora or Arch Linux ARM (separate from Arch Linux) running on the board very soon. In theory, it’s also possible to run a Linux distribution with the binary Linux kernel compiled for Android, but it causes some issues and also makes customization more difficult.
I think they should also have release the code they modified for Android, but apparently did not. The next step would probably be to release the OpenGL ES and VPU libraries (binaries) for Linux. We’ll see if that happens.
They also released the board 2D and 3D mechanical drawings (DXF and STP).
VIA has also setup APC-IO Forums as a communication platform for the user and developer community.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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