Hi everyone,<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 3:41 PM, Anand Arumugam <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:anand.arumug@gmail.com">anand.arumug@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="im">On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 12:35 AM, Abhijit Pawar <<a href="mailto:apawar.linux@gmail.com">apawar.linux@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> Hi All,<br>
> I know its pre-mature to ask this question but is there any support of<br>
> dual booting in smartphones which can allow me have two different OS's<br>
> ( for ex. Android 2.1 + Android 2.3 ) on a single phone? There may be<br>
> other combinations as well. Is this something which we are looking at<br>
> near future or is it just a dream at this moment?<br>
><br>
> Regards,<br>
> Abhijit Pawar<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>If I'm not mistaken android is not the OS but a software stack<br>
(quoting from <a href="http://source.android.com/" target="_blank">http://source.android.com/</a> "Android is an open-source<br>
software stack for mobile devices...") which runs on top of linux.<br>
<br>
Maybe you might want to look at ways to install different versions of<br>
the software stack instead of the linux kernel.<br></blockquote></div><br>I think a software stack also includes the kernel. And in case of Android there are changes to the standard Linux kernel .. for instance the binder interface. Anyway, one can dual boot if you have a developer phone. I have had experience with uboot for other platforms but I am not an Android person. Just some discussion with other professional friends.<br>
<br>If you can change the boot loader configuration as you would do for the Linux box then surely you can dual boot.<br><br>You can also do it the way Anand mentioned but that would mean that the Linux kernel for both Android versions are same. Somewhere you would be managing the initialization. Not sure how Android platforms do it :(<br>
<br>You can also use para virtualization like the L4Android project. They run multiple platforms on L4Re, atop L4 micro kernel. Very interesting work. Do Google for it!<br><br>Shahbaz Khan<br>