Inferno for Android phones!

John Floren announced on 9fans that himself and some of the folks at Sandia National Labs have inferno running on a few android devices.

We would like to announce the availability of Inferno for Android phones. Because our slogan is “If it ain’t broke, break it”, we decided to replace the Java stack on Android phones with Inferno. We’ve dubbed it the Hellaphone–it was originally Hellphone, to keep with the Inferno theme, but then we realized we’re in Northern California and the change was obvious.

The Hellaphone runs Inferno directly on top of the basic Linux layer provided by Android. We do not even allow the Java system to start. Instead, emu draws directly to the Linux framebuffer (thanks, Andrey, for the initial code!) and treats the touchscreen like a one-button mouse. Because the Java environment doesn’t start, it only takes about 10 seconds to go from power off to a fully-booted Inferno environment.

As of today, we have Inferno running on the Nexus S and the Nook Color. It should also run on the Android emulator, but we haven’t tested that in a long time. The cell radio is supported, at least on the Nexus S (the only actual phone we’ve had), so you can make phone calls, send texts, and use the data network.

A video John made showing what’s working so far.

Great job guys!


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