ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

["leon lee" <llrraa@xxxxxx>]

Hi, all.
I think some of us might be interested in this, so here it is.
As experienced android-related developers or just beginners, sometimes you might have questions about what's going on inside android. Such as how activity starts, how service starts, etc. If we look into the code, we might have the answer, but it takes time and much effort. In fact, there's millions of lines of source code in android. Fortunately, Samson Luo wrote a book in chinese to clarify all these questions, with all the related knowledge he got in these years as an experienced engineer of linux/android. Now, he and I decide this book belongs to the android family, so to make more people get benefit from it, we will rewrite it in English. 
Also, we want this book to be more adapted to your need, we might share the outline and part of the content of the book here, so that we all can discuss it while rewriting it. We might change the book according to your advice. For example, there might be more details for the parts you are most interested. To do this, we will have pilot PPTs and passages soon. The pilot topics would be as below:
Android design philosophy--everything is component
Initializing a Build/developing/debugging Environment for Android 
Android architecture
Hardware Abstraction Layer(HAL)
drivers specific to android
process management
messaging handling
input handling
UI architecture
resource management framework
Dalvik virtual machine
Which is most interested to you? Please share with us, and we will make it available ASAP.


We haven't talked with any press for publishing yet. So if any press is interested in publishing this book, please contact me. As you all know, writing is a tough job, especially when the book is regarding such a complicated android os system, so cheers, encouragement and funding are welcomed badly. Funding would help us not worry about making a living and dedicate to the writing or even hire some people to accelerate the progress. For funding, please visit:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/inside-android/x/5274090


The book would have 3 parts: say hello to android, drivers specific to android and understanding android in scenes. The first 2 parts are foundation knowledge for the third part, which is the major part of the book.
Part I say hello to android includes 3 chapters, and introduces how to download the source code, build it, run it, smart pointer and Hardware Abstraction Layer(HAL). Since smart pointer is widely used in the native code of application framework, it would be very helpful if we get to know it before we dive into the scenes. Knowing HAL would help us understand the architecture of android, and then make the third part easier to learn.
Part II drivers specific to android also includes 3 chapters, introducing 3 drivers specific to android: Logger Driver, Binder IPC Driver and Ashmem Shared Memory Driver. No doubt, these 3 drivers, especially the Binder IPC Driver, are the foundation of android. knowing about them would definitely help understand android.
Part III understanding android in scenes includes more than 10 chapters, and introduces android in different scenes, such as the start of something(activity, service, zygote, service manager, etc.), process management, messaging handling etc.
The book is based on android 2.3. If needed, we can rewrite it on newer version.
Below is the outline of the book:
Part I: say hello to android
chapter 1??prerequisite
1.1??reference books on Linux kernel
1.2??reference books on Android application developing
1.3??download, build and run Android source code
1.3.1??download Android source code
1.3.2??build Android source code
1.3.3??run Android emulator
1.4??download, build and run Android kernel source code
1.4.1??download Android kernel source code
1.4.2??build Android kernel source code
1.4.3??run Android emulator
1.5??develop one Android application(example)
1.6??build and pack Android module independently
1.6.1??mmm: Builds all of the modules in the supplied directories
1.6.2??build one Android module independently
1.6.3??repack Android images
chapter 2 Hardware Abstraction Layer(HAL)
2.1??develop Android hardware driver
2.1.1??implementation of one kernel driver
2.1.2??modify Kconfig of the kernel
2.1.3??modify Makefile of the kernel
2.1.4??build the driver
2.1.5??test the driver
2.2??test the driver with C executable 
2.3??develop HAL module
2.3.1??specification for HAL module
2.3.2??interface for HAL module 
2.3.3??load the HAL module
2.3.4??access permission for the hardware
2.4??develop service to the Android hardware
2.4.1??defite the service interface to hardware
2.4.2??implementation of the service
2.4.3??JNI interface for the service
2.4.4??start of the service
2.5??Android application on the service to hardware
chapter 3 smart pointer
3.1??light weight pointer
3.1.1??implementation
3.1.2??example
3.2??strong pointer and weak pointer
3.2.1??strong pointer
3.2.2  weak pointer
3.2.3  example
Part II: drivers specific to android
chapter 4 Logger driver
4.1??Logger format
4.2??Logger driver
4.2.1??data structure
4.2.2??initialization
4.2.3??open the Logger driver
4.2.4??read the log
4.2.5??write the log
4.3??runtime library for the Logger driver
4.4??log interface for C/C++
4.5??log interface for Java
4.6??Logcat tool
4.6.1??data structure
4.6.2??initialization
4.6.3??read the log
4.6.4??output the log
chapter 5 Binder IPC Driver
5.1??Binder driver
5.1.1??data structure
5.1.2??initialization
5.1.3??open
5.1.4??mapping to the memory
5.1.5??kernel cache management
5.2??runtime library for Binder IPC Driver
5.3??example for Binder IPC Driver application
5.4??counting for Binder object reference
5.4.1??lifecycle of Binder local object
5.4.2??lifecycle of Binder instance
5.4.3??lifecycle of Binder reference
5.4.4??lifecycle of Binder proxy
5.5??Binder object death notification
5.5.1??register death notification
5.5.2??send death notification
5.5.3??unregister death notification
5.6??start of Service Manager
5.6.1??open and mapping on Binder
5.6.2??register as Binder context manager
5.6.3??wait for the Client request in loop
5.7??getting the Service Manager proxy
5.8??start of Service
5.8.1??register Service
5.8.2??start of Binder thread pool
5.9??how to get Service proxy
5.10??Java interface for Binder IPC Driver
5.10.1??getting the Java proxy of Service Manager
5.10.2??define the Java service 
5.10.3??start of Java service
5.10.4??getting Java service proxy
5.10.5??calling Java service
chapter 6 Ashmem Shared Memory Driver
6.1??Ashmem driver
6.1.1??data structure
6.1.2??initialization
6.1.3??open
6.1.4??mapping to the memory
6.1.5??lock and unlock
6.1.6??recycle
6.2??Ashmem interface in runtime library cutils
6.3??C++ interface for Ashmem
6.3.1??MemoryHeapBase
6.3.2??MemoryBase
6.3.3??example
6.4??Java interface for Ashmem
6.4.1??MemoryFile
6.4.2??example
6.5??how Ashmem shares memory
Part III: understanding android in scenes 
chapter 7 start of Activity
7.1??Activity example
7.2??start of root Activity
7.3??start of child Activity in the same process
7.4??start of child Activity in the new process
chapter 8 start of Service
8.1??Service example
8.2  start of Service in the same process
8.3??start of Service in the new process
chapter 9 Broadcast
9.1??example
9.2??register
9.3??send 
chapter 10 Content Provider
10.1??Content Provider example
10.1.1??ArticlesProvider
10.1.2??Article
10.2??start of Content Provider
10.3??data sharing of Content Provider
10.3.1??data sharing model
10.3.2??data transmission
10.4??Content Provider's notification for data Change
10.4.1??register ContentObserver
10.4.2??send notification for data Change
chapter 11 start of Zygote and System process
11.1??start script of Zygote process
11.2??start of Zygote
11.3??start of System
chapter 12  start of Android application
12.1??creation of application process
12.2??start of Binder thread pool
12.3??creation of message loop
chapter 13  message handling
13.1??creation of message queue
13.2??message cycle
13.3??message sending
13.4??message handling
chapter 14  keyboard message handling
14.1??keyboard message handling model
14.2??start of InputManager
14.2.1??creation of InputManager
14.2.2??start of InputManager
14.2.3??start of InputDispatcher
14.2.4??start of InputReader
14.3??register InputChannel
14.3.1??creation of InputChannel
14.3.2??register InputChannel of server side
14.3.3??register the window of currently activated application
14.3.4??register InputChannel of client side
14.4??Dispatch of the keyboard message
14.4.1??InputReader gets keyboard event
14.4.2??InputDispatcher dispatch keyboard event
14.4.3??the window of currently activated application gets keyboard message
14.4.4??InputDispatcher gets notification when the keyboard event handling is done
14.5??unregister InputChannel
14.5.1??destroy application window
14.5.2??unregister InputChannel of client side
14.5.3??unregister InputChannel of server side
chapter 15  message loop model of Android application thread
15.1??message loop model of application main thread
15.2??message loop model of nongraphic application child thread
15.3??message loop model of graphic application child thread
chapter 16  installation and showup of Android application
16.1??installation of application
16.2??showup of application
chapter 17  UI system 
17.1  UI architecture
17.2  application UI framework
17.3  WindowManagerService
17.4  SurfaceFlinger
17.5  Multiple Display support
chapter 18  resource management framework
18.1  resource management framework
18.2  compilation of resource
18.3  search for resource
chapter 19  Dalvik virtual machine(DVM)
19.1  introduction
19.2  start of DVM
19.3  execution of DVM
19.4  register JNI methods
19.5  DVM process
19.6  DVM thread