Android Emulator for the Nook: Download!

[Michael Kozlowski]

It is very possible to run the Barnes and Noble Nook firmware in the Android Emulator. It is time to start developing some Google Android Apps for it.
Instructions for Unix/Linux

In order to do this, you will need to:

1. Download the Android SDK and install it. Install the Platform 1.5 SDK using tools/android in the Android SDK.
2. Grab the original 1.0.0 image from bn.com (mirrored here: multiupload).
3. Run dd if=signed_bravo_update.1.0.0.dat of=signed-bravo-update.1.0.0.tar.gz bs=1 skip=152 (On Windows use this tool. At the command line run gzip-extract signed-bravo-update.1.0.0.tar.gz bravo_update.dat. NOTE: gzip-extract requires the .net framework. Afterwards rename bravo_update.dat to signed-bravo-update.1.0.0.tar.gz)
4. Extract signed-bravo-update.1.0.0.tar.gz.
5. Rename bravo_update.dat to bravo_update.tar.gz and extract it.
6. Extract root.tgz.
7. Extract root/system/framework/services.jar with your favorite unzip utility.
8. Download and install smali. You need at least baksmali-1.1.jar and smali-1.1.jar. For your sanity, grab the wrapper scripts as well.
9. Run baksmali classes.dex on the classes.dex from services.jar to disassemble services.jar
10. Edit out/com/android/server/ServerThread.smali and remove the line if-lt v0, v1, :cond_483 This should be line 966. (In version 1.0.0)
11. Run smali out/ to re-assemble classes.dex with our fixes.
12. Rename out.dex to classes.dex and copy this classes.dex to services directory, overwriting the original classes.dex.
13. Delete the out directory and re-jar the services directory.
14. Make an Android Device (AVD entry) in the Android Emulator with target platform 1.5 and skin/screen size of 549 by 924 (real resolution is more like 600x944 but the emulator won't start at that size), name it nook (case sensitive).
    
    1. If you are unable to create the AVDs (something like Error: Ignoring platform 'google_apis-3-r03': build.prop is missing. ) then install Eclipse, install the Android plugins for Eclipse and you will be able to create the AVDs from there.
    
    
15. grab lib/libaudioflinger.so from stock system.img supplied with Android SDK using unix utility unyaffs to extract the file
16. overwrite the libaudioflinger.so from the system/lib directory in the nook firmware with the stock Android SDK one.
17. use mkyaffs2image to make a system.img of the system/ of the nook firmware.
18. rename system.img in the 1.5 firmware platform folder to system.good and copy in replacement system.img file you just created (it will be bigger than the SDK Android system.img (approximately 108Mb)
19. Run the emulator by using command line emulator @nook -shell -show-kernel -verbose The emulator will take a few minutes to boot.
20. You will NOT be able to register your emulated Nook with BN.com but you can sideload epub books but placing them in system/media/guides when you create your replacement system.img file mentioned in step 17.

[katsumi]

Thanks for the tutorial on getting the emulator up.. I agree %100 that we need to get apps up and running. I desperately want a working terminal emulator (ala ConnectBot) so that is what I'm working on. I'm going to try to get this emulator setup on Windows, so if I have any tips to report back I will. Thanks again!

[tmv105]

Any update creating Nook emulator in a Windows environment?