MisterMcGoo

Assuming the "Better Terminal Emulator" selling for $3.99 in the marketplace works, are there any other terminal apps that work with the Eris that people are using? I tried the free "Terminal Emulator" but it appears a virtual keyboard does not work.

erisuser1

I'm using "Better Terminal Emulator" (MagicAndroidApps.com), but frankly can't remember whether I paid for it or not.

My virtual keyboard "works" with that app, subject to some limitations (it can't handle the trackball for cursor movement) - see Menu -> Special Keys for a cheat sheet on how to enter control keys.

I find using it tedious because of slow typing. If you want to poke around using Unix tools, and you can do that from a desk with a PC, it is probably easier to download the free Android developer's kit, and just use "adb shell" to type your commands from a real keyboard.

(Settings -> Applications -> Development (click both "Stay Awake" and "USB debugging")

HTH

eu1

MisterMcGoo

Sounds good. I might try that.

I basically just wanted to get a little familiar with the OS architecture and file structure so that when it eventually gets rooted, I'll have had a little experience with the commands and navigating the paths. Most of my linux background involves Red Hat Enterprise Linux so I'm curious to identify the deltas with Android.

erisuser1

As is typical with most small linux implementations, the android command-line toolset follows a "busybox" approach (called 'toolbox' in the Android distro), so many of the familiar linux commands are there... but don't behave the way you would expect from linux/solaris/hpux/aix - only small numbers of switches are available for each command variant.

In addition, tools that make "poking around" on a linux box effective - e.g. "find" & "grep" are not implemented by the Android busybox.

Because the actual device isn't rooted, certain directories in the file system are protected from browsing, so you won't be able to see the structure of a lot of the "interesting" places on your phone.

Good news, though! If you are up for it, the development kit might be the way to go - it has a full-up emulated dev phone... which of course is "rooted", being a dev phone. And you can connect to the virtual handset (emulator) from the PC in exactly the same method:

adb -e shell

and poke around in a virtual (emulated) device environment where you are root, and have a look at all those interesting places. It won't be one-for-one identical to the Eris, but it will be extremely similar. It will get you started, anyway.

(Note that you don't need Eclipse for this - you can create and start an emulator instance from the "android" tool in the android SDK, and the debugger is in the same kit).

HTH

eu1