897809 - Emulator Host

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[James Lal [:lightsofapollo]]

In addition to having b2g-desktop and firefox hosts having an emulator host would be massively valuable...

There are some open questions-

1. how do we implement the emulator commands (and where)
2. can we distribute the emulators without having to build them locally
3. are the x86 emulators fast enough and stable enough to get things done

Comment 1

[James Lal [:lightsofapollo]]

Had a discussion with Aus IRL here is interesting in picking this up.

Comment 2

[James Lal [:lightsofapollo]]

Some existing python emulator code:

  - http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/testing/marionette/client/marionette/emulator.py

Not sure if we should port this or just try to reuse this directly.

Comment 3

[Marshall Culpepper [:marshall_law]]

Just a few notes to answer the original points laid out by James:

1. The emulator has it's own custom 'console' (on 5554 by default, but with multiple emulators, this port number can change) which can be used to make the emulator do various things. Marionette already makes use of this port to do things like making phone calls, sending text messages, etc. The docs for the emulator console live in the Android SDK:

http://developer.android.com/tools/devices/emulator.html#console

2. Technically yes we can distribute them, but it's probably more a matter of what parts of the OS are publicly distributable. We are currently working on resolving this in bug 909955

3. The x86 emulator is _very_ fast, especially when the Intel HAX plugin is installed, the speed feels native. Stability is probably the biggest issue here. To do this right, I think FxOS needs at least one x86 owner. About a year ago or more, we had the x86 emulator image running pretty well, but it required pretty regular bug fixes. This might also be solved bringing the x86 emulator up to par, and then adding it as a target platform to avoid serious regressions.

Ghislain, are you still planning to work on this?

Comment 4

[Aus Lacroix [:aus]]

Hi Marshall, I am still planning on working on this once we get the emulator builds going. We're looking to start with the ARM emulator as it's more stable and maintained. It would be super to use the x86 emulator obviously but, we want it to be stable first. :)

Comment 5

[Aus Lacroix [:aus]]

Invalidated by all the work we've been doing for taskcluster and fxos-automation in general.