The Open Handset Distribution (OHD) is a software distribution for mobile devices, often referred to as Android, developed by members of the Open Handset Alliance. Android includes an operating system, middleware, and key applications typically required for a mobile device.
This porting guide describes the steps necessary to port Android to a new mobile device. Android is designed as a highly-portable, hardware-independent platform based on Linux, and porting the platform to new devices requires little more than porting the Linux kernel and developing the Linux drivers necessary for your device.
The current version of this guide describes bringing Android up to "PDA-level" functionality; functionality sufficient to support non-multimedia apps that run on unconnected mobile devices through the standard user interface devices such as keypad and display. Future versions of this guide will cover complete telephony, multi-media and peripheral integration to create a complete mobile device.
This porting guide is intended for engineers proficient with running (and writing drivers for) Linux on embedded devices.
The guide also assumes you have a target hardware that matches Device Requirements and that you can boot and run a recent (2.6.x) version of the Linux kernel with at least keypad and display drivers properly installed.
To get started with Android, start with the publicly-available documentation at http://code.google.com/android/documentation.html, paying particular attention to What is Android? and Getting Started with Android.
Start with the following sections in order to port Android to your target hardware.