So we set-up a working version of Android, took a snapshot, and booted up from that snapshot. That method did work and Android did come up, but all the other devices had to be switched off at that point. Ideally, all the other devices have to independently come up and then the devices have to synchronise so that they (file system, GPU, etc) are in the same state.
Q. Could you give us an instance when you faced a challenging bug as you ported Android?
A. One of the trickiest bug appeared when we unmounted the filesystem as it shutdown; one particular filesystem was not unmounting because one application somewhere was using it. The problem was that it was not using the filesystem directly. Instead, it was using it through memory map. So if you look at the list of open file-systems and tables it would show all of them to be closed. But one particular application which was part of the DVM, had mapped the filesystem onto the memory. Figuring that out and working around it was very interesting.
Q. How many design engineers do you have working here?
A. We are entirely an engineering house so around 90 per cent of us can code. That would make up around 70 design engineers.
Q. What is the average experience of these engineers?
A. Around 3-6 years.
Q. Do you hire freshers?
A. We absolutely take in freshers. Freshers come in with a lot of energy, and a lot of willingness to learn. And we have a culture that we feel proud of and it is much easier to get freshers into that working culture. Essentially the work involves learning all the time.
Q. Do you have any product in your pipeline right now?
A. Stamp 2 is definitely there. The next requirement would be a larger and faster device capable of handling better graphics and animation. We have 2 models of Stamp 2, a 7-inch version and a 10-inch version with capacitive touch screen.
