Database Develop

[Q]ROM Cooking Problems Please Help!!!

Before i get flammed like crazy. I have searched for guides to cooking roms and used all different kinds of kitchens but none seem to work at all. Unless there is something written between the lines that i can't see i just don't think i'm doing anything wrong.
Anyway. When I try an build a rom and create the os-new.nb file imgfsfromdump just crashes and i can't create the file. Sometimes it works but once it fails it doesn't start working for a long time. I'm not sure what i'm doing. I try and dumb a stock rom and rebuild exactly the same but the same thing happens.
If anyone with some xip|sys porting could give me a hand to get past this step i'd appreciate it.
Thanks..

I'm starting to believe it might be a conflict with SP3. Can anyone confirm that they have these kitchens working with SP3?

replace your ImgfsFromDump with the attached version

itje said:
replace your ImgfsFromDump with the attached version
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks itje. I tried this but it still crashes everytime i try and compile the files. I'm not sure why. Is there something i could be doing wrong? Have you seen this before?

Did ImgfsFromDump ever work for you? (That is, did you try just extract and create the image without modify any content)
For me, I am not following the script in the kitchen completely to create the image. Here is what I execute on the temp directory (w/ dump as sub-directory) and work fine so far. (just make sure you did not remove the imgfs.bin and the payload in extracting the image)
..\TOOLS\ImgfsFromDump imgfs.bin imgfs-new.bin
..\TOOLS\ImgfsToNb imgfs-new.bin os.nb.payload os-new.nb.payload
..\TOOLS\NBMerge -kaiser os-new.nb

Strangly enough it did work a couple of times then i just started getting that error that says "imgfsfromdump needs to close" that basic windows error. I thought it might have been DEP but i made a exception for that program. I'm going to try this and see if i have the same problems.

I'M SUCH AND IDIOT!!! The reason it was crashing is cause i kept building the dump into packages. So i assume it was looking for files in the wrong place which just causes the process to fail. Thanks guys!!!

Can someone help me find this 21109 build to where i can actuallyt port it? I've tried to extract it from various roms and all it does is fail everytime and my phone is stuck at the sony screen.
*******EDIT******
I finally figured out how to get XIP ported but now i'm having a problem with the SYS folder. No matter what SYS folder i use and no matter how many different tutorials i go through i still get the same point. I flash and it sits at the sony ericisson symbol and does nothing. Is there some folders i shouldn't change in the SYS?

run g'reloc on the stock sys folder from x1, note all the values..
then run g'reloc on your new UNTOUCHED sys, where you change NOTHING...no swapping of files (unless you port from vga or qvga, or change locale, but thats another story) then change the values on the new sys with the values from the stock x1 sys, apply changes, and you have ported the sys.
cheers

itje said:
run g'reloc on the stock sys folder from x1, note all the values..
then run g'reloc on your new UNTOUCHED sys, where you change NOTHING...no swapping of files (unless you port from vga or qvga, or change locale, but thats another story) then change the values on the new sys with the values from the stock x1 sys, apply changes, and you have ported the sys.
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When i run g reloc i get the same values as i did with the original build. Let me see if i understand the file hierarchy correctly.
1. I run G'reloc where i have my stock ROM's SYS folde. (note those values)
2. then i run G'reloc where my Donor SYS folder with the rest of the crap from the Donor ROM.
3.Then i copy the Donor SYS folder into the location i have my stock ROM SYS folder and overwrite. I run G'reloc again if the information is different from the first time i ran g'reloc i change it and hit do it.
Is this what i should be doing? I do this and i get the same result no matter which ROM i try and port from. I am porting from a touch pro ROM so is there anything i would need to change due to the vga to wvga switch?

swap from the modules marked with red to blue
base_dpi_192_resh_480_resv_640
to
base_dpi_192_resh_480_resv_800
since our device is WVGA you need to have the value set to 800 instead og 640.
So swap the folders with 640 from donor rom to the ones from either blackstone or x1

I can't get anything to work... If i extract the xip from this 21109 build that i have and try an use xipporterex to create the new xip and write it into the os.nb.payload and then merge the files. If i take that os.nb that is created i can build that and it will boot but if i try use the rom build procedure where it makes the os-new.nb file it will never boot. Even if i do nothing but just extract and rebuild the rom will not boot. From this i assume that i'm doing something wrong, 21109 build is corrupted or both. I'm not this inept. This shouldn't be giving me this much trouble with all these tutorials. Can someone please help me out with the exact procedure they use when building an X1 rom with porting over a new build?

Tutorial For building custom rom for G1

Can any body post tutorial for building a custom rom for G1 and Hero?

wrong area to post this... probably should take it off.

were should i put this thread then

Q&A buddy.

I wrote a few how-to's on compiling your own android build from source, i recommend starting here:
http://robblue2x.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-to-set-up-ubuntu-virtual-machine.html
it is a bit out of date now because android moves so fast, its incredibly hard to keep up to date!

robblue2x said:
I wrote a few how-to's on compiling your own android build from source, i recommend starting here:
http://robblue2x.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-to-set-up-ubuntu-virtual-machine.html
it is a bit out of date now because android moves so fast, its incredibly hard to keep up to date!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just visited this link But how do modify the existing files of android OS ?

If you have to ask how to change the files then you probably shouldn't be messing with the code for an OS. There is alot to it. You need to know how to set up linux, Git, repo, sdk, emulator, learn java,maybe some C++, edit xml files, and compile the edited code just to name a few.
read this
If you get that working then all you need is a text editor to start changing code.
Good luck!

What about modding existing roms?
Here is what I know so far...
system apps are not individualy signed
Rom must be packaged in zip having 3 root directories.
data (holds apps normaly)
META-INF (holds some kind of build files... and android manifest)
system (holds the OS and scripts and such.)
Also boot.img in the root dir.
The update.zip needs to be resigned if repackaged.
=) that is it all that I have gathered after hours of searching.
I dont want to recompile a kernel as I dont need to modify one. I would rather leave that to the more experienced DEVs. All I want is to remove/replace few apps...
My questions:
How do you sign a file... (tried the sign java thing in ubuntu and I get some king of error... could not find library and what not...)
There is a windows batch file floating around I have not tryed that.
I have some basic understanding of code language and I can flollow instructions even if I have to find my way around some stuff... but this rom building is like black magic... Everyone is doing it no one wants to explain how its done... If its too damn hard then so be it. I can modify it on the back end after installing. I just believe in clean simple installs.
What generates the META-INF directory and the files in there. Seems like there is some instructions on setting permissions for certain files and (manifest) seems like signiture keys..
Is that generated when the file is signed?
is it manualy generated?
is can those files be modified?
I know if this is answered it would be helpful in letting people optimize the builds for their own needs.
Sorry for the long post. I hope this gets explained or I dont care if I have to read, give me a bunch of homework (links).

zambezy said:
What about modding existing roms?
Here is what I know so far...
system apps are not individualy signed
Rom must be packaged in zip having 3 root directories.
data (holds apps normaly)
META-INF (holds some kind of build files... and android manifest)
system (holds the OS and scripts and such.)
Also boot.img in the root dir.
The update.zip needs to be resigned if repackaged.
=) that is it all that I have gathered after hours of searching.
I dont want to recompile a kernel as I dont need to modify one. I would rather leave that to the more experienced DEVs. All I want is to remove/replace few apps...
My questions:
How do you sign a file... (tried the sign java thing in ubuntu and I get some king of error... could not find library and what not...)
There is a windows batch file floating around I have not tryed that.
I have some basic understanding of code language and I can flollow instructions even if I have to find my way around some stuff... but this rom building is like black magic... Everyone is doing it no one wants to explain how its done... If its too damn hard then so be it. I can modify it on the back end after installing. I just believe in clean simple installs.
What generates the META-INF directory and the files in there. Seems like there is some instructions on setting permissions for certain files and (manifest) seems like signiture keys..
Is that generated when the file is signed?
is it manualy generated?
is can those files be modified?
I know if this is answered it would be helpful in letting people optimize the builds for their own needs.
Sorry for the long post. I hope this gets explained or I dont care if I have to read, give me a bunch of homework (links).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my advice for signing files would be to read through this thread. stericson says that JF's autosigning tool will work in linux. if you still can't get it pm stericson, he is a very nice member and should be able to help you

Thanks... That worked in windows.
Im getting some FC's but I can at least work on that now...
I did remove everything from the MANIFEST before signing just in case something did not get overwriten correctly.

I don't mess with the manifest files, so try not touching them and see if that helps

Can any body describe what does these files do while building a theme and how to edit these files:
android.policy.jar
framework.jar
services.jar
build.prop
build.sapphire.prop
build.trout.prop

sabin123 said:
Can any body describe what does these files do while building a theme and how to edit these files:
android.policy.jar
framework.jar
services.jar
build.prop
build.sapphire.prop
build.trout.prop
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the prop files are configuration files and should NOT be replaced if your making a theme.
the .jar's should only be messed with if your adding stericsons lockscreen. you will have to decompile them for it to work

How to decompile the services.jar files?

Check out my theme thread. It's from when I was porting Android but most of these questions are explained in pretty good detail with links for more info. That should help you out quite a bit:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=578421
Go to the second post

Thanks for the link..

Maxisma v1.6 Themeing Questions

Hey folks,
Setup:
Windows XP with 1.6 with a full 1.6 SDK / development env. up and running.
Issue: Every time I attempt to edit a file in Maxisma's G1/MAGIC/32B rom I get "This zip file is corrupted". I am currently trying to take my first steps with ROM / theme editing and I'm having some difficulties. I've got signing down... I just need to understand why I can't go into a rom zip file > replace a file with one that is the exact same size and resign it. Every time I try and replace a file with one I've created I get a zip file corruption error.
What I am trying to do: Replace the HTC boot screen without replacing my SPL. I rather flash a new rom I build instead of risk bricking my MyTouch I just bought. I understand I can flash the SPL via Amon_RAs recommendations, and then use fastboot to push a new splash screen, but I rather just modify an existing rom, resign it and then flash my device after making a backup.
So.
Question: How do I edit a existing rom like the one I have listed above that I know already works on my device, resign it, and flash it? All I want to do is edit the splash screen currently in the rom without risking blowing up my device.
Can anyone give me a insightful answer?
Note: I have a perfect SPL device... making everything a bigger pain in the ass.

[Q] Creating a custom ROM

Hello Everybody!
I'm sure this has been covered but I haven't found a tutorial or guide for the samsung captivate. I had ACL surgery today and I've decided i have the time to invest in creating a rom based on the things I like from other roms. Where do I start this process? Can i just mix files from within the .zips from other roms? or is there a file that tells the rom which files to install/access?
I've really enjoyed a lot of the ROM's that I have been flashing on my phone but I keep running into the same problem on all of them except one. Text messages occasionally go to the wrong person...and this is scary and unacceptable for me.
Some links to other threads or websites would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your time.

sdp07d said:
Hello Everybody!
I'm sure this has been covered but I haven't found a tutorial or guide for the samsung captivate. I had ACL surgery today and I've decided i have the time to invest in creating a rom based on the things I like from other roms. Where do I start this process? Can i just mix files from within the .zips from other roms? or is there a file that tells the rom which files to install/access?
I've really enjoyed a lot of the ROM's that I have been flashing on my phone but I keep running into the same problem on all of them except one. Text messages occasionally go to the wrong person...and this is scary and unacceptable for me.
Some links to other threads or websites would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, rom cooking is pretty easy.
As long as you know that component x is compatible with rom y, all you need to do is open the ROM in winrar/7z and drop the new file in, replacing the old one. No reason to unpack / repack. The only thing that can be a problem is the update-script, which resides in META-INF/com/google/android. It's a script that tells the phone "this is what you're doing with all of the stuff in this zip", if you modify a ROM like Axura or Perception, the update-script shouldn't need to be changed.
If you DO want to unpack and repack it, that's fine. Make sure you don't compress them into a sub directory (Update.zip > update > updates/system/meta-inf). Compress the updates/system/meta-inf/data whatever into it's own folder named whatever.zip, then sign the .zip via SignApk;
Code:
java -jar Signapk.jar certification.pem key.pk8 update.zip updatesigned.zip
Then flash it with CWM. Be aware however that in order for kernels(zImage) and modems(Modem.bin) and SBL(secondary boot loader) to be installed via CWM, the redband_ua exploit must be present in the updates folder; and the necessary commands for red_band must be present in the update-script.

[Guide]How to Port roms to your mobile

This guide will help you in porting ROM's to different devices. Although it my not work 100% of the time, it should you show the steps involved in porting a ROM but also which files are important to a device's functionality.
Some handy tools to have before starting:
- The Android SDK, this contains ADB logcat which is a hugely important tool in ROM development. It lets us know what is perhaps causing an app to F/C or a ROM to bootloop. See our guide on how to set this up HERE
- Notepad++ , very useful for altering scripts.
- Patience, getting ports to boot can sometimes take a lot of effort and time but hopefully this guide will show you the quickest and easiest way to get your ported ROM booting.
Okay first decide which ROM you would like to port, don't port HDPI ROM's to MDPI devices or vice versa it just won't work.And it's best to start with the easy and simple ports to get some experience behind you before you go off porting Sense 3.0 to your X10.
Let's get started...
Porting is fairly easy and requires only some folders, files and a boot.img to be replaced.
Now because this is a universal guide I can only tell you how to get the basic hardware working on your port. AOSP ROMs are fairly easy to figure out so you won't have much trouble figuring out what needs replacing. Manufacturer specific ROMs such as Sense 3.0 ROMs are bit more difficult to figure out but the basic skills you will be taught here can be applied in principle to those ROMs.
1. First off lets start with the biggie, the kernel. Those of you familiar with linux will know how important the kernel is a to system, I won't go into detail here but if your kernel isn't specific to your device then your ROM won't boot. The kernel is contained within the boot.img of your ROM's zip (or zImage if it's a Samsung). During flashing it is unpacked and wrote to the system.
To replace the kernel we need to decompile it and no this isn't as easy as opening it winzip. The best way to do this is using Linux; we can use a combination of both perl scripts and terminal commands.
In order for us too see the kernel files contained within the boot.img, we need to first unpack it and this will extract the kernel binary and the ramdisk. What you need at this point is the split_bootimg.zip. This contains a perl script which will extract both files and display the boot.img header, the kernel command line and the board name (if specified).
An example of the output would be:
Page size: 2048 (0x00000800)
Kernel size: 1388548 (0x00153004)
Ramdisk size: 141518 (0x000228ce)
Second size: 0 (0x00000000)
Board name:
Command line: no_console_suspend=1
So how to use this perl script you ask? Well...
First open a terminal and cd to the directory which contains the perl scripts you just downloaded. Next, type this command: "perl split_bootimg.pl boot.img" and that will extract the kernel to your current directory.
Now, we need to extract the ramdisk, the ramdisk has been unpacked from the boot.img and is sitting your current directory with the file name "boot.img-ramdisk.gz", at the moment this still isn't useful to us so we need to un-gzip and then un-cpio it.
So for that we need the Linux terminal. So again from the terminal or using the same terminal enter these commands:
mkdir ramdisk < Creates a directory where we can store the ramdisk
cd ramdisk < Changes our current directory to that of the ramdisk
gzip -dc ../boot.img-ramdisk.gz | cpio -i < Will un-gzip and un-cpio ramdisk
Okay so now we can see all the ramdisk files:
./init.devicename.rc
./default.prop
./proc
./dev
./init.rc
./init
./sys
./init.goldfish.rc
./sbin
./sbin/adbd
./system
./data
So what's important here is the "init.devicename.rc" and "unvented.device.rc". This is the target devices .rc files contained within the ramdisk, now all we have to do here is rename this .rc file to that of the device you are porting to, e.g: "init.trout.rc" > "init.hero.rc"
Some devices ramdisk differ and may not contain "unvented.device.rc" so if this is case for you,then begin by renaming the init.device.rc to your model id and leave it at that. If you get problems well.. that's what the live support is for.
The other file which may be of use to us here is "init.rc", this contains all the system wide kernel properties which we can change to our liking but we'll leave as it is for now.
So now we've edited the ramdisk, we need to change the kernel so that the one the ROM uses is actually specific to our device, when we used the split_bootimg perl script it also unpacked the kernel and that is also in our current directory with the filename "boot.img-kernel".
Easiest way to replace the kernel is to take a kernel update zip for your device, un-zip it and rename the zImage file to "boot.img-kernel" and copy and replace the file of the same name in your directory.
Okay, now that's all done, we need to pack this back up into something that android can understand when it's being flashed. So we need to make a new boot.img from the files we have in our current directory.
First, we need to pack the ramdisk back up into it's original state, so again we need to use the Linux terminal. The command that will do this is this:
find . | cpio -o -H newc | gzip > ../newramdisk.cpio.gz
Remember the ../ is the path to the directory of your ramdisk, remember to remove anything that won't be used by the kernel as cpio will include EVERYTHING in the working directory.
Okay now that the ramdisk is back in it's original format we need to repack the kernel and ramdisk into the boot.img.
So back into the terminal we go and this time we're going to use the "repack-bootimg" perl script (as if that wasn't obvious enough). The command you will ise here is esentially the same to the one we used to split it, so:
"perl repack-bootimg.pl ../path to kernel ../path to ramdisk directory ../path to outfile"
And the boot.img is complete!
So if we look back to the ROM we are porting we can see that we need to put the boot.img into the root of the zip, this will hold true for almost every Android ROM. Next we need to replace some of the files which allow the hardware and keys to work. This is the easy part.
Go into the root of the zip and follow this path to the kernel modules; "/system/lib/modules" Delete all the files you find here.
Now take the kernel modules which came along with the kernel you added to the boot.img and copy them there. Next follow this path to the propietary hardware files;
"/system/lib/hw" Delete all the files you find here.
Again this as simple as taking the files from a ROM meant for your device and copying them into this directory. So what we've done there is added the kernel modules that we can set symlinks to in the updater-script and contain the modules needed for things like WiFi, bluetooth etc. The "/hw" directory as you can see contains the files which control the sensors and lights such as GPS and the accelerometer.
Next, we can look at making sure the hard and soft keys work, the files which contain the layout of your device keys can be found in;
"/system/usr/keylayout" and "/system/usr/keychars"
Touch only those 2 directories.
Delete all the files in here and copy the ones from your device (following the same directory) here.
Okay now to finish off we need to copy over the mount point information for your device and the WiFi drivers.
Follow this path; "/system/etc" and delete only these files and directories.
- vold.fstab
- /wifi
- /ppp
Now follow the same path in a ROM for your device and copy over these files.
Okay we're done!
Before flashing take a look and some guides which show you how to write updater-scripts, incase you need to create important symbolic links.
Happy Porting!
**mod edit** credits to JieeHD from the VillainROM team for this guide! original thread here: http://www.freeyourandroid.com/guide/porting-android

reserved for future......

Hey,how did i help in this?
PS:i m thinking of buying this phone.....is it any good?

i have both the galaxy sl and spice mi 410 i copied from your thread so had to give you credit even though you are not the original poster
spice mi 410 competely outshines galaxy sl so much so that i hardly use sl hooked to this at i.6ghz its lightning fast great plays any game hardly random reboots though average camera galaxy sl better
side note :if you could build succh a nice rom with sl god knows what good you can do with mi 410 please buy it haha
cranium rocks

oh cool............i had forgotten about that thread
2nd hand for 9999 only.................

Hey that's my tutorial... Hope it helps someone....
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium

rdannar said:
Hey that's my tutorial... Hope it helps someone....
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
than credit to you i am just sharing with everyone "hope it helps someone"

Thank you!!! Will try too port a gt-I9100 rom to a gt-I9100G.
Hope it will be easy with this guide.

Dear Preyesh1.... Could you add the credit to the creator of this guide or at least you mention the url source because I've seen this guide just exactly as in this thread somewhere in the internet.
Except if this guide is pure of yours.
Just to remind...
Edited: Never mind... The creator has been here after all...

I have some questions:
so this means you can take the U9000 android 2.2.2 kernel and merge with ICS?
or does this only works with kernel coming from a GB build to another GB build?

It will help me cause I'm gonna use it soon
Sent from my Triumph using XDA

ziggy46 said:
It will help me cause I'm gonna use it soon
Sent from my Triumph using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey are you going to port your rom to your device this will be great...!!

I wanna try this great tutorial
Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

Nice plagiarism.
I mean look at that OP. You've selected the entire article, hit copy, hit new post here, hit paste then hit submit. That's plagiarism of the laziest kind you could have at the very least put some effort in, formatted the text, used code blocks etc.
My word.
edit:
preyesh1 said:
See our guide on how to set this up HERE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hahahahaha.