Database Develop

(discussion) Rom development for Galaxy

Or rather lack of it.
I start of by saying, i am not a dev.
But i see that the way rom's is made for Galaxy lack's most of the things that makes custom rom's good, SGS's rom's seem more themes than proper custom rom's.
I have used Nexus and some of the great rom's to that device.
The SGS way to update FW seems to stop all real development?
What do you think?

samsung's drivers are encrypted and this makes developing roms pretty difficult. there can only be roms based on samsung releases. at least this is what i understood .
i am sure that the growing user base of this great phone will bring more attention from great developers ( hi paul ! , who will be able to overcome most of the problems and give us great roms.

The final non-beta firmware from Samsung hasn't even arrived yet! Give it some time!
Custom roms now would be obsolete within one week because of a newer official beta Firmware.

I was aware that a few days ago paul obrien was having a conversation to cyanogen about creating a vendor tree for the sgs which would enable us to use cyanogen mod. If someone can confirm this with paul this would be very good news for us sgs owners.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Right now I'd settle for a vanilla Froyo (my last phone was the N1).
The SGS has potential, but the stock ROM is so infested with Samsung customisations (eg non- AOSP dialer, contacts, music, etc etc), why have they re-invented the wheel?? Before this phone I didn't think fragmentation existed, only "legacy". Now I know exactly what fragmentation is, and it's ugly, annoying.
The only reason I ditched the N1 is because Google have said there would be no N2 so I figured I find another phone.
Now I realise how bad fragmentation is, the iPhone really doesn't look so bad again ... (previous to the N1, I was on a iPhone 3G)
It's a pity vendors can't be mandated to supply optional vanilla ROMs - I know Samsung have released a bunch of source code, maybe that's a start.
I guess I'll give it six months. I'm an end-user who wants an easy life, but appreciates the potential and integration with google services that Android provides - moreso in its vanilla form.

Did anybody try compiling the sourcecode that was released by samsung to create a flashable working version of the manufacturer Android version that is currently running in our phones?
If that is possible, and we do have the source code from samsung, I don't see why it would be impossible to get at least a vanilla AOSP 2.1-update1 running on our galaxies.
The encrypted (or closed source drivers) can be linked as binaries to the new AOSP build running on top of Samsung's kernel (which we do have the source code to).
Side question, anybody knows how to flash the phone once you got all source code by samsung compiled ? I know we end up with a zImage, possibly a system.img.. can you create Odin files with these easily ? any thoughts?

miker71 said:
Right now I'd settle for a vanilla Froyo (my last phone was the N1).
The SGS has potential, but the stock ROM is so infested with Samsung customisations (eg non- AOSP dialer, contacts, music, etc etc), why have they re-invented the wheel?? Before this phone I didn't think fragmentation existed, only "legacy". Now I know exactly what fragmentation is, and it's ugly, annoying.
The only reason I ditched the N1 is because Google have said there would be no N2 so I figured I find another phone.
Now I realise how bad fragmentation is, the iPhone really doesn't look so bad again ... (previous to the N1, I was on a iPhone 3G)
It's a pity vendors can't be mandated to supply optional vanilla ROMs - I know Samsung have released a bunch of source code, maybe that's a start.
I guess I'll give it six months. I'm an end-user who wants an easy life, but appreciates the potential and integration with google services that Android provides - moreso in its vanilla form.
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Click to collapse
same here. previous n1 user, got sgs just after google announced no n2 wil be available.
just took some actions to make things smoother for me :
1. launcher pro
2. dialer one
3. handcent sms
i used them all on n1 and now i do on sgs. its all good again . still, untill froyo hits us i think i will still miss n1's speed. also, i think after froyo hits us, we will get some more roms and goodies for our phones.

what exactly is a vendor tree? and how would it be able to get around the driver issue which is apparant to the SGS?

Some info on the .rfs files that samsung uses:
http://movitool.ntd.homelinux.org/trac/movitool/wiki/RFS

Merging into AOSP
It seems like good idea to have the scripts merged into AOSP tree that support building stock ROMS for samsung galaxy s, with binary-only files being downloaded directly from the device (if I'm not mistaken, this is how one can build froyo for N1 from source now).
From someone else experience: would the patches that add vendor-specific support for SGS be accepted into AOSP tree? Are there known blockers for this?

Hmm.. rom development is quite sluggish due to the firmwares that are being released!
But i really don't care! the original rom is fine with WJG5!
I just use Launcher Pro and widgets to make it better! Speed is ok!

bratfink said:
I was aware that a few days ago paul obrien was having a conversation to cyanogen about creating a vendor tree for the sgs which would enable us to use cyanogen mod. If someone can confirm this with paul this would be very good news for us sgs owners.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This still doesn't get around the fact that the drivers are locked down and are near impossible to implement into outside roms that aren't Samsung based. Talking isn't doing anything.

miker71 said:
Right now I'd settle for a vanilla Froyo (my last phone was the N1).
The SGS has potential, but the stock ROM is so infested with Samsung customisations (eg non- AOSP dialer, contacts, music, etc etc), why have they re-invented the wheel?? Before this phone I didn't think fragmentation existed, only "legacy". Now I know exactly what fragmentation is, and it's ugly, annoying.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This isn't fragmentation though, this is exactly what Google wanted Android to be - a base for phone manufacturers to lay their own tweaks on top of. HTC, Motorola, Samsung etc don't just want to be differentiated by how their handset looks, they want to put their own stuff on there too. Previously each had their own OS (Symbian, UIQ etc.) that took years of development time and was very slow moving. Google provided Android as a quick route to market for a phone, the manufacturers didn't really have to worry too much about the OS and then get lots of apps for free.
The thing is, the vanilla apps are a bit.. basic. The standard music player is fine, it works and does what it says on the tin. The standard contacts is fine again etc. Makers can ship a ROM based on vanilla Android and it would be good to go, but if they can improve upon the apps and brand it slightly more then all well and good.
But it's not fragmentation. Android is a base. A starting point. It's not meant to look exactly the same on every device, but it's meant to work exactly the same as much as possible. These manufacturers get a stable, standard, capable phone OS for free, which to them is awesome. It saves them so much time and is ultimately why eventually there will be nothing but Android on devices. It's the Mac vs PC all over again - cool but closed and restricted vs ubiquitous free-for-all.

psychoace said:
This still doesn't get around the fact that the drivers are locked down and are near impossible to implement into outside roms that aren't Samsung based. Talking isn't doing anything.
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If the right people get onto it it's only a matter of time. The G1 camera drivers were reverse engineered for Eclair CM ROMs after HTC gave the community sod-all.

dirk1978 said:
If the right people get onto it it's only a matter of time. The G1 camera drivers were reverse engineered for Eclair CM ROMs after HTC gave the community sod-all.
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Didn't they have the source for 1.6's camera drivers? At least then they had a base to start from. That is not true with Samsungs drivers.

A little bit OT but due to the fact that in this thread are some EX-Nexus users: Would you recommend switching to the SGS ?

dirk1978 said:
it's meant to work exactly the same as much as possible.
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Click to collapse
It's when it doesn't work, it's very very annoying. How long do we have to wait for the Samsung music player to enable scrobbling? Sure I can use a different app from the Market - meaning Samsung wasted effort on their own Music app, why didn't they build on the AOSP version which does support scrobbling and iSyncr, etc because they use standard API or whatever so these other programs can read the state or whatever they need to do.
Same with dialer and contacts - on Launcher Pro, pressing the default Contacts icon - won't get you anything except maybe a FC :-(
The AOSP Desk Clock - where is that? If I install a clock from Market then I have two different Alarm daemons which is a waste of everyone's time when the default Clock in AOSP Eclair is fine and - more importantly - compatible with stuff and API calls.
Then all the other stuff that may or may not be Samsung stuff - the DRM, the Device Management, the Samsung Account - given the option I just don't want that stuff.
I'm intending to flash JG5 (from factory shipped JF3) which may increase performance but presume won't make these other problems go away.
I'm really happy with the hardware - but currently I am dissatisfied with the software and "Samsung knows best". For me, personally, Google knows best (and I bet they have data on me to prove it!), so I really want to see Froyo AOSP version for the Galaxy. That day may come, or it may not ...
I know I know, "can't please all of the people all of the time"

PAO1908 said:
A little bit OT but due to the fact that in this thread are some EX-Nexus users: Would you recommend switching to the SGS ?
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Click to collapse
Right now the question for me would be "do I recommend switching from Samsung OS from Froyo" - my answer would be no, unless:
1. better multitouch is important to you (better for gaming, no axis mess-up)
2. 4" screen is important (I do really like the Samsung screen)
3. Better built-in audio quality is important (the Galaxy is noticeably louder than the N1 and I think it may have a better A/D sampler too)
So fully recommend switching for hardware, UNLESS you can't live without Froyo.
I can live with the SGS shortcomings. Well, for a few months anyway ... and even if AOSP never comes there are alternatives in the Market but does mean you have to ignore the Samsung stock apps depending what you want to do (which means added complexity to your life, which I don't always have time to deal with!)

psychoace said:
This still doesn't get around the fact that the drivers are locked down and are near impossible to implement into outside roms that aren't Samsung based. Talking isn't doing anything.
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Click to collapse
Do you have any proof that the drivers are actually locked down in any way?
I can see the source of all the modules provided by samsung, just 3 of them (pvrsrvkm, s3cbc and s3clcd) are just precompiled, and if you check the info they are GPL.
Am I missing something?

@miker71
Thanks a lot !

[Question] Windows Phone 7 on Nexus One?

Now, before I get started I just want to say please don't yell at me going "WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU WANT THAT?" This is just a simple question:
Could it be possible to port WP7 onto the Nexus One? I noticed we have development for things like Ubuntu and Meego.

xxjoshuaaxx said:
Now, before I get started I just want to say please don't yell at me going "WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU WANT THAT?" This is just a simple question:
Could it be possible to port WP7 onto the Nexus One? I noticed we have development for things like Ubuntu and Meego.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The difference is, OSes like Android, Meego and Ubuntu are all based on open-source Linux. That means we can try and squeeze them onto devices that weren't designed for it without running into huge legal repercussions, and if something is incompatible we can just recompile it with changes.
WP7 is closed-source and designed for specific hardware. I don't think it'd be easy, it definitely wouldn't be legal, and I don't think you'll find a lot of people here who care to see it happen anyway

cmstlist said:
The difference is, OSes like Android, Meego and Ubuntu are all based on open-source Linux. That means we can try and squeeze them onto devices that weren't designed for it without running into huge legal repercussions, and if something is incompatible we can just recompile it with changes.
WP7 is closed-source and designed for specific hardware. I don't think it'd be easy, it definitely wouldn't be legal, and I don't think you'll find a lot of people here who care to see it happen anyway
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Add in to the fact that it's not even released yet, so how would anyone know anyway? Yes, xxjoshuaaxx it's possible, but it's nothing like getting Ubuntu to run on the N1. It would require a lot of custom driver code to be written. Nobody will care enough to do this though, so while yes it is possible it won't happen. Same reason you don't see Symbian or BB OS running on an N1, or any Android phone. Unless the hardware is extremely similar it's not worth trying.

One possible exception might be - if a manufacturer produces an Android and a Windows phone that are 99.9% the same hardware with different OSes slapped on them. In that case it *might* be possible to reflash one to the other. But don't count on it!

I would guess the way it happens is that you take a phone 7 device with a similar hardware device sporting android and then install android on the phone7 device and dual boot. It was the wild west with windows mobile up to now but with phone 7 I expect to see apple style policing of the OS meaning developers fiddling with putting it on a non native phone 7 device and offering up such a rom will be seeing a cease and desist order very qickly.

HD7 and WP7 future Customization level/Roms?

I am confused on all of this and I have read all the threads on the HD7 here. In regards to both the HD7 and WP7 will there ever be the ability to have custom roms and be rooted? I'm still not sure what the chevron tool really even did besides make your phone have a free dev account and 3 party apps. I'm coming from the HD2 in which I changed roms on a daily basis and had multiple versions of android running. I'm just wondering if we will ever get to that level of modification with windows 7. Now mind you I have no interest running android on my HD7, thats not what this thread is about. If I did I would have bought the MT4G which my GF got when we did the buy one get one deal 2 weeks ago. I just wanna know if there is going to be real Dev support like there is with the HD2. Is the interest level there? I love WP7 however its just a little to bland, but with a few visual mods it would be the most amazing UI ever and Im not talking about missing features. I'm talking about eye candy. Am I off base? I am I missing the point of WP7? I dont know I just want some feedback on all of this.

Thanks for the replies!!

stillbrad said:
Thanks for the replies!!
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Click to collapse
Here is one reply :
It will take a real long time ( maybe years ) because it is a brand new os and closed ,so everything has to be reverse engineered and that will take long when there are even dev's that are willing to put in the time .

ceesheim said:
Here is one reply :
It will take a real long time ( maybe years ) because it is a brand new os and closed ,so everything has to be reverse engineered and that will take long when there are even dev's that are willing to put in the time .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, I thought it was Microsoft's intention to set a standard - what they did regarding restrictions of the hardware (Screen resolution, keys,...). This should give some similar standard as Apple did with the iPhone, but I had to learn, that the OS itself is customized by every provider (omitting languages, ...).
I really hoped windows phone might be similar to Win7 for PC - getting updates, optional updates, add-ons directly from microsoft and applications programmed by third parties (Marketplace). But how shall updates of the OS by Microsoft work, if not installable on the phones as those updates needs to be customized by the provider?
Nice approach to get a stable and equal OS (don't bother being controlled by Microsoft - that case you should get another phone - my two cents), but that case the OS on the phone must be by Microsoft themselves, not T-Mobile, O2, vodafone, ....
Carlhermann

C.Schlehaus said:
Hi, I thought it was Microsoft's intention to set a standard - what they did regarding restrictions of the hardware (Screen resolution, keys,...). This should give some similar standard as Apple did with the iPhone, but I had to learn, that the OS itself is customized by every provider (omitting languages, ...).
I really hoped windows phone might be similar to Win7 for PC - getting updates, optional updates, add-ons directly from microsoft and applications programmed by third parties (Marketplace). But how shall updates of the OS by Microsoft work, if not installable on the phones as those updates needs to be customized by the provider?
Nice approach to get a stable and equal OS (don't bother being controlled by Microsoft - that case you should get another phone - my two cents), but that case the OS on the phone must be by Microsoft themselves, not T-Mobile, O2, vodafone, ....
Carlhermann
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well exactly...I mean the iphone was jailbroken very shorly after being released. I was an ex iphone user as well and ran jailbroken very early on. I'm just wondering if the Interest Level is there? I mean the iphone was worked on by some greats like geohot and others. I guess im saying with WP7 getting written off early on by a lot of people (i believe in the os) will devs even give it a shot?

stillbrad said:
Well exactly...I mean the iphone was jailbroken very shorly after being released. I was an ex iphone user as well and ran jailbroken very early on. I'm just wondering if the Interest Level is there? I mean the iphone was worked on by some greats like geohot and others. I guess im saying with WP7 getting written off early on by a lot of people (i believe in the os) will devs even give it a shot?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wp7 will be jailbroken real fast i think ( it is already jailbroken but no one really know how to make native code work on wp7)
custom rom's is something totally different ( I belief that there aren't any custom rom's on ios)
there is a history on custom rom's for WM for years (wm4-wm6.5) but WP7 is totally different and everyone has to start all over (reverse engineering) and that will take long .

C.Schlehaus said:
Hi, I thought it was Microsoft's intention to set a standard - what they did regarding restrictions of the hardware (Screen resolution, keys,...). This should give some similar standard as Apple did with the iPhone, but I had to learn, that the OS itself is customized by every provider (omitting languages, ...).
I really hoped windows phone might be similar to Win7 for PC - getting updates, optional updates, add-ons directly from microsoft and applications programmed by third parties (Marketplace). But how shall updates of the OS by Microsoft work, if not installable on the phones as those updates needs to be customized by the provider?
Nice approach to get a stable and equal OS (don't bother being controlled by Microsoft - that case you should get another phone - my two cents), but that case the OS on the phone must be by Microsoft themselves, not T-Mobile, O2, vodafone, ....
Carlhermann
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think you understand. The carriers are not allowed to touch the core OS, they are allowed to add their apps and edit a couple of things (like t-mobile making google the search in IE), but overall, OEMs and carriers can't do much with the OS itself, everything they do has to be done through apps.
stillbrad said:
Well exactly...I mean the iphone was jailbroken very shorly after being released. I was an ex iphone user as well and ran jailbroken very early on. I'm just wondering if the Interest Level is there? I mean the iphone was worked on by some greats like geohot and others. I guess im saying with WP7 getting written off early on by a lot of people (i believe in the os) will devs even give it a shot?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know the iphone is jailbroken, but are there really, full bore custom ROMs for it?
I worry that with jailbreaking, you get a host of other problems, like bugs and a laggy OS.
For me, I am happy with it as is for now and am curious to see where it goes.

Well, the team behind the WP7 unlocking/sideloading hack ChevronWP7 are currently talking to Microsoft about the openness of WP7. Right now, no one know's what's going to happen, besides that WP7 will eventually be completely unlocked and customizable with roms at some point in time. My hope is that the Chevron team can talk Microsoft into officially supporting homebrew. I understand that thats a far fetched dream, but it makes sense because tweaking and modding are the only reasons most people used winmo after 2007 or 2008; and Android has exploded since they began rooting devices.
why shouldn't Microsoft use us as alpha/beta testers? that and anything awesome we develop they can basically steal from us. Seems like a win-win for Microsoft

sprinttouch666 said:
Well, the team behind the WP7 unlocking/sideloading hack ChevronWP7 are currently talking to Microsoft about the openness of WP7. Right now, no one know's what's going to happen, besides that WP7 will eventually be completely unlocked and customizable with roms at some point in time. My hope is that the Chevron team can talk Microsoft into officially supporting homebrew. I understand that thats a far fetched dream, but it makes sense because tweaking and modding are the only reasons most people used winmo after 2007 or 2008; and Android has exploded since they began rooting devices.
why shouldn't Microsoft use us as alpha/beta testers? that and anything awesome we develop they can basically steal from us. Seems like a win-win for Microsoft
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
why is everyone so sure you will ever get a custom ROM on wp7?

nrfitchett4 said:
why is everyone so sure you will ever get a custom ROM on wp7?
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Click to collapse
That's what I wanna know. My hope is the interest level that there is in WM will soon be there for WP7. I'm sure there is much room for improvement that only a custom rom and a chef from xda can produce.

Galaxy Note WP7?

Is there any chance of it ever happening?
I had to say a sad goodbye to my HD2 WP7 to make way for my new Galaxy Note.
Personally, I prefer the WP7 OS to Android, and it would be a dream come true if it were ever available on a Note.

The problem here is that with a Linux-based operating system port all of the components are open source and hackable in order to get them to work on specific devices. With a Microsoft operating system this is *not* the case since MS don't open source any of their components and thus it would be damn near impossible to get this to work on a device it wasn't intended for.
The only exception here would be if there was some kind of emulator of another device which it *was* designed to work on developed for Android but I really can't see that happening since I just don't think it has the same following as Android and thus there wouldn't be much of a market for it.
TL;DR version: No.

Although we might be able to install windows8 arm at the end of the year.
For hackers and tweakers as a lot of us are, this opens some nice horizons

so why didnt you just get a wp7 handset? the note wont be running anytime soon, you know how much hacking and that the hd2 has a nice boot loader to aloow magldr to interface with it to get the other os supported?

friedje said:
Although we might be able to install windows8 arm at the end of the year.
For hackers and tweakers as a lot of us are, this opens some nice horizons
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh yes! I completely forgot about Windows 8
Should be interesting.
Richy99 said:
so why didnt you just get a wp7 handset? the note wont be running anytime soon, you know how much hacking and that the hd2 has a nice boot loader to aloow magldr to interface with it to get the other os supported?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I love everything about the Note except Android, but I also love WP7. So I had to make a tough decision, and the Note just edged it

WP8 on Android [Everything you could possibly do,even Launchers etc.]

Hey guys,first of all I am hoping that some of you don't get offended or anything,yes i love android and all that but i also love wp8 like a style ( metro ),and yes I tried launchers and all that to customize my phone ( not the real thing of course.Anyway i am starting this thread to see if anyone could make a rom based on wp8.I heard also that the new wp8 phones will have the dual core processor and HD screen so i guess there should be no problen with that to work.Anyway if someone could possibly make this even if its payable i would pay.And please dont tell me:Go get WP8 or something like that...
Thanks
Sent from my LT26i using XDA Premium App

You can't go beyond launchers and roms with skins, forget it.
Either use Android skinned as WP8 (with some work this can resemble the true thing) , or use WP8 itself and stay there for eternity.
WP8 is closed source.

Ok than,fair enough does anyone know any wp8 launcher or skin??

DekinGBar said:
Ok than,fair enough does anyone know any wp8 launcher or skin??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Windows Phone 8 has not even been released yet so never mind a loader (and I dont see that happening). Your asking for a WP8 skin for Android in a Windows Phone area ?
Sorry man, you need to go to the Android area. Not trying to beat up what you already said but, Your asking Android questions in a WP area, wrong place for this question.
Good luck, wait till WP8 comes out and get a WP8 device, then you dont have to deal with a loader that is even if anyone makes one.

Skander1998 said:
You can't go beyond launchers and roms with skins, forget it.
Either use Android skinned as WP8 (with some work this can resemble the true thing) , or use WP8 itself and stay there for eternity.
WP8 is closed source.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the htc hd2 has a windows phone rom... wouldn't be far stetch that a wp8 rom comes out, not for hd2 though, different processor but a rom for a device with same processor