Having been burned in the past by lack of drivers & resources for different devices, I started to wonder about the future of our Nook tablets.
I don't know anything about software and/or Android development so have no idea what is required to develop these ROMs.
Since the stock ROM runs on ICS and current development is on JB, are the drivers compatible?
Also, what about Android 4.3 (Key Lime Pie) and Android 5.0? When it is release by Google, would lack of stock ROMs be a hindrance to aftermarket development?
What exactly is needed by developers to create a (mostly) stable ROM for our Nook HD tablets & Android devices in general?
I hope someone with more knowledge than I possess can answer some of these queries.
Thanks.
IMO, my HD+ is pretty dang stable right now. I think the fact that the stock ROM is ICS-based helps a lot. Going forward, who knows? Hard to speculate, but with a solid kernel and that handles the devices capabilities, i think we should be good for a while.
Hey guys, just a quick question, is Cataclysm rom built off of a genuine stock system.img like the ones hosted on the google dev site? Or is some of it AOSP based? And if it is from stock genuine Android, isn't there some kind of legal issue with that? Just wondering this, I use Cataclysm and I LOVE IT! It's my daily driver! Thanks all!
H4X0R46 said:
Hey guys, just a quick question, is Cataclysm rom built off of a genuine stock system.img like the ones hosted on the google dev site? Or is some of it AOSP based? And if it is from stock genuine Android, isn't there some kind of legal issue with that? Just wondering this, I use Cataclysm and I LOVE IT! It's my daily driver! Thanks all!
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The dev had an explanation of how it worked on the original thread. Android is open source and google releases sources for all the nexus devices and they also conveniently package them into flashable images to fix things. There was at least 1 release where the dev had to wait for the source to come out even though the factory images were out in order to do anything. So in short no there's no legal issue. The dev used open source files and modified them for non-profit. The reason no one else really does that type of mod is due to the fact that AOSP mods are widespread and people can just use others' code to incorporate them into the rom (or just use CM). Or if the dev is particularly dedicated then they might use an AOSP base because they want to keep up with all the bleeding edge enhancements to android which may or may not have any real benefit. When you target just 1 device by using its stock rom source then the mods have to be made for specifically that device (and why would anyone create code for 1 device when they could just use what works on virtually all devices) though the Nexuses are evidently similar enough to port between them hence the N5, 6, 5x, and 6p versions. The use of the stock source however meant that you kept the "rock solid stability" that Google's team of software engineers created so the dev could focus on adding features because the base he was working on was solid.
StykerB said:
The dev had an explanation of how it worked on the original thread. Android is open source and google releases sources for all the nexus devices and they also conveniently package them into flashable images to fix things. There was at least 1 release where the dev had to wait for the source to come out even though the factory images were out in order to do anything. So in short no there's no legal issue. The dev used open source files and modified them for non-profit. The reason no one else really does that type of mod is due to the fact that AOSP mods are widespread and people can just use others' code to incorporate them into the rom (or just use CM). When you target just 1 device by using its stock rom source then the mods have to be made for specifically that device (and why would anyone create code for 1 device when they could just use what works on virtually all devices) though the Nexuses are evidently similar enough to port between them hence the N5, 6, 5x, and 6p versions. The use of the stock source however meant that you kept the "rock solid stability" that Google's team of software engineers created so the dev could focus on adding features because the base he was working on was solid.
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So all in all, Cataclysm is using stock Android and not AOSP, but done in a way that there are no legal issues? So in essence, flashing the system.img file from the dev site and adding Cataclysm mod to it is the the exact same difference as using the full Cataclysm installer? No AOSP added?
StykerB said:
.... "rock solid stability" that Google's team of software engineers created
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That has a price:
- white ui, grey text on white bad readable; especially with sunlight;
- white background causes battery drain on amoled displays;
- pesky search bar; not removable or change to transparent;
- no option to change to a dark theme;
- N6 full resolution 2560 x 1440 not used;
- N6 native resolution = 493. G. sets it to 560 dpi;
- no option to kill running apps;
- code to use layers can't be used without rooting;
- G-apps not predestinated for layers.....etc.
NLBeev said:
That has a price:
- white ui, grey text on white bad readable; especially with sunlight;
- white background causes battery drain on amoled displays;
- pesky search bar; not removable or change to transparent;
- no option to change to a dark theme;
- N6 full resolution 2560 x 1440 not used;
- N6 native resolution = 493. G. sets it to 560 dpi;
- no option to kill running apps;
- code to use layers can't be used without rooting;
- G-apps not predestinated for layers.....etc.
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Yes but would you rather not have something solid for people to build on? some of those things aren't even about stability... like the full resolution thing? assuming you're referring to onscreen buttons, and DPI is always on every device set in multiples of 80 for app standardization reasons. The overlay code for layers wasn't intended to be used for theming. Hence why google only used it for stuff like the ATT boot animation. and Google's apps and OS are separate and shouldn't be expected to adhere to a modding community's theme engine that they don't support. And dark themes were probably a design decision rather than actual stability issue.
StykerB said:
.....some of those things aren't even about stability... like the full resolution thing?....
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You're right my list is not about stability only.
Using the N6 now for more than a year. I've seen a beta version with a dark theme, but it was removed. Why? Stability issues ?
To make the N6 acceptable for my daily use, especially battery life and readability, I had to change a lot of things. That has consequences for the stability. The N6 is still stable but I wouldn't say rock stable.
So all in all cataclysm is built using real Android? The main question in this thread lol But yea, AOSP does have it pros and cons as well as stock, I have to play devils advocate here and say that all roms do have their differences.
H4X0R46 said:
So all in all cataclysm is built using real Android? The main question in this thread lol But yea, AOSP does have it pros and cons as well as stock, I have to play devils advocate here and say that all roms do have their differences.
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Yes what he did was use the stock android package. But make no mistake. AOSP is the real android. There are very few diff between what google releases and AOSP. The main diff is thie closed sourced stuff Google adds.
zelendel said:
Yes what he did was use the stock android package. But make no mistake. AOSP is the real android. There are very few diff between what google releases and AOSP. The main diff is thie closed sourced stuff Google adds.
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Thanks! I was never sure just how much stuff is taken out of AOSP, but it's just small differences then. Glad I know that now! And hey, since we're on the subject, how are gapps legal? Aren't gapps those closed source bits that google DOES omit from AOSP? Play store and background things? Like, I know there's some legal thing where gapps shouldn't be preinstalled in an AOSP rom, but what's the grey area with gapps? Thanks again for the detailed description! Learning these things is good lol
If you have a look around, legal means very little here.
Google has only issued a C&D order to CM to not enclude it in their roms. This is why no aosp has them built in by default.
zelendel said:
If you have a look around, legal means very little here.
Google has only issued a C&D order to CM to not enclude it in their roms. This is why no aosp has them built in by default.
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LOL I had a feeling that was the case here on XDA haha but I love Android and the development is HUGE! No other mobile OS can match Google's Android! Thanks for answering my questions man! Appreciate the help! Have a good rest of the night! Or day depending on where you're from, I'm from USA lol
H4X0R46 said:
LOL I had a feeling that was the case here on XDA haha but I love Android and the development is HUGE! No other mobile OS can match Google's Android! Thanks for answering my questions man! Appreciate the help! Have a good rest of the night! Or day depending on where you're from, I'm from USA lol
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Im in the US as well. Well kinda lol I live in Alaska.
Yes it is but that might becoming to an end soon. With more and more people closing off their source. This is a good and bad thing. We will see what happens. Also more and more OEM are gonna lock down their devices so people will have to pic. Things like mobile pay or modding their device.
zelendel said:
Im in the US as well. Well kinda lol I live in Alaska.
Yes it is but that might becoming to an end soon. With more and more people closing off their source. This is a good and bad thing. We will see what happens. Also more and more OEM are gonna lock down their devices so people will have to pic. Things like mobile pay or modding their device.
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Yea it's awful that people are making everything closed source! I'm a person who loves to tinker with my things, modded game consoles and phones and all, my hobby haha I just hope Android always stays open source! AOSP anyways. And are they starting to make Android devices more secure and non moddable? I hope the Nexus line always stays developer friendly, because I bought a Nexus for the sake of tinkering with it lol
H4X0R46 said:
Yea it's awful that people are making everything closed source! I'm a person who loves to tinker with my things, modded game consoles and phones and all, my hobby haha I just hope Android always stays open source! AOSP anyways. And are they starting to make Android devices more secure and non moddable? I hope the Nexus line always stays developer friendly, because I bought a Nexus for the sake of tinkering with it lol
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Honestly. It because of script kiddies. The ones that just build from others source and post roms. Doing nothing but changing some text. To be honest all it would take is Google to stop pushing code to aosp. Android development would die off at that point.
Yeah if you look at things like Samsung, some devices are not even rootable, Sony, if you unlock the bootloader you lose the camera functions, even China based companies are locking bootloaders. Xiaomi just started doing this and have refused to give some the unlock because it goes against their business plan.
As for the nexus. We should be OK but then you have things like the Mm kernel that was a pain to get root on. And you lose mobile payments. Also more and more apps are looking for things like root and xposed and then refusing to work if they are installed.
zelendel said:
Honestly. It because of script kiddies. The ones that just build from others source and post roms. Doing nothing but changing some text. To be honest all it would take is Google to stop pushing code to aosp. Android development would die off at that point.
Yeah if you look at things like Samsung, some devices are not even rootable, Sony, if you unlock the bootloader you lose the camera functions, even China based companies are locking bootloaders. Xiaomi just started doing this and have refused to give some the unlock because it goes against their business plan.
As for the nexus. We should be OK but then you have things like the Mm kernel that was a pain to get root on. And you lose mobile payments. Also more and more apps are looking for things like root and xposed and then refusing to work if they are installed.
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I've definitely heard of apps looking for root and for xposed framework (both of which I can't live without and use), and a lot of phones from certain companies are completely out of my interest because of no moddability. I wonder if it's even possible to root newer Samsung phones because of Knox security, and I won't even touch an Xperia, I've heard that they merge a lot of partitions, like boot and recovery and things like that, too confusing and not worth it to me. I just hope Android development stays strong in the Nexus scene at least, I love my Nexus!
Also, why do almost all AOSP ROMs have the "KitKat" sounds? Is that just what's released in AOSP? The "knocking" sounds I mean.
H4X0R46 said:
Also, why do almost all AOSP ROMs have the "KitKat" sounds? Is that just what's released in AOSP? The "knocking" sounds I mean.
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To be honest I never noticed. I don't use any of the stock sounds.
H4X0R46 said:
I've definitely heard of apps looking for root and for xposed framework (both of which I can't live without and use), and a lot of phones from certain companies are completely out of my interest because of no moddability. I wonder if it's even possible to root newer Samsung phones because of Knox security, and I won't even touch an Xperia, I've heard that they merge a lot of partitions, like boot and recovery and things like that, too confusing and not worth it to me. I just hope Android development stays strong in the Nexus scene at least, I love my Nexus!
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I dont think the Nexus line will see many issues other then root becoming harder to get.
Some Samsung devices cant be rooted. Like my buddy that is a samsung fan has a note 4, note 5 and a few Galaxy s5 in his house and all of them are locked down.
More and more people are too worried about things like warranty to even bother really. I even waited on updating the n6 until root was gotten for it.
Pretty sure those can be rooted but you trip Knox which voids warranty. I haven't looked at Sammy phones since I had my S4 but I know the Note 4 and S5 had ROMs.
HipKat said:
Pretty sure those can be rooted but you trip Knox which voids warranty. I haven't looked at Sammy phones since I had my S4 but I know the Note 4 and S5 had ROMs.
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Nope no root for the note 5. Only some can be. The tmobile version doesn't lock the bootloader but the rest do.
As tripping Knox is not an option for many as it voids their warranty but flashing roms does that anyway.
In particular, I want to port Omnirom 4.4 to a device which has sources for that particular device available from it's manufacturer's website. Note: the documentation available from the github repo is very sparse and underwritten, particularly in the area of porting and building that port.
4.4 dates back to when I was still active (FYI I have not been active in the development community for 3+ years, kind if just popped in to check things out)
In general, a branch THAT old will not have any support and you likely won't find anyone bothering to code review any submissions. I'm not sure what the current state of the instructions for building for supported devices is.
No project has EVER had significant documentation on porting, because every device is different and the barriers you run into are different every time... It's something that is incredibly time consuming and you learn by doing. It requires general analysis and diagnostics/troubleshooting/problem solving skills. If there were a way to write a step-by-step porting guide - you would see far more devices supported at far higher levels of quality than what you actually see.
What device is this? I'm really surprised that you've found complete AOSP sources from the manufacturer. That's basically unheard of for anything other than Google devices and Sony's AOSP project. If you've merely found a kernel source code drop - congratulations, you've got around 1% of what you need.
Hey I just got this phone a couple of weeks back and while its been awhile I used to be a recognized developer on XDA years ago and was wondering if there are any active developers (still) for this device as I notice the list of active development is basically 0. I am planning on building for the device but would like to know who if anyone is developing currently and what the goals are as it seems without anything outside of stock deodexed and (really the biggest one being the kernel with twrp) we have nothing for this phone even now. This makes it seem like either the proprietary information is extremely difficult (although I see the tree is working for the most part) or we just lack developers. Which is it? Thank you and I apologize if this is in the wrong place. I'd like to see what is the current state of things and see if any developers want to work together on this and at least get a clean aosp build or lineage os build. Stepping stones. Certainly with the Note being as similar as it is this shouldn't be lacking to the state it is today.
Hello jcole20
That would be awesome if some devs started doing something with the RP2! If I had the knowledge, I would!! I've had the RP2 since June of this year. I had some issues with it at first but they have been worked out. I really like the phone and it would be cool to see some devs show the RP2 some love lol. Hopefully you can get something started! Take care!
Dennis
jcole20 said:
Hey I just got this phone a couple of weeks back and while its been awhile I used to be a recognized developer on XDA years ago and was wondering if there are any active developers (still) for this device as I notice the list of active development is basically 0. I am planning on building for the device but would like to know who if anyone is developing currently and what the goals are as it seems without anything outside of stock deodexed and (really the biggest one being the kernel with twrp) we have nothing for this phone even now. This makes it seem like either the proprietary information is extremely difficult (although I see the tree is working for the most part) or we just lack developers. Which is it? Thank you and I apologize if this is in the wrong place. I'd like to see what is the current state of things and see if any developers want to work together on this and at least get a clean aosp build or lineage os build. Stepping stones. Certainly with the Note being as similar as it is this shouldn't be lacking to the state it is today.
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I am sure people would love to see some device specific development. I have read that since the release of project treble most people just flash the system image from other roms. I specifically would love to see a stockish rom so I don't loose chroma but still get updated security patches.
I ordered this phone from amazon to try out. I am checking out the community and stuff in the 10 day trial period they give you. I really like the phone... i just hate the software side of things. I feel like its super premium hardware with outdated software... that probably isnt even going to get security patches. Anyway... off to see whats available.
Krazy_Calvin said:
I ordered this phone from amazon to try out. I am checking out the community and stuff in the 10 day trial period they give you. I really like the phone... i just hate the software side of things. I feel like its super premium hardware with outdated software... that probably isnt even going to get security patches. Anyway... off to see whats available.
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Most functionalities work on Pie GSIs out-of-box (you need to manually install ims.apk in order to receive SMS while on LTE, see relevant threads here, or look for it on some GSI threads such as Havoc 2.9). exFAT also works on supported GSI (with arter97's kernel), while it's not supported on stock. The only problems I have so far are bluetooth-related, and also the inability to set SELinux to permissive (not sure which might be the real cause as arter97 stated the SELinux could be permissive).
Bluetooth media audio doesn't work at all on GSI, partly due to the crippling overlays (which prevents aptX from working, and probably some other limitations). Phone calls work with a bluetooth headset, but for some reasons I couldn't properly route phone calls to my Huawei Watch 2 (which means I always have to take the call from my phone directly).
Given the mostly positive result with numerous GSIs (and that some users are happy with stock ROM, or stock-based ROM modifications), active ROM developments for the device itself doesn't seem to be at a high priority (as some might be able to contribute patches for this device to their favorite GSI instead)...
I'm currently working on my own build of LOS. I haven't seen to much active development either I'm new to rom building but looks like we could use all the help we can get!
I think the only active dev we have for this phone is Arter97's kernel and people tinkering with GSIs to get them working as they should. I wish there was more being done with the stock ROM because I like a lot of it's features, but am having a hard time dealing with it's overall instability. I'd be happy to help develop or test in whatever way I can, though.
jcole20 said:
Hey I just got this phone a couple of weeks back and while its been awhile I used to be a recognized developer on XDA years ago and was wondering if there are any active developers (still) for this device as I notice the list of active development is basically 0. I am planning on building for the device but would like to know who if anyone is developing currently and what the goals are as it seems without anything outside of stock deodexed and (really the biggest one being the kernel with twrp) we have nothing for this phone even now. This makes it seem like either the proprietary information is extremely difficult (although I see the tree is working for the most part) or we just lack developers. Which is it? Thank you and I apologize if this is in the wrong place. I'd like to see what is the current state of things and see if any developers want to work together on this and at least get a clean aosp build or lineage os build. Stepping stones. Certainly with the Note being as similar as it is this shouldn't be lacking to the state it is today.
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Yeah, it’s definitely just total lack of interest from other devs. We even have a guy with a prototype Razer Phone 2 with an intact DRM partition and unlocked bootloader (Allowing Netflix HD and Vudu HDX) but we couldn’t even pay anyone to try to port it.
I think if we had a fully working AOSP tree that it would possibly bring other devs into the scene. Who knows though, it has never been a popular device despite how great it is.
LSS4181 said:
Most functionalities work on Pie GSIs out-of-box.
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Noob question:
Do we have to wait for a stock Android 10 for the device to be able to flash Android 10 GSIs?
EMJI79 said:
Noob question:
Do we have to wait for a stock Android 10 for the device to be able to flash Android 10 GSIs?
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A stock Android 10 (which means a stock vendor image for Android 10) is not necessarily required to have a usable Android 10 ROM (though it may speed up the development to some extent, if it does have one), but for GSI, having a stock Android 10 vendor image can be better (currently it's a hit-or-miss on existing Android 10 GSIs).
Another device that I have, Google Pixel C, never had stock Android 9 (so never had stock vendor images for Android 9, only for up to Android 8.1), but custom Android 9 ROMs are already available (thanks to followmsi's efforts) and are working well. For Android 9 ROMs, the build system builds new vendor images along with system image.
It's just whether we're going to see our device's trees being made possible, so we can start from there to develop our own custom ROMs. The existing materials might be a good starting point in making trees.
- Working with proprietary blobs (from Lineage)
- arter97's kernel (can be useful for making a kernel tree, though one can also consider using stock kernel source as a base)
- Razer factory images and kernel sources (for studying stock ROM/kernel details, and extracting necessary system and vendor blobs)
If you can port LineageOS to this device, great!
I don't understand why people aren't flocking to this device. I came from the LG G6 that probably will be stuck on Oreo forever that is way more popular. The RP2 is cheap, has killer specs + a micro SD card slot + a newer version of Android. Should be a developers dream, you would think. *shrug*
Not sure if anyone's active on this device at present. With RP2's 9.0 MR2 available on the official factory images page the latest proprietary blobs (as well as stock kernel source) are now publicly accessible.
Actually arter97 once mentioned that his RP2 kernel is almost inline with his OP6 kernel (which is also sdm845 and shares some similarities), so it's possible that OP6 (enchilada) trees may be a good starting point, but I'm not sure if any configurations are needed to keep 120Hz working as high refresh rate is relatively uncommon.
My time is very limited so I won't be able to dedicate too much time to experiment on this. At present most functionalities work fine with GSI (including Bluetooth, although tricky and aptX still not working).
IDK how relevant this is anymore but as a new razor phone 2 user to be soon I have been keeping up and it seems that @f(x)THaxxorX could be a possible candidate of what you're looking for I've been keeping up with development on the phone seems like he is doing pretty well even if we get patched gsi which properly work is better than nothing.
Hi All,
I'm new to Pixel. I've heard the selling point is that it gets updates from Google earlier than other Android phones. However, I am not a stock ROM type of guy. The 1st thing I'm going to do with this phone is that I will install a custom ROM on it, eg. LOS. My question is if LineageOS integrates these Google updates fairly quickly too, or if I'm alienating myself from these frequent Google updates by steering away from the stock ROM. Thank you
At this point, smartphone OSs are pretty mature. You're not going to see groundbreaking mouthwatering feature updates going forward.
nixnixnixnix4 said:
At this point, smartphone OSs are pretty mature. You're not going to see groundbreaking mouthwatering feature updates going forward.
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This is a true story.
I'm the past, custom ROMs introduced features that stock Android didn't have. Same goes for OEMs (looking at you HTC, taking stuff from @j to the 4n and Team Venom).
But Google/Android saw what people actually wanted and needed. Most of the holes are filled.
Right now I'm mostly only rooted to change some UI elements that I don't like. I'm running stock ROM and launcher.