Related
I want to try developing for the DSTL1 / N21
There are quite a few interesting things we can do...
Success has been been seen by xda-devs such as JesusFreke, Amon_RA, Haykuro, and Cyanogen (yes there others) in the field of Android ROMs. The ground work is there, porting and developing can commence.
Why do this?
Current ROM 1.5 - has many problems...
Unofficial ROM 1.6 - is a GREAT improvement, but makes one hungry for something better...
It would be awesome to have some success in this field. I know this device is capable of so much more, but I believe the implementation of the system is the issue. This is not the phone developers fault, as they have their own company agenda, but we could improve our own performance and satisfaction .
For example, my device (1.6 rooted) lags with having only ~50% CPU utilization and ~50MB RAM free...
Overclocking (i mean forcing full CPU capacity - 624Mhz) the CPU has barely helped and only aided battery drain...
Relevant comparison of G1 vs DSTL1 (N21) are
RAM - G1: 192MB vs DSTL1: 128MB
CPU - G1: 528Mhz vs DSTL1: 624Mhz
These specification comparisons say that G1 can run a better ROM than DSTL1? I don't think so. DSTL1 only loses in RAM, which can be made up for using swap!
Devs had success with techniques using: App2SD, swap, ext3, and BFS (faster file system). I believe we could do something impressive here! There are pros and cons to this.
Developers and Testers would be needed. A team of 5 developers and a few testers should be able to get us on the right track. We would definitely need Linux experience, or the desire and ability to soak up all the info on Google
A Linux kernel is a must for this phone, we would have to compile our own... It would be nice to preserve DUAL SIM, but in reality we might have to give up this luxury, as it is proprietary code, unless a new ROM is made backwards compatible (which is possible).
Cyanogen's Github is available for knowledge osmosis http://github.com/cyanogen
A DSTL1 Recovery by Amon_RA (based on Cyanogen's Recovery) is already in Beta...
Cool things are possible. Could I find some developers willing to donate their free time?
Please limit responses to dev talk.
reserved for later
crzyruski,
Believe it or not the very luxury you talk about giving up(dual sim) is the reason why may of us bother to buy these phones(DSTL1\N21) in the first place. Other wise we might as well go with a mainstream phone such as hero etc.
chrismotto said:
crzyruski,
Believe it or not the very luxury you talk about giving up(dual sim) is the reason why may of us bother to buy these phones(DSTL1\N21) in the first place. Other wise we might as well go with a mainstream phone such as hero etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its a possibility that I'm not going to ignore, so I stated it.
The point is that the current OS is lacking. Initially we would want to port and learn from porting of the quality ROMs available now. Those obviously don't support dual-SIM.
Progress needs to start from somewhere. When someone releases a new port or ROM not all pieces work... look at the Eclair (2.0) port, half the features don't work!
If enough heads came together we could probably retain dual-SIM, common this is linux and I've seen the most amazing development come to realization. I just need the teamwork because it might take me a whole year in my spare time...
Having a kernel working
Hi,
the most important IMHO is having a kernel working, built from sources.
Obviously, some closed source drivers must be rewritten, notably the NXP5209 (the GSM modem), if we want the device to be useful (i.e. if we want to make phone call).
My first attempt of booting with a custom kernel was unsucessfull (black screen), which brings to the second point: the lack of some sort of console for kernel debuging.
Any idea regarding the NXP? Anyone is aware of some opensource driver or specs?
Any idea also regarding kernel debugging in the N21/DSTL1?
sfabris
@sfabris
I will try to find info for the questions you have.
My initial work will be to make an emulator so we can test on PC and not our devices (because we need them functional for every day life )
Have you checked out how other modders have done kernel modifications?
Namely JF and Cyanogen?
I can't begin to comprehend so I'm glad you took the initiative with this.
Lets make some progress
sfabris said:
Obviously, some closed source drivers must be rewritten, notably the NXP5209 (the GSM modem), if we want the device to be useful (i.e. if we want to make phone call).
Any idea regarding the NXP? Anyone is aware of some opensource driver or specs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe we have it all wrong???? Maybe its PNX?
PDA DB reports DSTL1 as having Nexperia PNX5209 (ARM946) Phone Controller.
http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=1714&view=1&c=general_mobile_dstl1
A similar Android with this phone controller is WayteQ X-Phone (TechFaith Lancer)
http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=1801&view=1&c=wayteq_x-phone_android_techfaith_lancer
crzyruski said:
@sfabris
Have you checked out how other modders have done kernel modifications?
Namely JF and Cyanogen?
I can't begin to comprehend so I'm glad you took the initiative with this.
Lets make some progress
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I'm forced to HTC G1 until I'll wait the replacement for my N21 I'll go in detail on the kernel boot process on other hardware.
A fast way to test kernel in our every day device is kexec which should work also on ARM.
sfabris said:
A fast way to test kernel in our every day device is kexec which should work also on ARM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as I understand, kexec is a program that can run a new kernel on the fly...
So I could try a new kernel right from my device without reflashing?
have you tried this? Or is this still theory?
crzyruski said:
As far as I understand, kexec is a program that can run a new kernel on the fly...
So I could try a new kernel right from my device without reflashing?
have you tried this? Or is this still theory?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried it on x86, never on arm.
Support is there also for arm, but this not imply that also the Marvell PXA is supported.
It's basically the same way of booting Android from WM via haret.
Fastest way to boot your new kernel or to crash your machine
I have created an emulator.
FYI, LCD density should be 120.
Edit: Technically the density is 133...
files prevent recovery-RA-DSTL1-v1.2.3 from loading
I have been wrestling with the beta recovery-RA-DSTL1-v1.2.3
Amon_RA retrofitted his own recovery image to work for the DSTL1 (N21)...
IT HAS AWESOME POTENTIAL.
Currently ADB RECOVERY SHELL + ROOT is the only thing that is functional.
But I haven't been able to get in touch with him to continue work on it.
The following files prevent me from booting into RA's Recovery, so I remove them:
- e2fsck
- mke2fs
- parted
- tune2fs
Once I am in ADB RECOVERY SHELL I can push them back on and do what I need to do.
Unfortunately the changes are persistent so if I were to reboot and try Recovery Mode again, it won't load
What is so special about those four programs that prevent my recovery from loading?????
is there any ways to update the firmware of N21
hi,
i'm just buy a sciphone n21 (actually is already in our office for 2 weeks but find it now:-( )
and i've to face myself in a situation that i can't use this phone:-( since i buy this phone because:
- i assume that google apps auto sync contact and calendars. unfortunately this phone has not google apps by default.
- and has dual sim support.
so my question: is there any way to upgrade it to a firmware which support is?
can i do anything to use my phone?
thanks in advance.
regards.
crzyruski said:
I have been wrestling with the beta recovery-RA-DSTL1-v1.2.3
Amon_RA retrofitted his own recovery image to work for the DSTL1 (N21)...
IT HAS AWESOME POTENTIAL.
Currently ADB RECOVERY SHELL + ROOT is the only thing that is functional.
But I haven't been able to get in touch with him to continue work on it.
The following files prevent me from booting into RA's Recovery, so I remove them:
- e2fsck
- mke2fs
- parted
- tune2fs
Once I am in ADB RECOVERY SHELL I can push them back on and do what I need to do.
Unfortunately the changes are persistent so if I were to reboot and try Recovery Mode again, it won't load
What is so special about those four programs that prevent my recovery from loading?????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
e2fsck is a filesystem check utility for ext2
mke2fs is for ext2 filesystem creation
parted is a partitioning tool
tune2fs is for change some filesystem parameters (usually checking interval)
I've read that recovery from Amon-Ra creates automatically 3 partitions (ext2, swap and FAT32). So those commands whould probably mean ext2 filesystem creation. I'm sure Amon-Ra could give us more information on this subject because he added them to the image.
Have you checked your SD card?.
PD: I'm waiting for my N21 . So I can't test yet.
andferno said:
e2fsck is a filesystem check utility for ext2
mke2fs is for ext2 filesystem creation
parted is a partitioning tool
tune2fs is for change some filesystem parameters (usually checking interval)
I've read that recovery from Amon-Ra creates automatically 3 partitions (ext2, swap and FAT32). So those commands whould probably mean ext2 filesystem creation. I'm sure Amon-Ra could give us more information on this subject because he added them to the image.
Have you checked your SD card?.
PD: I'm waiting for my N21 . So I can't test yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for that insight.
I am not sure what RA's recovery would have done on its own...
but I have initiated and completed successfully a partition of my SDCard that includes FAT32, swap, and ext2.
Now that I have done this, for experimentation really, I don't know how to use it and what it gives me.
Obviously the swap is useless because I would need a cooked Android ROM that would actually utilize swap.
ext2 is probably for apps2sd... which I tried unsuccessfully - probably because of my own mistake.
I will continue trying and report again later.
As far as Amon_RA, he mentioned he was working on upgrading all the recovery images he has put out to the next version - thus we will be in queue until this comes to pass. Maybe we can just skip this version and go to the next
N21 vs DSTL1: stock comparisons
I have completed the comparison of recovery images of the DSTL1 and N21.
For this test I used an original mtd2.img from my DSTL1 and an original mtd2.img from Slemmen's N21.
The recovery images are identical:
Both mt2.img are 4,194,304 bytes
Both mtd2.img-kernel are 2,141,616 bytes
Both mtd2.img-ramdisk.gz are 386,645 bytes
What is also interesting to note is that the two boot images i inspected were also identical.
The DSTL1 boot image is one that came with the 1502 update from General Mobile (which may or may not be identical to the original).
The original N21 boot image, thanks to ikarishinjisan, is identical to the DSTL1 boot image:
Both mt1.img are 4,194,304 bytes
Both mtd1.img-kernel are 2,141,816 bytes
Both mtd1.img-ramdisk.gz are 148,671 bytes
*Notice how both recovery and boot are the same size... must be padded?
*Notice how boot kernel is 200 bytes more than recovery kernel.... interesting...
On a side note:
Bootloader is identical as expected: both ikarishinjisan's and my mtd0.img are 1,048,576 bytes.
If things are going to go custom, it might make some sense to put ext3 filesystems on these things.. ext3 is just ext2 with journalling, which could be helpful since phones can just die/get dropped/lose connection with battery/whatever.
Also, this can be done with the tools already there..
mkfs.ext2
tune2fs -j
dnfm said:
Also, this can be done with the tools already there..
mkfs.ext2
tune2fs -j
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you referring to the Amon_RA's custom recovery?
I can't get tune2fs onto the recovery without trickery, definitely not noob friendly... until we figure out why.
But great suggestion
I'm guessing the ROM must be coded to make use of ext3, otherwise its worthless?
The kernel would need to be configured to support ext3.
Well hello everyone.
I am an application development student from Belgium.
I am proficient in Java, VB.NET, some c/c++ and also PHP/JS/HTML/CSS
Anyways, my recent interest has been going out to creating custom roms for the galaxy S!
The problem now is though, I was able to find some guides and such, but most were incomplete, and for HTC(and other) devices.
I have no idea what is different between making a ROM for galaxy S or a ROM for an HTC device.
If anyone would like to link me to some good resources that can help me on my way, or would like to collaborate (and in the meanwhile teach me a bit) I would be more than happy! (I am open for collaboration as I am pretty proficient in Java and I'm always happy to code and learn more about coding!)
I think the question is really want you want to do!
Custom ROMs for Android are as simple as using recovery console to replace files on the system with your own versions.
ie. Replace the framework.apk which contains all theme images with your own modified one, which you can use to skin the device. Same for replacing other system apps.
Unfortunately, most of these apps are closed source, so modifying them is difficult. The stock android system has open source versions of most of them though, and you can modify those and build them, and then replace the ones on the device. I'm not entirely sure how to build them up though, but it probably isn't too hard.
Then there are custom kernels, which let you actually change the underlying linux system underneath android - Samsung has an open source version of the kernel available that you can compile, and then flash to your phone using Odin or other tools. Compiling the kernel is pretty tricky though.
Well i'm really talking about stuff like SamSet, MoDaCo, Doc's ROM and others.
I'm not saying I want to create a pro ROM in a day or anything, but i'd really love to learn more to get better (always looking for more stuff to put on the resume, I guess?!)
Thanks a lot,
Kenny
Bump for some help
(sorry for the double post but i'm really eager to learn)
I don't have time to give a detailed response right now. However you will want to read up on yaffs (file system) and odexing/deodexing ROMs.
Thank you I will definately do that,
I am following a guide now to start out creating custom ROMs for android, however it was written for Motorola Droid and I have no idea what you have to do different for a samsung galaxy s.
I am a good coder, even though I say so myself, with a lot of experience. I also have a lot of linux experience, you name it
Only the problem is the old, and much known "where do I get started?"
So if anyone can point me out in the right direction on that, tell me how/where you started out, I would appreciate it greatly!
Thanks!
Very sorry to bump again
I set up my environment in ubuntu today to get started (just gotta fix a few errors, didn't know android wouldn't compile on java 1.6, only on 1.5)
Anyways, still need some help here! thanks!
Again I am awefully sorry for the bump here but i'd really like some help.
Note that i'm not a newbie at coding whatsoever and i'm not unfamiliar with some hardcore java, c/c++ and other languages, I'm just having trouble getting started when it comes to modding an existing android release (there are tutorials on HTC and other devices but some methods do not apply to the galaxy S)
If you're trying to create a ROM from scratch then unfortunately you're out of luck at the moment. No one has really managed to do so yet. By "from scratch" I mean the Android Open Source Project (i.e. official Android git repository).
What you can do is grab an existing firmware. Extract the contents, de-odex the apks, modify them or add new apks, optionally you can also compile a custom SGS kernel using Samsung's kernel source. Then you can re-odex the ROM, pack it back up and distribute it.
There's no real "starting place" as such and you won't yet find any tutorials about how to create SGS ROMs. Just give it a go and see where you get.
Yes, I do mean creating a ROM from stock samsung firmware, of course.
So my next logical question would be now:
How do I go over extracting contents from the existing samsung firmware, de-odexing and so on?
Any links/guides/tips are greatly appreciated, as long as they are applicable to this cell phone and not totally crap, thanks!
Samsung uses rfs, I think you should know. There is a thread somewhere in this forum regarding extracting .rfs file. Understood you need Debian though.
For some readup, go search for a famous guy named JesusFreke. Tons of materials...
Hope that from here onwards, this can lead you on, and to find out more. Google is your friend too...
I'm afraid my biggest problems already occur in setting up the environment, so it's really the very beginning that gets me stuck, i'm sure coding would be a bikeride compared to setting up the environment for me (i'm no hero in linux,not at all, i'm afraid)
How the hell do I get from point A (being downloading the full source) to point B (starting to create a custom ROM?)
thanks
of course if anyone has the time, and wants to, you can PM me your msn or something, if anyone is up to it
Raykoid666 said:
I'm afraid my biggest problems already occur in setting up the environment, so it's really the very beginning that gets me stuck, i'm sure coding would be a bikeride compared to setting up the environment for me (i'm no hero in linux,not at all, i'm afraid)
How the hell do I get from point A (being downloading the full source) to point B (starting to create a custom ROM?)
thanks
of course if anyone has the time, and wants to, you can PM me your msn or something, if anyone is up to it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed completely! Getting a full cross-compilation to Samsung's Android going is seriously difficult! There have been some promises for tutorials and guides for setting things up though, but none have appeared yet. Probably because it's hard!
Well thank you for agreeing with me on that.
I am really hoping for anyone that can help me out here, either on here or in private, and give some detailed instructions on how to get started.
Hell there is enough information on creating roms alread, deodexing, adding/removing apps etc etc etc... The real problem lies in setting everything up properly.
I think I have gotten to the point where I'm compiling the android source (without samsung specific files)
note i'm saying "i think i am compiling" because i'm hoping it won't error out on me again after an hour of compiling!
But once that is done... I have no idea where to go next, where to get the samsung specific files, or what to do with them whatsoever once i have them
thanks!
Android generic source won't actually help you much. Samsung has made a huge number of changes to it, and while it is all open source, backporting their changes to get your stock source running on the phone is a major undertaking. I believe cyanogenmod was actually working on this, but it seems without much success so far.
What the other rom makers you see are doing is taking a snapshot of a running rom, copying over all of the APKs and the files on a running device, and then tweaking those. ie. Opening up framework-res.apk and changing the image files inside.
The update.zip roms that are what most people are doing are really just using the Android recovery to replace files on the phone with their own versions. Since the underlying system is linux, and everything is a file, this actually works pretty well.
The kernel development effort is completely separate from the rest of the system though, and Samsung has provided the entire source tree that just has to be compiled. I'm a bit stumped myself on all the details of setting it up, but I have seen some threads on this forum about it, and it didn't seem too bad to set up. Apparently you shouldn't use the codesourcery toolchain though, or something. Not too clued up on it, sorry. Hopefully someone with the details can chime in, or give us a link to the old post on it (I'm failing to find it using the search function! )
Alright sounds good!
So these recovery files you are talking about (the contents of /system) how do i retrieve those from a base ROM such as JM7 or the likes after a clean flash?)
Raykoid666 said:
Alright sounds good!
So these recovery files you are talking about (the contents of /system) how do i retrieve those from a base ROM such as JM7 or the likes after a clean flash?)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Root your phone, zip them up onto the sdcard, and then copy them off.
There are probably better methods, but this works fine.
Also, with credits to Unhelpful, he has told me that the correct toolchain to be using is 'uClibc or eglibc toolchain with ct-ng'. I have no idea what to do with that yet, but it's a start.
RyanZA said:
Root your phone, zip them up onto the sdcard, and then copy them off.
There are probably better methods, but this works fine.
Also, with credits to Unhelpful, he has told me that the correct toolchain to be using is 'uClibc or eglibc toolchain with ct-ng'. I have no idea what to do with that yet, but it's a start.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't even need to root your phone to pull /system Ryan
adb pull /system <random folder>
is all you need ^^
Alright thank you, I managed to get all the /system files using abd pull /system
now next thing up would be de-odexing right, before I go editing stuff?
Now before I go de-odexing. Can anyone tell me what exactly de-odexing is and why I need it?
and what do I need to do to create an update.zip again?
thanks a lot all!
Tayutama said:
You don't even need to root your phone to pull /system Ryan
adb pull /system <random folder>
is all you need ^^
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha cool, didn't know you could pull whole folders!
Raykoid666 said:
Alright thank you, I managed to get all the /system files using abd pull /system
now next thing up would be de-odexing right, before I go editing stuff?
Now before I go de-odexing. Can anyone tell me what exactly de-odexing is and why I need it?
and what do I need to do to create an update.zip again?
thanks a lot all!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The apk files in Android are odexed - that means they have a special index applied for dalvik that speeds them up somehow! I don't know how, I haven't checked how it actually works.
The important point is though:
odexed is faster, but you can't edit it because of signatures or something technical
deodexed means you can change it however you want
More useful info can be found from google - lots of it!
update.zip is easy - it's a zip file in a special format that can be understood by Android's recovery console. The easiest way to do it is to grab an existing update.zip and modify it as needed. Tayutama has millions of em around, so use his!
Then you need to sign it once you're finished with it so that the SGS will accept it. Samsung made a boo-boo and didn't disable the test keys for the 2.1 SGS firmwares. That makes it easy!
http://www.londatiga.net/it/how-to-sign-apk-zip-files/
Just use the test keys to sign it, and then copy it to /sdcard/update.zip and reboot into recovery and it'll work.
Can you dual boot or any other way to have 2 different roms installed at the same time,so i can switch back and forth?Like windows either at boot or logging in and out of 2 different desktops.
Maybe find a way to split the partitions.Any suggestions would be great.
Duel= 2 roms fighting. Make it dual. Thought it was funny, no malice intended.
lol - duel - dual...
It would be interesting if that was possible. There would have to be another program in there to act as the buffer between both OS's though - that would take control of the start-up, hold on a page that has both options and then would boot the option you want.
Not sure if that's possible since some files are right on the root and in order to have an OS work it can't have files in the same directory - they would just overwrite each other.
But, I too, have wondered if it would ever happen. Be a great way to test new ROM's if you didn't always have to overwrite the existing ROM but rather, you could place a new ROM in a special directory and then run it from that - or partition the internal memory with the new partition available to boot from and store.
partition the internal memory with the new partition available to boot from and store.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats exactly what i was thinking,partition the system os,i rebuild computers and a little system modding in windows,but this is a linux based os,so it would be a little odd for me.I'm gonna look into this a little more.
You may try to contact the guys who developed boot manager. www.init2winitapps.com they have a listing of supported devices and a request form. Works on the thunderbolt 5 slots for 5 roms, I'm unsure how difficult it would be to add support for the iconia.
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App
ibsk8 said:
You may try to contact the guys who developed boot manager. www.init2winitapps.com they have a listing of supported devices and a request form. Works on the thunderbolt 5 slots for 5 roms, I'm unsure how difficult it would be to add support for the iconia.
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks,i submitted the idea,lets see if they will run with it,hopefully they will find interest.
Hello Diabblo,
Any update on that?
I think the idea of dual boot (or 5al boot) is just fantastic!
I have beside my iconia a501 a poor old zt180s and it can triple boot on android, ubuntu and WinCE!
Best,
Inji.
inji75 said:
Hello Diabblo,
Any update on that?
I think the idea of dual boot (or 5al boot) is just fantastic!
I have beside my iconia a501 a poor old zt180s and it can triple boot on android, ubuntu and WinCE!
Best,
Inji.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im guessing that device has a open non encrypted boot loader. The Iconia was encrypted at birth with the 3.2 push they tightened security even more from whqt I have read.So this is likely never happening unless acer changes ttjere boot loader policy.not likely to happen.
hope this helps you understand more of this issue.
I'm dual-booting my A500 right now with ICS and Ubuntu. The method for dual-booting is a replacement recovery.img which contains a Linux kernel and acts as a bootloader for Linux. Ubuntu itself runs from a rootfs.img on the internal storage (there's also recovery.img's available to run from external SD too). If I want to run Android, I just boot my tab normally. When I wanna run Ubuntu, I hold vol+ as I'm turning it on to force the modded recovery to load. It's a pretty cool setup more info in this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1158260
Dear Erica Renee and Bloodflame,
Thanks a lot for your answers. Ok, I got it with the encrypted bootloader.
Will try the method described by Bloodflame.
Actually, since I got these tablets my main use of them is flashing new ROMs... I don't really have the use of new ROMs but I think it's so exciting!
Cheers,
Inji.
I don't believe the encryption is the problem.
The current boot loader is available unencrypted in update packages if anyone want to have a look at it.
Replacing the boot loader on the device is done as part of a down grade procedure described elsewhere on this forum.
So unless I'm missing something, the problem is more likely time and interest. Someone need to care enough about it and have the time to make some other boot loader work. Or patch Acer's. Either way it is likely to require quite a bit of time and patience.
So let me see if I have this correct. Acer's hardware bios code is 'locked down' enough to keep the average code manipulator out? A custom boot loader needs to be dev'd that can communicate correctly to be able to handle Android recovery and a linux/android boot screen etc. ? Could someone elaborate more blatantly if I am incorrect...
Hello everyone,
This thread previously was a discussion area for the Ouya Boot Menu feature during its early development.
It's now being transitioned to a support area. The new project description/download page is at:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2499673.
Thanks!
CWM Bootloop
Hal9k+1 said:
Hello everyone, attached is the ZIP of an updated CWM Recovery IMG file.
This image is based on the latest stock Ouya kernel in GitHub. The kernel contains some newer HDMI code, which will hopefully increase the chance of getting the CWM graphics showing up properly. I also turned off HDMI’s HDCP in the compile (not needed for a utility partition such as this), and grabbed a patch from Kulve’s Ouya kernel fork to really ensure HDCP bypass.
More importantly, the image contains Tasssadar’s excellent work involving KExec-HardBoot. This technology should allow for the implementation of a “fastboot boot”-related capability from a running ROM, enabling kernel chain loading. The recovery image in particular will be a place to practice with KExec-HardBoot, and come up with a booting method that could eventually be flashed to the boot/kernel partition.
It is fine (and recommended) to fastboot to this image as a quick verification of things. However, it will be necessary to flash to the Recovery (“SOS”) partition for proper testing of KExec-HardBoot, since there’s an embedded reboot (to Recovery in this case) in there. Do *NOT* flash this to the Boot.
A simple chain load test can be done by extracting “zImage” from this image, and “initramfs.cpio.gz” from your current ROM kernel. (Included is “unmkbootimg” that can help here - runs on Linux.) Push these to /tmp on the Ouya while it is running this image. Then enter the Ouya shell and do:
kexec --load-hardboot zImage --initrd initramfs.cpio.gz --mem-min=0xA0000000 --command-line=”$(cat /proc/cmdline)”
kexec -e
It should come up with this new kernel under your current ROM’s environment. As verification, you should see kexec files under /sys/kernel.
I’m looking to implement a basic chain loading application. It would come up before the Recovery and ADB services, and do the following:
% Pause for a bit, to allow any Alt-SysRq keyboard action (jump to Recovery or Bootloader) that may be needed.
% Check for any attached USB mass-storage devices (e.g., thumb drive), and look for the file “kernel.img”. Pull it in and boot it if present.
% If that failed, then look to “/system/kernel.img” on the Ouya itself, and boot it.
% And if that didn’t pan out, then exit and allow Recovery/ADB services to come up.
I hope all of this will be of help to others along the way!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will this help with the problem I have?..
New update today it downloads automatically and then reboot to CWM and it fail verification...reboot system and it does all over again?...Any ideas Plz
View2Askew said:
Will this help with the problem I have?..
New update today it downloads automatically and then reboot to CWM and it fail verification...reboot system and it does all over again?...Any ideas Plz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, I'm not sure I understand. It sounds like the new stock firmware update is failing to go in, perhaps because of consistent download corruption. Whether you're actually being dropped in to the recovery partition is unclear. You might try the download again with the other networking type (Ethernet vs WiFi). You might also just disconnect from the network for the time being, and see if you remain in the firmware without interruption. From there you can consider setting up ADB to see if you can administer the Ouya from a PC.
My post is more for the developers at heart, just in case my investigation piqued anyone's interest. Ideally the post would go in the Development section, but I evidently need a few more posts here to unlock that area.
Best of luck!
Dual booting
Yes, please do enable dual/multi booting
Is there something I can do to help in that regard?
kulve said:
Yes, please do enable dual/multi booting
Is there something I can do to help in that regard?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks kulve, and thank you for the kernel patch set. I need to get familiar with the offerings there.
I don't see any blockages in my plan so far; I just need to start in and see what comes up. At least it's a better feeling than the dead-ends encountered with the U-Boot and regular KExec investigations.
Someone more enterprising could possibly port in the MultiROM project, but I'll stick with this. Will let you know if I get stuck.
My findings so far...
- I've finally decided that shutting off HDCP in the build does nothing to help avoid the funky pink/purple squeezed screen that sometimes appears when CWM comes up. With my Asus monitor, I see the issue when the monitor was in sleep mode. Likewise, if I can switch the monitor to HDMI input at the same time as starting Recovery, then it's fine. It may be possible to hack in a fix by somehow starting and closing an HDMI session shortly before CWM itself starts. (I don't want to fight this too hard but would be nice to resolve.)
- I see how to pull the kernel and ramdisk out of an Android image (on the Ouya itself), so that they could be passed to KExec-HardBoot. I've done it with a script as a test but it may end up in an executable.
- I tried out a USB thumb drive. It's detected but no block device is made available under /dev -- I've finally decided that support is likely in a kernel module, which does not exist on the Recovery image. I'm probably not going to sweat this due to the next item.
- I notice that the CWM application can read the Ouya power button as something comparable to a keyboard key press. Borrowing this capability may allow us to count the button presses in a limited time range, and thus boot an appropriate image. (Would be easier than dealing with the pairing of the controller, but at least still wouldn't require a keyboard.) With this line of thought, I'm thinking the main image could sit in /system while any alternates could be in /sdcard or /data.
So in general, studying the code of the CWM application appears to be the next direction. Thanks - feel free to send any ideas.
Hal9k+1 said:
- I've finally decided that shutting off HDCP in the build does nothing to help avoid the funky pink/purple squeezed screen that sometimes appears when CWM comes up. With my Asus monitor, I see the issue when the monitor was in sleep mode. Likewise, if I can switch the monitor to HDMI input at the same time as starting Recovery, then it's fine. It may be possible to hack in a fix by somehow starting and closing an HDMI session shortly before CWM itself starts. (I don't want to fight this too hard but would be nice to resolve.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does the rendering in CWM? Is it Android or something lower level? I think my kernel has better HDMI support but for that the software needs to use that explicitly instead of the default one as there is not internal LCD panel (/dev/graphics/fb0 vs. fb1).
kulve said:
What does the rendering in CWM? Is it Android or something lower level? I think my kernel has better HDMI support but for that the software needs to use that explicitly instead of the default one as there is not internal LCD panel (/dev/graphics/fb0 vs. fb1).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does look to be low-level, as CWM directly opens /dev/graphics/fb0 and uses ioctl() on it. I've decided to try my own compile of CWM as it does look to be a nice base for the booting effort. Will definitely look to your patches for the improved HDMI when I'm all ready -- thanks!
Hal9k+1 said:
It does look to be low-level, as CWM directly opens /dev/graphics/fb0 and uses ioctl() on it. I've decided to try my own compile of CWM as it does look to be a nice base for the booting effort. Will definitely look to your patches for the improved HDMI when I'm all ready -- thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed your comments related to this on the "Ouya CWM Recovery" thread but I'm not allowed to post there, so I'll post here.
Or actually repost as I'm mostly repeating myself. I had all kinds of issues in getting output using /dev/graphics/fb0 in Linux with the stock Ouya kernel but after some fixes the fb1 seems to work quite reliable. I get the output even if I don't have HDMI plugged in during the boot and it chooses the right resolution both for my TV (1080p) and for my monitor (1680x1050).
To all: I have updated the attachment that's present on the first post. I've synced to the latest Ouya kernel and pulled in the next HDMI patch set from Kulve. My HDMI issue now appears to be fully resolved.
Kulve: Thanks so much for refocusing me! I should have grabbed the patch from day 1, but that summary description had me a bit spooked. Note that I kept the HDMI/PRIMARY symbol enabled, so there's still only the fb0 device on this kernel.
With this handled and due to my thinking in general, I'm going to back away from trying to compile CWM itself -- I don't want to invest in CM10.1's environment at this time. Instead I will borrow CWM's UI and input technology to build an independent front-end with this Ubuntu/glibc environment I have working. My idea is to release another Recovery image when that's ready so we'll have a chance to practice/debug before moving to the Boot image.
Hal9k+1 said:
Kulve: Thanks so much for refocusing me! I should have grabbed the patch from day 1, but that summary description had me a bit spooked. Note that I kept the HDMI/PRIMARY symbol enabled, so there's still only the fb0 device on this kernel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hit the Thanks button
Anyway, do you have your kernel source code somewhere? Being able to use multiple resolutions on HDMI while keeping it as primary might be something that many Ouya Android gamers want as they might be able to play at 720p then.
ooo nice, ill try it out and see what happens
kulve said:
Hit the Thanks button
Anyway, do you have your kernel source code somewhere? Being able to use multiple resolutions on HDMI while keeping it as primary might be something that many Ouya Android gamers want as they might be able to play at 720p then.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Done! :laugh:
My modified files were tarred up and placed in the ZIP; let me know of any possible issue. I'm not planning on a GIT account, but anyone may feel free to pull anything back to their project. Also I understand that sticking with HDMI/PRIMARY may reduce some of the capability/flexibility you're seeing, but I wanted to stay honored to the Android/CM layout expectation if possible.
Hal9k+1 said:
Done! :laugh:
My modified files were tarred up and placed in the ZIP; let me know of any possible issue. I'm not planning on a GIT account, but anyone may feel free to pull anything back to their project. Also I understand that sticking with HDMI/PRIMARY may reduce some of the capability/flexibility you're seeing, but I wanted to stay honored to the Android/CM layout expectation if possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any chance of getting some concise installation instructions?
zondajag said:
Any chance of getting some concise installation instructions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's a quick executive summary until I can update the 1st post.
I'm reminded there's another XDA project (Ouya Safe Recovery) with a very similar goal as this, and works by reversing the Boot and Recovery concepts. However it's completely incompatible with us, and those users should not be doing any flashing -- at least not until we have a Boot image ready.
First step is to get rcvy092613.img to the Ouya in its /tmp directory. This may be done with an "adb push rcvy092613.img /tmp" command, or can by done through Secure Copy if an appropriate SSH server is set up.
Next step is to access the Ouya shell, either running from the main ROM or from a Recovery ROM. Be sure to become root (ensure "#" in the prompt) as needed.
Run the following to back up the old image:
cd /dev/block/platform/sdhci-tegra.3/by-name/
dd if=SOS of=/sdcard/old_rcvy.img
Make sure the new image is correct - should see "2a882d1ba8c2d543503cacb49ab0d397":
md5sum /tmp/rcvy092613.img
On to flashing Recovery:
dd if=/tmp/rcvy092613.img of=SOS
Now wait at least a full minute in case there is any internal flushing still taking place. And to finish up:
sync
reboot recovery
Aye....never enough time to tinker it seems, especially with getting over this flu.
At this point I have my own compiled code splitting the boot image file, as well as counting the power button clicks.
I want to see if I can make a welcome/instruction screen, probably by getting CWM's minui down to its core essence. From there it will hopefully just be normal integration work to achieve a new Recovery for testing.
Everyone, a new boot menu is ready for testing. Please read through the first post to see if you'd like to try it out. Apologies once again for the delay in getting this ready.
Hal9k+1 said:
Everyone, a new boot menu is ready for testing. Please read through the first post to see if you'd like to try it out. Apologies once again for the delay in getting this ready.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did I read correctly that the image support multibooting?
kulve said:
Did I read correctly that the image support multibooting?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi again Kulve. It supports three Android boot images - the main + two alternates: kernel.img, kernelA1.img, & kernelA2.img. It prefers to see the selected image in /sdcard, but will shift to /system as needed.
So, it is multi-booting, but you should keep in mind that there is still only the single /system partition. So installing two normal ROMs together probably won't work out, due to that common storage area. However, one of the ROMs could be based out of /system, while any others could use some form of external/networked storage. Note that the Android image format contains both the kernel and the initial ramdisk, so I feel that a multi-boot arrangement could be done.
Hal9k+1 said:
Hi again Kulve. It supports three Android boot images - the main + two alternates: kernel.img, kernelA1.img, & kernelA2.img. It prefers to see the selected image in /sdcard, but will shift to /system as needed.
So, it is multi-booting, but you should keep in mind that there is still only the single /system partition. So installing two normal ROMs together probably won't work out, due to that common storage area. However, one of the ROMs could be based out of /system, while any others could use some form of external/networked storage. Note that the Android image format contains both the kernel and the initial ramdisk, so I feel that a multi-boot arrangement could be done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My kernel is hard coded to mount the Debian (or whatever) rootfs from /dev/sdaX so Ouya's internal partitioning doesn't matter. It would be really cool to be able to put kernelA1.im to /sdcard, an USB flash drive to the USB port and boot to Debian without tinkering with adb/fastboot/etc. on a PC.
I'm not currently using any initrd-images but adding something simple should be straightforward.
Hi there,
I have recently ported postmarketOS [1] to the HTC Desire Z. postmarketOS is a Linux distribution for mobile devices based on Alpine Linux and the primary platform for KDE's Plasma Mobile desktop.
Note that this work is nowhere near ready for productive use, at least not as a phone. It boots, the weston demo UI starts and you can ssh into it via USB or Wifi (use nmtui or nmcli to configure it), but that's pretty much it. I'm posting here in the hope that other developers might be interested in joining this effort. It might be useful as small server for personal use, perhaps to host a NextCloud instance or something like that.
For installation instructions, refer to the Installation Guide at [3] and the wiki page for the HTC Desire Z at [4]. It should be possible to run postmarketOS without installing anything at all on the phone (other than an unlocked bootloader) by installing onto a microSD card and booting via the `fastboot boot` command.
[1] https://postmarketos.org/
[3] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Installation_guide
[4] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/HTC_Desire_Z_(htc-vision)
P. S. If you're wondering why I didn't put this in the developers' section where it belongs: It's because I'm not allowed to post there due to being a new member, and for the same reason I can't post proper links. In order to prevent spam, new users are required to spam 10 posts in order to be able to do perfectly legitimate things. How ironic :silly:
First of all, thank you for your time working this out and notifying us, I really appreciate all the people that keep my fine (but old) hardware usable.
I have 3 Desire-Z's (now running cyanogenmod), and would like to try PostMarketOS on one of them.
What is the state of the device? Can I use PostmarketOS to safely browse the web?
Do you have any specific instructions for the microSDcard installation? Is it just installing/running the pmbootstrap command on my linux machine with the correct sdcard device, insert the sdcard into my Desire Z and then starting it with volume-down button pressed, until the (in my case already unlocked) bootloeader menu appears and then running 'fastboot boot <what parameter goes here?>' from the connected linux computer?
Hi C-Base,
Thanks for your interest! I should mention again that this is pretty much a developer thing for now… But in case you want to get your hands dirty and maybe hack on the device a bit, here are my answers:
– What is the state of the device? Please refer to the wiki page, the state is documented there.
– Does it run a browser? I don't know, I've never tried, but I'd guess it wouldn't work. Even if it runs somehow, I'd guess it would probably be unusably slow because I haven't made the hardware graphics acceleration work yet
– Regarding sdcard installation: yes, you pretty much got it right! The last step would be to type "pmbootstrap flasher boot", which is essentially a wrapper for fastboot that will figure out the correct parameters for you. If that doesn't work, you can try "pmbootstrap export". That will copy a bootable image to /tmp/postmarketOS-export/boot.img-htc-vision. You should be able to boot that using "fastboot boot /tmp/postmarketOS-export/boot.img-htc-vision"
If you want to help out, there's a couple things you could do!
– document on the wiki page everything you feel would be helpful to anybody who wants to try this
– get graphics acceleration working with hybris. This is needed for Plasma mobile to run and shouldn't be too hard. You just need to make sure that the relevant hybris packages are installed (GLES, EGL, maybe others) and that the android drivers are in the right place (the relevant binaries should be in this repo: https://github.com/milaq/android_device_htc_vision).
One more thing: for all I know you'd be the first person other than myself to try this on a Desire Z, so definitely let me know if you can get it to boot! I've actually never tried the SD card installation, so it would be nice to hear if that works, and also if the on-screen keyboard (to type in the disk encryption password works).
mberndt said:
One more thing: for all I know you'd be the first person other than myself to try this on a Desire Z, so definitely let me know if you can get it to boot! I've actually never tried the SD card installation, so it would be nice to hear if that works, and also if the on-screen keyboard (to type in the disk encryption password works).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi!
I have pmOS running on my HTC Desire Z and SD card installation works just fine I haven't tested on-screen keyboard so I don't know does that work.
BTW, is there any change this gets mainlined sometime in the future?
Hey jyrithe,
I'm happy to hear that it works for you!
Regarding your question: the SoC is a Qualcomm MSM7230, and the mainline kernel doesn't currently support that. So somebody would have to port the relevant drivers etc. to a modern kernel. I think that this would require access to the serial console, and while that is documented for some Android phones (e. g. many recent Sony Xperia models), the Desire Z doesn't seem to be one of them – at least I haven't been able to find such documentation. I also haven't been able to find public documentation about the actual SoC, and I suspect one would have to figure out how the hardware works by reading the driver code. Given that this is also a rather old SoC at this point, I suspect it's not going to happen. I personally just don't have the time or the knowledge to be able to do this.
Here's a kernel tree that might be of interest though:
https://github.com/msm7x30/android_kernel_qcom_msm7x30
That one is based on Linux 4.4, so it's a much newer version than the 3.0.101 kernel that I used for the pmOS port. Based on the name it seems to support the SoC, but it doesn't include support for the specific board – one would have to write a devicetree file to make that work.
Hi I am trying to boot it up with the HTC Desire Z. I boot up nicely with the nice logo, but after that everything is black. I use "westron" in the pmbootstrap installation and I use android zip recovery way to do this, using with the cwm 6.0.5.
I hope you can help me. I love your energy into this project!!
Hi Dr.RR,
I haven't done any work on this device lately, and I don't plan to. The problem is that afaik there's really only one “useful” UI to run on postmarketOS, and it's KDE plasma mobile. But it's too large to fit on the system partition of this device, so it's impossible to install it until LVM support is in place (this allows to create a root file system that spans several flash partitions, i. e. system and userdata partitions). If you want to get your hands dirty, check this out: https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/pmbootstrap/issues/60 . (sdcard installations aren't affected by this, but I currently don't have a spare).