[DEV] Building Android for SDE - Gen8 Android Development

Since SDE was released, who wants to build some fresh and shiny android which might be running someday side by side with AVOS (Archos Android)?
What do we need (openembedded?)?
Installation of Other OS:
root: /mnt/storage/rootfs.img
kernel:
Reboot into Recovery Mode (howto)
Recovery System -> Developer Edition Menu -> Flash Kernel and Initramfs
Connect USB and copy "zImage" and "initramfs.cpio.gz" to the Archos
Unmount Archos on PC (safe remove)
Press ok on Archos

Don't you think dev's are already working on this right now?
OpenAS is a site to look at, there are a few in fact and some even on XDA.
your instructions are sort of nothing anyone who has booted the angstrom distribution can see that?
this thread is a bit pointless. your asking for devs to create something they are already working on and you can't help as you don't know how?

no, you just missed the point. I AM (or want to be) a dev, see my other thread about dvb-t support
and now I'm looking for some help and informations.
this thread should be dedicated to building gen8 android (2.2 / 2.3 / ...) roms, I don't care much about angstrom.
I'm not one of those annoying guys who just complaining about others work, I want to get my hands dirty and do some work! I already checked openaos out, there a lot of informations about gen6 and gen7 but not gen8, this is why I started this thread here.
summarizing informations, that's the point.

ok fair enough
it's more likely though someone will do a port and use it over the current android system as apposed to using the SDE. Most dev's will be concentrating on other O/S's such as Ubuntu etc.
I can see why you want to do it but im not sure it will be done this way. We havent even managed to get perm root yet, sadly the archos wont get a lot of love I fear.

we have perm root, just use SDE and put an android in it we can decide everything
edit: either you hack the gen8 and get rid of SDE and archos' android and put whatever you want on it or you stay with SDE and dual boot (sounds a less "brickable" choice to me)

chulri said:
no, you just missed the point. I AM (or want to be) a dev, see my other thread about dvb-t support
and now I'm looking for some help and informations.
this thread should be dedicated to building gen8 android (2.2 / 2.3 / ...) roms, I don't care much about angstrom.
I'm not one of those annoying guys who just complaining about others work, I want to get my hands dirty and do some work! I already checked openaos out, there a lot of informations about gen6 and gen7 but not gen8, this is why I started this thread here.
summarizing informations, that's the point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have no idea what you're talking about, but I say go with your dreams and keep up the good work (whatever work that may be).
Don't let anyone tell you you can't do it (whatever "it" may be). Any contribution to making my A70 better is a + in my book.

chulri said:
we have perm root, just use SDE and put an android in it we can decide everything
edit: either you hack the gen8 and get rid of SDE and archos' android and put whatever you want on it or you stay with SDE and dual boot (sounds a less "brickable" choice to me)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But it's pointless having android 2.2 / 2.3 running alongside android 2.2 / 2.3
it would be a complete waste of time especially as archos are currently working on it anyway.
It would achieve nothing, the SDE would be much better used running ubuntu/winxp or other, running android as a secondary boot option is a waste of development time and I cant see anyone wanting to do it?
by all means join in getting a good distro to run but not another version of android when all we are missing is root anyway. I think your getting confused as to what SDE is used for.

why would someone want to run ubuntu on this hardware? winxp is out of scope as it doesn't support arm processors.
waz000000 said:
by all means join in getting a good distro to run but not another version of android when all we are missing is root anyway. I think your getting confused as to what SDE is used for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
why shouldn't we have root in SDE?? The SDE is the only way (so far, gen8 hasn't been hacked yet) to get perm root and custom roms.
why won't you just use SDE to run custom android roms? why it has to be ubuntu or any other bloated linux distribution?

waz000000 said:
But it's pointless having android 2.2 / 2.3 running alongside android 2.2 / 2.3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no it's not, because archos won't let us do customizations. it would be easy for archos to let us perm root everything but they won't. so what are you going to do to make android comfortablier and less buggy on gen8? a) hack it and flash custom roms and may brick it or b) use sde and flash custom roms without the possibility to brick it

chulri said:
no it's not, because archos won't let us do customizations. it would be easy for archos to let us perm root everything but they won't. so what are you going to do to make android comfortablier and less buggy on gen8? a) hack it and flash custom roms and may brick it or b) use sde and flash custom roms without the possibility to brick it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed, who cares if you have more then one build of Android on a device? On other devices people have developed their own method of doing this exact thing. SDE is a great idea to let people load custom ROMs onto their device without fear of bricking. Now if someone would just get one developed....

chulri said:
no it's not, because archos won't let us do customizations. it would be easy for archos to let us perm root everything but they won't. so what are you going to do to make android comfortablier and less buggy on gen8? a) hack it and flash custom roms and may brick it or b) use sde and flash custom roms without the possibility to brick it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Archos have released the source code, the only thing that's missing is Root.
The distro is already pretty close to stock even the BT stack is android native allowing us to use wiimote etc.
Archos have done a pretty "pure" android release Cynogen's goal is get a pure android rom working. Stock it's not that far away now?
and what about ISO, windows 7 (mobile), tiny linux, yellow dog, many other great distro's. All im saying is wait until root is achieved (it's being worked on) nd see what happens to the default android then.
Your may be jumping the gun a bit developing something that's not needed

waz000000 said:
But it's pointless having android 2.2 / 2.3 running alongside android 2.2 / 2.3
it would be a complete waste of time especially as archos are currently working on it anyway.
It would achieve nothing, the SDE would be much better used running ubuntu/winxp or other, running android as a secondary boot option is a waste of development time and I cant see anyone wanting to do it?
by all means join in getting a good distro to run but not another version of android when all we are missing is root anyway. I think your getting confused as to what SDE is used for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
was agreeing with you until this post.
the point is that Archos have up until now done a bit of a shoddy job of their Android builds. We all want the archos tablet running smoothly and as best we can and also would like to have 2.3+ on our devices which is probably unlikely by any official means.
and saying archos are "currently working on it" is a little silly given what forum you are on! (whats the point in people making custom roms for HTC devices... HTC are working on it anyway?!)

@wazalotofzeros
oh come on, are you kidding me? why is it so hard to understand that a rooted android or even custom roms are wanted by a lot of archos users (see archosfans.com)
whats the point of installing any linux distribution instead of android?
why are you telling me its pointless to do custom roms for the Archos Gen8 while there are custom roms for a lot of other android devices?
I give up, please contribute something useful to this topic or stop posting offtopic.

@waz000000,
don't want to participate in this then don't. There is no reason to put down others work though just because you think it is pointless.

Grand Idea
Personally I think this is a grand idea. At first when I saw the SDE I thought that was its whole purpose and that archos would start us off with a basic android version. But when it was released and it came with a barely working linux distro, it turned me off to installing SDE until something better can happen. I wouldn't mind seeing a micro version of ubuntu running on this, but the main problem is going to be the ram. If we are having issues with the ram on android what makes you think we will have better luck on a OS that wasn't intended to run on the archos. But hey more power to you. But on the other hand if we can build our own android firmwares, then we won't be dependent on Archos to decide whether or not to update to the next firmware. And saying Archos is working on it is like saying well the end of the world is coming. When IDK, but its coming!
Seriously. The delayed the launch by 2 months and then didn't deliver on their promise of launching with 2.2. They did come through, but with the crappiest 2.2 firmware I have ever used. Constant crashing, no wifi N, 200 mhz decrease in speed, and only a promise to fix it... eventually.
So the the OP. Go for it. I will help with what I can, but I haven't build a firmware yet except for the easy cook it yourself ones.

laptopfreek0 said:
They did come through, but with the crappiest 2.2 firmware I have ever used. Constant crashing, no wifi N, 200 mhz decrease in speed, and only a promise to fix it... eventually.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
new firmware came out today! works great on my A101, no crashes or freezes so far: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=875393
laptopfreek0 said:
So the the OP. Go for it. I will help with what I can, but I haven't build a firmware yet except for the easy cook it yourself ones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me neither but I'm willing to do if nobody else does, simply because of my DVB-T project in the other thread
€dit I'll give cyanogenmod a try

thefunkygibbon said:
was agreeing with you until this post.
the point is that Archos have up until now done a bit of a shoddy job of their Android builds. We all want the archos tablet running smoothly and as best we can and also would like to have 2.3+ on our devices which is probably unlikely by any official means.
and saying archos are "currently working on it" is a little silly given what forum you are on! (whats the point in people making custom roms for HTC devices... HTC are working on it anyway?!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok fair enough so what would you rather?
a cynogen mod with archos firmware or linux distro (Whatever) and cynogenmod?
im not saying dont work on a custom rom, im saying work on a "proper" custom rom and use the dual boot option for something other than android.
1st step develop root
2nd step develop custom rom
3rd step install another distro
What im trying to say is, develop a "proper" custom rom and leave the dual boot option for something mind blowing!
as to blazingwolf im not trying to put anyone's work down (apart from the fact there isn't any yet this is pure concept)
I could very easily help you develop a working second rom for this but all im saying is wait a little while and see what happens I cant hint anymore than that!!!!!!!!

waz000000 said:
I could very easily help you develop a working second rom for this but all im saying is wait a little while and see what happens I cant hint anymore than that!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
who does what and when it gets released?

in the mean time have a look here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=610303
i know its different hardware but use a cynogen beta like the I9000 as a base, and work from there, even try the original firmware and look to cook that one.
you will be surprised how almost stock the archos one is

laptopfreek0 said:
Personally I think this is a grand idea. At first when I saw the SDE I thought that was its whole purpose and that archos would start us off with a basic android version. But when it was released and it came with a barely working linux distro, it turned me off to installing SDE until something better can happen. I wouldn't mind seeing a micro version of ubuntu running on this, but the main problem is going to be the ram. If we are having issues with the ram on android what makes you think we will have better luck on a OS that wasn't intended to run on the archos. But hey more power to you. But on the other hand if we can build our own android firmwares, then we won't be dependent on Archos to decide whether or not to update to the next firmware. And saying Archos is working on it is like saying well the end of the world is coming. When IDK, but its coming!
Seriously. The delayed the launch by 2 months and then didn't deliver on their promise of launching with 2.2. They did come through, but with the crappiest 2.2 firmware I have ever used. Constant crashing, no wifi N, 200 mhz decrease in speed, and only a promise to fix it... eventually.
So the the OP. Go for it. I will help with what I can, but I haven't build a firmware yet except for the easy cook it yourself ones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the purpose of SDE is to give users a way to dual boot and be able to load "another" operating system. The Angstrom image we provide is just a demo and nothing else. You are free to put anything else, like Android 4.0, Meego, Maemo or whatever else you want...

Related

[Q] other than urukdroid?

is there other firmware to upgrade gen8 archos rather than upgrading to urukdroid or stock gen8 os?
Hey,
You could upgrade to other firmware, but none of theme would work propably
there are:
-->Kubuntu Mobile
-->Honeycomb
-->Ubuntu
-->Urukdroid
-->Stock Os
_____
Red - Very early developement stage / not many tests
Green - High (>4/5 months) developement stage / many tests
So other Os's maybe work in future but at this time theres only one really good:
Urukdroid
Try it
Moved as not android development.
Hey, i have a question here, is there a tutorial to make a new one? or a kitchen like for some devices? (this could help us to make more choice ^^)
eagleofdeath13 said:
Hey, i have a question here, is there a tutorial to make a new one? or a kitchen like for some devices? (this could help us to make more choice ^^)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No there isn't something like this..
Would you like to do this?
I would like to use it and make a new rom if it exist ^^

[INFO] UBUNTU for any arm based devise..

ubuntu can be designed from the scratch for any arm based device .
this is just a humble request to senior devs to check it out and try to port it on our wave.
even if modem would not work for arm ubuntu it would be useful in other aspects like usb hosting, full pc based firefox experience,full doc editing,and something new that our wave would have.
htc-linux.org/wiki/index.php?title=Ubuntu/Leo
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/RootStock/RunNative
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/RootfsFromScratch
even android porting is on half stage. I think dev's are gonna handle the android thing. Maybe they will after android but Android has priority
furkey said:
even android porting is on half stage. I think dev's are gonna handle the android thing. Maybe they will after android but Android has priority
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, a working Ubuntu port can be easier than the Android, as one don't have to pay attention to the modem (however determining the battery level still would be a problem...). But I run some rounds with the current kernel to make console available and all my atepts failed, I was not able to get it work... What would you do without console?
anghelyi said:
Well, a working Ubuntu port can be easier than the Android, as one don't have to pay attention to the modem (however determining the battery level still would be a problem...). But I run some rounds with the current kernel to make console available and all my atepts failed, I was not able to get it work... What would you do without console?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
may be this may help you
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/n900
Hmmm i think all guys are busy in porting android and making voluntas browser etc also they have their own life so let them work on other things first.
Also did u tried ubuntu through badadroid ?? Did it worked.??

Who is Letama

Just for the fun
http://translate.google.com/transla...ation-de-le-tama-the-king-of-the-rom/&act=url
Nice
Anybody knows why google translates "firmware" to "shower"?
Nice, now we know a bit more of the guru
God, Google translation is awful
Here is my approximate translation of cajl interview:
1) Le Tama, master of archos roms, present yourself
I fall into computers when I was very young (11 year old, no personal computer at this time, I start programming on paper with a book ) and since then virus never left me. I'm 42, I'm technical director of a small software development company. As my current job don't give me much occasion to dig into code, I'm pursuing my passion as a leisure, and especially on Archos tablet these days.
2) Why Android ?
I came to Android with my HTC HD2. At that time, Android just started to show some great potential and Windows Mobile was getting old. I started to follow HD2 development efforts on Android. It was stuck on a kernel problem, it pushed me to start looking into linux kernel source code. I then took part of the desire kernel port to HD2 with Cotulla and the others and I also participated to the first Android release working on HD2.
3) Why Archos
I started looking at Archos when Google annonced ICS and annonced that they will be using Omap as reference platform. I always wanted to have a look at omap (too much qualcomm with hd2 ), so I started to look for a platform that would let me play with it without being too costly. That's why I naturally came to Archos. I started toying with my co-worker A70 and then purchased my A101G9.
The more I work on Archos, the more I like the "openness" of the platform. Gen8 bootloader is easy to crack, gen9 bootloaders are not even locked. Better, Archos thinks about us, hackers, by letting entry points like SDE, a reserved partition on gen9,...
4) By the way, what's the purpose of rooting ?
Ah! What's the purpose of root:
From a developer point of view, to give complete access to resources. With root, we can do a complete dump of disk and partitions to study firmware, install things we couldn't do without, like SDE for Gen9. It's the first necessary step to modify stock firmware. It's also mandatory if you want to do some specific operations like partitioning.
From an user point of view, it let you use application that demands root. My favorites are:
- Busybox
- Root Explorer
- Titanium backup
- Chainfire 3D
And I certainly forgot some. Just looking at market, we see thousands of applications that requires root to work.
5) Easy or not easy to find exploits ?
No, not easy with a well-made firmware. Except big mistake from manufacturer, exploits (weakness abused to obtain a temporary root) are fixed after discovery, and it's getting more and more difficult to find new weaknesses. Thankfully, our current exploit is not fixed, crossing finger.
6) What are you currently working on ?
I'm working a bit on too many fronts and not enough free time, but here is what I'm working on:
- Internal disk partitioning for g9 to let us install sde firmware on a separated native ext4 partition, without interfering with stock firmware and internal storage. It works on mine, I'm working on way to do it simply and safely to let everyone benefit from it.
- Clockworkmod Recovery. It also works on mine, but is only useful if tablet has been partitioned. It let us do complete backups, rom+apps+internal storage (nandroid backup), it let us use zips to install firmware and firmware updates, and it make our tablet feels more "android native".
- CM9: I built one for gen9 that worked not too badly, but there is a lot of work to get something completely functional.
- I also launched a first overclocked kernel for 1.0Ghz Gen9, stable on mine up to 1.2, almost at 1.3. I will have to work on this again when Archos will release a new firmware that fix current ICS problems.
- I'm working on the IT2, I activated SDE and I have a rooted firmware. I will try to port 3.0 kernel and ICS on it.
- I'd like to work on bootloader too, but this is another story...
7 How can we help ?
Explain my boss that I have to stop working on his projects! More seriously, I'll certainly need beta-testers that are willing to take risks for their tablets with partitioning, but I'm not there yet.
8 Why this nickname ?
Le Tama ? This is a wink to my wife! Sshhh!
9 Anything more ?
Nah, enough talk, back to work!
letama said:
God, Google translation is awful
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Naaaah, it's pretty funny (I had no idea that Gen9 has a shower onboard)
letama said:
7 How can we help ?
Explain my boss that I have to stop working on his projects! More seriously, I'll certainly need beta-testers that are willing to take risks for their tablets with partitioning, but I'm not there yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Count me in
letama said:
- Clockworkmod Recovery. It also works on mine, but is only useful if tablet has been partitioned. It let us do complete backups, rom+apps+internal storage (nandroid backup), it let us use zips to install firmware and firmware updates, and it make our tablet feels more "android native".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh my god! This is by far that feature that I am missing most on my G9. I hope this dream comes true one day.
letama is great!!!

[Q] how to port ics (serious learner)

Lemme get some things out of the way.. I am a noob. I have searched. I have read some of the results from the search. I am overwhelmed by the 20+ pages of results (lol). I am not 100% sure this is the correct forum for this (not sure where else would be ).. I believe this is one of those things where I need help based on my situation.. Ok, so here I go.
I wish to start porting ICS to my phone. That's my goal. I have general understanding of how linux works, but I do not know much about the android specifics of how they work, or what needs to be modified for this to work. I do not plan to use the kitchen tool as I wish to learn this the hard way. I believe this will help me become more understanding in what I am doing. However, at this point I don't and that's why I'm here. My phone model is irrelevant almost because its prepaid and usually the communities don't even recognize their existence.. at least that's how I feel about it. But I digress. My phone is the zte warp by boost mobile and I am here to learn hopefully the things that will get me started on porting ICS to this phone. I right now believe that the best thing for me to learn is how the android related files work because as it is, I only looked at guides on how linux works and I understand most of it. I'm not sure that's the best thing that will help me port ics, but I'm certain it is important.
Please help me figure out where I should start in learning how to port ICS to my phone basically.
Thanks XDA
anyone? I am quite serious about wanting to do and go into this but I have yet one thread that anyone's ever replied to.. (or post iirc) which puts a damper on me
Snake X said:
Lemme get some things out of the way.. I am a noob. I have searched. I have read some of the results from the search. I am overwhelmed by the 20+ pages of results (lol). I am not 100% sure this is the correct forum for this (not sure where else would be ).. I believe this is one of those things where I need help based on my situation.. Ok, so here I go.
I wish to start porting ICS to my phone. That's my goal. I have general understanding of how linux works, but I do not know much about the android specifics of how they work, or what needs to be modified for this to work. I do not plan to use the kitchen tool as I wish to learn this the hard way. I believe this will help me become more understanding in what I am doing. However, at this point I don't and that's why I'm here. My phone model is irrelevant almost because its prepaid and usually the communities don't even recognize their existence.. at least that's how I feel about it. But I digress. My phone is the zte warp by boost mobile and I am here to learn hopefully the things that will get me started on porting ICS to this phone. I right now believe that the best thing for me to learn is how the android related files work because as it is, I only looked at guides on how linux works and I understand most of it. I'm not sure that's the best thing that will help me port ics, but I'm certain it is important.
Please help me figure out where I should start in learning how to port ICS to my phone basically.
Thanks XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From my limited knowledge, I think it is a huge task undertaking, you can download Android source code from Google, the hard part will be the device driver development and porting for Linux kernel (and maybe portion of Android). If you are lucky, you can use the existing phone bootloader (or you have to port one). Understanding the inner of the phone (different chip set may need different device driver) will be another challenging task.
by the device driver development, you mean all the libs that go into the phone? Couldn't I just copy/paste the pre-existing libs that are already made for the phone? Also the phone im working with is a bit strange really.. noone has been able to compile the kernel from its source and get it to boot yet.. when it was compiled the zImage was different than that of the stock one.
And yeah, I have downloaded the aosp source.. I just need to know where to start at and the processes involved really
Snake X said:
by the device driver development, you mean all the libs that go into the phone? Couldn't I just copy/paste the pre-existing libs that are already made for the phone? Also the phone im working with is a bit strange really.. noone has been able to compile the kernel from its source and get it to boot yet.. when it was compiled the zImage was different than that of the stock one.
And yeah, I have downloaded the aosp source.. I just need to know where to start at and the processes involved really
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To answer you question no the drivers and lib files are different for aosp based rooms then they are for the stock OEM from. The first step will be to get a working kernel. Without anything you do will be pointless
I'm somewhat interested in the same thing, and from what I've gathered, you'll need to do these things to begin ROM development:
1. Read every page on the AOSP site and grab a copy of the AOSP source. It probably wouldn't hurt to read the regular Android developer wiki as well.
2. Learn about Linux driver development:
http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/ (this is apparently considered THE BOOK on Linux driver development)
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/drivers_linux
3. Learn pretty much every detail about your phone and its hardware, especially when it comes to how ROMs are installed on it. For example, my phone (the Droid X2) has a locked bootloader, so 2nd init has to be used to boot new ROMs, and this makes it so that we cannot update the kernel.
You can usually find this sort of information on your phone manufacturer's website. Sometimes they even post the source code to their phone's drivers, which is helpful.
4. Look at other ROMs (preferably for your phone) and see how they work. The source code is freely available for most popular ROMs.
For example: CyanogenMod keeps their source code in a public git repository: https://github.com/cyanogenmod
5. Get to work on porting!
I would highly recommend starting with something smaller, however, just as a start. One good jumping-off point is probably this guide: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1272270
If any part of this was wrong, or if I left something out, somebody feel free to correct me, I'm still a noob.
Thank you so much for your direction, however,, android kitchen.. im not sure about that because isnt that only ment for htc devices? My phone is made by zte
what device do you even have?
if it's stuck officialy on 2.1 or 2.2 there's no hope that if you even port it that it'll work
its the zte warp from boost mobile (prepaid). Btw if I compile an aosp ics launcher and put that on my phone whats the chances of that working?
edit: it uses 2.3.5
Well Sebastian responded on android forums, apparently zte is very bad at version control with their kernel sources. So when they complete one project, they use the same source for the next project, and what they release could be for anything. Apparently the blade source had the same issues, it took him a while to get them to correct the source
Sent from my N860 using Tapatalk
Yeah I noticed that there were ppl saying there were things similar but I'm not sure what will work or what won't.. guess its time to start a petition on zte to release the source code lol
edit: seems like zte's bein a bad company and violated the GNU GPL license for not providing a complete source code.. I compiled an email and sent it to someone who can proof read it and send it to the right person for this kinda thing.. danggit zte

[Q] Kernels and Android Versions

I'm not understanding how kernels and ROMs connect. Can someone give me some extra insight?
[Hardware] <-- Unique to every phone
--
[Kernel] <--- Tells the OS how to talk to the hardware
--
[ROM] <--- Slightly confused. Is the OS in the Read only Memory, or has this term changed its "street" meaning?
I understand that most ROMs (e.g. CM7 and CM9) include both the kernel and the ROM, but can you flash these separately too?
I have a 1.5 year old thunderbolt that's rooted, and has CM7 which is based on gingerbread. I believe HTC has also released the kernel as open source, which is probably the reason I have CM7
Anyway, I guess what I'm looking for is an answer/guide/forum that explains why I can't install newer versions of android onto the already working/open source kernel I'm already running. Is it accurate to view the kernel as all the phone's drivers, or just the CPU driver? If that statement is true, why can't I load ICS or Jelly Bean onto my already existing set of drivers?
I'm thinking about starting a Wiki on this if 1) it doesn't already exist, and 2) I can wrap my brain around it enough to share with others!
Thanks to anyone with a response!
shadowrelic said:
I'm not understanding how kernels and ROMs connect. Can someone give me some extra insight?
[Hardware] <-- Unique to every phone
--
[Kernel] <--- Tells the OS how to talk to the hardware
--
[ROM] <--- Slightly confused. Is the OS in the Read only Memory, or has this term changed its "street" meaning?
I understand that most ROMs (e.g. CM7 and CM9) include both the kernel and the ROM, but can you flash these separately too?
I have a 1.5 year old thunderbolt that's rooted, and has CM7 which is based on gingerbread. I believe HTC has also released the kernel as open source, which is probably the reason I have CM7
Anyway, I guess what I'm looking for is an answer/guide/forum that explains why I can't install newer versions of android onto the already working/open source kernel I'm already running. Is it accurate to view the kernel as all the phone's drivers, or just the CPU driver? If that statement is true, why can't I load ICS or Jelly Bean onto my already existing set of drivers?
I'm thinking about starting a Wiki on this if 1) it doesn't already exist, and 2) I can wrap my brain around it enough to share with others!
Thanks to anyone with a response!
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You are correct about the ROM, but ROMs also include the kernel (if it didn't, or no kernel was flashed separately, the device would not boot). Yes, other kernels can be flashed on your existing ROM, but it's not necessarily going to be compatible.
Sort of, but there's a lot more than that. See here and here. Later versions of Android will require newer drivers,etc. which the existing kernel won't provide (they'll be outdated). Back porting and additional coding is theoretically possible, but insanely difficult (many times). Even after this some things may still not work.
Thanks for the insight, I was able to get a lot deeper into this with those links. For anyone else wandering down a similar path, you might as well stop now! Here are a few links:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1039217&page=2#17
http://www.cs.uwc.ac.za/~mmotlhabi/avmk.pdf
http://www.iteachandroid.com/2012/01/what-is-firmware-rom-and-firmware.html
So, if anyone else is still listening, I do have two more questions:
Do any phones have truly open source drivers? (a.k.a. higher probability of allowing old hardware to work with new android OS)
Is there any way to determine which phones will be supported by the custom-ROM community early on? I know the Nexus line doesn't have vendor modified code, is that the direction which would have the highest probability to stay at top of the Custom ROM curve without upgrading devices every year?
Thanks again for any insight! I hope I'm posting this in a Newb-Friendly forum!
shadowrelic said:
Thanks for the insight, I was able to get a lot deeper into this with those links. For anyone else wandering down a similar path, you might as well stop now! Here are a few links:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1039217&page=2#17
http://www.cs.uwc.ac.za/~mmotlhabi/avmk.pdf
http://www.iteachandroid.com/2012/01/what-is-firmware-rom-and-firmware.html
So, if anyone else is still listening, I do have two more questions:
Do any phones have truly open source drivers? (a.k.a. higher probability of allowing old hardware to work with new android OS)
Is there any way to determine which phones will be supported by the custom-ROM community early on? I know the Nexus line doesn't have vendor modified code, is that the direction which would have the highest probability to stay at top of the Custom ROM curve without upgrading devices every year?
Thanks again for any insight! I hope I'm posting this in a Newb-Friendly forum!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For both your questions, the Nexus-line devices would be the way to go. They usually have everything working on new Android versions the soonest, and Google always releases their code, etc.
Hi
i can use linux kernel (zimage) to update android kernel if yes ,how ?
thnx

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