[GUIDE] Build Cyanogenmod from Source - Nexus 6P General

Hi,
I have decided to write this post after reading so many different guides on my journey to build my own version of Cyanogenmod and after countless tries and hours of research I succeeded. Here's how:
You will need:
A Ubuntu box
A basic knowledge of Linux
A fast internet connection or a lot of patience.
Once you have setup your Ubuntu box either in a Virtual Machine of as a stand alone PC you will need to open a terminal, this can be done by pressing 'CTRL + ALT + T' or opening the search menu and typing "Terminal".
You should see the following:
Code:
[email protected]:~$
We will need to install all the necessary files in order to build and download Cyanogenmod, we can do this by running the following command:
Code:
sudo apt-get install bison build-essential curl flex git gnupg gperf libesd0-dev liblz4-tool libncurses5-dev libsdl1.2-dev libwxgtk2.8-dev libxml2 libxml2-utils lzop pngcrush schedtool squashfs-tools xsltproc zip zlib1g-dev openjdk-7-jdk openjdk-7-jre
As many Linux users have more than one version of Java installed we will need to set the the version we just installed as our default version.
Code:
sudo update-alternatives --config java
sudo update-alternatives --config javac
If by any chance you have a 64-bit version of Ubuntu installed we will require some extra files, if not please skip this command.
Code:
sudo apt-get install g++-multilib gcc-multilib lib32ncurses5-dev lib32readline-gplv2-dev lib32z1-dev
We will now for simplicity's sake need to create the following directories in your home folder. These directories will host our build.
Code:
mkdir -p ~/bin
mkdir -p ~/android/system
Once you have setup everything correctly we will now to download the Cyanogenmod source code of which we are going to use the 'Repo' utility. This utility is an automated tool for GitHub cloning. We can download this and set the correct permissions by running the following commands.
Code:
curl https://storage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo > ~/bin/repo
chmod a+x ~/bin/repo
To continue with download the source code we will now initialize the GitHub repository that holds Cyanogenmod. We are going to need to specify the repository with -u and the branch with -b. Here I am going to download the latest available version of Cyanagenmod 13.0.
Code:
cd ~/android/system/
~/bin/repo init -u https://github.com/CyanogenMod/android.git -b cm-13.0
And to finally start downloading the source:
Code:
~/bin/repo sync -c -f -j8
Where:
-c Download the current version instead of all history.
-F Forces the connection to continue even if a connection error occurs.
-j8 This specifies the number of parallel operations. Use -j8 for a quad core processor and a -j16 for an octa-core.
Once the download completes successfully we will need to download the device specific code, this includes specific applications and kernel configurations for your device. To start downloading the files type:
Code:
source build/envsetup.sh
breakfast angler
The download should now start, it should only take minutes however this depends on your internet connection.
Again once this completes, we need to grab proprietary specific files. We first need to navigate to ~/android/system/device/huawei/angler. You can do this by running the following command:
Code:
cd ~/android/system/device/huawei/angler
As the script we are going to use has some dependencies we will need to get them first.
Code:
git clone https://github.com/JesusFreke/smali
cd smali
./gradlew build
cd ..
Additionally we need to download a Google Stock Image, I'm using angler-mmb29m-factory-8c31db3f.tgz, once downloaded you will need to unzip it and cd to it within the terminal.
and then download:
Code:
wget http://people.canonical.com/~mfisch/tools/ext4_utils.tar.gz
tar xzsf ext4_utils.tar.gz
cd ext4_utils
mv simg2img ../angler-mmb29m/
cd ../angler-mmb29m/
We will now convert the system and vendor img's using simg2img to a readable format and mount them so we extract the propriety files using ./extract_files.sh
We can do all of this by using the following commands.
Code:
./simg2img system.img system.ext4
./simg2img vendor.img vendor.ext4
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/system
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/vendor
sudo mount -rw system.ext4 /mnt/system
sudo mount -rw vendor.ext4 /mnt/vendor
Finally we can extract the proprietary files for the system image by running the following commands.
Code:
cd ~/android/system/device/huawei/angler/
./extract_files /mnt/ smali/
Finally we can finish off by our by running the brunch command to build and generate the .zip file of our own Cyanogenmod.
Code:
brunch angler
Note: This will take 20 mins - 2 hours - 2 days depending on your hardware spec.
And well that's it, the location of your generated .zip file should be in blue at the end of your terminal.

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Reserved
N/A

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This is amazing. Many thanks.

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Great I've been looking
Sent from my XT1526 using XDA Forums Pro.

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If there are bugs how can we fix that .Such as camera ,ril.For nexus 6p it is fine but for other phones

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AANISH said:
If there are bugs how can we fix that .Such as camera ,ril.For nexus 6p it is fine but for other phones
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I have only just started my journey on this long path I have done a bit of research for you. Google released there own device specific binaries for the Nexus devices of which usually include the following:
NFC, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
Media, Audio, Thermal, Touch Screen, Sensors
GPS, Camera, Gestures, Graphics, DRM, Video
This to me suggests that the chipset suppliers supply them - Broadcom, Qualcomm... or even other companies like Motorola. So if you are looking for binaries for other devices I would start with there chipset.
If you would like to look at Google's binaries following the link below however before you go looking for the 6P binaries they haven't been uploaded yet + if you do find any further information please reply to this comment or PM me.

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Just saying, the official guide on the wiki works just fine. Been building for all my CM12-capable devices since 2015. Good for people who don't go there, though.
Sent from Google Nexus 6P @ CM13
[WARNING: XDA One have not implemented "mark forum as read" - do not use]

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AndyYan said:
Just saying, the official guide on the wiki works just fine. Been building for all my CM12-capable devices since 2015. Good for people who don't go there, though.
Sent from Google Nexus 6P @ CM13
[WARNING: XDA One have not implemented "mark forum as read" - do not use]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is true but I had major difficulties with it, for example it asks you to initialise the cm 12.1 branch when it wasn't available and I had a major pain with extract_files as it wouldnt use adb but instead had to use stock firmware to grab the proprietary files.

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connectionalive said:
That is true but I had major difficulties with it, for example it asks you to initialise the cm 12.1 branch when it wasn't available and I had a major pain with extract_files as it wouldnt use adb but instead had to use stock firmware to grab the proprietary files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You still have to spot the tiny mistakes in the guide, of course. The guide hasn't been updated in a long time.
I didn't grab any proprietary files for any of my devices and the builds still run fine - the files should already be in the repo.
Sent from Google Nexus 6P @ CM13
[WARNING: XDA One have not implemented "mark forum as read" - do not use]

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AndyYan said:
You still have to spot the tiny mistakes in the guide, of course. The guide hasn't been updated in a long time.
I didn't grab any proprietary files for any of my devices and the builds still run fine - the files should already be in the repo.
Sent from Google Nexus 6P @ CM13
[WARNING: XDA One have not implemented "mark forum as read" - do not use]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah I didn't know this, I have only just started learning and researching all of this so all helps, if you could point me in the right direction, it would be greatly appreciated.

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connectionalive said:
Ah I didn't know this, I have only just started learning and researching all of this so all helps, if you could point me in the right direction, it would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm also just at the beginning - building according to official guides without modifying the source. Just giving some tips so that you don't step on the same mines as I did
P.S. Transition from CM12.1 to CM13 was a real PITA...
Sent from Google Nexus 6P @ CM13
[WARNING: XDA One have not implemented "mark forum as read" - do not use]

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Great guide, I have a build environment setup on Linux Mint, but I am curious to know if the simg2img stuff and extraction is necessary, I thought the initial build process took care of that??

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adzcache said:
Great guide, I have a build environment setup on Linux Mint, but I am curious to know if the simg2img stuff and extraction is necessary, I thought the initial build process took care of that??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not, it's a lot easier to just use the Muppets and not worry about it.

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akellar said:
It's not, it's a lot easier to just use the Muppets and not worry about it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suppose I should start learning how to building up a roomservice.xml for this 6P then. Thanks for the confirmation.

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akellar said:
It's not, it's a lot easier to just use the Muppets and not worry about it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldn't find it on their repository under Google or Huawei

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connectionalive said:
I couldn't find it on their repository under Google or Huawei
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look under the right branch

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Code:
./simg2img system.img system.ext4
./simg2img vendor.img vendor.ext4
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/system
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/vendor
sudo mount -rw system.ext4 /mnt/system
sudo mount -rw vendor.ext4 /mnt/vendor
Code:
cd ~/android/system/device/huawei/angler/
./extract_files /mnt/ smali/
You have to take ownership of the mounted images before you can extract the blobs. Otherwise you have to use sudo for extract. Then the folder is root and make is denied permission while compiling.

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XxMORPHEOUSxX said:
Code:
./simg2img system.img system.ext4
./simg2img vendor.img vendor.ext4
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/system
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/vendor
sudo mount -rw system.ext4 /mnt/system
sudo mount -rw vendor.ext4 /mnt/vendor
Code:
cd ~/android/system/device/huawei/angler/
./extract_files /mnt/ smali/
You have to take ownership of the mounted images before you can extract the blobs. Otherwise you have to use sudo for extract. Then the folder is root and make is denied permission while compiling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had no issues when actioning any of these commands but in theory you are correct.

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connectionalive said:
I had no issues when actioning any of these commands but in theory you are correct.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I ran into issues. That's why I mentioned it. Also the extract-files tool is formatted different in my tree. After mounting these were are my exact commands. Maybe it will help someone else.
Code:
sudo chown -hR <user> /mnt/system
sudo chown -hR <user> /mnt/vendor
cd ~/android/system/device/huawei/angler
./extract-files.sh /mnt/ smali/

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Hola
I have gone through this guide (really well put together) but I am getting an error almost at the very end and I need some guidance please:
I invoke brunch angler command but it shows:
~/android/system/device/huawei/angler$ brunch angler
bash: build/tools/roomservice.py: No such file or directory
** Don't have a product spec for: 'cm_angler'
** Do you have the right repo manifest?
No such item in brunch menu. Try 'breakfast'
I tried the lunch and breakfast commands but it comes up with the same error.
I did run both:
source build/envsetup.sh
breakfast angler
from the right directory and no errors came up. Can anyone assist me? Thanks.