How to upgrade my own roms android version? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Edit: I was told to ask this in this section of the forum so here goes.
Hi,
some time ago i bought a 50€ chinese tablet to mess with. It has android v4.0.4 on it and is very slow/ has a lot of useless stuff. In my attempt to educate myself on Android OS, I'm trying to build my own custom rom for it using this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1801690
I'm at the point where I could repack my work and flash it to this tablet, but all i've achieved so far is simplified version (less random apps and few tweaks here and there) of existing rom.
I want to update this tablet's android version but I'm completely unsure how I'm supposed to do that and google isn't being of any help as the search results are just bunch of those irritating blog posts that in nutshell just explain how to plug your usb cable into your pc.
No updates are provided by the manufacturer himself (duh).
Do I have to get desired android version's source code and integrate it with existing files or something?
Any help is appreciated.

Related

[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] how can I help with this project?

*edit* sorry, didn't notice general warning, please move to Q&A
I migrated from SGS i9000 to a huawei G700 phone featuring a mtk6589 chipset.
Sadly, the android version limits the possibilities of the phone really hard: it's oriented towards users who play nicely with their phone, not towards me!
so, to keep a long story short, I'd like CM to be ported to this device. this is not a top-of-the-line product, so I'll certainly have to do it myself.
I already got the complete OS image, kernel properties, installed applications, and so on (boot.img, uboot.img, ...), locally installed here.
the question is: where to go from here? In your guides, I can follow what the developers explain to do and why they are doing it, but I got no idea how to convert this OS image into a CM image ...
Also, as there are apparently developers waiting for mtk6859 roms, should I send them a message asking for their help? http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2375957
the only issue here is that I can't contact them yet because of the noob limit.

[noob questions] ROM/Kernel - building/porting

I’ll start by admiting that, in the arts of cooking/building/porting android innards, I’m closer to being a complete noob than na intermediate user.
I own a Newman K1S, JB 4.2.2, MT6592, 2Gb/16Gb, 720p, and, sadly for me, it looks like the manufacturer (Newman Mobile, or Newsmy, who knows) pretty much disavows any knowledge of this model ever being built or sold. No reference to it, no community, no android updates or ROM releases.
Taking into account some MediaTek source codes for KitKat were made available earlier this year (even if unofficially), I was wondering:
So, question number 1 – Is it possible to build android 4.4 for my device straight from said sources? Or are they unreliable and it would be best not to attempt it?
And question number 2 – Being at the noob level, should I stay away from such a task? And, in this case, would I be better off porting a 4.4 ROM from a similar spec’ed device?
Also, while browsing needrom, I noticed that a 4.4 “official” ROM was posted for my device. However, having flashed it, I found that it produces no sounds from the external speaker (although with headphones it works fine). Same thing was experienced by other users, and there is no fix so far.
Which takes me to question number 3 – What may I try, in order to fix an issue like this? Does KK use the same sound drivers as JB, and maybe it’s only a matter of replacing them? (if so, I believe this is within my grasp, even if I must unpack the IMG files to reach the drivers)
Lastly, Newman K1S has a severe overheating problem when pushed, which I believe would be easily solved by underclocking it to 1.3 or 1.5, or maybe implementing an optimized kernel.
Final question – How do I manage to underclock with my current kernel, or, better yet, how do I port a custom, optimized kernel to my device?
Congratulations to everyone who managed to read this far, and thank you in advance for any help provided. I’ve spent the last few days reading tutorials and guides, only to become even more confused… I did manage to get android kitchen running on my Windows laptop, though!
Links to recent/updated guides that might be useful are appreciated, too.

Lenovo Tab 10 (TB-x103F) Custom Downgrade to KitKat?

Hello friends! I have been reading a few different forums and sources regarding roms, but I had a few question to which I cannot find any answers to. I hope you all may be able to help provide me with some information.
I have read numerous forums with people who want to flash newer versions of android on their devices, or even revert back to their stock rom, but what about a custom rom that is a lower android version than what the tablet stock was ? Is that even possible, provided you compile it with android's open source code?
I have 4 lenovo tab 10 tablets - they are all painfully slow, and always have been. It doesn't matter if you clear the cache, disable programs, factory data wipe and reset, etc.
I understand that the reason the tablets are so slow is the hardware that it comes with - especially the 1GB of ram limitation.
For this reason, I wish to be able to flash kitkat on the devices to improve performance. I don't mind if many playstore apps wont run on the device, I just wish to be able to use it to surf the web and read a few e-mails. And believe me or not, the tablets in their current state can barely do that!
Anyhow, if I was to get the source code for kitkat, would I need to somehow port over the drivers from the stock firmware, or would this not be possible because the stock firmware is lollipop? I am having difficulty understanding if the kernels are related to the operating system version or if they can be used with different operating systems. The same is true for the "drivers", which I believe I had read are binaries?
Any help you guys could provide I would appreciate greatly! I don't care about building or getting a custom rom that has all sorts of programs and icon packs, I just want a bare bones kitkat install with chrome and google play capability to download a few minimal apps.
Thank you all for your time and help, and I hope to hear back soon!

Porting a ROM: Lots of questions and I need a direction to start studying

TL;DR: C/C++ developer with no Android development experience wants to port a ROM to the Samsung Galaxy Folder2 SM-G1650.
Questions:
1- Where can I start studying?
2- The "replace files from the "base" ROM to the "port" ROM" method is appropriate in 2022? (Tutorial I found about this method)
3- Do I really need the kernel to port a ROM?
4- The drivers for the T9 keyboard will be a problem?
Hey'all! How's it going?
I'm k1tsunee, a C/C++ developer from Brazil with absolutely no Android development experience!
I've bought a refurbished Samsung Galaxy Folder2 SM-G1650 from AliExpress (because flip phones and T9 kbs RULES!) and because the device is running Android 7.1.1, I would like to port a more recent Android version to it, not just because Android 7.1.1 is kinda old, but also because TouchWiz sucks and of course, there's not support to GSI as this device is from around mid-2017 and launched with Android 6.
First things first: Where can I start studying about ROM port and development?
Anyways, the first thing I did was, of course, some "Google hacking". I've searched the Internet for ROM porting methods but everything I found was "hey, you just replace the files from your original ROM with the ROM you want to port!" and that sounds a little bit dangerous and weird, innit?
My first question is: Will this "replace files" method work?
After that, I've asked a friend that had tried to port a ROM before and he told me I needed the kernel source for the phone, so I emailed Samsung and I'm currently waiting for an answer.
The biggest problem I had while thinking about this was the T9 keyboard. As it is a "proprietary" keyboard and probably a one-of-a-kind device, the drivers probably would be a pain in the ass, because, I assume, the drivers were written to work with Android 7.
My second question is: Do I really need the kernel to port a ROM?
And, the third one: The drivers for the T9 keyboard will be a problem?
I know I can always just test it, but I'm assuming with 99% of assurance that the drivers for the T9 physical keyboard WILL be incompatible and a pain in the ass to make it fully operational. (I am also afraid of bricking the device, it wasn't exactly cheap lol)
Thank you all for your time!
Best regards
-k1tsunee
porting ROM is so tens...
https://wiki.lineageos.org/contributing

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