Making an own android image? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello everybody. I love this community and I have been lurking for a long time.
I have noticed on a foreign language forum that some people were offering a custom rom for my android 9 TV box.
The chinese box is based on a s905x3 CPU and has a mediatek wifi chip for which it is hard (if not impossible to find the wifi drivers).
The site claims that the image was made by modifying the stock rom that came with the box. Is this possible or do all custom roms need to be build from the source?
The custom rom I want to make is going to replace the launcher with kodi.
I am prepared to build the whole rom from source but I do have a couple of questions.
Since the mediatek wifi drivers cannot be found how would I go about including the binary for the wifi?
I have noticed that the box that I have uses a .ko (kernel object) module to drive the wifi chip.
Can I include these kernel objects in build? It is a shame that the kernel is built as a 32bit system. Would that mean that I can only compile a 32bit kernel if I were to reuse those kernel modules and binaries?
Another idea is to perhaps use the kernel from coreelec in my build since it seems to include a lot of drivers.
Is it possible to use a kernel from something like coreelec but use the source from AOSP for the rest of my build?
Is there anything else that I should be aware of?
Thank you all!!!!

Can anyone give me any hints to any of the questions?
Essentially I want to swap out the stock launcher for Kodi. What is the easiest way to do so?

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[Q] Making a custom Kernel?

I've had a search and a look around but can't see anything specific enough to answer this.
I have read that the SGS2 uses the new BCM4330 chipset for it's WiFi-N support.
It looks to me that for existing kernels they are using either the existing kernel support or possibly the b43 driver.
I need to find out, and while I have compiled custom kernels in nix in the past, I have never done so in Android, so I'm a little out of my comfort zone here.
I want to compile a kernel where the WiFI driver will support monitor mode, ideally it would be the CM7 kernel with just this extra functionality added, however a number of the tools that I would use to identify the existing configuration do not seem to be available in the standard CM7 build (lspci being one).
I don't want to frack around too much without having read up first so could anyone point me at a good guide for creating my own Android Kernel, even better if the guide was specific to the CM7 version.
Lastly I mostly run a Fedora environment, however the bits I have read seem to suggest a number of tools are only available in a Ubuntu guise (heimdall springs to mind and while I'm sure it's possible to recreate it for Fedora I'm trying to reduce the number of dependencies I'll have to recreate as much as possible). Therefore can I get some advice regarding the least complicated way to generate an Android build environment in Linux.
Thanks
For kernel compilation on android, you can check the several repositories there are for the several kernels. Depending on each kernel/repository/user, you can find a predefined .config inside them, so you can get the basic configuration to compile the kernel, don't know if CM7 has it in its repository...
As for the enviorment, I haven't tried compiling a kernel, but I did compile some ROM on Gentoo Linux, so I suppose it could also be done in Fedora without many problems. The main thing about using Ubuntu is that is very extended, so they're using it as main Linux base, but that doesn't mean it can't be done in other linux distros. You can check CM7 wiki for building from source to install the required packages for your enviorment. In my case I cross checked the Ubuntu packages with Gentoo to install gentoo's version of that packages/tools to be able to compile without problems.
Also in the case of building kernels, you need a toolchain to be able to compile, but there are several webs/tutorials with info on how to use that.
EDIT: You have a complete tutorial for CM7 in their wiki with the needed packages for both Debian and Red Hat based distributions...
Very useful, thanks for the info.
Very useful info.
Hi,
I'm interested in compiling a custom kernel to support wifi monitor mode, but I read in a previous post that it can be a hardware limitation which makes it impossible to use monitor mode. Can anyone confirm that? Maybe a statement/answer from Broadcom?
I'm just asking it because I don't want to start playing with kernel compilation and driver hacking if it can't be done because of some missing code on the chipset or something.
Thanks.
kepten said:
Can anyone confirm that? Maybe a statement/answer from Broadcom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I doubt Broadcom will answer that, but you can try to search the chipset info in Broadcom's web and see if its supported. Also you can check kernel modules if they can compile against that version.
AzureusPT said:
I doubt Broadcom will answer that, but you can try to search the chipset info in Broadcom's web and see if its supported. Also you can check kernel modules if they can compile against that version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, Broadcom's website says nothing about monitor mode but I've found a driver (https:// github.com/cyanogen/galaxy-2636/blob/ics/drivers/net/wireless/bcm4330/src/include/wlioctl.h#L1153) which at least mentions it. This is for Galaxy Tab 10.1 which has the same chipset so maybe someone with a Tab 10.1 could verify if monitor mode works with that kernel/driver? ??

[Q] Compiling AOSP

Hello,
So my brother bough a chinese smartphone. Many chinese apps where preinstalled and I have been able to remove them, so you wouldn't notice it is a chinese device. However it would be neat if this phone would have proper AOSP.
The current ROM is almost AOSP, minor modifications have been done. This made me curious, would one be able to compile AOSP from source, and use the original kernel (if compatible)? Is a kernel extractable from a ROM to be used in another? Do you need the sources from the manufacturer in order to succesfully build AOSP?
Please note I'm not trying to do this, I'm just curious if it could be done. I have done a fair amount of research but most of the tutorials are about compiling kernels, something I DON'T want to do.
_Roysten said:
Hello,
So my brother bough a chinese smartphone. Many chinese apps where preinstalled and I have been able to remove them, so you wouldn't notice it is a chinese device. However it would be neat if this phone would have proper AOSP.
The current ROM is almost AOSP, minor modifications have been done. This made me curious, would one be able to compile AOSP from source, and use the original kernel (if compatible)? Is a kernel extractable from a ROM to be used in another? Do you need the sources from the manufacturer in order to succesfully build AOSP?
Please note I'm not trying to do this, I'm just curious if it could be done. I have done a fair amount of research but most of the tutorials are about compiling kernels, something I DON'T want to do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is definitely possible, but will take many hours of work of you want to achieve a stable daily driver state. Usually the kernel will need modifications to make it work with the AOSP ROM.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
Say the rom uses a kernel that works with AOSP, can one build the Android OS using the already compiled kernel from the device?

[Q] Compiling a kernal module from stage 1

Hi
Could anybody point me in the direction of sourcing, locating and compiling a kernel module please? I have found many guides but they all seem to start halfway in the process ("assuming you have already managed to...", "assuming you are already proficient with...")
I have a cheap Android Chinese TV box. It came without joydev.ko so I can't use it with joypads/sticks, which is a pretty big limitation considering it has 4 usb ports which work fine with keyboards, mice and webcams.
I already have an Eclipse environemt set up which I use for Java/Android development but I've never dabbled with anything like this before.
I guess the steps required are something like this:
Locate source code for my particular Android version (Android 4.2.2, Kernel 3.3.0) - where do I do that? Do I need the entire source or can I just download and compile the module by itself?
Set up the cross compiler - is this a standard thing, or does it depend on my hardware? My chipset is an Allwinner A20 ARM Cortex-A7(Dual Core)
Compile the module.
So, have I got the steps right? If not, please correct me. If so.... how do I go about doing the above?

Enabling touchscreen with Stoga Kbox MXIII Amlogic S802

Hi Folks,
I'm not sure exactly where to put this question but here goes. It looks like my monitor (HannsG HT231HPB) touch screen capabilities are not supported by default by my TV box (Stoga Kbox MXIII Amlogic S802) and I want to get it going. I'm not really interested in maintaining functionality of this TV box. My objective it to get an app that needs android 4.2 or above to run on it in conjunction with my touch screen. The app uses a touch screen to control music software. I have numerous questions as follows.
1) If I need to alter a couple of lines of code of existing parts of the kernel is there a way to inject these updated changes i.e. update ko files or something?
2) If this is not possible can I compile and update just the kernel or a module?
3) If I've got to recompile the whole lot, bearing in mind I don't need the existing functionality of the software on the TV box, can I just use the basic Android OS such as Kitkat and just worry about what I need just to run app, touch screen and USB.
4) If that is not possible how likely are similar source codes for devices likely to run on another device. There are various incarnations of MXIII boxes and I can't find the source code that seems specific to my box.
5) Any other ideas!
I know this is a bit general and convoluted but I've already wasted a lot of time on this and could do with reducing options.
Thanks in advance
Mark
Hi
Did U find something to make it works ?
I've the same configuration (MXIII + HANSSG HT231) and impossible to use touchscreen.
Thanx for your help
MacCarel said:
Hi
Did U find something to make it works ?
I've the same configuration (MXIII + HANSSG HT231) and impossible to use touchscreen.
Thanx for your help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No in short. I think the problem is a couple of lines of the Kernel. If they are not there you will get no reaction on touchscreen no matter what you try. The only solution is to alter a couple those lines of code and rebuild/compile the kernel. Therefore you need a compatible kernel for device and work out how to do this. I've stopped trying for now but I was looking at trying to find a custom ROM based on a different compatible kernel and hope it has support built into kernel automatically. Good luck..

Console AMlogic based computer (TV BOX) with stock android.

Hello there,
I am looking for a Android TV box with vanilla stock android. Are there any available and for sale? I tried searching everywhere but could not find any. The reason I am looking for one is, because I am looking for a development machine and deployment machine for apps. The machine will have to work with different hardware (USB) and I will have to recompile the kernel and need to modify HID drivers anytime.
Most distributions on AMlogic devices make use of custom kernels and some modifications are just plain bad and half done, not to mention the half rooted quirkiness on some devices with modified rom versions.
So is there an TV Box like device available with clean vanilla android out of the box? I really hope someone could help me with my search.
Thanks in advance and really appreciate this community.

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