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Hello,
I would like to change the HTC Hero's firmware/ROM to match that of the HTC Magic's firmware/ROM. My phone is CDMA, but I'm hoping that somehow, someway it is possible to do this. My reason for wanting this is so that I can finally do mods, like Cyanogen, since the CDMA Hero isn't really that widely supported, yet.
Thanks in advance for any help,
Tyler
Any new ROM will have to be CDMA, you can't change that since it has to do with phone hardware.
I have been.trying to port over gsm roms forever and.with no luck. Theoretically its possible but I haven't the faintest idea how.
Well, then I guess I have to resort to my last and great question. Since I'm stuck with my Hero, unless I go T-Mobile, how long, do you guys suspect, that it will take for more support to role out, like there is for the Magic? I ask because I'm wanting to know rather, or not there is a lot of development happening for the Hero because I really want great functionality and mod availability. At this point, if the answer is "not a lot", I may just drop the Hero for the Magic.
Thanks again for answering my questions,
Tyler
thejedislayer said:
Well, then I guess I have to resort to my last and great question. Since I'm stuck with my Hero, unless I go T-Mobile, how long, do you guys suspect, that it will take for more support to role out, like there is for the Magic? I ask because I'm wanting to know rather, or not there is a lot of development happening for the Hero because I really want great functionality and mod availability. At this point, if the answer is "not a lot", I may just drop the Hero for the Magic.
Thanks again for answering my questions,
Tyler
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Click to collapse
So you're saying you're "STUCK" with a month and a half old phone, unless "more people start supporting it"? i.e. People spending their free time creating mods for the Hero, so that you can get it for free? And if people aren't going to do mods and features for free in the near future, then you're just going to get rid of your Hero and go to T-Mobile for the Magic because it has people who are dedicated to releasing software they dont get paid to spend time working on? Seems like a lot of complaining about something that is completely voluntary, nobody has to work on any mods and nobody has to support any device. If you want to drop your Hero, just do it already. Nobody wants you to keep using it, nobody is forcing you to keep using it. Just do it already, nobody cares to read threads like this.
Wow, you took what I said and totally blew it out of proportion. The reason I wanted to get Android was because I wanted to be able to do things, like root my Android device. I fully support developers in their endeavor to develop applications, mods, ROMS, etc for all Android devices on their time. I do not, however, sit here and feel that the best idea to do is to whine and cry about support for my Android device not yet being fully supported or embraced. I simply asked rather, or not heavy development was going to happen in the near future, so as to ascertain a good decision on rather I should switch. That way I could get the full and best support and benefit from my personal experience with Android. I am not a developer. I've only gotten into this, so I was simply curious as to how development was coming along for the Hero at this time, and rather it may have been a better idea to just switch. Sorry To Have Offended The Offended.
**EDIT**
And understandably, having reread what I wrote, I can understand how what I said may have come off as a little dickish; however, it was not my intention, nor was it my wanting to cause a conflict.
thejedislayer said:
Wow, you took what I said and totally blew it out of proportion. The reason I wanted to get Android was because I wanted to be able to do things, like root my Android device. I fully support developers in their endeavor to develop applications, mods, ROMS, etc for all Android devices on their time. I do not, however, sit here and feel that the best idea to do is to whine and cry about support for my Android device not yet being fully supported or embraced. I simply asked rather, or not heavy development was going to happen in the near future, so as to ascertain a good decision on rather I should switch. That way I could get the full and best support and benefit from my personal experience with Android. I am not a developer. I've only gotten into this, so I was simply curious as to how development was coming along for the Hero at this time, and rather it may have been a better idea to just switch. Sorry To Have Offended The Offended.
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Click to collapse
There are many threads with people making their own roms, and modifications are being made to the hero by various people. Heavy development like going to 1.6 or 2.0 will most likely not happen by any developer, but by HTC itself. Once they release a new version, people will make a new rooted ROM with all the changes. For a fairly new phone, it got rooted fairly quickly (within a month of being released or so). It hasn't even been rooted all that long yet. All of this information is available in various threads. In the end its your decision on if you can wait or not to receive updates. Bleeding edge isn't always the best choice for everybody. If you prefer bleeding edge, perhaps you did get the wrong phone because there will likely be much more activity with, say, the Droid. But as for apps, there should be tons and tons of more apps coming available for the android platform as time goes on. I just cant see why you would want to switch phones based on a really short time period of it being out, jumping ship because it hasn't been hailed and given 100% attention by tons of developers yet. Honestly, as more android phones are released, I think more people will start developing for them and the android community itself will continue to grow. There are still some 7 year old Casio devices that receive updates, if you can believe that.
In all honesty, I knew I was a little quick to jump the gun when I said rather, or not it was a good decision to move from the Hero to the Magic. Again, this is all really new to me. In my mind, my main concern was that because of the Hero's Sense UI, this would make it a lot harder for developers, like Cyanogen Mod, to keep the Hero up-to-date with the rest of the older Android devices. The Magic, seeing it being a lot more supported in just three short months since its debut, made more sense to me to possibly move to. As it had tons of development happening for it, and I simply wanted to be apart of the action.
wouldn't a 1.6 Rom work since it "supports CDMA" out of the box???
@ azfxstb
I took the liberty of looking around, and I ended up finding some links from HTC for 1.6 support. Link: http://developer.htc.com/google-io-device.html
According to the article, though, the next successive version relies on a previous version in order to update properly. In other words, in order to know I have full functionality and support, I would have to start from the beginning of the Magic's support and simply continue updating till I reach the newest update. I may be wrong, but if I'm not, then it may be something worthwhile considering, even if it's a hassle. Anyone have any thoughts about this method?
I'd say stick it out. The Sprint Hero hasn't even been out for 2 months and it is rooted and there are a couple of custom ROM's posted here. I've had my Hero for 2 weeks and have already tried numerous releases, and all have been very stable for me.
I'd love to see some of the improvements Cyanogen come over, and I'm sure they will eventually, but you have to remember how long of a time frame the Magic had to work with.
azfxstb said:
wouldn't a 1.6 Rom work since it "supports CDMA" out of the box???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We don't know that HTC's shoehorned CDMA support into 1.5 is compatible with the built-in CDMA support in 1.6. What that means is that there's a potential that even if we did get a 1.6 build on the phone, HTC's proprietary (i.e., not required to release source code for) software that sits between the Android framework and the linux kernel (which in turn talks to the hardware) might be speaking a different language that Android 1.6 can't understand. That's the problem with their hacked-together 1.5 build. Make note that I do not know this for certain, but it's certainly a possibility, and if that's the case, we'd have a broken phone until those HTC layers could be translated from hacked-1.5 to native-1.6.
That's why, as already stated above, those moves probably won't happen until HTC releases a 2.0 build (which means we might never see 1.6 run on this phone even after the 2.0 release, since we'll never have the HTC software that is written specifically for the 1.6 platform).
To break it down, the phone has 2 processors: ARM9 and ARM11. ARM9 runs the radio hardware, and the radio controls literally *everything* that makes this phone usable. Think of ARM9 like your computer's BIOS chip. Except in a very rare case of someone who really really wants to hack on their phone, the ARM9 will never be modified by us.
The ARM11 is the next layer, and that's what actually runs the OS, recovery images, etc. The ARM11 is able to communicate with the ARM9 using a series of two-way communication channels (shared memory) and hardware interrupts.
The linux kernel contains drivers that on one side talk to the ARM11 and other hardware in the phone, and then expose controls on the other side that allow the rest of the OS to work with those things (e.g., turn the screen on/off, register touches on the screen, play sounds, vibrate, make calls, etc).
For some things, that's enough to let Android take over and actually make use of some of those things (LCD, touchscreen, sound, ...). Still, there are other things that require intermediate controllers between the devices exposed by the kernel and Android. For example, "rild" is in charge of managing the modem as far as things like issuing commands to your carrier, getting online, telling the modem to make a call, finding out signal strength, etc. But HTC wrote their own ril that interacts with the modem -- and they aren't required (in fact, they're not allowed!) to release the source code for that, because a) it was developed using proprietary information given to them (under NDA no doubt) by Qualcomm, and/or b) it contains information that HTC themselves want to keep private, protecting their intellectual property, etc. There are several other userland libraries like that, which are NOT part of the kernel, and therefore are not required to be released as open source. Yet they are required for Android to work, as android will speak directly to those libraries, which translate the messages in order to communicate with the kernel, which communicates with the ARM11, which talks to the ARM9, which makes it happen.
The breakdown happens at the "android speaks to the libraries" step, because Android 1.5 speaks a certain language, and that's (potentially) different from the Android 1.6 language. Yes this phone is CDMA, and yes Android 1.6 has native support for CDMA... So, you say, putting Android 1.6 on the phone should "just work". But the HTC libraries that are on our phones are not designed for 1.6, they're designed for 1.5. And they're not even designed for the "standard" GSM 1.5, but for a "hacked" CDMA 1.5! If we put Android 1.6 on the phones, we could *try* to reuse the existing binary form of the HTC libraries, but if 1.5 and 1.6 talk different languages (most likely they do), the 1.5 version of the binary libraries are going to get confused and reject it. Then we're left with a 1.6 platform that can't talk to the 1.5 libraries, and we get major functionality meltdown. To be fair, it would be possible to write an additional translation layer that would convert the 1.6 messages into something that we "think" the 1.5 libraries will understand, but is it really worth the effort? (hint: it's not a small effort ) Then try doing the same with 2.0, and the potential for translation problems are even worse...
And not to mention, 2.0 also requires the 2.6.29 kernel, which (surprise, surprise), does not exist (for this phone) in the wild. We could theoretically get 1.6 running, since we already have a working 2.6.27 kernel (the phone shipped with it, and if we assume that the shipped kernel is "good enough", we can simply reuse it -- we already do that with the recovery image and even MoDaCo's rom). But as soon as we think about either modifying the kernel as it is, or god forbid, upgrading to 2.6.29, we hit a roadblock because we don't have the source code yet for the 2.6.27 kernel. Once that code is released, we could hypothetically port that support to 2.6.29. Or once HTC releases an Eclair build for this phone, it'll be guaranteed to have a ready-made 2.6.29 kernel buried inside, as well as the binary HTC libraries that are required for our phone. Until one of those two things happens (or, admittedly, someone reverse-engineers what's required... which quite frankly is not worth anyone's time considering we know that HTC *will* release both of those things eventually), Eclair is absolutely out of the question.
The short version (go ahead, admit it, you skipped to here even though I didn't put a "short version at the end" disclaimer at the top): 1.6 will absolutely require reverse-engineering the HTC libraries, just to get an already outdated (albeit still an upgrade) version of the OS on the phone -- not worth the effort. 2.0 will absolutely require reverse-engineering (both the kernel AND the binary libraries), just to get Eclair running on the phone maybe a couple weeks before HTC gives it to us on a silver platter -- And you're still likely to have a partially gimped phone at that point!
And the moral is: this **** is hard. HTC is already doing the work we need. HTC will make everything work "reasonably well". And they'll give it to us when they're done. Thus, no one *wants* to waste the effort doing it themselves. Ergo: we wait.
maejrep said:
We don't know that HTC's shoehorned CDMA support into 1.5 is compatible with the built-in CDMA support in 1.6. What that means is that there's a potential that even if we did get a 1.6 build on the phone, HTC's proprietary (i.e., not required to release source code for) software that sits between the Android framework and the linux kernel (which in turn talks to the hardware) might be speaking a different language that Android 1.6 can't understand. That's the problem with their hacked-together 1.5 build. Make note that I do not know this for certain, but it's certainly a possibility, and if that's the case, we'd have a broken phone until those HTC layers could be translated from hacked-1.5 to native-1.6.
That's why, as already stated above, those moves probably won't happen until HTC releases a 2.0 build (which means we might never see 1.6 run on this phone even after the 2.0 release, since we'll never have the HTC software that is written specifically for the 1.6 platform).
To break it down, the phone has 2 processors: ARM9 and ARM11. ARM9 runs the radio hardware, and the radio controls literally *everything* that makes this phone usable. Think of ARM9 like your computer's BIOS chip. Except in a very rare case of someone who really really wants to hack on their phone, the ARM9 will never be modified by us.
The ARM11 is the next layer, and that's what actually runs the OS, recovery images, etc. The ARM11 is able to communicate with the ARM9 using a series of two-way communication channels (shared memory) and hardware interrupts.
The linux kernel contains drivers that on one side talk to the ARM11 and other hardware in the phone, and then expose controls on the other side that allow the rest of the OS to work with those things (e.g., turn the screen on/off, register touches on the screen, play sounds, vibrate, make calls, etc).
For some things, that's enough to let Android take over and actually make use of some of those things (LCD, touchscreen, sound, ...). Still, there are other things that require intermediate controllers between the devices exposed by the kernel and Android. For example, "rild" is in charge of managing the modem as far as things like issuing commands to your carrier, getting online, telling the modem to make a call, finding out signal strength, etc. But HTC wrote their own ril that interacts with the modem -- and they aren't required (in fact, they're not allowed!) to release the source code for that, because a) it was developed using proprietary information given to them (under NDA no doubt) by Qualcomm, and/or b) it contains information that HTC themselves want to keep private, protecting their intellectual property, etc. There are several other userland libraries like that, which are NOT part of the kernel, and therefore are not required to be released as open source. Yet they are required for Android to work, as android will speak directly to those libraries, which translate the messages in order to communicate with the kernel, which communicates with the ARM11, which talks to the ARM9, which makes it happen.
The breakdown happens at the "android speaks to the libraries" step, because Android 1.5 speaks a certain language, and that's (potentially) different from the Android 1.6 language. Yes this phone is CDMA, and yes Android 1.6 has native support for CDMA... So, you say, putting Android 1.6 on the phone should "just work". But the HTC libraries that are on our phones are not designed for 1.6, they're designed for 1.5. And they're not even designed for the "standard" GSM 1.5, but for a "hacked" CDMA 1.5! If we put Android 1.6 on the phones, we could *try* to reuse the existing binary form of the HTC libraries, but if 1.5 and 1.6 talk different languages (most likely they do), the 1.5 version of the binary libraries are going to get confused and reject it. Then we're left with a 1.6 platform that can't talk to the 1.5 libraries, and we get major functionality meltdown. To be fair, it would be possible to write an additional translation layer that would convert the 1.6 messages into something that we "think" the 1.5 libraries will understand, but is it really worth the effort? (hint: it's not a small effort ) Then try doing the same with 2.0, and the potential for translation problems are even worse...
And not to mention, 2.0 also requires the 2.6.29 kernel, which (surprise, surprise), does not exist (for this phone) in the wild. We could theoretically get 1.6 running, since we already have a working 2.6.27 kernel (the phone shipped with it, and if we assume that the shipped kernel is "good enough", we can simply reuse it -- we already do that with the recovery image and even MoDaCo's rom). But as soon as we think about either modifying the kernel as it is, or god forbid, upgrading to 2.6.29, we hit a roadblock because we don't have the source code yet for the 2.6.27 kernel. Once that code is released, we could hypothetically port that support to 2.6.29. Or once HTC releases an Eclair build for this phone, it'll be guaranteed to have a ready-made 2.6.29 kernel buried inside, as well as the binary HTC libraries that are required for our phone. Until one of those two things happens (or, admittedly, someone reverse-engineers what's required... which quite frankly is not worth anyone's time considering we know that HTC *will* release both of those things eventually), Eclair is absolutely out of the question.
The short version (go ahead, admit it, you skipped to here even though I didn't put a "short version at the end" disclaimer at the top): 1.6 will absolutely require reverse-engineering the HTC libraries, just to get an already outdated (albeit still an upgrade) version of the OS on the phone -- not worth the effort. 2.0 will absolutely require reverse-engineering (both the kernel AND the binary libraries), just to get Eclair running on the phone maybe a couple weeks before HTC gives it to us on a silver platter -- And you're still likely to have a partially gimped phone at that point!
And the moral is: this **** is hard. HTC is already doing the work we need. HTC will make everything work "reasonably well". And they'll give it to us when they're done. Thus, no one *wants* to waste the effort doing it themselves. Ergo: we wait.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WOW...did you stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night????....J/K thanks for the in depth explanation
i am new to android. ive never had an android phone before.
will it be possible to upgrade android 1.6 to 2.0 eclair, in the same way its possible to install new roms on windows smartphones?
i ask this coz acer doesnt plan on making the liquid upgradeable to 2.0 any time soon, and i dont quite understand why.
if android is free and open source, whats the big deal about upgrading it? does 2.0 have specific hardware requirements that 1.6 phones don't have, in the same way wm 6.5 needed a windows button? is that the reason??
id love to get an acer liquid but the one thing thats stopping me is this whole android 2.0 issue.
im sure theres someone here knowledgeable on the subject- please enlighten me.
Just because Acer themselves don't plan on making Android 2.0 for the Liquid (this is news to me, btw), doesn't mean there won't BE an upgrade. You just might not see it on this forum, seeing as it's for HTC devices primarily.
BTW, WM6.5 does not require a Windows button. That's a very old requirement that Microsoft dropped ages ago.
If you look around the net you'll see that 2.0 or 2.1 is planned to be released in 2010.
For example, have a read at http://phandroid.com/2009/12/11/acer-liquid-a1-video-demo-getting-android-2-0-in-2010/
yes i saw that - but its not an official source. It just says 'it will start shipping with 2.0'
i also saw this on the net -
http://www.acerliquid.net/official-acer-response-to-android-2-0-support-and-other-questions
'The phone ships with Android 1.6, will it be possible to upgrade to Android 2
This is not planned at present.'
So who do i believe?
If the phone was going to have the android 2 upgrade, you'd have thought acer would make this information known asap, so people would buy it knowing it could be upgraded - like htc did with the touch diamond2.
the only reason you'd hide it is if you had other models in the pipeline with android 2.0. i've heard that for android 2.0 you'd need new drivers and things which is a big effort.
thoughts?
soon enough, this site will not be for HTC devices primarily
I'm afraid to inform folks, but i'm sure that soon enough this site is going to find itself the primary source for all android phone support and modifications regardless if they're HTC or not. This is the best place to get info/support/roms/etc and the natural consequence of that is evolving into supporting more than just htc phones. I suppose I would just say, why not add an acer liquid section? Seems rather arbitrary at this point to only focus on HTC; made sense some years ago, but not now.
FloatingFatMan said:
Just because Acer themselves don't plan on making Android 2.0 for the Liquid (this is news to me, btw), doesn't mean there won't BE an upgrade. You just might not see it on this forum, seeing as it's for HTC devices primarily.
BTW, WM6.5 does not require a Windows button. That's a very old requirement that Microsoft dropped ages ago.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
audiobastard said:
I'm afraid to inform folks, but i'm sure that soon enough this site is going to find itself the primary source for all android phone support and modifications regardless if they're HTC or not. This is the best place to get info/support/roms/etc and the natural consequence of that is evolving into supporting more than just htc phones. I suppose I would just say, why not add an acer liquid section? Seems rather arbitrary at this point to only focus on HTC; made sense some years ago, but not now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to disappoint you but that won´t happen
This has been discussed many many times before, and the answer still the same:
This is an HTC devices forum only
That is the decision of the owners of XDA
learn to accept facts unless forum community decided to ban all non htc post
orb3000 said:
Sorry to disappoint you but that won´t happen
This has been discussed many many times before, and the answer still the same:
This is an HTC devices forum only
That is the decision of the owners of XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A retarded decision.
there are many places out there
I like htc interface so i'll stick with htc and xda
I'm sure that by the time the Liquid is available, there will be a 2.0 upgrade and if not, I bet someone from xda or ppcgeeks will find a way to make an unofficial one.
what do you mean?? its available since december 8!! i have one since dec 16!!
I mean when it's available more worldwide. Hasn't been released yet in America and a few other places as far as I know of.
jrodizzkool01 said:
I mean when it's available more worldwide. Hasn't been released yet in America and a few other places as far as I know of.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hope it comes out soon in America.
The Acer Liquid still looks very promising (e.g. faster than the Nexus One despite being underclocked).
The only sore point seems to be the lacking support from Acer.
i live in Colombia... just have to buy it via ebay
i'm just sayin
I'm just saying that people are gonna post questions here about android regardless of what the mods or site owners decide. This is the fallback resource for roms, mods, hacks, and general info. Its just the natural consequence of being awesome.
audiobastard said:
I'm just saying that people are gonna post questions here about android regardless of what the mods or site owners decide. This is the fallback resource for roms, mods, hacks, and general info. Its just the natural consequence of being awesome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What IS the best forum/website for ROMs, hacks, etc. for the liquid and other non HTC android phones?
I tried to tell you guys
What did i just say like 3 posts above. You cannot argue with my logic that's why you're discussing adding neotouch and liquid to the roster up here. I suppose I just see in 3d while others in 2d.
I have no idea how this thread got so off topic... anyway, now that ther is an Acer Liquid section on XDA, here is some good news:
A user on modaco forums got a response from Acer Taiwan about android 2.1. Apparently Acer liquid users should see Android 2.1 released as an update for their phones in March!
Yay! (and here's hoping it actually happens!! )
When it comes to Acer I doubt anything will actually happen.
Acers support is 100% pure ****.
mr.r9 said:
When it comes to Acer I doubt anything will actually happen.
Acers support is 100% pure ****.
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Click to collapse
they were right with the kernel release... "end of january"... still delivered something not very good
Let me start by saying I'm fairly new to Android, and that this probably should go in a general Android forum, but since I'm a Fascinate user, this seems appropriate to me. I've searched, but haven't found a real explanation, and I'm not one to take things as fact without a reasonable explanation.
So it seems like everyone is waiting for an official 2.2 release for the Fascinate, flashing 2.1 ROMs but not capable of upgrading to 2.2+; but I'm wondering why we can't just compile our own OS for our phones? Android is a Linux-like OS, and I know Linux users would never stay on an old version if a newer (better?) version was available. I'm talking down-and-dirty tweak-every-option-by-hand Slackware here. Is the source available for download? If so, why can't we do something with it? Is something in the phone completely locked and unhackable? Is it the fear of having a $500 paperweight? Is it difficult to regain Verizon network connectivity?
Again, forgive the noob question, and thanks in advance for any help you can give me!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=792986
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=883004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=882946
There is currently work being done by jt, birdman, and the other skew of developers trying to develop a working AOSP version of 2.2/2.3. The biggest struggle that they have encountered was the RIL (Radio Interface Layer) binaries. Samsung produced some bogus complex proprietary binaries with no properly working source code. Because this phone is CDMA and not GSM, we can't simply use galaxy s files.
Anyways, the point is that there is work being done to bring it to our phone. They have a working AOSP 2.1 that is currently in alpha stage. Jt basically built his own RIL for this phone to get it working.
If this RIL works, we may end up with 2.3 sooner than later.
eulipion2 said:
Let me start by saying I'm fairly new to Android, and that this probably should go in a general Android forum, but since I'm a Fascinate user, this seems appropriate to me. I've searched, but haven't found a real explanation, and I'm not one to take things as fact without a reasonable explanation.
So it seems like everyone is waiting for an official 2.2 release for the Fascinate, flashing 2.1 ROMs but not capable of upgrading to 2.2+; but I'm wondering why we can't just compile our own OS for our phones? Android is a Linux-like OS, and I know Linux users would never stay on an old version if a newer (better?) version was available. I'm talking down-and-dirty tweak-every-option-by-hand Slackware here. Is the source available for download? If so, why can't we do something with it? Is something in the phone completely locked and unhackable? Is it the fear of having a $500 paperweight? Is it difficult to regain Verizon network connectivity?
Again, forgive the noob question, and thanks in advance for any help you can give me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You obviously have not searched hard enough, as this has been discussed in many places. I would suggest you start by searching this forum (edit: or seeing the links and posts above).
I will say, however, that recent achievements by (edit: the developers mentioned above) have made your suggestion quite possible. If you want to get a taste of what is to come, see the aosp alpha sticky located in the development section. The rom still has bugs, but it is a giant step forward for the Fascinate.
Sent from my Galaxy-S Fascinate
Florynce said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=792986
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=883004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=882946
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^^^^^
10char
I must add/point out that the work these guys are doing could easily pave the way for Cyanogenmod- and other well-featured roms to be compiled/ported and used on Fascinate as well.
I've read the above links, but they didn't really quite answer my question. I guess I'm wondering why a Linux-based OS isn't acting/being treated like a Linux-based OS.
Let's say I go out and buy a new computer today. I want to put Linux on it. I get the machine home, download my distro of choice and make an install cd. As I'm installing, I configure the installation either for my specific hardware or I can use a generic profile if my hardware isn't listed.
Now say a new version of the Linux kernel comes out. I can upgrade without having to wait for a version for my hardware. Or if I install MyDistro v1 when I get my machine, and MyDistro v2 comes out the next day, I don't have to wait for someone to develop a version to work with my hardware.
So my question is more of a why can't we upgrade our distro like other Linux variants? Is it because there's no generic replacement for the Samsung RIL? If I were to download the source and do a generic build, or even a specific one, I wouldn't be able to install it because...?
Sorry to be a pain, but I genuinely have no clue. Again, thank you for the insight!
2.2 will boot on the I500 just nothing works. If you would like to help http://opensource.samsung.com/
The source code can be found there. Please feel free to help the development along.
I suggest you read through the reply's to your question and pay special note to those bringing up the RIL as that seems to be the biggest hurdle right now.
I think maybe the answer you are looking for is that it is possible to do it, it's just extremely difficult because Samsung's open source is very shoddy and isn't based on AOS, which is what is used for most other phones.
Since the developers don't have a build that works, they have to work from the ground up with AOS and get every last feature on the fascinate working without using Samsung's code (TouchWiz, widgets, etc).
The links they gave you explain most of it but you have to sift through the posts. There is a dev named jt (amongst others) who is working on a ROM that is upgradable based on AOSP and it looks very promising.
edit: It's also worth noting that when I say "not based on AOS" I mean that it is proprietary software used by Samsung-only phones and is not coded by Google. It still, of course, is based on Android OS. It would be akin to a ROM coded by Samsung for their phones rather than generic ROMs that could be downloaded by other phones.
Perfect, thanks!
Try thinking of it as buying an Ubuntu laptop from dell. Sure its " Ubuntu" but not stock. It so full of bloat and badly written drivers that aren't supplied openly for the user that it would be hell trying get the latest version of ubuntu to run on it.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
For clarification.... so I can wrap my brain around this. Is this situation kinda like having bought a new computer that's running an os, but has no installed device drivers and nowhere to download them from, so they have to be written by hand?
Edit: that last post came thru while I was writing this one, I think it basically answers my question...
So what the devs on here are trying to do is develop a "generic" profile that can work on our phone (as well as others?), creating a solid base to allow users to upgrade and change at-will without having to wait for official releases?
See, that's the part I'm having a hard time with. No generic profile built into the OS to use in the absence of a hardware specific one?
LoverBoyV said:
Try thinking of it as buying an Ubuntu laptop from dell. Sure its " Ubuntu" but not stock. It so full of bloat and badly written drivers that aren't supplied openly for the user that it would be hell trying get the latest version of ubuntu to run on it.
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On a sidenote, I bought a Dell netbook witih Ubuntu. Didn't waste time with Ubuntu, but I chose it because I didn't want MS to get money from a license fee. Installed Mac OS X on it the day it arrived
Ya know, I tried to do the same thing with my inspiron 1525 notebook, with snow leopard 10.6.3 since I have a spare hard drive. Spent a whole day with numerous guides, trying this n that. Got it to actually boot to the desktop once, bit as I was putting the drivers in, it went into KP and from that point on, I could never even reinstall back to the desktop again.
Well, Samsung is giving us a simple/reliable update to Froyo with unique functionality, as soon as possible.
Source: (Twitter, About 12pm 1/2/2011 from Samsungtweets via Cotweet - http://twitter.com/Samsungtweets/samsung-usa )
Samsungtweets We are working to make the Android 2.2/Froyo upgrade available to all U.S Galaxy S owners as soon as possible.
Samsungtweets We want Galaxy S owners to have simple/reliable upgrade. We r running tests due to complexity/unique functionality
EDIT: gave more specific time and source of tweets. Post is meant to be objective, without definition of ASAP for this context.
Swyped w/ XDA App. When in doubt, mumble.
soba49 said:
Well, Samsung is giving us a simple/reliable update to Froyo with unique functionality, as soon as possible.
Source (Twitter, 6 hours ago):
Samsungtweets We are working to make the Android 2.2/Froyo upgrade available to all U.S Galaxy S owners as soon as possible.
Samsungtweets We want Galaxy S owners to have simple/reliable upgrade. We r running tests due to complexity/unique functionality
Swyped w/ XDA App. When in doubt, mumble.
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I'm not sure if this is meant to be funny or not haha. Are those recent tweets?
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
They seem to post the same things over and over, of course this is also because people constantly ask when is froyo coming, and every time they say there is no definite date. It is coming soon that that is all they will say; yelling, moaning and crying isn't gonna make it come any sooner, just sit back and it will eventually come.
Hey,
I am NOT a dev, but I would like to know what kind of work work is going to be required now that gingerbread is on the forefront?
For example, VPlayer, doesn't work... it FC... How much work is it going to take to get the program back up and running???
Im just asking because, as much as I hate to admit it, fragmentation (as everyone calls it) is going to start causing issues. I get that google wants to offer the best and the latest and greatest, but if everytime a new API get sent out, and devs' have to rewrite their work, how much time is it going to take to get the proggy back up and running??
Thanks!
Theo
theomajigga said:
I am NOT a dev,
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You should've stop right there.
You realize that at this point only 1(!) phone is running official 2.3 Gingerbread and it's Samsung Nexus S. It's a drop in a bucket comparing to all of the phones that are running official 2.x firmware.
Furthermore, if an app is properly developed against 1.x or 2.x SDK then it will work with gingerbreadas as all APIs are future-compliant. The only problem would be is if an app is developed using 2.3 APIs and you would try to use it on earlier roms or if it used undocumented/unofficial APIs that were not supposed to be used and were discontinued in future releases.
We don't know what 's causing vPlayer not to work, could be many things (kernel, unfinished rom development, missing libs) or it could be things in vPlayer that were improperly implemented.
Send a log to developer and see if he/she can help you. Given that you're not running official (or at least stable!) release, you may not get far though.
But please, don't jump on that "fragmentation" train, it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
borodin1 said:
You should've stop right there.
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First off, I didn't ask for you to be a ****, if I would have posted this in the dev forum that would have prompted you to respond as such.
borodin1 said:
You realize that at this point only 1(!) phone is running official 2.3 Gingerbread and it's Samsung Nexus S. It's a drop in a bucket comparing to all of the phones that are running official 2.x firmware.
Furthermore, if an app is properly developed against 1.x or 2.x SDK then it will work with gingerbreadas as all APIs are future-compliant. The only problem would be is if an app is developed using 2.3 APIs and you would try to use it on earlier roms or if it used undocumented/unofficial APIs that were not supposed to be used and were discontinued in future releases.
We don't know what 's causing vPlayer not to work, could be many things (kernel, unfinished rom development, missing libs) or it could be things in vPlayer that were improperly implemented.
Send a log to developer and see if he/she can help you. Given that you're not running official (or at least stable!) release, you may not get far though.
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Thanks for the answer, i guess.
borodin1 said:
But please, don't jump on that "fragmentation" train, it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
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Now that that is out of the way, can I ask you HOW you can honestly say that Android isn't fragmented. Seriously ask your self... I LOVE android, I really do, G1-cliq-MT3G-Nexus One-HD2(androided)-MT4G, but I can't even lie about that. There is 9 API levels!! 2.3, 2.2, 2.1, 2.0.1, 2.0, 1.6, 1.5, 1.1, 1.0.
NOW I DO UNDERSTAND THAT ALMOST 45% ARE ON 2.2 and 40% ARE ON 2.1.
Ok, so now most apps are going to be working on that 84% of phones running level 7+.
But this ALSO doesn't account for the manufacture API's that are implemented buy some of them, which I KNOW causes some problems. (skype on the Samsung Galaxy Series) just to name one very big one. Skype works on other devices with 2.1, but it doesn't on the Samsung 2.1? as a consumer, I'd ask wtf, even with their limited knowledge of android.
Fragmentation is defined as is the inability to "write once and run anywhere". Rovio complained about this. Albeit not directly, but they said that they were having issues with people on some phones, with some versions of software, and that it wasn't going to work across the board.
I hate to admit it but there are certain things that need to be done to insure that Android will not only be the "Mobile OS" but it will also be the demanded one (IMHO):
1. Cut the bull**** manufacture stuff out, make only ONE set of API's, with 0 proprietary API's. Make it stuff that you can get if you want through the Android Market (custom UI's and such).
2. Control the god-damn market, find spammers, find shady devs re-uploading their apps multiple times to get ad dollars.
3. Get everybody on board to updates, require that all devices with X specifications be updated Y months after a source is released. That will get again get everyone on the same API level, and will make all apps compatible (maybe slow).
4. For the love of all holy, USE THE BEST COMPONENTS YOU CAN FIND! AND MAKE IT A STANDARD At least for the primary functions of the phone. For example, the Nexus One (my fave so far) did NOT have a competent touch screen, 2 point, and a BAD 2 point at that, and that is considered to be the new dev phone. Well who the HELL would want to dev for a platform that can only recognize two points (barely) that doesn't always even get them right? I sure as hell wouldn't. Finally I get the MT4G, the FIRST thing i did was test the touch screen, and guess what... It still is sub-par. 4 points, where my friends Galaxy S can do 6 or something. Now you are going to ask me, who uses 6 points idiot? Some games, do, and to top **** off, if you can't recognize 2 points properly, close together, how can some of the basic multi-touch functions work? (google maps on the N1)
I'm sorry for the rant, but I'm realistic. A mobile platform can't win like this.
http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~damithch/df/device-fragmentation.htm
Last night, +Steve Kondik took to twitter to vent a little bit:
"CM has been getting a lot of crap lately for taking so long with a release. Guess what? It's not that easy. We don't just call something stable unless we mean it. *Also, RC1 is soon!* The most stable devices will get the RC first. The system we've put in place should allow other devices to catch up quickly. More details later this week "
Now to combat the obvious questions:
# As Steve stated, this will not be for all CM9 supported devices. The Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus can be considered safe bets, but the final list won't be available until release day.
# As always, the proper day of release is difficult/impossible to predict, but we anticipate a code freeze going in place tomorrow at the earliest.
# Yes, this means we will actively be running two separate RC phases (CM7 and CM9). Bug's should be reported to the issue tracker once the release is made, not in the comments on our posts.
# There has been a lot of talk surrounding Linaro in CM. While CM 9.0 won't ship with all the patches on gerrit, quite a few of them are already incorporated and others are sane enough that they will likely be there. There are still some issues surrounding the updated gcc used for the Linaro patches that don't play nice with AOSP.
# Nexus One: For the time being, the N1 will not be supported. We can get it to build/boot/run, but the hacks required break Google's CTS, so until that is rectified, you won't see any build with CM's official stamp of approval.
CM9 News
And from a followup a few hours later:
******
+Ricardo Cerqueira sat down with XDA recently for a developer interview
To piggy back on our comment about the N1 and CTS, Ricardo describes why we don't just shrug off that requirement.
Because it opened a can of worms that can’t be closed again. Getting it to work needed some very ugly workarounds that directly go against Google’s compatibility document for ICS. An app developer targeting ICS as a minimal version for his apps has the right to expect some functionality to be guaranteed on a device that claims to be ICS, that wasn’t (and isn’t) true for ICS builds with these hacks. That’s one the main reasons CM9 does not officially include a bunch of devices that are “working.”
...and some users understand that, but a lot don’t, and they’ll submit error reports on those apps, or they’ll rate it badly at the Play store. This is not a hypothetical scenario, it has happened whether we like it or not, asked for it or not, CM’s userbase is large enough to matter, even if you don’t count derivatives. We have a responsibility not to cause that kind of grief to app developers and we did. With all the mostly bull**** talk about fragmentation, we actively contributed to a break in the platform, no matter how small. That’s not a good thing :X People SHOULD know these builds contain hacks, but you’ve surely realized by now that they don’t
******
dookie23 said:
....so until that is rectified, you won't see any build with CM's official stamp of approval.
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so.... is that ever gonna get rectified
charlie_su1986 said:
so.... is that ever gonna get rectified
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I wonder what are the hacks he mentioned in the post. Was it the hboot hack, m2sd hack or swap partition...etc?
what is all the fuss about CM9 not releasing a rom officially when we have quite a few talented devs that have already given us the choice of running a near perfect ICS Rom on our nexus one?
EDIT: BCM offers CM9 features, AOKP offers us users the choice of AOKP features and texasice rom has a twist of its own features to. I do not see a problem with CM not releasing an official rom
Kannibalism said:
what is all the fuss about CM9 not releasing a rom officially when we have quite a few talented devs that have already given us the choice of running a near perfect ICS Rom on our nexus one?
EDIT: BCM offers CM9 features, AOKP offers us users the choice of AOKP features and texasice rom has a twist of its own features to. I do not see a problem with CM not releasing an official rom
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Don't get me wrong, I love seeing the talented devs make awesome progress on kang'ing CM9 and things are coming together nicely. What I am getting at is not whether Cyanogenmod is releasing a CM9 rom officially for the Nexus One, but it's what Ricardo Cerqueira said about the hacks breaking Google CTS. This could mean that apps might not run or worse yet, FC's for no reason.
Now, the real questions are, what are these hacks Ricardo was talking about and is that gonna get rectified?
the hacks they talk about could be small stuff like ta camera fix etc since vendors do not always release new drivers.I would say that the nexus one is using a few hacks for drivers in order to make everything work better
I suspect it's a combination, both messing with HBOOT partition sizes (which is not a *bad* thing, but involves a lot more risk than just flashing a new ROM) and the nasty driver hacks that the poor dev's have had to do to try to working around the lack of a Broadcom driver, since they saw fit to release neither a driver nor sufficient documentation. It's hard to see how either could be overcome for an "official" CM9 release. I feel like it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem; with sufficient dev attention things could probably be brought into acceptable shape, but unofficial ports will never have sufficient dev attention.
Disclaimer: I really appreciate all the work that's been done by everyone on all the community ROMs. It's a hard, often thankless job, whether you're debugging mystery driver issues on an older phone or trying to coordinate a release for dozens of different devices with angry, impatient fans. While I'd love to have an official, flawless ICS ROM, at least we get more love from the community than we did from Google
decoherent said:
I suspect it's a combination, both messing with HBOOT partition sizes (which is not a *bad* thing, but involves a lot more risk than just flashing a new ROM) and the nasty driver hacks that the poor dev's have had to do to try to working around the lack of a Broadcom driver, since they saw fit to release neither a driver nor sufficient documentation. It's hard to see how either could be overcome for an "official" CM9 release. I feel like it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem; with sufficient dev attention things could probably be brought into acceptable shape, but unofficial ports will never have sufficient dev attention.
Disclaimer: I really appreciate all the work that's been done by everyone on all the community ROMs. It's a hard, often thankless job, whether you're debugging mystery driver issues on an older phone or trying to coordinate a release for dozens of different devices with angry, impatient fans. While I'd love to have an official, flawless ICS ROM, at least we get more love from the community than we did from Google
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I agree with this post i would put the blame on google for not pushing the vendors for the broadcom drivers since android is open source after all but once again great works by our devs and thanks for letting us experience the latest versions of android on our devices
EDIT: i must admit that i have better devices to use than the nexus one but the community keeps me coming back for more
Sent from my Nexus One using xda premium