Database Users

Android 2.0 and a Flashable ROM: A reality in the near future?

I wanted to make this post to address two points that I'm sure stir in the hearts of many Vogue owners beyond my own:
Android 2.0, and a flashable ROM.
To begin, I'd like to say that the ability to run Android on our Vogues in the first place is an incredible achievement, thanks to (your) hard work. I know that I speak for the entire community when I say Thank You for making this possible.
This points I'd like to make are:
Windows Mobile 6.5, while an improvement, still leaves myself (and I'm sure others) desiring more. Simply look at the Android interest already generated here, and it's sure to increase with the availability of 2.0--Android is a very slick, capable OS.
Windows Mobile does not include a 3D driver for the integrated ATi Imageon video accelerator--my understanding is that Android does have such support, which is a welcome upgrade in addition to the vast improvement over Windows Mobile that Android is.
The current solution to running Android, booting it from an SD card, feels temporary. I vastly prefer replacing the Windows Mobile ROM with a solid build of Android. This seems like a much more permanent solution, and is the step I'm looking for before making a full transition to Android from Windows Mobile.
I realize that not everyone may agree with me, and that's alright. I wanted to make this thread not only to start conversation, but also to get the thoughts of those developers who could make these dreams a reality.
So the questions become:
Is a fully-functional Android 2.0 build a reality in time? What sort of undertaking might this require? Could this transition be fast, given the progress made already with 1.5/1.6?
Who is in favor of a flashable ROM? Against? Reasons for either? Is a flashable ROM a realistic dream?
Lastly, there are a lot of builds/blends of Android available right now on the vogue-android project. I think this is great, but in the interest of providing a solitary, highest-functionality build of Android for the Vogue, it seems to make sense to try and bring developers together under a single umbrella to get one build completely set up. Would it be a good idea to start an "Android 2.0" project dedicated to moving in this direction?
Again, thanks for everyone's hard work. I look forward to hearing opinions and thoughts, especially as to how far Android on the Vogue may one day go.

This has been discussed at length here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=573397&highlight=bounty

and no the transition to 2.0 will not be quick, for one the aosp isn't even out yet, when it is out, the ril/audio libs/gps libs/bluetooth libs will all have to be rewritten.

I know that a flashable ROM was discussed, but as that thread was left to die, I wanted to start something users can follow up on in looking for a flashable ROM.
What will it take to develop a flashable ROM? Is it something that additional developers are needed for? Is there any way we can help?
mssmison, thanks for clarifying on 2.0. While we might have a start with Android 1.6, re-writing to work with 2.0 could be a big task.
What's still necessary to get a fully-functional, flashable Android ROM? Fix GPS and Bluetooth, and develop a way to flash it and make it native to our devices?

The flashable rom is not dead, and in fact i EXPECT that everyone who put up the bounty will pay out when it comes out.

Well that's fantastic news--thanks for confirming, mssmison.
The next question is, what's left to be finished for a flashable version?
Part of the confusion (my own, at least) is that certain builds have some functionality (GPS), others do not.
I know many are working on Android, in different ports (1.5, 1.6, 2.0, etc.), and I'd really like to see unified work/support to get all features and functionality in a single, flashable build.
I think this is the way to get Vogue users to migrate to Android.
Would there be interest in creating a unified effort to produce a single, completely-functional and flashable build?
I wish I knew more about this. I'm an beginning developer, but I don't hold a candle to the knowledge some of you have in regards to helping the Android movement.

Yes in the near future you will see android running natively replacing windows mobile. Most likely supporting 1.5 and 1.6 with 2.0 when ever google drops the source. I can say that the initial work has been done. I hope everyone makes good on their bounty pledges. The dev that is doing this deserves it.

I will try to put up some money for that too. Anything to make my Vogue run better than it does on Windows Mobile.

BoboBrazil said:
I will try to put up some money for that too. Anything to make my Vogue run better than it does on Windows Mobile.
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Offer up a donation in the thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=573397
The very not dead thread, in which this discussion should be taking place, and already has some of the answers for the questions asked

New Cyanogen ROM, differences for Hero CDMA?

I'm new to Android but not new to Linux and wondering what is necessary to get these ROMs (and others) working on the CDMA Hero. What are the major differences, proprietary drivers? Kernel modules?
New Cyanogen ROM, just released
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=567610
In other words, what's stopping us from running these ROM's right along with G1/Dream users?

I'm curious also... would love to try his roms...

Since Android 1.6 was supposed to add CDMA support I would think they should work as well as 2.0 unless the developers have taken the cdma support out of the code in their roms to shrink the size to fit on the G1's.
If I had a Hero I would be giving it a try most likely. I might try picking one up this week since Best Buy has them down to $99. I just wish it had a keyboard.

I'll try when I get home from work.
On a side note, even if this rom doesn't work, I should be able to boot into the recovery rom no matter what... riiiiiiight?

herzzreh said:
I'll try when I get home from work.
On a side note, even if this rom doesn't work, I should be able to boot into the recovery rom no matter what... riiiiiiight?
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Correct! The recovery image isn't touched by normal ROMS typically.

I'm tempted. Can this be applied right over the MoDaCo ROM?

I have tried a couple things with these. I tried flashing it outright. Wouldnt get past the initial htc boot screen. So I replaced the kernel in the boot.img of Cyans rom with ours, that still didnt work. Then I tried replacing the entire boot.img and still no boot working. I think Donut uses the 2.6.29 kernel or whatever it is. Ours is .27 so I think we would need to recompile the .29 kernel and pray our drivers work with it. Please, someone else try it too and see if they can get it working. I would love you forever if you could. If not, we will just have to wait until HTC gets us Eclair.

Thanks
Thanks for trying this, chuckhriczko and others.
I'm mainly coming at this from the pure Linux point of view: shouldn't these ROM's run anywhere (barring proprietary bits)? Shouldn't we be able to "share and share alike" between platforms, Hero/Dream/G1/whatever? If there is a chip architecture difference, fine then we need a recompiled kernel. Obviously there is also the question of firmware, but that's a given on all phones.
Otherwise, shouldn't these ROM's be fairly universal? Or if they are not, I'd like to know what makes ROM building such a unique endeavor for each phone.

5tr4t4 said:
Thanks for trying this, chuckhriczko and others.
I'm mainly coming at this from the pure Linux point of view: shouldn't these ROM's run anywhere (barring proprietary bits)? Shouldn't we be able to "share and share alike" between platforms, Hero/Dream/G1/whatever? If there is a chip architecture difference, fine then we need a recompiled kernel. Obviously there is also the question of firmware, but that's a given on all phones.
Otherwise, shouldn't these ROM's be fairly universal? Or if they are not, I'd like to know what makes ROM building such a unique endeavor for each phone.
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I believe it's mostly the proprietary drivers for some of the hardware as well as needing a kernel recompile...once HTC releases the CDMA kernel, I'm sure we'll see a lot more (that or some genius will reverse engineer it...either way!)
The other thing to consider is that most of these ROMs are based on something...they take what's existing and tweak the heck out of it (I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of ROMs can trace their roots back to an official vendor image at some point).
I'm actually trying to setup a build environment and poke around but I'm starting from ground zero on the mobile platform side of things so I wouldn't hold out for me (and finding a Java 1.5 runtime is surprisingly hard these days ).
I'm noticing that we're seeing more and more ROM's pop up (primarily gutted ROMs focussed on eeking more speed as opposed to MoDaCo who went for more features).

thecodemonk said:
I believe it's mostly the proprietary drivers for some of the hardware as well as needing a kernel recompile...once HTC releases the CDMA kernel, I'm sure we'll see a lot more (that or some genius will reverse engineer it...either way!)
The other thing to consider is that most of these ROMs are based on something...they take what's existing and tweak the heck out of it (I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of ROMs can trace their roots back to an official vendor image at some point).
I'm actually trying to setup a build environment and poke around but I'm starting from ground zero on the mobile platform side of things so I wouldn't hold out for me (and finding a Java 1.5 runtime is surprisingly hard these days ).
I'm noticing that we're seeing more and more ROM's pop up (primarily gutted ROMs focussed on eeking more speed as opposed to MoDaCo who went for more features).
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What OS are you using? If your using a Debian based linux then you can get it from the Debian Lenny repositories. One word about this though, it killed my existing Java 1.6 so I had to reinstall it when I needed it. Otherwise that works.
And yeah, we are primarily doing gutted roms because that is all we know up to this point. It is very difficult to find help from those who know all about recompiling a kernel and things like that. Like I said, I couldnt get Cyanogen to even boot on my phone but obviously, it should at the very least do that. But only one dev on these forums ever helped me with my CDMA roms and that was Mlign from the Dream forums. Everyone else (understandably busy) ignored me. Im not saying anything bad about them but it's just harder for people to learn. Patience will give us what we desire though.

vendor tree for cyanogen heroc
im a noob and dont know how to build it but its here:
http://github.com/darchstar/vendor_cyanogen_heroc

Thread gravedigging much?

yes haha i want cyanogen on my hero lol

Why it is so difficult?

I do not want to upset anybody, just trying to get some understanding of the entire upgrade to a new OS version.
I'm a programmer myself, but on Windows platform and mostly do middle tier business server side apps. Do not know a thing about Linux and android. But had some java experience in the past.
I wonder why we cannot get Froyo so long? Ain't the sources open? Even if we do not have some drivers, these parts cannot change dramatically from version to version. Published API must be stable...
Is this about Dalvik JVM? But, I guess this must be in released ROMs for other phones in the line.
What's the deal? Will appreciate some explanation here.

Android is open source, but that is only the operating system and the kernel, but the drivers and RIL that make the device actually functional are the issue as far as I'm aware. From what I've read here and in IRC, Samsung gave us a hack-job RIL, which is causing many of the issues with getting an AOSP ROM fully compiled and working. I think there may be some driver issues as well to be worked out yet, but I feel those are less important than getting things like phone/data/messaging working. I'm guessing there are more technical reasons why they can't just get 2.1 or 2.2 built from source, but those are probably the big issues.

Honestly, it boils down to Samsung.
Put simply, they're crappy coders (as HTC once was many moons ago), or they're just hella lazy (I strongly believe its the former, given RFS and this RIL mess). Most companies are pretty crappy coders, but most of the time, it doesn't interfere with major things, like OS upgrades.
That, plus the lack of effort or support on Samsung's part, has me never wanting to buy another Samsung phone again, or ever recommending an Android phone from Samsung....
I'm gonna do my best to find in my next phone another quick processor with a nice super AMOLED screen and be done with Samsung, I've had enough, and I'm a very patient person....

What is RIL? Is this Radio Interface Library?
Is it linked into kernel or other module? Not extractable at all?
As I imagine it to myself, if it is some sort of dll or package, it shouldn't matter if we do not have source, because it's interface have to be already strictly defined. It doesn't matter if it is buggy. It should work with any android version.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
P.S. I have Dell Axim v50x and people already created ROM from scratch! However it doesn't have RIL. ;-)

CNemo7539 said:
What is RIL? Is this Radio Interface Library?
Is it linked into kernel or other module? Not extractable at all?
As I imagine it to myself, if it is some sort of dll or package, it shouldn't matter if we do not have source, because it's interface have to be already strictly defined. It doesn't matter if it is buggy. It should work with any android version.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
P.S. I have Dell Axim v50x and people already created ROM from scratch! However it doesn't have RIL. ;-)
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if it could have been done, birdman would have done it already

Well I think it's a valid question. Some might think it tedious or obnoxious, but absolutely valid. This is a development forum after all. The reason we don't have 2.2 isn't a hardware limitation, so it must be a practical one -- or yes it would be here.
But I'll just speak from speculation in the hopes that someone will correct me. For god sakes this is a development forum! We've got releases, we have fixes, we have patches, we have complaints, we have gossip. I'd love to see all the _development_ discussion I can get.
From a wider puzzle-piece perspective, I would like to know what is missing. We have working drivers. We have working hardware. We have full source from Google for the operating system. There are several other android phones on Verizon, a few even have Froyo. Sprint currently offers a CDMA Galaxy S phone (Epic) with android 2.2, and that phone possibly shares some hardware (though the WIMAX radio is totally irrelevant to us).
I'm not up to speed on exactly what the RIL is, or how it gets plugged into the android kernel. The RIL (Radio Interface Layer) is a software layer between android itself and the drivers controlling the phone hardware. Google provides some samples for a carrier to create one to govern communication on their network. I'd expect one issue of randomly hacking something like this, is if you are taking over your radio hardware's communications, then you have the capability of putting unwanted data on the network, which might even be criminal. Am I being extreme? So, perhaps we can't touch the RIL and need to wait for it to be spoonfed to us by those that bought the radio band from the FCC. Perhaps this code is inexorably married to particular hardware, unavailable for reading, or even encrypted. Maybe the primary limitation is the royal pain in the apricots that it is to inspect, decompile, and reverse engineer binary code.
But what if we could do something?
My understanding is the RIL is only a carrier-specific interface to the underlying hardware. Shouldn't it be similar between phones, even with wildly different hardware? Shouldn't its interface also be similar between close versions of android? The Droid 2 is a verizon phone with a RIL that does indeed work with Froyo. What I'd like to know is A) can another phone's RIL be extracted within the same carrier, and B) Being the abstract entity that it is, what prevents it from being married to the Fascinate's hardware base?
To be honest, I ardently believe a frank discussion (sans opinions, complains, problems, just productive discussion w/ a smattering of facts) BELONGS in the Development forum.
I'll stop here, in case this thread dies, as so many of mine do.

Jt1134, adrynalyne, and fallingup(angel12) are all very capable as well. This is solely the fault of none other Samsung.
Edit: to answer your question, i think that.the answer about RIL is no, although i dont have a good qualified answer about why the RIL from D2 cant be ported im sure that if it could have, it would have. Sorry thats not a better answer.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

I don't know anything about how the RIL works, but I would assume that it could only be easily ported from one device to another if they were using the same chipset in the underlying hardware for the phone. I doubt you'd be able to take the Droid 2/X RIL, and take it to the Droid 2 Global or Droid Pro. Given that, I'm guessing that you can't really take a RIL from one phone and put it on another without extensive work, since most OEMs tend to use different hardware in their devices. From what I've heard, there is a semi-working AOSP build floating around, so the devs are trying, but Samsung's crappy source to work from is not making things easy for them.

There are actually some semi-working builds of aosp floating arpunfld but the last time I checked one out it was missing one thing that I consider to be kind of a biggie. It couldn't quite make calls. I'm sure they have it to make calls now but there is a reason its not out to the forums yet. I agree withstand nuts up there. Thanks you Samsung.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

ksizzle9 said:
There are actually some semi-working builds of aosp floating arpunfld but the last time I checked one out it was missing one thing that I consider to be kind of a biggie. It couldn't quite make calls. I'm sure they have it to make calls now but there is a reason its not out to the forums yet. I agree withstand nuts up there. Thanks you Samsung.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i believe there was still no radio at all in aosp, and the hope is that 2.2 can fill in the gaps

Wow, wow, wow!
Why do we need another phone RIL? Current one from SF at hand should do perfectly. Did Google changed something in android API related to a RIL? I don't know for sure, but never heard or read anything making me think they did it. Android should call RIL and that is set in stone. ALL calls signatures must to be known. Something new may be added, but it is not show stopper.
So, I still do not understand - is it not extractable or what?
Even if not and it is somewhere in protected memory, encoded or whatever, Froyo slapped on top must work, IMHO. And sources available. So, why we stuck waiting for Samsung?
I know, one may say - do it yourself if you are so smart... Once again, I just want to understand root of the problem. I probably can do something, because I have degree and experience. But, it will take me forever. From what I've tried and seen learning curve is very steep.
On the other hand, skilled developer might simply need fresh look at the problem... May be guys just hitting wrong wall?

CNemo7539 said:
Wow, wow, wow!
Why do we need another phone RIL? Current one from SF at hand should do perfectly. Did Google changed something in android API related to a RIL? I don't know for sure, but never heard or read anything making me think they did it. Android should call RIL and that is set in stone. ALL calls signatures must to be known. Something new may be added, but it is not show stopper.
So, I still do not understand - is it not extractable or what?
Even if not and it is somewhere in protected memory, encoded or whatever, Froyo slapped on top must work, IMHO. And sources available. So, why we stuck waiting for Samsung?
I know, one may say - do it yourself if you are so smart... Once again, I just want to understand root of the problem. I probably can do something, because I have degree and experience. But, it will take me forever. From what I've tried and seen learning curve is very steep.
On the other hand, skilled developer might simply need fresh look at the problem... May be guys just hitting wrong wall?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is it possible? perhaps...but the 5 or so guys who really develop for this phone havent been able to get it to work....nor is aosp working 100% on any galaxy s phone

Response from developers?
Anyone?

Yes, you know so much, we are waiting for you to fix it.
Hurry the hell up.

adrynalyne said:
Yes, you know so much, we are waiting for you to fix it.
Hurry the hell up.
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Agree get your ass moving so we can have teh honeycombzzzz. Quit being such a lazy stingy jerk and get us our AOSP!

ksizzle9 said:
Jt1134, adrynalyne, and fallingup(angel12) are all very capable as well. This is solely the fault of none other Samsung.
Edit: to answer your question, i think that.the answer about RIL is no, although i dont have a good qualified answer about why the RIL from D2 cant be ported im sure that if it could have, it would have. Sorry thats not a better answer.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
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yes i was just pulling one dev name out for the heck of it
but i subscribe to the "if it could have been done, it would have been done"

adrynalyne said:
Yes, you know so much, we are waiting for you to fix it.
Hurry the hell up.
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I don't care what you did for community! But you behave like f****g jerk.
No real explanation for the rest of us? Stay on irc, we will survive without your comments here.

CNemo7539 said:
I don't care what you did for community! But you behave like f****g jerk.
No real explanation for the rest of us? Stay on irc, we will survive without your comments here.
Click to expand...
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that may be a problem for those who just stay here as virtually everything is irc only these days...or the majority of it anyway

CNemo7539 said:
I don't care what you did for community! But you behave like f****g jerk.
No real explanation for the rest of us? Stay on irc, we will survive without your comments here.
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How many different ways do people need to say that "it's being worked on"? The devs are doing a lot of work on our device, but also working with other stuff, all in their free time. Follow the stuff they do on Twitter and github, or join in on IRC.
Attitudes such as your's are precisely why the devs have stopped posting stuff here. You act as though it's a simple process to do things, when it isn't, especially when Samsung gives you a crappy base to start from. The devs have to first get Samsung's source fixed and cleaned up, then start on whatever it is they want to work on, all while finding more bugs and issues that need fixed, primarily all stemming from the crappy source. If you want to be angry at someone, make it Samsung, not the few devs that are working on our device.
Sent from my StupidFast Voodoo Fascinate

As I said - I will survive. I'm OK even with not rooted stock.
Was it so difficult to answer what the real problem is? I don't know what is the problem with this generation? Do I need to be on FB, irc or whatever to get the answer? Why do not answer in place? Ain't it this forum purpose?
No, seems like I need to kiss somebody ass to get meaningful response these days... That way he can maintain his "super god" status.
I do believe I've been pretty polite stating my question, even though English is not my native language. What generated so much sarcasm?

[Q] Why can't we compile our own 2.2 OS?

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
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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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
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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.

Looking For Tablet ROM With More Complete S-Pen Support

Hello. I have written an app that helps to improve the accuracy of the S-Pen. It works only on Note phones because Samsung has compiled some S-Pen device driver interfaces out of the tablet ROMs. It is not clear why they did this. I have asked Samsung but gotten no replies. I have confirmed that parts of the kernel code is commented out in the open source kernel code (and you can see that some of the interface files found on phones do not exist on the tablets). It seems that the tablets suffer from the same issues related to the S-Pen as do the phones and I have many people asking me to make my app work on their tablets. I cannot do so with the stock ROMs because of the missing interface files.
So I am wondering if there any non-stock ROMs in which the S-Pen is more fully supported. The missing files are located on my phone in /sys/class/sec/sec_epen/ and the two files I need are called epen_hand and epen_rotation. If anyone knows of any ROMs for the S-Pen equipped tablets that provide these interface files, I would appreciate knowing and may be able to direct some folks to using them.
Thanks

I can confirm that neither are present in Baked build 8, it might be worth checking a dump from the note 8.0
Regards
Jack

JSale said:
I can confirm that neither are present in Baked build 8, it might be worth checking a dump from the note 8.0
Regards
Jack
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Jack, some replies to postings in the Note 8 section indicate that the two files are present on the stock ROM there. Interesting... I am downloading a dump of the 10.1 now to see if I can see anything. Thanks

Any progress on this? It looks quite promising in the note 8.0 forums.
Regards
Jack

whitedavidp said:
I have confirmed that parts of the kernel code is commented out in the open source kernel code (and you can see that some of the interface files found on phones do not exist on the tablets). ... The missing files are located on my phone in /sys/class/sec/sec_epen/ and the two files I need are called epen_hand and epen_rotation ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, since this is presumably a kernel issue, I'll look into it (PM me with your E-mail address) and IF there's anything that can be done about it (i.e., if the corresponding actions are available in the pen driver; it's not enough to just be able to integrate the sysfs entries) I'll add it into the kernels I release for the Note 10.1

kcrudup said:
Well, since this is presumably a kernel issue, I'll look into it (PM me with your E-mail address) and IF there's anything that can be done about it (i.e., if the corresponding actions are available in the pen driver; it's not enough to just be able to integrate the sysfs entries) I'll add it into the kernels I release for the Note 10.1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello and thanks for responding/helping out. I am certainly no kernel programmer. But I have downloaded the kernel sources for a couple official Note devices/versions. I have been reading files located in kernel/drivers/input/touchscreen/wacom paying particular attention to the file wacom_i2c.c. I cannot help but note that some of the functions which appear to reference the driver i/o files that are missing are #def'ed out of certain devices - see line 837 #if defined(CONFIG_MACH_P4NOTE).
I have no idea if the Wacom devices used in the various Note models are the same (except for size) or are similar enough to be treated as the same by programs like mine. Heck, I am not even sure if Wacom devices are being used in all the Note models. So I am afraid I am not much in the way of technical help here.
What I do know is that some custom ROMs for Note I and II phones seem to have been created with drivers that DO support and create the needed driver i/o files but which lack the device settings and other mechanisms which actually take advantage of these i/o files. Basically, they do not offer a dominant hand setting nor do they seem to communicate to the Wacom device when an orientation change is detected. I have been able, through my app, to compensate for these lapses on those devices and thereby improve the SPen's accuracy.
I have had users wanting to get the same effect on Note tablets with my app. So I presume they are experiencing the same type of problem on their tablets that I experienced on my Note I phone that led me to get into all of this. But I know that my app cannot help them unless the i/o files are there.
I was surprised to hear, over in the Note 8 forum that the files do exist on those devices. I know from a tester that my app at least runs on the Note 8. But I don't know if it helps any since that tester was not seeing the problem my app is designed to fix. But I read here that the files are not on the larger Note tablets. I don't know why and have asked Samsung and get basically no answer. My underlying assumption is that the Wacom devices are basically the same but I cannot answer why Samsung treats them as different.
I am sure all of this doesn't help much. Sorry. All I would like to do is try to find a way to offer support to the tablet users who want it.
Cheers!

Try this kernel: http://goo.gl/OBJ4O (PM also sent).

kcrudup said:
Try this kernel: http://goo.gl/OBJ4O (PM also sent).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im going to quickly revert from baked to android revolution to test this
I will let you know what I think.
Regards
Jack

JSale said:
I'm going to quickly revert from baked to android revolution to test this
Click to expand...
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No, this is just a kernel- you won't have to change distributions to try this.

kcrudup said:
No, this is just a kernel- you won't have to change distributions to try this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But baked is based on CyanogenMod, unless this kernel is compatible?

kcrudup said:
Try this kernel: http://goo.gl/OBJ4O (PM also sent).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sadly, I don't own one of these tablets (yet). But I have passed this on to a user who previously asked me (and got this thread rolling as a result). So perhaps he can check it out and try my app on it. If he does, I will certainly report back here. Thanks for your efforts.

JSale said:
But baked is based on CyanogenMod
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Oh, then yeah- as I suspect CM won't have any of the SPen goodies. My bad.
In any case, let me know. It was a very trivial fix and didn't appear to break anything. I don't use the SPen much at all, but a quick test with SNote appears that everything still seems to work OK.
(But I did notice that the stock Samsung ROM (CMD2) does set these variables, which is unusual as these sysfs entries "shouldn't exist", but it seemed to (re)set them to default values. I wonder if this is used as part of a version check of some sort?)

Well, after a little bi of testing, I can conclude that this fix has indeed improved the accuracy of the s-pen. It is hard to tell by how much, as I never had very terrible offsets myself, but at the edge of the screen, this has reduced the offsets by an observable amount.
Would it be possible to get the kernel fix implemented into the app so that I can use it on Baked rom ?
Many regards for all the hard work
Jack

JSale said:
Well, after a little bi of testing, I can conclude that this fix has indeed improved the accuracy of the s-pen. It is hard to tell by how much, as I never had very terrible offsets myself, but at the edge of the screen, this has reduced the offsets by an observable amount.
Would it be possible to get the kernel fix implemented into the app so that I can use it on Baked rom ?
Many regards for all the hard work
Jack
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow! Thanks for the testing and for the feedback on your results. This is quite interesting. I am not quite sure I can integrate this sort of thing into my app although it may be possible. The kernels for the Samsung devices I have looked at seem quite monolithic rather than modular. But I do know that one app, TouchScreenTune, does something that fiddles with the kernel in some way I do not fully understand. So perhaps. I would sure need help and direction. But it would be very cool indeed.

JSale said:
Would it be possible to get the kernel fix implemented into the app so that I can use it on Baked ROM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, the "kernel", the "ROM" and whichever app it uses are quite different things, but at least I can offer up the "commit" that makes it possible in the kernel (which has to then be pasted into a ROM). Have a/the Dev PM me.
whitedavidp said:
But I do know that one app, TouchScreenTune, does something that fiddles with the kernel in some way I do not fully understand.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most likely via a "sysfs" file, which seems to be the preferred method for this driver.

kcrudup said:
Well, the "kernel", the "ROM" and whichever app it uses are quite different things, but at least I can offer up the "commit" that makes it possible in the kernel (which has to then be pasted into a ROM). Have a/the Dev PM me.
Most likely via a "sysfs" file, which seems to be the preferred method for this driver.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I want to point users of my app to your kernel as a means of gaining more SPen support, where should I send them? Does the Kernel have a main web page? And if so, what version should I point them towards? Thanks

whitedavidp said:
If I want to point users of my app to your kernel as a means of gaining more SPen support, where should I send them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, right now the only kernel that's got this particular support is the one I've posted here- but every now and then I post up a kernel boot.img file for the latest Android Revolution ROM and for Darkman's latest Stock ROM and this patch will be included in those going forward. Most boot.img files among the various Note 10.1 devices are close enough that they'll almost always work for any ROM, Stock or Custom.
I don't keep any seperate thread or site for my kernel, as I'm really just sharing my own personal (yet improved and faster) kernel for Note 10.1 devices (and frankly don't feel like dealing with the inevitable newbie questions that a standalone offering would generate).
But I have a number of commits I'm about to push to my GitHub page; once I do that (give me a day or two, I've made some major changes to the kernel source and I'll need to verify all's well before I make them Public) I'll come back here with the GitHub commit web-page URL, then you can pass that to any ROM/Kernel dev and they can easily incorporate it in their particular builds (it's a really trvial patch, too- I just removed the 3 "#else" directives embedded in the "#ifdef CONFIG_MACH_P4NOTE" conditionals).

kcrudup said:
Well, right now the only kernel that's got this particular support is the one I've posted here- but every now and then I post up a kernel boot.img file for the latest Android Revolution ROM and for Darkman's latest Stock ROM and this patch will be included in those going forward. Most boot.img files among the various Note 10.1 devices are close enough that they'll almost always work for any ROM, Stock or Custom.
I don't keep any seperate thread or site for my kernel, as I'm really just sharing my own personal (yet improved and faster) kernel for Note 10.1 devices (and frankly don't feel like dealing with the inevitable newbie questions that a standalone offering would generate).
But I have a number of commits I'm about to push to my GitHub page; once I do that (give me a day or two, I've made some major changes to the kernel source and I'll need to verify all's well before I make them Public) I'll come back here with the GitHub commit web-page URL, then you can pass that to any ROM/Kernel dev and they can easily incorporate it in their particular builds (it's a really trvial patch, too- I just removed the 3 "#else" directives embedded in the "#ifdef CONFIG_MACH_P4NOTE" conditionals).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks very much once again!

whitedavidp said:
Thanks very much once again!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The app seems to work with this kernel :good:
kcrudup said:
Well, right now the only kernel that's got this particular support is the one I've posted here- but every now and then I post up a kernel boot.img file for the latest Android Revolution ROM and for Darkman's latest Stock ROM and this patch will be included in those going forward. Most boot.img files among the various Note 10.1 devices are close enough that they'll almost always work for any ROM, Stock or Custom.
I don't keep any seperate thread or site for my kernel, as I'm really just sharing my own personal (yet improved and faster) kernel for Note 10.1 devices (and frankly don't feel like dealing with the inevitable newbie questions that a standalone offering would generate).
But I have a number of commits I'm about to push to my GitHub page; once I do that (give me a day or two, I've made some major changes to the kernel source and I'll need to verify all's well before I make them Public) I'll come back here with the GitHub commit web-page URL, then you can pass that to any ROM/Kernel dev and they can easily incorporate it in their particular builds (it's a really trvial patch, too- I just removed the 3 "#else" directives embedded in the "#ifdef CONFIG_MACH_P4NOTE" conditionals).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really want to know what are the features of this kernel ... would i keep it or there are other ones that have this functionality right now?? OR could just this changes be added to the Stock kernel to only have Spen support .. as i dont want any OC or custom governers :good: :good:

whitedavidp said:
If I want to point users of my app to your kernel as a means of gaining more SPen support, where should I send them? Does the Kernel have a main web page? And if so, what version should I point them towards? Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
May I ask you what application you are talking about?
@kcrudup Have you already decided to release your kernel in a separate thread or not?