I see the 2 major ones are miui and cyanogenmod 7. I have cyanogenmod, but im not sure if i like it. Id like to try MIUI, but i see tons of different ones. Is there 1 official (latest) release for EVO? Thanks. Also, what is a good cyanogenmod NIghtly for evo? And whats different between those and the official release? Thanks.
Lots of new blood on tongiht, ok here we go:
Cyanogenmod has two basic release types: official and nightly.
Official releases are finished products, per say. Everything should work or at least mostly work (sometimes bugs make it in of course).
Nightly releases are just that: nightly. Those are snapshots of what the team is working on _right_now_. Because of that, NOTHING is guaranteed to work. Mind you, usually things do, but it's the bleeding edge line we walk if we want to play with the newest features first.
On the other side of the fence is MIUI. This project is closed source and run from China ... devs there do not post their code, rather post weekly updates fully compiled. From there some dedicated fans translate and port that ROM to us eager US users. There are two known teams who work on MIUI ports: www.miuiandroid.com and www.miui.us. They actually take a Nexus ROM and port it over to the EVO, then add the English translations. Because they are both pulling from the same closed source ... there is really very little if nothing different between them (I've even flashed one over the other).
In addition to the ROM, there will occasionally be "Language packs" released mid week to correct any missed translations (some apps/buttons still in Chinese, or the verbiage improved).
Biggest blemish to MIUI atm is 4G: it doesn't support it. As MIUI is released closed source the porting teams can't add the code .... and as WiMAX doesn't run in China the originating team can't be bothered to add it. If you dont mind not having 4g (maybe your city doesn't support it), everything else works and it's a fantastic ROM.
Both Roms have market apps that can help manage the whole flashing/updating process if it seems intimidating ("ROM Manager" and "MIUI ROM Downloader").
Also, i took awhile to setup a new homescreen on launcher pro, if i do a titanium backup ,will it backup all my widgets and whatnot? Im asking because im going to fresh to update my prl, whatever that is. What does that do? Thanks
I'd like your impressions about the MIUI update system, which occurs every week instead of nightly build.
What do you think of it? Is it something that CyanogenMod should put in place ?
Personnaly : I think it is a good method for testing over time. This allows to test more thoroughly builds.
It would be one thing if each nightly was lovingly hand-constructed by a single man working tirelessly to ensure that every day we had a completely new, solid build to flash to our phones, but it's compiled and posted automatically. Commits go in, it's built, and it either works or it doesn't. There isn't any testing being done aside from install a nightly and ***** if it doesn't work.
How exactly would it change if it went to weeklies except there'd be a much larger batch of commits to sort through when something inevitably breaks? Instead of being able to narrow it down to one day's commits causing an issue, now you're looking through seven days' worth of commits to track it.
All that moving to an MIUI-like weekly schedule would do is spawn a jillion KANG threads where someone is compiling and posting the nightly builds but also throwing in future commits which will just muddy the waters when it comes to actually aiding in the development by pointing out bugs. Almost no one will stick to the official weekly builds since they don't care about stability- they just want features now- so the official thread will be graveyard. And now all the issues will be spread out among every KANG thread so you can't see them all in one place.
The only way an MIUI schedule would work is if there was actually dedicated testing on each weekly release detailing what's fixed, what's broken, and what's changed by the developers/device managers in CM since that would be the only incentive to staying on the official weekly rather than the daily KANGs. Obviously this would be a lot more work on already-busy people that currently don't have to worry about it as the process is automated. They wouldn't do it (and I wouldn't blame them).
@yojlik thanks for reply. lot of thing i hadn't think about.
yojlik said:
It would be one thing if each nightly was lovingly hand-constructed by a single man working tirelessly to ensure that every day we had a completely new, solid build to flash to our phones, but it's compiled and posted automatically. Commits go in, it's built, and it either works or it doesn't. There isn't any testing being done aside from install a nightly and ***** if it doesn't work.
How exactly would it change if it went to weeklies except there'd be a much larger batch of commits to sort through when something inevitably breaks? Instead of being able to narrow it down to one day's commits causing an issue, now you're looking through seven days' worth of commits to track it.
All that moving to an MIUI-like weekly schedule would do is spawn a jillion KANG threads where someone is compiling and posting the nightly builds but also throwing in future commits which will just muddy the waters when it comes to actually aiding in the development by pointing out bugs. Almost no one will stick to the official weekly builds since they don't care about stability- they just want features now- so the official thread will be graveyard. And now all the issues will be spread out among every KANG thread so you can't see them all in one place.
The only way an MIUI schedule would work is if there was actually dedicated testing on each weekly release detailing what's fixed, what's broken, and what's changed by the developers/device managers in CM since that would be the only incentive to staying on the official weekly rather than the daily KANGs. Obviously this would be a lot more work on already-busy people that currently don't have to worry about it as the process is automated. They wouldn't do it (and I wouldn't blame them).
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I fully agree with what you say.
Nightly builds and test build are two different things. Probably it would be usefull to have beta builds with more frequent updates than RC's but that depends only on the amount of spare time the developers have.
I could see keeping nightlies the way they are. Just an automated build for those that want to try it. But it could be a good thing to have weekly builds if you are looking to possibly have more "stable" builds (or rather, not as eratic as the nightlies) available for the long periods of time between stable releases and/or release candidates. I could also see this a good way to minimize the freakouts that happen with some people when the run the nightlies. But, and there always is a but, that also would create more work for someone, so I guess that would depend on whether or not it is worth it and/or whether someone wants to take the time for it.
But I do feel that nightlies should stay in place. They become invaluable in trying to get a solid build and to take care of regressions quickly.
bassmadrigal said:
I could see keeping nightlies the way they are. Just an automated build for those that want to try it. But it could be a good thing to have weekly builds if you are looking to possibly have more "stable" builds (or rather, not as eratic as the nightlies) available for the long periods of time between stable releases and/or release candidates. I could also see this a good way to minimize the freakouts that happen with some people when the run the nightlies. But, and there always is a but, that also would create more work for someone, so I guess that would depend on whether or not it is worth it and/or whether someone wants to take the time for it.
But I do feel that nightlies should stay in place. They become invaluable in trying to get a solid build and to take care of regressions quickly.
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To address your first point, it would be nice to have a tested build for weekly release but you rightly point out the flaw: someone's going to have to test and document it. That's simply not going to happen.
Also it's kind of mutually exclusive- you either have weeklies and don't have nightlies, or you have it the way it is. Otherwise why not just say that every Wednesday's release is the "weekly" release and all the others are nightly? The alternative to this is to say that "no, the weekly release would be a more stable branch and the nightlies would be automatic" but that's the exact system we have now with RCs and Stable/Final versions the only difference being mandating a weekly schedule and I think we know how Cyanogen feels about release schedules. What would happen in practice is that week after week the "weekly" branch would remain the same until a point release happens. Which is exactly what happens now.
The reason it works for MIUI and won't for CM is because MIUI is closed source and CM is open. With MIUI you have to wait for the weekly release, there's no alternative. That can't be the case for CM since anyone can compile it whenever, and they would do it nightly if the present nightlies were to go away.
Obviously this is all a mental exercise but the fact remains that there's no practical way to implement a weekly schedule nor any benefit over the current system for doing so.
Perhaps both?
"Bleeding Edge" nightly for those who need their fix
Plus a more "Stable" yet regular build, could be weekly, fortnightly or even monthly.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Nightlies are tiring to keep up with, and where i am at, I suffer alot having to download regularly the whole 83MB to install on my phone. Having regular semi stable releases for new features is a very important.
What i usually do, is read the nightlies thread looking for comments about any problems being faced in the latest nightly, and based on those comments I decide wether or not i download the nightly.
It's kinda the same concept since the people installing the nightlies are acting as the testing team, but not in a dedicated professional kinda way.
I do the same thing--look for changes that impact me.
I don't flash every nightly, and not even every MIUI weekly
As we all know--big changes to CM7 are not coming as fast as they use too and nightly flashing almost seems not necessary--except for the addicts--
I was one, but now reformed--
It's fine the way it is, like rugmankc said you don't have to flash every nightly but it's good to have. I use to flash every nightly to but not anymore. Only if it's worth it.
Plus if there's something wrong with a new build, a fix is usually only a nightly away as opposed to a week away.
baseballfanz said:
It's fine the way it is, like rugmankc said you don't have to flash every nightly but it's good to have. I use to flash every nightly to but not anymore. Only if it's worth it.
Plus if there's something wrong with a new build, a fix is usually only a nightly away as opposed to a week away.
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I agree totally ....
Although a monthly would be nice at least some sort of stable build for all those who don't flash nightlies with the side effect of having lots of people performing some sort of a "long time" test.
At least certain builds should could be tested a little longer than 24 hours for a some kind of quality feedback if you can say so.
As most of the others here I check the changelogs for each of my devices and decide whether to flash or not.
Kelvino9 said:
Although a monthly would be nice at least some sort of stable build for all those who don't flash nightlies with the side effect of having lots of people performing some sort of a "long time" test.
At least certain builds should could be tested a little longer than 24 hours for a some kind of quality feedback if you can say so.
As most of the others here I check the changelogs for each of my devices and decide whether to flash or not.
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Nightly builds are NOT tested at all. Individual commits are but not the build. Only RC builds are tested by respective maintainers.
temasek said:
Nightly builds are NOT tested at all. Individual commits are but not the build. Only RC builds are tested by respective maintainers.
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I'm aware of that, what I was thinking of is that there should be a more frequent RC or beta release as the gap between official releases got bigger.
The last stable release was released in May and the latest RC by the end of June.
For flashaholics like us nightlies are totally fine, but for the more casual user converting to CyanogenMod a regularly updated release would be nice.
Is cyanogen finished with the mt4g? Will there be any more RC or stable realeases? Or will it only be nightlies from here on out? Will there be a 7.1 RC2 or stable coming? I'm being repetitive, but just looking to see if there is anymore development for the mt4g or has cyanogen mod 7 moved on?
Right now Steve kondik(cm) is moving get towards Samsung, save the hate, he will still be working with on cm but not as much. He has a team of developers working on fixing codes, bugs, an crashes. It takes time to up/create this room, since it runs on almost every phone. They have to test it on all phones, till the point of new new bugs or errors. As for our phone, same concept with testing. We see updates soon, just gotta have patience my friend
From my fist to your face, enjoy.
I've not watched development like this before, mainly because i've only had my evo since august and things were already running for a while.
What I'm wondering though is what the usual time frame is from new version release to fully functional rom? Looks like we are getting close with only a few things missing at this point for ICS.
Thanks
It could still be a long time before we see a final build with everything working since the evo4g is not officially supported for ICS the devs are having to code and compile drivers from scratch, if you've ever written any kind of code from the ground up then you know how long it can take you run into unforeseen errors, problems with code, typos that need to be corrected etc.
Hello guys. First of all I'd like to say I'm a big of of the work of yours. I have PAC on every device I own.
Anyways, I'd like to ask you why don't you make stables weekly, in any amount of time with some release that you know that will not bug or cause harm.
I mean, I know you guys do your best in every single nightly, but me as a every day normal user, I feel skeptical about updating the ROM because sometimes I forgot to backup something or I ended up upgrading while I'm commuting and the nightly of the day comes full of bugs and I end losoing some important file.
I'm sorry, I guess you guys have heard this question before, but I have to suggest you that.
Thing is, there is simply no way that PAC can extensively test the rom on all 100+ devices every week to put out a "stable" build that guarantees to be bug free. One suggestion for people like you who want stable builds could be to just flash the rom once a week or once every other week. The posts on the thread for your device should give you a pretty good indicator as to any new bugs on the builds.
The release builds for the Nexus 4 for example are ony release canditates, milestones, tries and they are pretty old. I know, that it's way too much work to build weekly stables for all devices, but are there any plans to create stable release builds of PACman with Android 4.3 for any devices?
I love this Rom and your work and understand, that it's not easy to merge 3 Roms together. But the bugs appearing are a little annoying and sometimes make the device almost unusable (touchscreen doesn't respond anymore, no inputs possible, need to force shutdown and cold reboot).
I would love to get a more stable build of PACman.