Epic Touch Rom Development Obsticles - Samsung Epic 4G Touch

Guys, I’m sorry if this comes across as being a bit terse, but I’ve been very disappointed with my Epic Touch. While it packs a lot of great specs, coming from the HTC Evo nearly 9 months ago, I’m very disappointed with the overall stability of the roms available.
Please understand, this is in no way a complaint about the devs. I’ve been here long enough to fully understand and appreciate the amount of time and effort they put into these roms, and I’ve made a few donations along the way.
I’m hoping someone more knowledgeable might be able to explain some of the obsticles in developing for the E4GT. Most of the roms I’ve flashed have looked fantastic and offered great features, but I’m constantly seeing issues with kernels relating to battery life, LOS, GPS, bricking, etc. Are we not getting the kernel soruce from Samsung? The phone has been out for about a year now, and we still don’t have official CM9 builds. Heck, we were even the last (In the SII family) to get the official ICS updated. Again, I’m not complaining about the developers. It just feels like they may not have access to the resources they need in order to build more stable roms.
tl;dr Can anyone familiar with ROM development on the E4GT please explain why we see so many kernel related issues? I would greatly appreciate your input. Thanks!

The et4g is one of the only devices if not the only one that contains the recovery partition inside the kernel. That makes the kernel very different from other devices kernels and is one of the main reasons we aren't officially supported by CyanogenMod. We have the kernel source but for ICS its only been available for around a month, and came loaded with bugs that take time for the devs to locate and fix. GB had alot of bugs in the kernel source as well but 90% of the custom kernels for GB are relatively bug free, I say relatively cuz no software is ever 100% bug free it just the nature of the beast. Give it some more time and the ICS kernels will be just as stable as the GB kernels, the devs just need time to iron out the kinks Samsung was nice enough to pass along in the source
We are legion, for we are many.
Sent from the DarkSide of the GalaXy with a MEK device

Are device may not be the newest kid on the block but we just got ICS w/ source. For how long the source has been out the devs have been doing a great job and the word on the street is that we are going to be an official CM10 device which is better than just being a CM9 device if you ask me.

-EViL-KoNCEPTz- said:
The et4g is one of the only devices if not the only one that contains the recovery partition inside the kernel. That makes the kernel very different from other devices kernels and is one of the main reasons we aren't officially supported by CyanogenMod. We have the kernel source but for ICS its only been available for around a month, and came loaded with bugs that take time for the devs to locate and fix. GB had alot of bugs in the kernel source as well but 90% of the custom kernels for GB are relatively bug free, I say relatively cuz no software is ever 100% bug free it just the nature of the beast. Give it some more time and the ICS kernels will be just as stable as the GB kernels, the devs just need time to iron out the kinks Samsung was nice enough to pass along in the source
We are legion, for we are many.
Sent from the DarkSide of the GalaXy with a MEK device
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Click to collapse
That's exactly the type of info I was looking for, EViL! Thanks! Any idea why they designed the phone that way?

thaprinze said:
That's exactly the type of info I was looking for, EViL! Thanks! Any idea why they designed the phone that way?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not a clue, I'm not sure if it has to do with hardware configuration forcing the software to be modified to function, if it was poor software engineering, or if they just wanted to try something new. I know it makes working with the kernel extremely difficult compared to other devices whose recovery partition is separate. Another major problem is the bugs included with source, they take time for our devs to find and fix in order for the builds to become more stable, I feel the major issue with that is Samsung made too many devices in the same family, gs2, all with different hardware configurations which require modifications to the kernel, making it hard for their developers to maintain the devics since they have to build a separate kernel for each device in the same family instead of one kernel that works on all gs2 variants with the exception of having to make minor changes for cdma, wimax, Lte, and GSM which would just require some driver changes and a little bit of minor code work. Instead they have to rewrite the entire kernel for CPU/gpu, network, display, ram, emmc, SoC etc for each variant of the gs2.
We are legion, for we are many.
Sent from the DarkSide of the GalaXy with a MEK device

Related

[kernel source][CM7/MIUI] SGS devs unite ! Samsung GB kernel port for CM7/MIUI

Hi guys,
I know that a lot of users or kernel developers using their SGS like CM7 and/or MIUI on their phone
but the high "battery drain" due to not fully implemented powersaving features [e.g. battery usage of 1-2% per hour in idle and very high consumption during data usage]
and some missing features in the CM7 kernel can be sometimes quite annoying for users that need all or most features of the phone
teamhacksung | cmsgsteam back in April (JVB at that time) had made an attempt to port the Kernel from Samsung's GB sources to get it working with CM7
there were several issues with stability - e.g. rebooting of the phone when activating WIFI, the RIL instability (due to samsung's proprietary RIL/modem driver), don't know about access to the external sd; to only name a few ...
so the majority decided to go the other way around - step by step porting features from the Samsung GB source to the Nexus S port of the SGS
at least the 3 mentioned
can be sort of fixed
- wifi instability (perhaps by force-compiling it via -Os)
- samsung's RIL driver (creating a prebuilt modemctl driver with -Os and stock setting and then using that in optimized kernels; meanwhile the new RIL is used in CM7)
- external SD access (might work with the kernel, the framework might need changes; or the kernel might need some changes that were introduced in the existing CM7 kernel, e.g. 2 luns in devs.c and some changes to the android gadget driver if that's enough)
I used the newer kernel-source from JVH (where deep idle powersaving mode [allowing several days of standby] seems to be working on stock roms and it being enabled in the config)
added the modifications to make it work on CM7 and added some of the newer commits to reflect recent CM7 changes
prerequisites to run it are:
- a Gingerbread bootloader (according to source needed for Deep Idle to work)
- a SGS (GT-i9000), since for the other phones captivate, vibrant there aren't any GB bootloaders yet
- lots of time, commitment and some knowledge to test it & hack on the source
the source can be found in my repo:
jvh_cm7_merge
or if someone feels like hacking on cpuidle/didle stuff on the currently used CM7 kernel:
cpuidle branch
(work mainly done by GuiperPT here; recent didle/cpuidle changes in cm7 kernel were committed/done by coolya (?))
I hope additional devs can be found to attempt to get this kernel working
Thank you for reading this post !
Love the enthusiasm of this guy!
Subscribed !
Zach, Tk.Glitch and Nikademus.. Rock this galaxy! (Y)
EDIT: Don't wanna press you, but can you open a twitter account auto-updated by github to follow all your works? I really like the way teamhacksung adopted
I really love CM7 on my SGS, and I would love to use the phone in the most complete way. So I think a ported Samsung Gingerbread kernel would be a fantastic idea.
Hope some of the kernel developers (maybe hardcore, i have always loved his Speedmod kernel) will spent some time on this.
Had this idea a while back (but would have no idea how to make it) - would this be for CM7/MIUI or GB firmwares? Cheers
Wow. What timing. I have been using CM7 for about 2 months now and I was just thinking that maybe it was time to pop a JVP GB build on to see how it feels. Some CM7 features I would miss for sure, but it seems to me that the speed gap has closed, and battery life on CM7 leaves me wanting (particularly in use, idle consumption has come a long way) and doesn't seem to have any positive prospects. No fault of the devs, who have put an amazing amount of work and progress into it, just a fact.
I was just cruising around to see what was what in the land of customized GB ROM's and stumbled upon this! Wouldn't this rock the casbah!
You rock, Zach! This thread should be sticky / kept alive! And +1 for opening a Twitter account linked to your git repo!
mchud said:
Wow. What timing. I have been using CM7 for about 2 months now and I was just thinking that maybe it was time to pop a JVP GB build on to see how it feels. Some CM7 features I would miss for sure, but it seems to me that the speed gap has closed, and battery life on CM7 leaves me wanting (particularly in use, idle consumption has come a long way) and doesn't seem to have any positive prospects. No fault of the devs, who have put an amazing amount of work and progress into it, just a fact.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny. I've been thinking the exact same thing. Popped JVP onto my brothers newly acquired SGS and I'm going to monitor it over the coming weeks to see how it performs. I love everything about CM7 except the idle battery usage and perhaps the battery usage during 3G. Damn you Samsung!!!!
EDIT: I wholeheartedly approve of this thread. Although I cannot contribute in any way due to no programming skills whatsoever, I hope some progress can be made
Necrolust said:
Funny. I've been thinking the exact same thing. Popped JVP onto my brothers newly acquired SGS and I'm going to monitor it over the coming weeks to see how it performs. I love everything about CM7 except the idle battery usage and perhaps the battery usage during 3G. Damn you Samsung!!!!
EDIT: I wholeheartedly approve of this thread. Although I cannot contribute in any way due to no programming skills whatsoever, I hope some progress can be made
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same for me, miss features in both CM7 and MIUI but the battery life kicked me away. I'm on F1 S2 JVP room now with beautiful UI from galaxy S2, great battery life and stable,been using for few days without any FCs. But Im still looking forward for every updates of CM7 and MIUI
+1 for twitter.
good idea and good luck man!
I completly agree with you zach, and if i can help , i'll try to
This idea is smart ... +10 bacon for you.
Why isn't anybody working on this?...atinm, codework, glitch etc... jump on this...asap
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App
siky_dude said:
This idea is smart ... +10 bacon for you.
Why isn't anybody working on this?...atinm, codework, glitch etc... jump on this...asap
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wondering too :\
siky_dude said:
This idea is smart ... +10 bacon for you.
Why isn't anybody working on this?...atinm, codework, glitch etc... jump on this...asap
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
they're probably busy with SGSII
and the issue is that GB bootloaders are only available on the SGS right now (and might only be available to the SGS in the future)
so it's hard for atinm, unhelpful and other coders with e.g. captivate, vibrant, etc. to work it
if I were in their position I wouldn't risk irreversibly bricking my device by flashing a SGS (!) bootloader on a non-SGS device
besides that most of the work would have to be started sort of from scratch for the other devices
so in each way it's a win-lose, you never get a win-win for all :\
(would be easier if samsung provided at least GB bootloaders for each device)
zacharias.maladroit said:
they're probably busy with SGSII
and the issue is that GB bootloaders are only available on the SGS right now (and might only be available to the SGS in the future)
so it's hard for atinm, unhelpful and other coders with e.g. captivate, vibrant, etc. to work it
if I were in their position I wouldn't risk irreversibly bricking my device by flashing a SGS (!) bootloader on a non-SGS device
besides that most of the work would have to be started sort of from scratch for the other devices
so in each way it's a win-lose, you never get a win-win for all :\
(would be easier if samsung provided at least GB bootloaders for each device)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah..you are right...but even if they would release the bootloaders for vibrant or cappy, it would still not be implemented in cm7 cuz its not cm7 protocol...i think.
But still...you glitch fugu guy(complicated name) and volunteers should get started on this ... i would help if i knew anything more advanced than instaling windows... lol.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App
Correct me if I an wrong but I believe we have captivate gb boot loaders available through leak from sam firmware. No source though
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App
You're correct. Only vibrant doesn't have gb bootloader available. There is no bootloader source for any device, almost definitely never will be - but that doesn't matter.
Sent from i9000m on cm7, with xda premium.
Great enthusiastic,......now if only I knew what it all meant! Lol +10 from me, and I guess you know why that is mate! Thanks for your posting
Insanity cm017/glitch v10c
Bump! Hopefully this project stays alive!
PaulForde said:
Bump! Hopefully this project stays alive!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't seem so.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App
Wow if that works it's gonna be awesome !

No stable Gingerbread on Epic?

Based on the posts I've read, is there really no official stable version of Gingerbread released for the Epic 4G, and are all the GB ROMs buggy?
And I thought that we would be working towards ICS for the Epic 4G...
I'm new at this, but I thought that Android being open-source means that it would be easier to hack and modify and less reliant on the carriers to release new OS updates. Have I gotten it wrong?
AndroAsc said:
Based on the posts I've read, is there really no official stable version of Gingerbread released for the Epic 4G, and are all the GB ROMs buggy?
And I thought that we would be working towards ICS for the Epic 4G...
I'm new at this, but I thought that Android being open-source means that it would be easier to hack and modify and less reliant on the carriers to release new OS updates. Have I gotten it wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android is by far the best medium for end users. But the major hold up is that the source code has been held out by samsung. There was a leak of the source code recently. The rom to look for is Cyanogen. These guys build it from the ground up with no source code. If you really want to try a gingerbread leak . This is a good one. He also has a 2.2 android that is complete no bugs. here is the link to gingerbread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1190337
And the link to his 2.2 http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1146630
At the moment I am using the beta cyanogen very close to completion. It is 2.3.7 and it runs smooth and fast. There are a few minor bugs like no 4g. The 4g was not a big deal for me as it only covered a small area for me.
Cyanogen link http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1299621
Let us know if you need more help
Can tell you are new. Gingerbread is still only a leak. However kernel source was released for 2 days. If you look in Development and read the OPs on the ROMs find one based on the released source like the one with Heimdall in the title. They are stable with no reboots.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
AndroAsc said:
I'm new at this, but I thought that Android being open-source means that it would be easier to hack and modify and less reliant on the carriers to release new OS updates. Have I gotten it wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes... You've got it wrong. Hacking can only get you so far... Major version updates require source from the manufacturers.
If you want timely updates switch to iOS. With Android it's not *when* you're getting updates but *if* you're getting updates.
http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans-visualizing-a-sad-history-of-support
AndroAsc said:
Based on the posts I've read, is there really no official stable version of Gingerbread released for the Epic 4G, and are all the GB ROMs buggy?
And I thought that we would be working towards ICS for the Epic 4G...
I'm new at this, but I thought that Android being open-source means that it would be easier to hack and modify and less reliant on the carriers to release new OS updates. Have I gotten it wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm currently running ACS' ICS beta rom. The ICS is just a launcher but its nifty. If you want a pretty stable eh17 rom w/o the ICS I used titanium to uninstall the launcher (and the other 2 launchers [beats me]) and used launcher pro plus. Makes for a stable gingy rom. I've also flashed the eh17 honeycomb explosion theme. Looks great and run awesome.
Supposedly nubernal fixes reboots... ill see as soon as I find time to flash
Lord Syrics Jr.
EPIC 4G
ACS ICS BETA v6
Eh17+ (soon nubernal)
There's always going to be bugs... Especially when devs start modifying what was most times just crap to begin with.
I strive to put out a stable ROM, but when you want to update something, something else may not always act as it did.
I'm in the midst of getting a second test version out of my ROM... Come back tonight and check it out. If you're into something semi-stock, then you'll like what i have to offer. =)
AndroAsc said:
I'm new at this, but I thought that Android being open-source means that it would be easier to hack and modify and less reliant on the carriers to release new OS updates. Have I gotten it wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For the most part, "Android is open source" only applies to device manufacturers, and owners of Google-branded Nexus devices. The latter of which have (nearly) all platform source code available in Git repositories, including instructions for building a source-based ROM for them.
Third-party manufacturers do not release the majority of Android platform code for their devices. Some of this, like custom UI code, is not particularly relevant to us. But other of this, including proprietary kernel modules and userspace drivers for peripherals, is very much relevant. Not having the source to this makes getting full functionality out of source-based ROMs rather difficult. It doesn't help that Samsung's devices are "uniquely different" from HTC and others which makes porting source-based ROMs to them painful to begin with.
Ok... so in other words, to have a stable usable and relatively bug-free release of Android OS, we will need the carriers to release some official version for it?
Not necessarily. However it is often easier to support a new version of Android if the manufactuer provides an update to it.
AndroAsc said:
Ok... so in other words, to have a stable usable and relatively bug-free release of Android OS, we will need the carriers to release some official version for it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. I've been running GB forever now. Most of the issues were temp slip ups with roms or themes. The only pervasive one in all the leaked based roms is the reboots, which frankly I never found to be as big of a deal as many made it out to be. Our best guess is that it is sleep related, so in other words, it only happens when your phone is sitting untouched.
I had them quite a bit, but really not a big deal.
Install ACS ICS v6, and the nubernel kernel, and the reboots aren't an issue either.
At this point I couldn't care less if the official ever drops. (Not that I think it wont, it's just, also, IMHO, not nearly as large of a concern as some are making it.) To the extent I DO care, it's only because it will probably consolidate the efforts of the devs. Lots of work still being done on Froyo roms, and there's probably some hesitation on getting involved in any particular leak, because you never know when another leak will drop and make everything you're doing outdated.
Edit: This is anecdotal, but most of the "problems" people report are from people who seem to give gingerbread a shot for about 5 seconds. I'm willing to bet most of them restore data, or a titanium backup, from their froyo rom, then attribute any problems to gingerbread being buggy. It's not. It's fine. If anything a lot of the real not-just-whining outrage is over how GOOD it is. (AKA, the leaks are so solid, what's the hold up exactly)

[Q] What specifically needs to happen to have wimax work on evo 4g using ics

I have a general IT background of 10+ years with basic scripting skills so understand on a general level about drivers but I have been reading for several months trying to understand the EXACT nature of the problem for why i still don't see a ICS rom for the evo4g with working (or semi-working) wimaxx.
Can someone please educate me? Here is my version....
Sprint has retired the evo4g via end of life decision process and so does not have a formal team working on an ICS build of any kind for my phone. I don't agree with this decision, but i understand why Sprint is not providing me with one.
Because Sprint has retired the phone, HTC is not doing any development for the phone and so THEY aren't providing me with any drivers. I'm not sure who of these two made the business decision, Sprint or HTC, probably HTC. Either way, no formal support from either of them. I don't agree, but accept that.
As for developers coming up with their own, this is where I'm expecting magic and so instead of just crying "where are my drivers, where is my rom" i am attempting to learn why they aren't here and am requesting an education on the subject.
From my understanding, AOSP is Googles contribution for free to the world. This is a great operating system for running phones for a variety of reasons. From there, manufacturers take the basic kernel and modify it to work with their equipment. This is where it gets a bit confusing for me.
I think that the manufacturers do two things. One, is that they work with chip manufacturers to obtain proprietary drivers for specific chipsets that integrate into the basic kernel. Two is that phone manufacturers ALSO modify the kernel so as to make a proprietary version of the kernel. So HTC made a propritary version of the kernel and incorporated SENSE (among other things) into that proprietary kernel, and hooked up proprietary drivers that may or may not work with the AOSP kernel to provide services such as video and wimax and sound etc.
I know teamwin some how reverse engineered or manufactured a wimax driver for gingerbread such that the wimax driver was available for the AOSP Gingerbread kernel, but teamwin or nobody else has done that such that a wimax driver is available for the AOSP ICS kernel
I know that HTC has wimax working on some of its phones that have ICS via threads that talk about it being leaked (i.e Nexxus 4g).
So here are some questions... I suspect none of them are accurately asked.
Version1
Does AOSP ICS kernel have the ability to have a wimaxx driver built/interfaced into it?
If so, is it HTC that technically owns this driver or another specific company?
Version2
If AOSP ICS kernel does not, does that mean we currently need both a specific evo4g ICS kernel AND the wimax driver built?
Or are either of these easy to build and we just need one part of them built...meaning the wimax driver is out in the world for developers now and all that needs to happens is for someone to put some "hooks" into a new evo4g kernel such that they would work with the driver.
I apologize in advance if i broke some posting rules. I can't post in developement section yet so i placed in q/a where it says "any question". I did some basic research on the subject so i'm not just whining i don't have my driver. I am trying to get at the specific thing that needs to happen for my evo4g rom to have wimax working on ICS.
My theory is "HTC owns the wimax driver for ICS but won't release the source code as they only want to bring certain wimax devices into the ICS generation. It is proprietary to a specific kernel so if it was released, it would not instantly work with the AOSP kernel and other kernels. It would still need further development (but on which end???). It is illegal and difficult for someone to reverse engineer this ICS WIMAXX driver. It is legal, but still difficult for someone to create a generic ICS WIMAXX driver. Since both are difficult they will not happen soon."
Thanks for your thoughts in advance.
*DISCLAIMER - everything I say below is based on belief and may be wrong.
Believe that the majority of what you said is correct.
Slight thing - nexxus 4g (I believe this is sammy/goog, no?)
While kernel may have specific customizations for sense, believe sense is built on top of OS (ICS) and not IN the kernel itself per se.
(MOST LIKELY SCENARIO): Believe that HTC has to release an update where ICS and Sense crap all play nicely together and sprint has to test it and release it and then xda devs need to fix it to remove bloat, optimize, and ensure no more CIQ-ish kind of crap or htc spy crap or root removal...can't trust any of these bastards. The update will have ICS + Sense + Kernel (including the proprietary or binary blob drivers for things like wimax, camera, screen).
(IDEAL SCENARIO): HTC quit being little Apple-tards, realize that their differentiator is that they ARE NOT a walled garden - that customer enthusiasm is a good thing. They get off their asses and send a working kernel source for ICS AOSP (just the kernel) to team douche/team win/team kang... somebody cool (officially or unofficially) and BAM - everything works great in the AOSP/AOKP world. I mean really - if we are going to be in a walled garden, is not Apple's the best? Why not just buy iphones if HTC's gonna be a giant douche? Turd sandwich or Samsung would be better options.
Please correct me if I'm wrong. This is a learning experience for me too!
Wondering about this as well. It would be nice if the source code for the nexus 4g(wimax) would help us on the EVO front.
One of the biggest problems for the ics rom is its not based on the kernel its supposed to be running. The kernel has been frankenkerneled from tiamats gb kernel with the correct settings to run as ics. While I know that the kernel has been updated to somewhat but its not the true ics kernel some of these other phones are running and also while team douche or team win got the wimax working on aosp gb back in the day...they are no longer working on the evo and also wimax back then wasn't a quick fix. It was on the back burner for the longest time. I commend you on wanting to work on the drivers and learn. I would start by contacting prelude drew via twitter and or atyoung the current dev for the mason ics kernel that hes had great success with. Those two could point you in the right direction or bring on board with them on getting everything working especially with your strong IT background it will come in handy.
Forgive my fading memory, but wikipedia reports Android supports wimax directly.
I thought I read elsewhere that 2.3 GB or 3 and on was supposed to support wimax natively - thereby obviating team win's wimax "fix."
?So ICS doesn't support wimax (or it does?) but we need a driver from the mfg? Is this a broadcom/qualcomm thing? Proprietary driver? Supplied to HTC as a binary blob rather than source?
Will we likely have a first breakthrough when HTC releases the source to ANY ICS kernel?
Will we similarly have a closer breakthrough when HTC releases source to a phone with wimax by same mfg?
What happened to the leaks? Ninja911? Fxck it seems dev has stagnated on these devices. So much hardware and we can't use any of it! GRRRR Why is anyone still buying HTC when they are cxckblocking us so entirely?
Surely if HTC wanted to they could release an ICS AOSP kernel source with little to no effort that works with AOSP roms right? They don't have to do any of their purported excuse for the delay (i.e. get ICS and Sense to play nice, right?)
As it is ICS AOSP can't use 4G, Netflix, Front Camera, HWA...?
On the E3d there's no 4G, no 3D camera, no 3d display, ...
HDMI/MHI surely won't work, will they?
Basically anything that makes the Evo special above a free android type phone?
Along with other issues.
GOD I'd LOVE a 4G working MIUI ICS, CM9, ... but it will never happen - just HTC's corporate culture? I think we have to vote with our $ and support Samsung or a hungry underdog (like HTC used to be) such as Huawei, LG?
Sorry for the vent. Please correct if I've miss-stated above. Learning experience.
My sentiments exactly...
I've been curious about this for the past couple months, I just assumed it was because Sprint felt the Evo4G had run its course, had a good life, etc, and it was time to retire it.
And then since Sprint was no longer supporting HTC followed suit by deciding since Sprint was cutting support for it, HTC realized it was kinda pointless for them to upgrade it. It IS almost 2 years old, so I'm not too irked by it, but I'd like to echo the OP's concern about them not just releasing some ICS compatible drivers for those of us with tinkering hands to play with.
*sigh* Guess I'll just have to wait until the LTEVO is released...
The evo was classified EOL(end of life) before ICS source was even released by Google, therefore HTC has no ICS drivers for them to release because a) they never built anything ICS for the evo and b) alot of the hardware drivers are proprietary and come from the individual hardware manufacturers and not HTC. HTC simply compiles the drivers into a final build to make each specific device function
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
-EViL-KoNCEPTz- said:
The evo was classified EOL(end of life) before ICS source was even released by Google, therefore HTC has no ICS drivers for them to release because a) they never built anything ICS for the evo and b) alot of the hardware drivers are proprietary and come from the individual hardware manufacturers and not HTC. HTC simply compiles the drivers into a final build to make each specific device function
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, so i understand that HTC and Sprint are out of it, but WHO is the manufacturer of my wimax antenna and is this antenna in any device that has ICS running on it? If so, I'm sensing from this post that even if they release this driver, it still won't help cuz the EVO 4g ICS rom's are actually frankensteined gingerbread code? That seems even weirder. Why wouldn't the EVO 4g ICS roms be frankensteined ICS code massaged for the evo from ICS?
Thanks for the term BLOB. I'll research how that interplays with kernel and OS version and driver and see if i can get a better handle on it. It just annoys me that i'm paying for wimax but in order to use it i have to be on older OS. This phone is totally fine for my basic needs and still has plenty of life left in it. They are accellerating the "planned obselecense" way to fast. Sorry for the typos...its late for me. Thanks everyone.
ittsmith said:
Ok, so i understand that HTC and Sprint are out of it, but WHO is the manufacturer of my wimax antenna and is this antenna in any device that has ICS running on it? If so, I'm sensing from this post that even if they release this driver, it still won't help cuz the EVO 4g ICS rom's are actually frankensteined gingerbread code? That seems even weirder. Why wouldn't the EVO 4g ICS roms be frankensteined ICS code massaged for the evo from ICS?
Thanks for the term BLOB. I'll research how that interplays with kernel and OS version and driver and see if i can get a better handle on it. It just annoys me that i'm paying for wimax but in order to use it i have to be on older OS. This phone is totally fine for my basic needs and still has plenty of life left in it. They are accellerating the "planned obselecense" way to fast. Sorry for the typos...its late for me. Thanks everyone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its Frankenstein gb code with ics code intertwined cause there are no drivers for ics that'll run the evo so the other kernel was modified to work for ics
I'm no expert on Android but I do understand operating systems pretty well, so here is my best guess as to what is going on:
1) A kernel is pretty hardware generic (maybe architecture dependent only) and provides various functions to the software that runs on top of it (e.g. the Dalvik VM that runs most Android apps and Android/Sense UI) and it is provided by Google. Each kernel will need to have certain features/capabilities that are specific to a given Android release (i.e. you can't just use a GB kernel with ICS since it will be missing some features expected by the ICS UI and Dalvik VM).
2) Individual manufacturers need to add drivers (kernel modules) in with the generic kernel from Google to support the specific chips on a given phone. So, for our Evo 4g there need to be drivers for the WiMax chip, camera, bluetooth, etc.. These drivers need to be updated for each new Android release kernel. Depending on how a release kernel changes, this could be just a re-compile or it might require somebody to rework the code. If the WiMax code needs more than just a recompile, then it is either a lot of work for an amateur dev team to try and refactor the GB WiMax code to work for an ICS kernel OR HTC needs to do the work and release it for us. Since the latter is unlikely to happen, getting WiMax working would require a lot of work from an amateur developer.
3) It is also possible that some drivers are just released as binary blobs that are loaded by the kernel. In this case, a binary driver that was compatible with a GB kernel may no longer be compatible with the ICS kernel. In this case if HTC doesn't release it, it would require a ground up write of an ICS driver for WiMax, which is unlikely to happen.
The above is my best guess as to what is going on as a general field expert on kernels/drivers. Since I'm not as familiar with Android specifically, I could be off on what is happening here. We'd need somebody who has played around with Android kernel development for the Evo 4g to say for sure.
bjohanso said:
I'm no expert on Android but I do understand operating systems pretty well, so here is my best guess as to what is going on:
1) A kernel is pretty hardware generic (maybe architecture dependent only) and provides various functions to the software that runs on top of it (e.g. the Dalvik VM that runs most Android apps and Android/Sense UI) and it is provided by Google. Each kernel will need to have certain features/capabilities that are specific to a given Android release (i.e. you can't just use a GB kernel with ICS since it will be missing some features expected by the ICS UI and Dalvik VM).
2) Individual manufacturers need to add drivers (kernel modules) in with the generic kernel from Google to support the specific chips on a given phone. So, for our Evo 4g there need to be drivers for the WiMax chip, camera, bluetooth, etc.. These drivers need to be updated for each new Android release kernel. Depending on how a release kernel changes, this could be just a re-compile or it might require somebody to rework the code. If the WiMax code needs more than just a recompile, then it is either a lot of work for an amateur dev team to try and refactor the GB WiMax code to work for an ICS kernel OR HTC needs to do the work and release it for us. Since the latter is unlikely to happen, getting WiMax working would require a lot of work from an amateur developer.
3) It is also possible that some drivers are just released as binary blobs that are loaded by the kernel. In this case, a binary driver that was compatible with a GB kernel may no longer be compatible with the ICS kernel. In this case if HTC doesn't release it, it would require a ground up write of an ICS driver for WiMax, which is unlikely to happen.
The above is my best guess as to what is going on as a general field expert on kernels/drivers. Since I'm not as familiar with Android specifically, I could be off on what is happening here. We'd need somebody who has played around with Android kernel development for the Evo 4g to say for sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're fairly close, the android kernel is essentially the Linux kernel, HTC doesn't build the wimax driver I believe its qualcomm that makes the radios in our devices but I'm not sure they make the wimax radio or just the cdma radio. They make a good amount of the hardware in the evo from radios to gpu to audio control components. Building the drivers isn't an easy task for any single dev without existing source to modify, even someone who does it for a living would have a long, difficult road to building a driver from the ground up with no preexisting source to use as a map I've been working on drivers for ics for a cpl months and its not easy starting with a blank page and starting code from scratch. Even with the existing aosp wimax drivers available for the evo, so much has changed in ics modifying the drivers is basically like starting from scratch cuz so much code needs to be reworked. It will probably be one of the last things to be added just like it was on gb
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
What about when they update the EVO3D? Will either the ics update for the 3d or when they release the kernel source for 3d ics help?
sinnedone said:
What about when they update the EVO3D? Will either the ics update for the 3d or when they release the kernel source for 3d ics help?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably not since the 3d uses a different chipset and the insides look nothing like the evo
sinnedone said:
What about when they update the EVO3D? Will either the ics update for the 3d or when they release the kernel source for 3d ics help?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Evo Design 4G update would help us more than the EVO 3D would since the specs are similar to ours
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2 Beta-6
Papa Smurf151 said:
Probably not since the 3d uses a different chipset and the insides look nothing like the evo
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was going on the assumption that the only roms with newer versions of sense that have working 4g are ports from the Evo3d.
you guys are nerds and i envy you all...
There is so much awesome going on.. our best bet, would be to grab the EVO design 4g update. That would be as close as we can get.
then someone can port it here
Hopefully HTC will release a source code for the kernel & or RUU. Then we can go from there...
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium
Thank you, i am learning alot.
Is there a page that discusses the evo 4g specifically and shows what parts are frankensteined and what are not. Ideally, something like
Radio
- wimax - unavailable
- cmda - Use ICS wrapper on Gingerbread kernel driver 2.2. wrapper created by developer abc. Gingerbread kernel driver - HTC Android 2.3 patch - version 12341
Graphics
- something - blob - developer xzy
- something else - blob - developer def
- something else - kernel driver - Standard Android 4.0 patch - version 5.6
Camera
- front - ICS blob - developer pdq
- back - unavailable
Microphone
- standard - ICS Kernel Driver - Standard Android 4.0 patch - version 3.3
etc
I would think that each phone has a "map" of what is available and I would think developers would share. Obviously the first thing I would look at on this map is what did Teamwin do? I can't imagine they created a BLOB, but instead did they use a wrapper on a Froyo wimaxx driver or a wrapper on a gingerbread sense patch or did they write it themselves.
Doing some research I've gotten this data...am I on the right track to build my map of the EVO 4g for ICS. Why isn't this public knowledge somewhere. I am trying and not being lazy...well, not super lazy...
I got this from the cm9 thread for evo, thanks people in there for posting details
mason v14sbc ics kernel (Nonfso nonsbc, hwa kernel)
back camera - system/lib/hw/1sd8k.so
Camcorder
libmediaplayerservice.so
libOmxCore.so
libOmxVdec.so
libOmxVidEnc.so
libstagefright.so
libstagefrighthw.so
@ittsmith, sounds like you are aiming to be the next kernel genius. With this type of info you will be able to develop on kernels for far more devices than just evo...
Anyhow, I am no developer by any means just getting into programming, but I wanted to lay out my train of thought and see if it stands up or has any insight.
Any manufacturer has to start with AOSP source, and then build for their specific device. So, if theoretically HTC was building an ICS kernel they would begin there, with the latest source from Google. Then they would add in the device tree, much like building a ROM from source only here we are talking core drivers and such for proprietary hardware, and finally build a custom kernel for that device.
Now of course these guys have full access to source and drivers and the like of which we may not have... Though htcdev does have kernel source on their site. So, like you said initially why not take the ICS kernel and make it compatible to EVO? That is exactly what HTC would do, and does for the other devices that are receiving updates...
I remember running gingerbread long before there was an update to the evo, and there were gingerbread kernels... So I am just thinking we don't have the tools and know how to get the job done but all the pieces may be there. I would say petition either toastcfh or even Adam Outler, as these two are pretty damn magical when it comes to Android devices and the linux kernel.

Proud But surprised new gn owner

Hey All! Just got my gn a couple weeks ago and I love it! I must say though I'm a little surprised at how few roms there are out for it. I know it's new and all but still it HAS been out since last fall! Is this how long it normally takes to build a fan base with these phones? I'm not complaining. I just found it curious, coming from the Nexus S to owning the new Android flagship that there would still be such relatively little support by now. Any takers on the topic? I'd Be interested to hear your input!
Oh By the way, I'm in no way bashing the phone or this forum. I think both are outstanding. Just making conversation lol
santeana said:
Hey All! Just got my gn a couple weeks ago and I love it! I must say though I'm a little surprised at how few roms there are out for it. I know it's new and all but still it HAS been out since last fall! Is this how long it normally takes to build a fan base with these phones? I'm not complaining. I just found it curious, coming from the Nexus S to owning the new Android flagship that there would still be such relatively little support by now. Any takers on the topic? I'd Be interested to hear your input!
Oh By the way, I'm in no way bashing the phone or this forum. I think both are outstanding. Just making conversation lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why do we need more roms? The current ones provide everything we need.
Same complaints about the epic touch, six months later there's a ridiculous amount of ROMs to flash.
it's better to have a few very good roms than a lot of roms that are not so good.
I just counted 25 ROMs in the dev section. Should our phones be walking to the store for us?
What more do you need??
Sent from the future.
Well take a look at the nexus s forum. there's a rom for everyone! One Can never have too much choice! And again it was just a question. No Need to get all defensive.
less roms equals the nest selection
I think the reason is that a couple of roms got such a headstart in users and features, the devs don't see a demand. Sometimes it seems like over half the GNex owners use aokp, myself included.
For me it's surprising to see so little in flashable mods. I'd love to try some roms, but they don't have a customizable lock screen or notification toggles. To me those are must haves, so I stick with aokp. Maybe when cyanogenmod finally goes stable, devs can use it as a base for great roms.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
I can see what you mean. I also came from the Nexus S, and I did notice that there are a lot more ROMS for it. But it seems like there is no low quality roms for the Gnex. It really is a casse of quality over quantity. And we also have some groundbreaking roms here, such as paranoidandroid.
Quality v.s. quantity.
Are you looking for ROMs built from ASOP or ROMS that are just a klang of another with skins?
IMHO, ASOP or CM9 is all that a person needs. Then add what you want and ignore the rest.
I think as far as ROMS go we have hit a plateau. Until the next release (assuming there are new features) nearly everything is available over the ROMS we currently have. I can see a few kernels coming up with new ideas but I think ROMS are as up to speed as we can expect for a while
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA
santeana said:
Well take a look at the nexus s forum. there's a rom for everyone! One Can never have too much choice! And again it was just a question. No Need to get all defensive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The fact the Nexus S has been around for a lot longer, that can happen.
santeana said:
Hey All! Just got my gn a couple weeks ago and I love it! I must say though I'm a little surprised at how few roms there are out for it. I know it's new and all but still it HAS been out since last fall! Is this how long it normally takes to build a fan base with these phones? I'm not complaining. I just found it curious, coming from the Nexus S to owning the new Android flagship that there would still be such relatively little support by now. Any takers on the topic? I'd Be interested to hear your input!
Oh By the way, I'm in no way bashing the phone or this forum. I think both are outstanding. Just making conversation lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gotta be careful what you say around here. I had opened up a similar thread where I was "complaining" about the Rom Support for the nexus and got flamed big time as effect.
Just watch out around here.. they don't like opinions
But coming from a sgs 2 I also was dissapointed to not find hundreds of different Roms for the nexus as there were for the galaxy s 2. Also every Rom on the nexus looks about the same and has about the same Features while for the galaxy they really differed.
I'm on bamf with bond Kernel and love them. But also waiting for an update from both since weeks....
-sent from my galaxy nexus
wait till jelly bean comes out
we have less ROMs coz they're all based on ICS , nexus S has various gingerbread versions too, not to mention it's been there for quite some time. as someone already said, basically we have everything we need with the current ROMs, except ParanoidAndroid, the only new idea could be a port of sense or tw for example, but then there's the same problem with drivers, certain hardware not working and so on.. Some people think for instance, that buying HTC or Samsung devices will give them more options, sense/TW roms and aosp/miui , and it does sound good in theory , but the reality is that u will always end up with a buggy AOSP experience (there's always something that's not working right-been through many devices and it's the same story all over again).
As a conclusion, people should make a little research before getting a device, if u like what sense or TW (or any other custom UI) offers u , then u should consider that device, if u want a real AOSP experience then the nexus is ur best choice. Not to mention that if u have a fetish to change the way ur UI looks u can always get a 3rd party launcher, AOSP handles it best coz sense or TW occupy more RAM and running a market launcher on top of all this just makes it worse.
yeah a lot of you guys make sense. I guess with all the options on the nexus s I had become a bit of a crack flasher. I just enjoyed trying out new and different roms and playing with them. but as someone just said here earlier all the ones here are pretty much the same. I'm using aokp now and I like it. I just also like other stuff too lol
thanks for your opinions everyone! keep em coming! great reading
I agree. I miss my galaxy s2 i9100. That phone has the most development. I wanna give you a reason for more development... it was expensive but it was launched everywhere in the world. Second you can run 4 different (base) types of roms.
1) touchwiz gingerbread
2) cm7 aosp based gingerbread
3) touchwiz ICS
4) cm9 aosp based ics roms
So you can see how there are always roms to flash. I loved flashing early builds as well. So I encourage more devs to build different and unique roms rather than taking features from other roms. Thanks
Sent from Galaxy Nexus
Consider it a blessing. Towards the dying days of the SE X10, most of the renowned devs had moved on and then we had a million different variations of every kind of rom you could think of. We had heaps of MIUI roms which were all identical but with a different theme. Same story with Cyanogen roms.
There's really no need to have a plethora of roms because they all end up being the same. Its better to have a selection of high quality roms to pick from.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
in my experience most of the roms available are just variations of stock **** by some kid who learned to deodex and root. because what the world really needs is another ****ty rom based on sense.
there are no GB roms, no roms based on some vendor-ruined stock build. just AOSP. there are few bugs, just awesome features. you don't need a ton of roms when you have that.
hp13 said:
I agree. I miss my galaxy s2 i9100. That phone has the most development. I wanna give you a reason for more development... it was expensive but it was launched everywhere in the world. Second you can run 4 different (base) types of roms.
1) touchwiz gingerbread
2) cm7 aosp based gingerbread
3) touchwiz ICS
4) cm9 aosp based ics roms
So you can see how there are always roms to flash. I loved flashing early builds as well. So I encourage more devs to build different and unique roms rather than taking features from other roms. Thanks
Sent from Galaxy Nexus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second that.
-sent from my galaxy nexus

Most stable original Rom? (CM10 vs AOKP vs CNA vs Slim vs other?)

I am wondering what the most stable and bug free original rom is for our phones. Any input?
Most sufficiently well developed ROMs will be fairly stable, and attempting to make distinctions will probably end up in hair-splitting territory. The phone hardware itself can also be a factor you could always give them all a try and see what works best for you and your phone.
smelenchuk said:
Most sufficiently well developed ROMs will be fairly stable, and attempting to make distinctions will probably end up in hair-splitting territory. The phone hardware itself can also be a factor you could always give them all a try and see what works best for you and your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok then I am asking what the most sufficiently well-developed roms are. Which one has the least number of bugs.
If its the phone hardware, then the rom technically does not have bugs, which I am not getting into.
I would rather not have to keep making those backups and restores of my things when I am sure people have already tried and can recommend something.
Thanks anyway though.
Aokp with ktoonz kernel!
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda premium
Vs threads are always closed pretty fast for good reasons. No one can tell you which ROM would work best for you or your device. Taking into consideration that all devices are not created equally and can fluctuate between stability. Some might have bugs on certain ROMs that others don't because of their devices. So you really need to try them out for yourself to come to your own conclusion for which one works the best or has less bugs for your respective device.
task650 said:
Vs threads are always closed pretty fast for good reasons. No one can tell you which ROM would work best for you or your device. Taking into consideration that all devices are not created equally and can fluctuate between stability. Some might have bugs on certain ROMs that others don't because of their devices. So you really need to try them out for yourself to come to your own conclusion for which one works the best or has less bugs for your respective device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
An actual BUG in a rom would be widespread for more than one device though. And the devs of the roms generally know about the ACTUAL bugs already.
I know very well that each device differs, but each rom is not the same. Thus Some will have more bugs than others.
I think this question is very valid.
I am asking what people have found to be the most bug-free for them. Not sure why that would validate a close of this topic. I even posted in the correct section so its not like I am a hindrance anywhere else or to anyone.
I am not asking which rom will work the best for my device. I want to know other peoples opinion on which roms have been the most bug free on THEIR device. Its a good reference point.
And thanks for the reply bigdog!
Slim rom 2.5 is easily best.
I am not a fan of aokp and ktoonsez kernel combo
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2
Wond3r said:
I am wondering what the most stable and bug free original rom is for our phones. Any input?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
m using black jelly 0.7 right now its stable for me so far......
My personal favorite original rom is AOKP. You get a pink unicorn with rainbow hair. And that's just the boot ani. On my device its smoking fast. Run TW during the week. Weekends, I run tasks rom. If I had to guess cm10 and miui and AOKP run about the same. All built from source. Right?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium

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