[Q] ROM based on Android sources rather than on HTC stock ROMs - HTC Sensation

Hi,
I'm relatively new to the whole Android business, coming from the Blackstone running Windows Mobile 6.1, where I did some ROM cooking. So probably I don't have that much of an overview yet.
After looking around in the Android development section for this device, I realized that most (all?) ROMs are based upon the HTC stock ROMs.
However I was wondering whether there are ROMs (or projects) with the goal of bringing the stock Android sources to our devices. I'm not that much of a fan of all these modifications the OEMs are including and would like to have as much of a vanilla Android as possible. As seen with the vulnerability of htclogger, this is a justified request as all added (unneeded) stuff is just another weak point.
I'm pretty sure that the vanilla sources won't be enough to get our devices running and there are a bunch of drivers, which must be added to get (full) functionality.
The ultimate goal would be to get some sort of scripts, which would automatically grab the latest Android sources, add the necessary stuff, which is needed to get full support for our devices, and build a ROM, which then could be the base for custom ROMs using the available tools/kitchens.
So, basically, before starting something, which already exists (but I couldn't find), I would like to ask you if you know of something that suits my taste in any sense? Or am I the only one interested in this way of thinking? Is there anyone who would like to participate in this endeavor when there shouldn't be something similar already?
Thanks in advance for any helpful reference in the right direction.
Best regards,
johnpatcher

There are a lot of roms with no-sense options and you have miui and cm7

xyqtt said:
There are a lot of roms with no-sense options and you have miui and cm7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, but all ROMs I've seen so far are based upon the stock ROMs and removed some of the included HTC stuff. There even seem to be some scripts, which would do just that after flashing such a ROM. I would like to go the bottom-up kind of approach.
As great as MIUI and CM7 are, both of them don't support the Sensation officially yet. Furthermore they try to be an alternative firmware/ROM and add a whole bunch of functionality for themselves.
Without looking into their building process, I could imagine that they are using the Android vanilla sources as a base, which would be the kind of thing I want, although I would have to investigate that further. Does anyone know something about this?

CM7 does officially support the Sensation, albeit in Alpha form.
What you want is someone to compile a ROM from source (AOSP) specifically for the Sensation but it would seem no one has taken up the challenge yet. Surprising really, there were 2-3 on the Desire

Related

Updated "Stock" ROM?

One thing I'd love to see here but really never have is an updated "stock" ROM based on the official HTC and/or AT&T ROMs.
What I mean would be a ROM that looks and feels like the stock ROMs in terms of appearance, configuration, and included software, but which uses some enhanced "under the hood" changes -- newer OS builds, possibly updated software versions, and maybe some "bug fix" tweaks, but no new software, no new interfaces, no new icons, no big changes in behavior.
I think would offer two nice things to the community: a solid ROM for users who want something basic and familiar, and a good baseline for comparing different OS builds and the like.
I have zero cooking experience, however, so I think it's a little beyond my current skills -- and I don't even know if there's some big technically infeasible part of this proposal. I would, however, be happy to help coordinate a project if this idea appeals to anybody with a little more knowledge.
Or, if this idea HAS been done and somebody can point me to it, I'd definitely appreciate it.
I have one of those in my Kitchen, I might release it if I ever get all the bugs out.
3.34 HTC WWE ROM with the Latest Official Blackstone ROM ported into it.
In the mean time, why not request it : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=410975
Thanks
Dave
typo said:
One thing I'd love to see here but really never have is an updated "stock" ROM based on the official HTC and/or AT&T ROMs.
What I mean would be a ROM that looks and feels like the stock ROMs in terms of appearance, configuration, and included software, but which uses some enhanced "under the hood" changes -- newer OS builds, possibly updated software versions, and maybe some "bug fix" tweaks, but no new software, no new interfaces, no new icons, no big changes in behavior.
I think would offer two nice things to the community: a solid ROM for users who want something basic and familiar, and a good baseline for comparing different OS builds and the like.
I have zero cooking experience, however, so I think it's a little beyond my current skills -- and I don't even know if there's some big technically infeasible part of this proposal. I would, however, be happy to help coordinate a project if this idea appeals to anybody with a little more knowledge.
Or, if this idea HAS been done and somebody can point me to it, I'd definitely appreciate it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Take a look a the NATF(Not A Treo Fan)'s ROMS. They are the ATT version with some of the bloatware stripped out. Much better performance. This was the first ROM I ever flashed because I liked how close it was to stock.
look up the user nothrills. all his roms are stock with performance mods; afcourse haven't seen him release anything of late so don't know where he went off to.

Developers of ROMs

Would it not be easier to get together and create a single ROM? If JF releases a version now, there will be what? 3? 4?
So now all themers need to create 3 or 4 ports. Also, I have noticed that a lot of these different ROMs come pre-themed. Isn't this a bit redundant?
Personally I would like a plain-jane ROM without anything added (with the exception of root). Then you can add the options you like as we have in the past rather than have them spoon fed to us whether we like them or not.
Not really. if you are familiar with how rom cooking went with teh other htc phones, each has their own style. Once we get past the "beta" mode of these roms and they are more official, the cookers will be able to theme and do that stuff on their own. You would then pick roms based on features/themes/addons that you like instead of just going with the newest one that is out like we are now.
Agreed! (This text is just to pass 10 char limit)
Darkrift said:
Not really. if you are familiar with how rom cooking went with teh other htc phones, each has their own style.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed. That was half the reason I loved recooking my old Apache every week.
but arnt all these builds just different attempts at getting a working 1.5 build?
Freedomcaller said:
but arnt all these builds just different attempts at getting a working 1.5 build?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not any longer. The official 1.5 has been released and therefore should just simply be giving people root and adding other options.
well no, the official hasnt been released till tmo sends it as an OTA. they will add their own "style" (junk apps, and some good stuff if we are lucky) to it and then we will have official builds. Once that happens, there will just need to be root/themes/modifications. each cook will add his own ideas into his roms and will have his own followers. There will continue to be branches off of each style as we have seen with JF > lucidrem, haykuro > TheDude etc.
I remember when JF made his first rom and I started hoping this would happen. It did not seem like it would based on what was required, but we are fast approaching a rom kitchen like environment in Android where any custom build you can dream will be available. Lets see the iphone do that!
Good point DarkRift....
I went ahead and tested out Haykuro's version and while it's pretty stable, hate the fact that half of my apps no longer work. For this reason, I'm probably going back to JF1.43 until the devs have time to get the software working on 1.5.
momentarylapseofreason said:
Personally I would like a plain-jane ROM without anything added (with the exception of root). Then you can add the options you like as we have in the past rather than have them spoon fed to us whether we like them or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
100% agree ...
We developers have to support 3, 4 or more different roms (different app2sd-mods not included) - that generates an unbelievable workload!
So, why not having one single base (a plain-jane rom) and all firmware-"modders" could publish one single "update.zip" (which can be applied to this basic rom) to make (specified) changes (like I've done with my kernel-update for ADP1.5 - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=3699701&postcount=157)
harry_m said:
100% agree ...
We developers have to support 3, 4 or more different roms (different app2sd-mods not included) - that generates an unbelievable workload!
So, why not having one single base (a plain-jane rom) and all firmware-"modders" could publish one single "update.zip" (which can be applied to this basic rom) to make (specified) changes (like I've done with my kernel-update for ADP1.5 - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=3699701&postcount=157)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
100% Disagree ....
In my past experience with a few htc wm phones, I've seen that competition between the rom "cooks" is exactly what drives them to create the next greatest rom! If they all teamed up then there wouldn't be any roms to compete against and they might lose their desire to keep improving.
And as to the extra workload for devs.... unless you are themeing, there is no extra work required? I am developing for android and the only extra workload I have is making sure my stuff works with both 1.1 and 1.5... the specific rom makes no difference. Edit: I see you are the dev of wifi tether... in which case I'm obviously completely wrong, and I agree it must be a pain in the ass(in your scenario) to make your stuff work in every rom.
This whole conversation is moot anyways, because it will never happen. Even if the current "cooks" all teamed up and worked on one rom, new people would come along who want to make their OWN rom that's different, and the cycle would continue.
The growth of new Dev's are pretty exciting for me. I love to see that we have options, everyday I have something to look forward to with all these new builds, and I hope more Dev's jump on in with new and fresh ideas. Hey you never know some one can jump in XDA with a genius mind and make our UI look like the Ophone. Now wouldn't that excite you knowing you can jump to that rom instead of being stuck on 1?
Darkrift said:
well no, the official hasnt been released till tmo sends it as an OTA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Incorrect. HTC has released 1.5 as an update for ADP (Dev) phones. So it *is* officially out there for Dev phones, just not an "official" TMo release for TMo branded G1s, which personally I don't particularly care about anyway (
) as I'd always take a manufacturer rom over a carrier one. I'd expect a TMo 1.5 to be practically the same as the HTC one, with additional bloatware!
Regards,
Dave
I love having all of these roms to choose from. I'm just having trouble deciding whether to give up the pdf reader, HTC VK and camera, for the ADP1.5H with multitouch. I'm thinking that sooner or later, I will be able to have all of those things in one rom though.
I am still on Haykuro's HTC build, and my phone is waaaay more exciting than the fruit phone!
The only thing that I can see wrong with this phone now, is that HTC didn't include more internal memory from the beginning. Even with the apps to sd fixes, there are still problems which crop up with those.
Azlum said:
100% Disagree ....
In my past experience with a few htc wm phones, I've seen that competition between the rom "cooks" is exactly what drives them to create the next greatest rom! If they all teamed up then there wouldn't be any roms to compete against and they might lose their desire to keep improving.
And as to the extra workload for devs.... unless you are themeing, there is no extra work required? I am developing for android and the only extra workload I have is making sure my stuff works with both 1.1 and 1.5... the specific rom makes no difference. Edit: I see you are the dev of wifi tether... in which case I'm obviously completely wrong, and I agree it must be a pain in the ass(in your scenario) to make your stuff work in every rom.
This whole conversation is moot anyways, because it will never happen. Even if the current "cooks" all teamed up and worked on one rom, new people would come along who want to make their OWN rom that's different, and the cycle would continue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Quality over Quantity. If they all hooked up together and made on EPIC 1.5 ROM that was plain jane but 110% stable, i would love them for it. But in the end, im waiting for JF's build. Im sure thats what he is doing.
As has been stated by people such as "Big in Japan" though....
Big In Japan said:
Android 1.5 presents more than a few problems for developers. According to Alexander Muse, applications currently running on Android won’t necessarily be compatible with Cupcake 1.5; that means a mad rush to download the new firmware and rebuild their software. Compounding the problem is the fact that the Android Market won’t allow more than one version of an app, which means developers aren’t able to simply create a new, 1.5-friendly update and leave the existing version in place for those without Cupcake. Instead, Big in Japan face creating a new build that’s also backward compatible with earlier versions of Android, something they conservatively estimate should normally take around two to three weeks of development.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So basically, if there are ROMs that affect the software, devs will need to "choose" which ROM to use their software on. Although this is a little extreme and MOST of the time this won't be an issue, what if ROM cooking goes that far? Will you be willing to deal without applications that you use to have something else?
Just something to keep in mind.
momentarylapseofreason said:
So basically, if there are ROMs that affect the software, devs will need to "choose" which ROM to use their software on. Although this is a little extreme and MOST of the time this won't be an issue, what if ROM cooking goes that far? Will you be willing to deal without applications that you use to have something else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If the developers were using private APIs during the development of their application, then the fact they are broken on Cupcake is likely to be their own fault for using an API which is not necessarily static and therefore liable to change. If they only used public APIs, then it is Googles fault for changing those APIs, or the behaviour of those APIs.
This is one of the "problems" with Android being open source - you can't realistically hide the private APIs from developers since they can see them being used in the source code, and thus may be tempted to use them when in reality they should be restricting themselves to just the public APIs to ensure forwards and backwards compatibility.
Regards,
Dave
I have to agree with everyone who wants to keep things in one.
This does NOT mean that different people can't add particular modifications to what is available, it just means distributing these things as smaller components.
Start with the stock ADP1.5 image. If you want multitouch, apply the update.zip that provides multitouch (and nothing else). If you want tethering, apply the update.zip that provides the kernel with netfilter. If you want a skin (or whatever you want to call it), apply the update.zip that provides it. There is no point in bundling everything together in full system images since all this does is it makes the downloads huge and creates incompatibilities.
For example, I have always used the stock ADP firmware. I have looked at JF's full go and found that while nice, it adds things that I don't want and leaves out things that I do want, which means that it would end up being equal work to adjust those builds into something that I want as it would end up being to modify the stock image. The deciding factor is that I know exactly how my changes work against the stock image and I don't necessarily know what changes JF has made to his.
Actually since most builds are only file-based (i.e. changing some files in /system), could we make a program that (with root, of course) download the difference and apply them? Like an android market for firmware builds or say an apt for android.
Then user get the freedom to choose what they want and can go back to previous versions easily when things go wrong.
To be safe, it could just use symbolic links to apply updates, so restoring will be easier and gives the internal flash a longer life.

[Q] Differences - Prime and Revolver

What is the difference between the 2 ROMS?
When I do a search all I see are comments like "I'm using X and it's great!"
If there's a list of ROMS with notes about what makes one so great over the other that would be appreciative.
I would like to know this as well.
robojerk said:
What is the difference between the 2 ROMS?
When I do a search all I see are comments like "I'm using X and it's great!"
If there's a list of ROMS with notes about what makes one so great over the other that would be appreciative.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think an even better question is "What is the difference between STOCK, Revolver and Prime?"
Revolver 2.5's changelog contains "Improved battery life". Compared to what? Stock 3.2 (8.6.5.9)? Prior Stock 3.2? Prime? Revolver 2.1?
Similarly, PRIME 1.8.2 changelog shows "Choice of Touchpad Circles or Mouse Arrow" and "Lots of bugs fixed (Rotate, Compass, Wifi disconnects)", etc. Are these not in the STOCK 8.6.5.9 as well? (yes, they are)
Disclosure: I've run all versions and don't see much difference between any of them, but I'm currently on PRIME 1.8.4
jhanford,
Good point. That's what I do not understand about these "custom" roms. Seems like they offer the same functions/features as the stock rom so I do not know what exactly is the advantage of using them.
Install them and test them yourself, the proof of wether or not they are better can only be judged by your own user experience and not by what others proclaim.
I noticed a significant performance improvement after flashing Revolver compared to stock.
My browser also no longer randomly locks up and quits when going to sites with flash advertisements. YMMV, of course.
There's not really much difference between the three of them since the source code isn't released and not a lot can be changes. The latter two "custom" roms just have a few tweaks included that make it slightly faster and they usually include special kernel modules such as tunneling, governors, and sound improvements/fixes.
I've ran all three and the difference is minimal as of the current firmware since a lot of stuff is now fixed. Before 3.2 Prime and Clemsyn/Revolver were a lot more useful since IMO they were a lot faster than the official version of 3.1.
I am currently on latest version of Prime but very tempted to give Revoler a try. The only thing stopping is that I do not want to waste the countless hours that I put in to create the "Hubs"
I don't think you'll see significant customizations until Ice Cream Sandwich and the next generation of tablets come out. If you look at the overall history of custom ROMs on Android, they've basically fallen into two camps:
1. Taking something from a newer device that's not officially available for given older device and porting it. That can be new versions of the OS itself, or it could be vendor customizations like newer versions of Sense in the HTC world. Right now, all Honeycomb tablets are getting fast updates to the latest version. As for vendor customizations, there aren't heavy customizations to begin with. Vendors are mostly competing on hardware design right now, throwing in a few widgets and apps that may or may not be useful. But usually customization ports stay within a brand (i.e., an older HTC Sense device gets a newer HTC Sense version). That can be for both technical and legal reasons (even within vendors it might be a legal gray area, but it's generally tolerated). But we're still in the first generation of Honeycomb tablets for all vendors, so even the small customizations that vendors are doing are already on the devices in question.
2. Building a customized ROM from the OS source, aka Cyanogen. Since Honeycomb isn't open source, no dice there. ICS is supposed to return to an open source license.
I don't mean to trivialize what the authors of the custom ROMs that do exist have accomplished. I haven't even tried them yet. There even may be significant improvements they have been able to do within the limits of what they have. But overall, it's going to be nothing like what exists on the phone side, where vendors are improving their custom skins from one generation to the next, there are 3+ major generations to work with, and the source is available. Tablets will get there in a generation or two.
Also remembr that the custom roms are deodexed. The hulu flash mod only plays well with the deodexed roms. But really there isnt much differences bc there is no source so that limits the dev capabilities for now
Sent from my Samsung Epic
ajamils said:
I am currently on latest version of Prime but very tempted to give Revoler a try. The only thing stopping is that I do not want to waste the countless hours that I put in to create the "Hubs"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What hubs do you speak of?
Rackers said:
What hubs do you speak of?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check the thread here.
Back to topic: I took the plunge and installed latest Revolver. So far, I have not found any difference between Revolver and Prime or maybe I just haven't tested it enough yet.
Have you noticed any difference in battery life between the two?
Rackers said:
Have you noticed any difference in battery life between the two?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really. Then again, I haven't used it much since I flashed revolver.

Anyone porting a pure AOSP to Doubleshot?

We seem to have a great selection of other ROMs, from CM, AOKP, etc. but I never see just an AOSP ROM for this device. It would be great to compare the "Nexus Experience" for the Doubleshot, I think.
Well, technically Cyanogen Mod is the greatest AOSP ROM out there. As far as I know nobody writes anything from the ground up. At least if I understand how everything all goes together. Now, someone may very well use their base code & do all their own coding for add-ons & customizations but I'm not sure who or which ROM you may be talking about. My wife has a Nexus 4 so I have been browsing their forums but that's the way it seems to me.
Well you wouldn't port an aosp ROM as the base wouldn't be aosp, so it would need to be built from source if you want true aosp. This is of course much more complicated on a phone like this where there is no aosp source other than from the SDK, its doable but would require lots of hard work
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
demkantor said:
Well you wouldn't port an aosp ROM as the base wouldn't be aosp, so it would need to be built from source if you want true aosp. This is of course much more complicated on a phone like this where there is no aosp source other than from the SDK, its doable but would require lots of hard work
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SEE! I told ya I wasn't sure. LMAO! :laugh:
demkantor said:
Well you wouldn't port an aosp ROM as the base wouldn't be aosp, so it would need to be built from source if you want true aosp. This is of course much more complicated on a phone like this where there is no aosp source other than from the SDK, its doable but would require lots of hard work
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would love to try this, and I've gone far enough to setup everything on my linux box. I got to the point of downloading the source files, and I'm not sure where to go from there. Reason being that I know that most of the phone sensors and components wont work without the proprietary drivers and other required software for the phone. I don't know where to find them, and if I managed to get them, how to integrate them into the source tree. I have looked through the developers reference thread, but not sure whats needed from there to get all the stuff needed.
I think I'm in over my head lol
Fuzi0719 said:
We seem to have a great selection of other ROMs, from CM, AOKP, etc. but I never see just an AOSP ROM for this device. It would be great to compare the "Nexus Experience" for the Doubleshot, I think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I gotta say, I only just got into the ROM bizness. Was running fully stock, locked GB rom on this phone until a few weeks ago. After some research and lots of reading through these forums I settled on the Unofficial CM 10.1 JB rom here, and absolutely love it. I can't believe what amazing crew of dev's we have here that are bringing new life to this great hardware, but unsupported handset!
Suffice to say it's been my ONLY other experience compared to stock, but I'm using it as a daily driver with nearly no issues, and some have even been fixed since my first flash a few weeks ago. Can't thank this forum enough. Now if only I could post in the development forums without having to make 9 more BS posts I'd be a happy camper!

[Q] VilleC2 and Android Lollipop

Hi to everyone reading this
I am a fairly long time user of xda, usually just lurking and watching threads as they go along, but have now decided to try my hand at developing a rom or two for our (unfortunately) long forgotten villec2, since everyone seems to develop for the S4 variant. I have seen android 5 ported to the S4 variant, and I would like to know if what I am trying to do is at all possible, and if it is, if anyone can point me in a starting direction.
What I am trying to accomplish, is to get a working (bootable, not much else) rom that can boot up on my phone, and then from there add drivers/modules (unsure about naming conventions used in android, coming from a java/C++ background) for the different phone functions as I learn more about the system. So far, I have not found much on upgrading device trees / vendor files (not even exactly sure what these are for since most I see are completely different, even for the same version of android) from 4.4 to 5.0.1, and if I should simply write many of these files from scratch. I know this is a huge en devour, and I am in for much frustration, but I am doing it for two main reasons. One, everyone seems to have forgotten the villec2 device, and I feel like I will still be using it for quite a long time, and being able to use the latest and greatest in android technology will be quite nice to say the least. And two, I am doing it for learning, broadening my own experience with android, since I have yet to really write my own rom, I have only done a few rough builds from other people's repositories like cm.
At this point, I have a AOSP build environment from the master branch, have not yet done a build from it, and would just like any nudge someone can give me in a starting direction. Would it be possible to obtain some of the files I need for android L from my current device,, which is running a android 4 variant? Should I look elsewhere for these files?
niekz said:
Hi to everyone reading this
I am a fairly long time user of xda, usually just lurking and watching threads as they go along, but have now decided to try my hand at developing a rom or two for our (unfortunately) long forgotten villec2, since everyone seems to develop for the S4 variant. I have seen android 5 ported to the S4 variant, and I would like to know if what I am trying to do is at all possible, and if it is, if anyone can point me in a starting direction.
What I am trying to accomplish, is to get a working (bootable, not much else) rom that can boot up on my phone, and then from there add drivers/modules (unsure about naming conventions used in android, coming from a java/C++ background) for the different phone functions as I learn more about the system. So far, I have not found much on upgrading device trees / vendor files (not even exactly sure what these are for since most I see are completely different, even for the same version of android) from 4.4 to 5.0.1, and if I should simply write many of these files from scratch. I know this is a huge en devour, and I am in for much frustration, but I am doing it for two main reasons. One, everyone seems to have forgotten the villec2 device, and I feel like I will still be using it for quite a long time, and being able to use the latest and greatest in android technology will be quite nice to say the least. And two, I am doing it for learning, broadening my own experience with android, since I have yet to really write my own rom, I have only done a few rough builds from other people's repositories like cm.
At this point, I have a AOSP build environment from the master branch, have not yet done a build from it, and would just like any nudge someone can give me in a starting direction. Would it be possible to obtain some of the files I need for android L from my current device,, which is running a android 4 variant? Should I look elsewhere for these files?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you seen this thread?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2581659
I know it's not for C2 but maybe you can find some info there or someone can give you some advice
Sent from nowhere over the air...
I have checked out the thread, but unfortunately most of these guides refer to an already made vendor/device tree, which does not yet exist for the c2 (for android 5 anyways). Ill likely need to write my own it seems. Sadness..
Hi!
i really excited for this thread. i have a villeC2 and its very sad that phone just update at 4.1. its a really great phone whit much potential... if i can i help you but i don't know everything about compile roms. but i can try the rom like a beta tester. i really glad to do that. so.. if you continue whit this, i help you like a beta tester contacte me.
You can examine recent posts c2 development cm11 kitkat and offical pacman pages.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/chef-central/android/guide-android-rom-development-t2814763
https://forum.xda-developers.com/ch...ide-how-to-port-lollipop-marshmallow-t3283452
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2707438
i think we should port HTC Sensation roms
i dont know what's the difference between C2 and Sensation kernels . but i saw viperC2 and SAM rom files is the same
---------- Post added at 17:39 ---------- Previous post was at 17:06 ----------
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2178042

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