Database Develop

[Q] Android development

Let's say that I wanted to get into android rom development, what would be a good place to start to learn. I've downloaded several e-books about android development, but they all pertain to writing applications for android OS, not really getting into modding the OS itself. I suspect I'd need to learn about linux then translate that knowledge to android?
Anybody have any good places to start or good reference materials?
It appears that none of the cyanogenmod team is even going to do anything with the Captivate, they're all working on I9000 and Vibrant, totally ignoring the Captivate. So, I thought I'd get in there and try and learn.

Building Android from source - their own site is the best for instructions on how to build android: http://source.android.com/
Building Captivate requires downloading the sources, building the kernel using the build_kernel.sh after you've fixed the toolchain paths. Or you can just use the usual linux kernel building method that the script actually does underneath.
Then you need to build eclair (or froyo). Samsung has opensourced most of the code but not all so you need to figure out how to merge vanilla eclair source into Samsung's tree, and build it. There is a readme in the source from Samsung about what to change in the build files.
You're going to be doing a lot of googling . . . I haven't figured out all the details of the Samsung eclair build so you're on your own there. Maybe others can chime in.
-Atin

atinm said:
Building Android from source - their own site is the best for instructions on how to build android: http://source.android.com/
Building Captivate requires downloading the sources, building the kernel using the build_kernel.sh after you've fixed the toolchain paths. Or you can just use the usual linux kernel building method that the script actually does underneath.
Then you need to build eclair (or froyo). Samsung has opensourced most of the code but not all so you need to figure out how to merge vanilla eclair source into Samsung's tree, and build it. There is a readme in the source from Samsung about what to change in the build files.
You're going to be doing a lot of googling . . . I haven't figured out all the details of the Samsung eclair build so you're on your own there. Maybe others can chime in.
-Atin
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Thanks. Thats what I'm talking about, a lot of what you said seems Greek to me. I'd like to learn how to do all that. I guess, just read a lot from the google source website?

My advice would be to first learn how to go muck in the linux kernel and the Android sources in general. The Captivate code has been hacked some by Samsung so it doesn't quite follow all the rules about where files are supposed to go (there is no vendor tree for example) but at least it is a start. The google source site is the best for instructions on how to do vanilla stuff that's not hardware specific. Google around for more specific instructions related to the particular problem you are trying to solve after that.
Building working stuff at this level isn't easy. Unless you are somewhat experienced or willing to spend a lot of time learning and making mistakes, I'd say leave this to people who have some experience at this level and come back to it when building for the Captivate is well understood and the knowledge has been distributed enough so lots of people can help you when you have specific questions (no one likes answering general "how to" stuff on a device specific thread).
-Atin

[Q] Is gingerbread(Android 2.3) coming to the Galaxy S I9000?

Roms based on froyo or gingerbread?
The discussion in the thread "30/Jun r1 (JFB) - MoDaCo Custom ROM for Samsung Galaxy S with Online Kitchen" is a bit confusing so I thought it best to make it a new topic to get it straight.
Will it be possible to make roms based on froyo, gingerbread or any other coming android version, before Samsung makes an update? As I understand psychoace it will be ”near impossible to get roms from other sources like Sense roms or Froyo”. Others are not so sure.
This is important as Samsung is known for its lack of interest in OS updates. Who knows if they will take gingerbread to GS? If they won't can it be done by the really smart guys?

I don't think even HTC will update there top line to V3 (ginger bread). Froyo is coming any way to GS in near future. Now ginger bread should be possible too as GS is power full enough to run. When? we should wait and see. Nexus just got updated to 2.2.
Will see how things go in future.

Samsung has released there kernel sources and there software sources. I haven't had a chance to look in to it deeply but if it has the code of the drivers etc.. it should be possible to merge (with some work obviously) sources and to compile froyo.

kimatrix said:
Samsung has released there kernel sources and there software sources. I haven't had a chance to look in to it deeply but if it has the code of the drivers etc.. it should be possible to merge (with some work obviously) sources and to compile froyo.
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But don't those drivers only work with 2.1 and just simply won't with any version higher unless samsung releases new source and drivers for 2.2 and then 3.0. So if say samsung never releases anything any source/drivers that work with 3.0 then you would be out of luck to actually get everything to work.

MrDSL said:
But don't those drivers only work with 2.1 and just simply won't with any version higher unless samsung releases new source and drivers for 2.2 and then 3.0. So if say samsung never releases anything any source/drivers that work with 3.0 then you would be out of luck to actually get everything to work.
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That is true but if you have the full sources you are able to look what the differences are and maybe patch those by your self. Assume a wlan driver is using an function that has changed or is gone in 2.2, then you can try to patch that by finding the new one for it to work with. If you don't have the sources it's much harder to do those kind of things.
As I sad you have the sources so you can play by your self even if samsung does not do anything. It does not mean it's easy and it does not mean it can be done fast. But it does mean it could be done.

kimatrix said:
That is true but if you have the full sources you are able to look what the differences are and maybe patch those by your self. Assume a wlan driver is using an function that has changed or is gone in 2.2, then you can try to patch that by finding the new one for it to work with. If you don't have the sources it's much harder to do those kind of things.
As I sad you have the sources so you can play by your self even if samsung does not do anything. It does not mean it's easy and it does not mean it can be done fast. But it does mean it could be done.
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But the video drivers are already compiled. Can they be easily decompiled? It's not a source file if it's already compiled.

psychoace said:
But the video drivers are already compiled. Can they be easily decompiled? It's not a source file if it's already compiled.
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Can they be decompiled and made to work? Of course!
Will someone be motivated to do all this work? Unknown.
Besides drivers arent the only issue to getting a new version of Android on a phone. If you dont have source for any proprietary userland daemons/apps (like radio?) that communicate with the hardware you will be SOL on that as well.

MMMMMMMMM if we can do it for the G1 we can do it SGS...the question is when and how much work. The Galaxy S will be Samsung's flagship device for A YEAR so I'd hope to get Gingerbread...unless Samsung are really stupid. Especially with a lot of US launches, they'll be able to relaunch with Gingerbread as it comes is my hope.

psychoace said:
But the video drivers are already compiled. Can they be easily decompiled? It's not a source file if it's already compiled.
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Who told you that??? The source code of the GPU as well as every other coprocessor is there.
The two .o file that started this all fiasco are ok and you as long as the make file include them in the build they would work perfectly.
All they have inside is a simple elf code to tell the s3c*** to do whatever it needs to do. A source code wouldn't have been beneficial as it would have to be compiled differently for a different ARM instruction set .

kitsune223 said:
Who told you that??? The source code of the GPU as well as every other coprocessor is there.
The two .o file that started this all fiasco are ok and you as long as the make file include them in the build they would work perfectly.
All they have inside is a simple elf code to tell the s3c*** to do whatever it needs to do. A source code wouldn't have been beneficial as it would have to be compiled differently for a different ARM instruction set .
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But when you need drivers for 2.2 the source code would be optimal because these drivers are not going to work without some hacking.

They are going to work as they are non kernel bound ELF files.
Guys this isn't a driver ,if it was a kernel module ( or "driver" s you call it) it would have been a .ko file and had a slightly different structure ( use readelf on a kernel module and then on this to see the difference). So no matter what it is when can use the compiled version as it not kernel bound
From quick inspection it seems like the injection code for the s3c*** . so basically its there so the kernel could reference to it when the code tells it to do so . So Basicly all we have to do is put it in the proper place when building the kerne.
So please DON'T PANIC

well the TP2 just got 2.2 FroYo (2.1 has more working drivers ATM).. but if we have it, how would it be different for the SGS to get FroYo?

You need to remember that while other companies can update kernel quite easily ( all the work is done for them by the chip manufacturer and some member of the community ) this isn't possible here as this is a chip only used in one android/other linux platform device and the company making the device also make the chip.
So give them a few weeks to work on it

J-Hop2o6 said:
well the TP2 just got 2.2 FroYo (2.1 has more working drivers ATM).. but if we have it, how would it be different for the SGS to get FroYo?
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let's just say it will be the first time a non Samsung Rom has worked on a Samsung Android phone.

psychoace said:
let's just say it will be the first time a non Samsung Rom has worked on a Samsung Android phone.
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Not true.
Look here: http://forum.samdroid.net/f28/lkmod-v-2-5-1-based-jce-en-upd-03-30-a-336/
I see a custom ROM made for the i5700
Everything is possible.

clubtech said:
Not true.
Look here: http://forum.samdroid.net/f28/lkmod-v-2-5-1-based-jce-en-upd-03-30-a-336/
I see a custom ROM made for the i5700
Everything is possible.
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Click to collapse
Did I say custom rom? No i said specifically non samsung based roms on a samsung device. That custom rom is based off of a Samsung rom.

This is the closest we have got to a Hero rom on a Samsung device.
http://androidforums.com/all-things-root-behold-2/60408-port-htc-hero-behold-2-wip.html
He couldn't get Rosie to boot so who knows what other problems he would of had after that (from the picture you can see he never got any network connection)
So there don't say I didn't give you any hope.

Froyo is offical. That's good, but we need to be looking past it to Gingerbread.
Froyo is announcedm confirmed, and now dated for the end of September, and that's great. But to me, that's not the question we need to be asking Samsung anymore, we need to be thinking past that.
The question people need to be asking Samsung, so we can get them on the record committed to it now, is will you release a Gingerbread update for the phone as long as the hardware is capable of supporting it. The OS is only 2-3 months from being unveiled if Google sticks to their time table, and if the rumors are true it'll be a much bigger overhaul than 2.1-2.2 is.
So unless we want our phones to be outdated before the end of the year, we need to start making a push as a community to get a commitment from Samsung to support not just the OS that was released 4 months ago, but also the much bigger one that's right around the corner.

2.2 is good.. proves everyone wrong who said "ooh its Samsung, of course they won't release Froyo."
but somehow, I doubt that samsung will somehow not upgrade SGS to 3.0. If they do, it might be a few months (at least) after everyone else gets it. The reason is, they could have new flagship devices out that they wanna push to the mass-markets, so putting gingerbread on that will boost the sales.
However, considering that they marketed the SGS so well, and have it well on its way, they might just put gingerbread on it
seriously, i see ads for SGS EVERYWHERE online.

mjgunn said:
[....]
So unless we want our phones to be outdated before the end of the year
[....]
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I totally expect that my phone will be outdated by then. That's a consequence of the world we live in But then again, i'm a nihilist

[DELETE?] SGH-t959 Open Sourced Components?

Okay, first of all: mods, you can delete or move this post at your discretion. I'm just curious to see who's seen this.
Anyway, I've been looking around for some hope of running AOSP/CM on my Vibrant, and I stumbled upon Samsung's Open Source directory with the SGH-t959 being one of the devices with open sourced components. Me being excited, I downloaded the source, and sure enough, has components we might find necessary: 3d_module_GPL.tar.gz, Kernel.tar, and Platform.tar. Although the platform sources are meant to overwrite AOSP 2.1-update1 and the Kernel source is 2.6.29, I'm thinking we can somehow use these to hopefully be able to build ROMs for the Vibrant.
So, what do you guys think?

Samsung droped that source code like two months ago. Most of the stable 2.1 ROMs are because the devs already used what they needed from that code.

Ahh, thanks for the clarification. Makes so much more sense now.
Mods, delete?

Anybody willing to guide a newbie?

Hi everyone!
I'm looking to become a future dev of the Samsung Captivate Glide, but as we're awaiting the official ICS from AT&T the forum right now is pretty dead. We have a project going but nobody to guide us, and we wish to compile CM9 or AOSP ICS. Would anyone take me in and teach me the basics of ROMing? I would greatly appreciate it! I have a Mac and Windows, I'm not sure if Linux is required :|
~Aquethys

the rom is the least of the worries to get dev going on your phone, getting the kernel going is the hard part. does your phone have the source code released?

I don't believe so, people in our ics port thread are saying we don't have a working ics kernel. We do have a gingerbread kernel though... :/
How would I start?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I927R using xda premium

well you take parts from the GB kernel and apply it to parts from the AOSP kernel, and troubleshoot until it boots. then you troubleshoot all the other issues, there will be issues, then you can start doing fancy things like add cwm. then tweak the kernel....
start reading on kernels, ramdisk, rils, libs, and drivers, linux, compiling, AOSP, github repositories.
you might be ready to take on this task in 6 months.... minimum
dont take that as snooty, ive been on here over a year, and know jack squat about half the things i just told you to study. though i have no desire to build kernels myself. there is lots of great info scattered all over xda. but you will need an experienced dev, to port ICS. you need to know basic kernel modification stuff before trying to do something as big as porting a new android version from out your but.
automated compiling isnt as automated as it sounds.

Alright. What programs will I need to begin with? Hopefully an experienced dev can guide me, I'm not too good @ following guides/tutorials but I'll try my best!
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I927R using xda premium
EDIT: Made a dropbox account, hopefully you could guide me through the basics?

So, is this the source code for SGH-I927 you were talking about? I downloaded it, what do I do with it? Is it different for ICS and GB?

Budding dev needs some help

Hello all. I've recently been trying to get into Android development, more specifically Kernel development. I've played around with some kitchens and looked at the GB kernel sources from Samsung and tweaked it around.
Previously I previously learned Java to a point where I can put basic lines down and also more advanced stuff but with a bit of help here and there.
I have one question though, what would be the recommended path for creating an ICS Kernel. My plan is to start of with something "stock" and build up but I'm not quite sure what to consider stock seeing as the S1 never got ICS officially. Would I have to use CM9's Kernel sources and if so where do I acquire them.
I also have a good understanding of Ubuntu and its terminal and have a functional idea of what I'm doing there.