Android system.img Development

[mssmison]

Ok so over the last week or so and with alot of help I've learned alot of information about Android Development. I'd like this thread to be a common place for sharing information.
Please don't ask questions about usage in this thread but let's use it as a place for us to learn and share information.

[mssmison]

Building Android;

You will need to do this before you are able to edit any system.img files (you'll see why later in the post).

1. I recommend Debian,
2. Follow the instructions here. http://source.android.com/download They show for ubuntu but it all works. You need to enable all the third part and commercial sources in your SYSTEM-ADMINISTRATOR-SOFTWARE SOURCES. The only change is the first apt-get statement. Instead of java5 you need 6 so this is the string to enter in terminal;
sudo apt-get install git-core gnupg sun-java6-jdk flex bison gperf libsdl-dev libesd0-dev libwxgtk2.6-dev build-essential zip curl libncurses5-dev zlib1g-dev

Follow the rest of the guide. When it's complete (and it takes a while) you'll have a basic Android build in the folder /home/mydroid/out/target/product/generic/system

Create a new working folder and inside create a system folder. Copy the contents of the android make folder to that system folder, Either with sudo nautilus or using cp -Rf.

Now your ready to customize, you can include your notifications, alarms etc in the media folder.

[mssmison]

following the instructions here; http://www.myhtcphone.com/node/13 you can replace the files from DZO's build for keymappings and the lib files.

Now to make it bootable.. This is why you needed to make the android. I struggled with this for a while. Thanks again DZO
/home/mydroid/out/host/linux-x86/bin/genext2fs -d /home/newandroid/system -b 80000 -a system.ext2

now make a mount directory for it.
cd /mnt/
mkdir system

Next mount your system.ext2 and convert it to cramfs. This fixes the issue with blank storage cards.
mount system.ext2 /mnt/system
mkfs.cramfs /mnt/system system.img

There you go. your own bootable system.img file. You cannot use DZO's latest kernel and intrid.gz as of this post. So please use the one released previous to that. For a blank data file use the data.gz from the android1.1 download.

[mssmison]

Skinning your vogue android build

The 'skin file' for android is located in system/framework/framework-res.apk, if linux you can open the file with package manager. Inside you will find a res folder. And within that folder you will find folders called 'drawable' and 'drawable-land'. Edit the png's inside here to create your own custom theme. Or if you like you can always grab a theme from the dream themes forum. These come as an update.zip. Inside you will find a system/framework/framework-res.apk file. Simply open it up, and copy the drawable folders out to your apk.,
Rebuild with the instructions from the previous post and you're good to go.

[mssmison]

Custom APPS

If you'd like to add any apps copy the apk's to the system/app folder. Be aware though that you have limited space.

[vilord]

thanks for putting this together, will edit this post if/when I have more to add

[zenulator]

Thanks too..

[mssmison]

you need to edit the build.prop to use the libreference.so instead of the htc one that's listed.
happy building :)

[zenulator]

It's also helpful to download the android sdk.