Alright, what ROM are you running.. You should have gtalk in your app drawer. Most devs don't remove gapps. Should look like a white mms bubble that says talk on it. Or give me your gmail address and I'll send you an add. Also feel free to post any questions you have here. That's the point of this thread. Plus my whole team and i have no problem helping. So please, pick away.. And if you have ubuntu do you already have dsxda kitchen downloaded, android sdk, & adb shell? If not, Google them and download&install them. Also if you don't already have notepad ++, 7zip,& . 9 compiler, download those too. All of them are free. Also if you can obtain copies of adobe Photoshop and adobe firework, that will help with theming immensly. If you want to compile kernels, start a github and start downloading source files for android 4.1.2 & 4.2.0.. Google all this. Google is our friend
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EDIT: UPDATED THE OP WITH LINKS TO TOOLS FOR DEVELOPMENT