New Builder Question

psudeke · May 24, 2014

This should probably go in some general Q&A forum, but this is by far the most helpful community I've come across so I wanted to try here first. I've finally got my Ubuntu box up and running again (upgrading to 14.04 wasn't pretty) and was able to build for both my 700t and my n5 without error, but I'm afraid to pull the trigger and flash it. I'm building straight CM for the tablet and AOSP for the phone, so what is the worst that could happen? I haven't gotten either of them to run in the emulator, but I'm not completely sure that is even possible. Any insight you may have would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Just thought of this, since I'm running Crombi ROM2SD, could I just install my zip on external, and then refresh the right kernel?

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk

_that · May 24, 2014

psudeke said:
but I'm afraid to pull the trigger and flash it. I'm building straight CM for the tablet and AOSP for the phone, so what is the worst that could happen?

The worst thing that can happen is that you brick your device, but you must do something sufficiently stupid for that to happen.

I can't say anything about your phone, but for the TF700T, as long as you have a working recovery, flashing a ROM won't brick it. You may want to create the nvflash blobs if you want to have another safety net - it is possible to brick the TF700T if you force it to boot to the recovery and the recovery is broken.

psudeke said:
I haven't gotten either of them to run in the emulator, but I'm not completely sure that is even possible.

That's normal - ARM devices are just too different, and the emulator is just another different device.

psudeke said:
Just thought of this, since I'm running Crombi ROM2SD, could I just install my zip on external, and then refresh the right kernel?

See my Android dual-booting thread in the dev subforum. I originally developed ROM2SD to be able to test my self-built ROMs without breaking my working installation.

psudeke · May 25, 2014

_that said:
The worst thing that can happen is that you brick your device, but you must do something sufficiently stupid for that to happen. I can't say anything about your phone, but for the TF700T, as long as you have a working recovery, flashing a ROM won't brick it. You may want to create the nvflash blobs if you want to have another safety net - it is possible to brick the TF700T if you force it to boot to the recovery and the recovery is broken.

That's normal - ARM devices are just too different, and the emulator is just another different device.

See my Android dual-booting thread in the dev subforum. I originally developed ROM2SD to be able to test my self-built ROMs without breaking my working installation.

Thanks _That, I appreciate your help! After reading your post and the f2fs post, i thought i was in the clear, but i still managed to screw something up. i'm unable to get the tablet to boot off of external, regardless of whether its my ROM or CROMBi. I see a "segmentation error" listed in the output from the the preinit, and then it always boots to internal. I thought maybe i got the mount points reversed in recovered, so i reflashed recovery, but no luck. i also tried deleting the preinit script and then reinstalling CROMBi, but i still get the same error. any thoughts?

_that · May 25, 2014

psudeke said:
I see a "segmentation error" listed in the output from the the preinit

For some unknown reason, dynamically linked executables don't work for preinit in KitKat. So if your *internal* ROM is not stock 4.2-based (I have no data about 4.3), the only way to run a preinit script is to use a statically linked busybox.

sbdags · May 25, 2014

You still get that fault with a static busybox but it seems to copy files fine.
@psudeke you can compile the static busybox yourself simply with make static-busybox in your build folder - or just steal mine from /system/boot

_that · May 25, 2014

sbdags said:
You still get that fault with a static busybox but it seems to copy files fine.

Your fault may come from one of the programs that you call in your script (did you forget to prefix some line with "busybox"?).

sbdags · May 25, 2014

_that said:
Your fault may come from one of the programs that you call in your script (did you forget to prefix some line with "busybox"?).

it comes from the ls -l /init* which indeed doesn't have the busybox prefix but if I do it gives some other error I forget now

Anyway it doesn't harm the boot process - just an error message

psudeke · May 25, 2014

_that said:
For some unknown reason, dynamically linked executables don't work for preinit in KitKat. So if your *internal* ROM is not stock 4.2-based (I have no data about 4.3), the only way to run a preinit script is to use a statically linked busybox.

_that said:
Your fault may come from one of the programs that you call in your script (did you forget to prefix some line with "busybox"?).

Internal is the 5/17 build of Crombi, and its a brand new install. with a full format of the data partition (which in my haste to get this working yesterday, i wiped out my nandroid from right before i tried this).

is there any connection between when the internal is flashed compared to the external? in other words, if i reflash the internal rom, it should still recognize an existing external rom? hope that makes sense, i'm still shaking off the effects of a little too much whiskey last night.:laugh:

sbdags · May 25, 2014

psudeke said:
Internal is the 5/17 build of Crombi, and its a brand new install. with a full format of the data partition (which in my haste to get this working yesterday, i wiped out my nandroid from right before i tried this).

is there any connection between when the internal is flashed compared to the external? in other words, if i reflash the internal rom, it should still recognize an existing external rom? hope that makes sense, i'm still shaking off the effects of a little too much whiskey last night.:laugh:

No currently if you reflash internal it will only see internal. You need to reflash external for that to work.

psudeke · May 25, 2014

sbdags said:
No currently if you reflash internal it will only see internal. You need to reflash external for that to work.

Ahh, thanks sbdags! that fixed the issue with ROM2SD. i got that impression when i pulled the preinit and saw it only had an entry for internal. but, i'm still very much in a learning phase so i didn't want to jump to a conclusion.

and after getting crombi to boot on external, i swapped sd cards and my build of CM11 actually booted! now the real learning process begins as i figure out how to customize it.

Thanks again to both you and @_that, you guys are the best:good:

psudeke · May 30, 2014

@sbdags and @_that

Just wanted to thank you both again for your help. After much trial and error, i was able to build the 5/27 version of CM and merge in that's 9 f2fs kernel, its running well so far. not a bad quadrant score for someone who doesn't know what they're doing!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/khq17h04b715eyd/C11%20Benchmark%20ART.png

Hats off to both of you! :good:

--- Guess I can't insert an image directly from my DropBox, link is to a screenshot of my score ---

_that · May 30, 2014

psudeke said:
After much trial and error, i was able to build the 5/27 version of CM and merge in that's 9 f2fs kernel, its running well so far. not a bad quadrant score for someone who doesn't know what they're doing!

Congratulations! If you can build a working ROM from source, you're already in the top 1% of people here who know what they're doing.

psudeke · May 30, 2014

_that said:
Congratulations! If you can build a working ROM from source, you're already in the top 1% of people here who know what they're doing.

Good to finally be a "One Percenter" in something! :laugh:

Thanks again for your help, I'm sure that was the first of many questions I can't figure out.

sbdags · May 30, 2014

psudeke said:
Good to finally be a "One Percenter" in something! :laugh:

Thanks again for your help, I'm sure that was the first of many questions I can't figure out.

Just ask away and congrats! :good:

psudeke · May 31, 2014

sbdags said:
Just ask away and congrats! :good:

Be careful what you wish for, I've got a laundry list of questions ranging from basic Linux commands to the nature of the multiverse, lol.

I do have one question out of the gate about the update-binary file. I'm trying to add a couple apps to either the system or data folders, but I'm not sure what commands are available from the stock CM file. I think for the most part by looking at your updater-script file I can figure out the commands to do what I want, but given the little I know about this and the size difference of the binary file between CM and the one i was looking at of yours, I'm curious. Is the best way to see what's available CM's git? I basically just want to install a different Launcher and Viper instead of DSP manager for sound. Do I need to study up on edify to look at the binary or is there an easier way?

Thanks again!

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk

sbdags · May 31, 2014

psudeke said:
Be careful what you wish for, I've got a laundry list of questions ranging from basic Linux commands to the nature of the multiverse, lol.

I do have one question out of the gate about the update-binary file. I'm trying to add a couple apps to either the system or data folders, but I'm not sure what commands are available from the stock CM file. I think for the most part by looking at your updater-script file I can figure out the commands to do what I want, but given the little I know about this and the size difference of the binary file between CM and the one i was looking at of yours, I'm curious. Is the best way to see what's available CM's git? I basically just want to install a different Launcher and Viper instead of DSP manager for sound. Do I need to study up on edify to look at the binary or is there an easier way?

Thanks again!

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk

yes the easiest way to do it is just make 2 folders with your extra apps in it say /extras/app

then add the following to the updater-script (you don't need to touch the update-binary unless you start using aroma)

package_extract_dir("extras", "/system");
delete("/system/app/DSPManager.apk");
delete("/system/priv-app/Trebuchet.apk");

What that does is copies the extras/app folder into system and deletes your unwanted apps

note apps can be installed into 2 folders /system/app or /system/priv-app

similarly you can install your user apps into /data/app but this is dangerous with launchers as if the user manually uninstalls it you can't do anything on the tab

psudeke · May 31, 2014

sbdags said:
yes the easiest way to do it is just make 2 folders with your extra apps in it say /extras/app

then add the following to the updater-script (you don't need to touch the update-binary unless you start using aroma)

package_extract_dir("extras", "/system");
delete("/system/app/DSPManager.apk");
delete("/system/priv-app/Trebuchet.apk");

What that does is copies the extras/app folder into system and deletes you unwanted apps

note apps can be installed into 2 folders /system/app or /systempriv-app

similar you can install your user apps into /data/app but this is dangerous with launchers as if the user manually uninstalls it you can't do anything on the tab

Thanks again! i can see how this becomes addicting fast :fingers-crossed:

psudeke · Jun 1, 2014

@sbdags do I need to mount data before installing anything to the /data/app folder? I saw in your updater-script this line, and i'm assuming i need the same:

Code:

mount("f2fs", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p8", "/data");

one other quick question (hopefully), I saw in the XDA WIKI that i can possibly test the script using the update-binary, do i have to do this on the tablet itself? i spent all afternoon trying to fix a problem that amounted to an errant quotation mark in my script (and i knew it was something like that too. too many years of non-terminated string errors to not look there first:laugh

, but the only way i could find to test it was to rezip the file and flash. any suggestions?

thank you good sir! :highfive:

sbdags · Jun 1, 2014

psudeke said:
@sbdags do I need to mount data before installing anything to the /data/app folder? I saw in your updater-script this line, and i'm assuming i need the same:

Code:

mount("f2fs", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p8", "/data");

one other quick question (hopefully), I saw in the XDA WIKI that i can possibly test the script using the update-binary, do i have to do this on the tablet itself? i spent all afternoon trying to fix a problem that amounted to an errant quotation mark in my script (and i knew it was something like that too. too many years of non-terminated string errors to not look there first:laugh, but the only way i could find to test it was to rezip the file and flash. any suggestions?

thank you good sir! :highfive:

just zip the /meta-inf folder, and flash that to test. obviously comment out any format commands as they will fail. That is what I do.

lj50036 · Jun 1, 2014

Hey @psudeke you ever need any help with anything to do with source or git let me know

I am also willing to help out

and just a FYI be careful of @sbdags :cyclops: LOL

Just kidding....

Let me know thx Josh

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