Building CM7 for the NT

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We have been discussing in another thread the possibility of getting a CM7 rom available for the NT.

Now that we have a functional recovery this should seriously help out with testing, if it goes wrong we can just restore to a working rom and start again debuging as we go.


***UPDATED 5TH Feb 2012***

I thought it was about time I updated this post with some up to date info on current state of development.

As many of you will know we got together last week and decided that we would like to build a CM7 rom for the Nook Tablet.

Goncezilla had already been making progress building firmware and a boot.img to get the thing booting up. Initially the system booted and you couldn't do a lot with it, but it prooved it could be done. Here's the vid showing the first boot:




After that it was down to work to make it useable. After a bit of investigation and a lot of man hours this is where we are at now


HARDWARE FUNCTIONS
Touchscreen FULLY WORKING
Orientation sensors FUNCTIONAL
Sound WORKING
SDCard WORKNING
WIFI Fully WORKING
Hardware video acceleration WORKING

SOFTWARE
Custom Kernel BUILT AND FUNCTIONING
Full tablet version on Cyanogen Mod WORKING
Root Access WORKING
Gapps WORKING
Sleep mode WORKING
Brightness control WORKING
BOOT FROM SD CARD SOLUTION AVAILABLE


and the one everyone seems to think is important
Angry Birds YES IT WORKS PERFECTLY lol

Another little video of current progress



Finally we have wifi working!


Sorry it's sideways, it's changing it now but it seems Google have slow computers!

So the main things we have left to fix are


1. Ermm... hmm... I'm sure we'll think of something

Thanks to Celtic for taking on the OP of this forum!

EDIT 2/5/2012Here are the source files used to create the first CM7 beta:
Internal
1. Kernel built from source - http://www.mediafire.com/?tu5lm7q8t5pbqpf
2. Nook Color CM7 Ramdisk (the one we want to modify) - http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?epv9n97evhnuaoi
3. Stock Nook Tablet Ramdisk (the one we need to borrow from) - http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?xms3aeztgupkjco
4. Buawk's Internal Boot.img 2ndboot (this gets appended to the front of a boot.img to get around the locked bootloader) - http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?9l8uxx7rhbqzund
5. Modified CM7 /system partition files (should be good to go for NT) - http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?il5ky2l51q48e8h
6. Modified Ramdisk - http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?9l8uxx7rhbqzund
7. Wifi Driver files (built from Kindle Fire source) - http://www.mediafire.com/?vogxuygrf84xsoe
8. Kernel Config File (settings used to build kernel above) - http://www.mediafire.com/?7vjvqctmlnd4enw
9. GFX Drivers (put in /system/lib/modules and insmod) - http://www.mediafire.com/?5uw4wgytb60n485

SDCard
1. SDRamdisk - http://www.mediafire.com/?4p3wq0u4p9j9mtd
All other files are same as internal.


EDIT 2/4/2012
My Plan for success:
1. Build a boot.img from CM7 NookColor Rom - Done!
3. Get a booting rom working from SDcard to verify steps 1 and 2 - Done! SDcard working great!
4. Port to internal boot partition (CWM) -Done!
5. Tweak to get everything working - Ongoing....

All other ideas welcome here!

I'll flash and test things for you all.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by LiuAnshan

I'll flash and test things for you all.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

Thanks

Just to let anybody interested know in advance, this may or may not turn into a working rom, even if it does become a fully functional rom please remember that during testing if your tablet does a nose dive and you can't recover for some obscure reason, we take no responsibility for any damage caused.

Other than that, as and when we have something testers will efinately be needed

Originally Posted by Goncezilla

Reserved.

Ill post my current working files here soon. Thanks to Celtic!

My Plan for success:
1. Build a boot.img from CM7 NookColor Rom - Kernel built, working on ramdisk
2. Port /system partition -Mostly done but untested
3. Get a booting rom working from SDcard to verify steps 1 and 2
4. Port to internal boot partition (CWM) -2ndboot.img built and waiting
5. Tweak to get everything working

All other ideas welcome here!

So i'd thought id put in my two cents here...

First off, whom ever is testing this will want to have 2 sd cards, one of which is the update_acclaim boot disk, so they can "unbrick" their device. This device is nearly unbrickable, and whom ever ends up testing it, can make sure that they can always return it to stock.

Second off, I would HIGHLY recommend using the stock kernel, with the security keys stripped off. This would eliminate any problems that you would encounter with the kernel not causing a boot. I can get you guys a copy of the stock if you want, as it is easiest to just take the first 288 bytes off of the existing kernel, and ramdisk. I don't have an NC, but i'm not sure that the partitions are the same, I would think about building the ramdisk by combining the two ramdisks.

Lastly if someone has the inclination, they COULD eliminate the useless partitions, DO NOT TOUCH THE X-LOADER OR UBOOT PARTITIONS, MODIFYING THEM WILL BRICK YOUR DEVICE. However there is the useless BN and rom partitions that could be consolidated.

Ill be checking in from time to time, I would recommend that you join the CM7 IRC channel and make a new one so that you will not be bothered.

I've done little more than keep the port of miui updated for the Samsung infuse, but I'd be willing to help where I can. I'll probably only be useful for testing, but I'm more than willing to soft brick several times (or risk a hard brick )

Don't modify the rom partition, it forces a wipe of the device and without a proper recovery for that (stock) you're **** out of luck.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using xda premium

Originally Posted by Loglud

Second off, I would HIGHLY recommend using the stock kernel, with the security keys stripped off. This would eliminate any problems that you would encounter with the kernel not causing a boot. I can get you guys a copy of the stock if you want, as it is easiest to just take the first 288 bytes off of the existing kernel, and ramdisk. I don't have an NC, but i'm not sure that the partitions are the same, I would think about building the ramdisk by combining the two ramdisks.

Interesting about the first 288 bytes. Any specific reason for stripping them? Is this the kernel header or is it for the ramdisk too? The kernel Im using was built from the BN source.

The ramdisk Im putting together is a combo of the NC and NT. Im working on porting the .rc files and build.prop. There is a lot to look at and any help is appriciated. Ill post the files when I get home this weekend.

Lastly if someone has the inclination, they COULD eliminate the useless partitions, DO NOT TOUCH THE X-LOADER OR UBOOT PARTITIONS, MODIFYING THEM WILL BRICK YOUR DEVICE. However there is the useless BN and rom partitions that could be consolidated.

Good call here. I was thinking about mounting the 15GB B&N partition as rw and leaving it at that. If we get brave we can try and merge the partitions.

Thanks for the input.

---------- Post added at 08:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:29 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Indirect

Don't modify the rom partition, it forces a wipe of the device and without a proper recovery for that (stock) you're **** out of luck.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using xda premium

Maybe this is the issue Im seeing. Does this mean we have to use 2ndboot to point to another partition? Is there a mdsum check being done at boot that triggers this?

EDIT: Nevermind was thinking boot partition instead of rom. Rookie mistake No plans to touch rom partition.

Guys, we won't need testers. We all have NT's. You all will get a build once it's in alpha.

Like Indirect said, as far as startup is concerned we'll be able to do the testing, we won't really need external testing until we have something semi stable.

Thanks for all your offers though. I'm sure when we get to alpha/beta stage you'll all get a shot at it