[Q] Alternative to Cracking Bootloader - Possible?

---

I'm rather new to the Android scene and I'm not exactly quite experienced with low-level development, so bear with me if this sounds stupid. My idea is not to allow the x10 to run custom roms, but rather, to have access to features from newer versions of Android while still running the SE firmware.

Since we currently have access to su permissions on our x10 via rooting, would it be possible for us to backport some modules of newer Android versions to existing SE versions? Hook/patch/install those modules into the SE firmware? I know it's a little too early for this, but I'm thinking along the lines of Eclair to Froyo, considering that the upgrade between those are considered "minor" as compared to Donut to Froyo, and Eclair isn't too far away.

I'm no Android developer myself but from what I know that would be a lot of effort for each small update, I think biktor is pretty close to getting a stable custom Rom running on his x10, even if its not through a cracked bootloader.

Sent from my X10i using XDA App

Custom rom without a cracked bootloader? That's just cool.

I'm intending to learn more about the x10 bootloader and ROMs to see what I can do with it, as soon as I can find some extra time to do so.

Its possible with a lot of work but the problem you would have is that a lot of the new features require the performance gains from the new OS and so although it would work it would be painfully slow.

Originally Posted by Chewitt

Its possible with a lot of work but the problem you would have is that a lot of the new features require the performance gains from the new OS and so although it would work it would be painfully slow.

Hmm, I was thinking.. If the Dalvik VM from Froyo could be backported over to Eclair, along with some of the other performance improvements, it might be worth a shot, depending on how deep into the kernel these functionalities are. However, I do understand that whether that is possible remains a spectaculation at least until the Eclair update is officially out.

Dalvik VM was already backported for 2.1

True in theory it will work But to load on something like that will we need the custom rom ability? or is it something we could ADB Push onto the handset?

Originally Posted by drdownload

Dalvik VM was already backported for 2.1

Just to clarify, do you mean Dalvik VM in general, or the Android 2.2 version with JIT and other optimizations?

Originally Posted by Chewitt

True in theory it will work But to load on something like that will we need the custom rom ability? or is it something we could ADB Push onto the handset?

If it requires custom ROM, then the purpose is defeated. I wonder if some of the system files can actually be modified with su access (possible in Linux), and still get loaded by the bootloader.

the 2.2 dalvik vm with jit was backported - search for frozen eclair:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=722083

Awesome, that's something for me to look into.