[GT-P6200][CWMRecovery][ROOT]ClockworkMod Recovery and Root

****** USE AT YOUR OWN RISK *******

This is NOT SUPPORTED SOFTWARE. This is purely for my amusement and entertainment. I'm making it available to download for those who might like to examine my work, but if you install it, you are on your own. I can't even test this myself. (I don't have a GT-P6200.)

Seriously - this has not been tested enough for me to be happy with it, and I'm unable to test it myself. Please read the thread for the GT-P6210 for instructions, known issues, warnings, etc.

If you do decide to install this anyway, please let me know how it works out for you. If no one is using it, I WILL NOT MAINTAIN IT AND WILL DROP IT.

If people do start using it, and the reports are that everything is working okay, then it'll get merged into what I'm already doing with the other two 7 plus models (meaning it'll get updated as needed when they do.)

Again, PLEASE READ the thread for the 6210 for everything you need to know: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1379532

..and here's a link for a CWM recovery.

Link: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?do5jkna3dpas1tq

Take care
Gary

jeffcavicchi said:

Am I wrong that Recovery still sees the external SD card as an internal SD card?

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

ClockworkMod Recovery, and all CWM-based recoveries mount what what is plugged into a user accessible memory card slot as "/emmc." That, in turn, is called the "internal sd card" within CWM Recovery.

This has historic reasons from what I can tell...

So, these are the partitions that contain user data:

/data - (all android phones have this, even very early android phones.) Used to store user installed programs and data for both system and user installed programs (but not "external" data such as music files.)

/sdcard - This is an optional partition, though nearly all modern phones have it. Unlike /data, there isn't any pre-determinated layout. Usually 8, 16 or 32 GB in size. Back when phones only had /data partitions built in, this storage space might be provided by plugging in an sdcard. In CWM recovery, this is referred to as "sdcard", "the sdcard", etc.

/emmc - (As far as I know, only cyanogenmod (and firmware based on cyanogen) actually mounts to /emmc. Others mount in various other places. The 7+ mounts to /sdcard/extStorages/SdCard) After phones started coming with built-in memory mounted to /sdcard, a different partition was needed for any user-replacable memory card. There really is no standard for this (at this time.) Within CWM recovery, it's referred to as "internal sdcard" (perhaps with the intent of someday supporting an external device for backing up.) Keep in mind that the exact same CWM Recovery source is used for all different versions of android, so the labels might seem a bit strange.

I've seriously considered deviating from the CWM-Recovery source and changing the labels for my recoveries to be more consistant. For example: instead of "sdcard", I'd use "built-in memory." Instead of "internal sdcard", I'd use "user accessible microSD card." The problem with that is that users who are already familiar with CWM Recovery (and accustomed to its quirks) might get confused with different labels.

If I could figure out how to submit a patch for consideration to Koush (the author of CWM Recovery), I would probably submit one that allows the labels for various partitions to be noted in a config file and used from there.

Gary

With the release of ICS, and seeing that others have taken over carrying the torch for updated and more modern versions of CWM Recovery, I'm no longer going to be supporting this release.

I'll leave the thread intact, but request that it be locked.

Oh, and I am still around, but I'm giving my Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus to my wife. The stock firmware is actually very good for her, and she doesn't demand the amount of control over a tablet that I want.

Take care
Gary

(more time to reply properly now...)

My username on github is garyd9, but I'm not sure how much help my code will be for you.

I don't know how recovery works on the 7.7. It might be similar to how most samsung's work (same kernel partition as a normal boot but with a different boot parameter) or similar to the 7.0 plus (which uses a completely different kernel partition for recovery and normal boots.) That makes a HUGE difference...

I see on the 7.7 forums that you already have people pulling and posting to github the initramfs and kernel stuff - so thats a better place to start than the 7.0plus stuff. You'll probably have to make some adjustments to the kernel source that is posted on opensource.samsung.com. I honestly think they deliberately "tweak" the defconfig's to not work properly on the target device. Unfortunately, I can't predict what changes would be needed for that device.

About the only thing that leaves out is the actual replacement recovery binary, which I compiled from the cyanogenmod sources. You'll probably have to make some changes, but again I can't predict those. You might consider getting the recovery sources from the ICS branch, as they'll likely be more compatible with honeycomb than the gingerbread branch.


Take care and good luck
Gary

Building recovery

I've started a device tree for the GT-P6200 on github. Right now it's very basic, but it does build a working `recovery` binary for the PT-6200. You still need to drop it into an initramfs and compile a kernel with said initramfs (I'll publish my initramfs on github this week, it's basically kanged from garyd9's PT-6210 one anyways). Thanks to garyd9 for getting the ball rolling on ClockworkMod Recovery for these tabs.

btw, this is the first step of porting CyanogenMod 9 (ICS) to the GT-P6200. Right now my device tree is very basic, with a lot of the initial stuff being kanged from teamhacksung's Galaxy SII device tree. It doesn't build anything that you can flash to your device (yet!). I'd love for input (preferably code!) and help. Keep an eye on the repository, and fork it if you're interested:

https://github.com/alanorth/device_samsung_galaxytab7p