Custom rom development : General Discussions, Problems, Questions

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j4mm3r

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May 12, 2010
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Bin4ry

Inactive Recognized Developer
Nov 14, 2008
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you got that wrong guys :)
Froyo is ready in RC2 for X10 this is not equal to : "the bootloader is finally hacked"
So stay calm please :)

Regards
Bin4ry
 

Nankov

Senior Member
Jun 23, 2010
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Niagara Falls, ON
Man i got excited for a minute there. Looks like back to waiting.

Sent from my X10i using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
 

arj154

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Jun 3, 2010
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arjun.taheem.net
its nice to see progress at least, I thought they hit a brick wall a couple days ago as they stopped posting in the dev thread. It may be a while till we see a bootloader hack thats friendly for us but its hard to determine since we're not devs. As I understand it, the actual ROM is partly ready but it'll have a number of bugs etc still and only devs who can actually load it on through manual code will be able to test it out I think. It may be that its actually just a virtual rom to be loaded onto the SDK under the same conditions as the x10 to be tested by the developers. I THINK. As I said I'm not a developer so take my words with a huge grain of salt because I might be completely wrong.
 
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irkkso

Senior Member
Mar 14, 2008
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PLS Can we get a little more detailed information.

I think that this release will be internal i.e. devs only. We never got RC1 so why should we expect RC2?

PLS Can we get a little more detailed information.

If the RC2 will be ready tomorrow then it means that RC1 was launched on the device?:)
 

j4mm3r

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May 12, 2010
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Vilam

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Apr 26, 2010
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Toulouse
www.androidtutofast.com
Can somebody explain to people like me who are new on android what does the cyanogen mod, is it just a firmware ?
What is called "kernel" in android and is it "modable" and if yes, why would it be ?
 

j4mm3r

Senior Member
May 12, 2010
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The answers...

Can somebody explain to people like me who are new on android what does the cyanogen mod, is it just a firmware ?
What is called "kernel" in android and is it "modable" and if yes, why would it be ?

Hi Vilam, those are interesting questions, let me see if I can address those to your satisfaction.

The term "firmware" being distinct from "software", in my view is rapidly loosing its ability to be distinguishable from the latter. Essentially it refers to those parts of the executable code on a computing machine which remains unmodifiable or rather "burned in" to the circuitry. With the advent of modern flash memory storage, which is rather malleable compared to the earlier variants which existed, it is rather easy to change and update the machine code which is stored therein.

In other words, you might still refer to firmware to be part of the "software" which runs on a computing device which is not modifiable at run-time. In terms of a smart phone (which are rapidly becoming general purpose computing devices anyways), the firmware forms the basis of the software execution environment which affords the so called "apps" to run and provide either ever so innovative and useful functions.

Coming around to the point about Cyanogen mod... its a combination of firmware and software (if you still want to make that distinction that is). It in conjunction with helper pieces of code like the bootloader et. all. can completely replace the components that your phone was originally shipped with. Since these are Android phones that we are talking about, Cyanogen is derived from the same code base that Google officially uses for their various releases of Android. It is important to note that Android is a mobile application and phone platform rather than something which can easily be classified as "firmware" or "software"

Next question of yours about the "kernel". Not knowing what your level of familiarity of Linux or its derivatives is... let just say that Android is essentially like a distribution (or distro) of Linux designed specifically to run on mobile devices. As is the case with other Linux distros, they are formed around a core known as the "kernel". The "kernel" forms the core of the operating system which provides a homogeneous execution environment for the execution of various applications, which are in-turn pieces of software which are designed to provide the functionality which can be useful to the end-user. So all the so-called "apps" require the kernel to provide some services which are abstracted out enough so that the application programmer does not need to care about the really really low level stuff that actually has to go down if you actually want your device to do something. Hence the application programmer concentrates on the "high level" stuff, which is the functions that are actually going to be useful to the end-user!!

Like all modern computing platform, Android is a layered architecture and the "kernel" forms one of the most inner most parts of it (hence the name "kernel").

The linux kernel running Android for the X10 is already modifiable. People have been successful in compiling software modules called "kernel modules" which can be added to a running kernel and add functionality to it (this of course requires super user privileges or "root" access on the phone).

With the future pointing towards the capability of running mods like Cyanogen and the likes, the possibilities of modding and hacking are endless. Cyanogen, like the original releases of Android from Google are completely open source, so one can tweak almost all aspects of the phone functions. The possibilities are only limited by ones own imagination.

PS: I think I had too much beer and it makes me practice my English composition skills... hic!
 

aget1

Member
Jul 10, 2008
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0
Please let me explain in newbie wordings. This is for ppl who can't understand what's going on at all.
1. A firmware likes an OS, if not exactly is. Windows, Linux, DOS, OS X are all OS. In android phone, there is merely one OS, which is Android.
2. Android is Linux.
3. Linux has a kernel, which is the main program. Without this, your machine can't run. On top of kernel, there is other software (movie player/web browser). Kernel + other software = distro (distribution).
4. Windows has different distro like Home, Professional, Ultimate... Linux has also different distro, so does android. One of them is CyanogenMod. The other could be Xperia X10 original.
5. Android is open source, so everyone can mod it. But that does also means someone can remove functions from it, one of them is Sony Ericsson, which locks your Xperia X10 for professional use.
6. While it is easy for us to upgrade Windows XP to Windows 7. It is difficult to install OS X from Windows XP. This is the same case for Android, it is easy to upgrade our Xperia X10, but it is not that easy to install CyanogenMod. There are honorable person working on this issue.
7. Why CyanogenMod? Because it is faster or it does not lock function like original Sony distro.
8. Just like installing OS X on regular PC, installing CyanogenMod may brick your machine. Much worse, Sony will definitely don't get your X10 repaired. So think if you need that extra function.
 

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