[ROM][3.4 Kernel][4.4.4] Unofficial SlimKat 9.1 (pyramid)

[Harakhti]

Can this method be implemented on the other rom or just this rom?

Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using Tapatalk

Partitions are a kernel thing, there's a script available for Ivanich's CM11/12/12.1 around. For lower/different versions, as of now you'd have to compile a custom kernel or create a custom ramdisk mod for that.

 

[hinxnz]

I thought I'd give 4.4 another spin and yeah rom is quick, good work!
I wanted to make a nandroid backup but with this configuration, I didn't have enough room. There are a few ways around this but I figured out you can use a usb drive, I just unmounted sdcard and then mounted usb drive as sdcard so the native TWRP backup works.
Here's how: First boot into TWRP recovery, connect your usb flash drive, then hit Advanced, Terminal Command and then Select, now enter codes below.
This unmounts sdcard:

umount /sdcard

And this mounts usb drive as sdcard:

mount /dev/block/sda1 /sdcard

You may need to refresh sizes for sdcard to see actual size of usb drive before making a backup.
You need to do this everytime you want to mount usb drive as sdcard to either backup, restore or flash from it.
Make sure your device has enough charge to complete the process, for example when backing up sd-ext in TWRP also backs up /data/media which can be gigs.

I also seen some commits on fmapp2, is it working with sound?

 

[der_laufer]

There are a few ways around this but I figured out you can use a usb drive

Is there ever a possibility of using a PC for backup?

 

[hinxnz]

Is there ever a possibility of using a PC for backup?

Android comes with a backup utility that is used with adb but I have never tried it, could have bugs and I think Android needs to be running.

The commands are:

adb backup [-f <file>] [-apk|-noapk] [-shared|-noshared] [-all] [-system|-nosystem] [<packages...>]

So for example if using windows PC to backup enter:

adb backup -apk -shared -all -system -f c:\pyramid_slim_backup.ab

To restore your backup enter:

adb restore c:\pyramid_slim_backup.ab

Otherwise there's adb pull & adb push, I'm not sure how to create a tar file on PC from device.
I came across this program awhile ago too but have never used it.
Let me know if you successfully backup & restore from PC, it would be handy to know.
You may want to wait and see if anyone else posts on how to create a tar backup on PC, if it's possible.

Edit: I just made a Android backup to PC with the above method but it's only just over 2Gb and my Nandroid backup to usb was just over 6Gb so I presume it did not backup /data/media but as it seems, it was the sdcard instead because I did add the 'shared' flag which is meant to include shared storage / sdcard contents. I haven't tried restoring the Android backup to check but AFAIK it's possible to convert into a tar file to see that way..
Edit: Here's a guide for creating a nandroid directly to PC - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1818321

 

[der_laufer]

Thank you. I'll try it, but only if my Sensation and 10 x64 windows begin to communicate properly. So far I can not install the drivers, somehow it does not want to work

 

[LordNerevar]

I also seen some commits on fmapp2, is it working with sound?

Great to have you onboard! Thanks for the tips!

I haven't looked into that fully yet. I'm sure it needs more work. For now, I do believe spirit1 and/or spirit1 free work.

 

[TheCheshireMan]

I'm really interested in this new version of the ROM, I used the SD-Ext mod for CM11\12 on it before but it never quite worked beautifully (the "memory" section of the Settings app behaved... erratically, and I sometimes got random freezes).
However, my sdcard is relatively small ("only" 32 Gb total) and my sd-ext partition is just 4gb. It'd be a problem for me to have /data/media loaded on sd-ext, as I'd run out of space pretty quickly. Is there any chance I could modify it to only use sd-ext for /data (or even just app data), and use the sdcard for pictures as usual?
Maybe it's as easy as modifying the build.prop file?

 

[LordNerevar]

I'm really interested in this new version of the ROM, I used the SD-Ext mod for CM11\12 on it before but it never quite worked beautifully (the "memory" section of the Settings app behaved... erratically, and I sometimes got random freezes).
However, my sdcard is relatively small ("only" 32 Gb total) and my sd-ext partition is just 4gb. It'd be a problem for me to have /data/media loaded on sd-ext, as I'd run out of space pretty quickly. Is there any chance I could modify it to only use sd-ext for /data (or even just app data), and use the sdcard for pictures as usual?
Maybe it's as easy as modifying the build.prop file?

In order to make it work, I modified the frameworks_base storage_list.xml overlay file in the device tree. This tells the base what to use for primary storage. It's all set at compile time and I haven't come across a way to change it at run time. You may be able to hack around it with symbolic linking but I could see that being tricky with the multiple directories in /data/media. If you decide to roll your own ROM though, that file is what you'll need to revert along with fstab and possibly others in the device tree I'm forgetting. All of that is committed in my github.

 

[hinxnz]

You could use an init.d script and bind them, for example:

mount -o bind /storage/sdcard1 /mnt/shell/emulated/0
mount -o bind /storage/sdcard1 /data/media/0
mount -o bind /storage/sdcard1/Android/obb /data/media/obb

Something like this:

#!/system/bin/sh
(while [ 1 ]; do
BOOT=`getprop sys.boot_completed`
if [ $BOOT = 1 ]; then
mount -o bind /storage/sdcard1 /mnt/shell/emulated/0
mount -o bind /storage/sdcard1 /data/media/0
mount -o bind /storage/sdcard1/Android/obb /data/media/obb
exit; fi
done &)

 

[LordNerevar]

You could use an init.d script and bind them

I figured you might know a trick or two. What do you think about including that in the ROM with an early exit test for /data >= 8GB?

 

[hinxnz]

I figured you might know a trick or two. What do you think about including that in the ROM with an early exit test for /data >= 8GB?

Yeah I got a couple up my sleeve and yeah sounds good, the folders are created on sdcard1 when needed, unless you copy without overwriting them from internal first. In file explorers and on PC (MTP), both sdcard (internal storage) and sdcard1 will show only sdcard1.

I've mounted userdata too and mounted it to sdcard as well to access on PC, using an init.d script:

#!/system/bin/sh
(while [ 1 ]; do
BOOT=`getprop sys.boot_completed`
if [ $BOOT = 1 ]; then
mount -o remount,rw /
mkdir /storage/userdata
mount -o rw,discard,nosuid,nodev,noatime,nodiratime,inline_xattr -t f2fs /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/userdata /storage/userdata || mount -o noatime,nosuid,nodev,noauto_da_alloc,barrier=0 -t ext4 /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/userdata /storage/userdata
mkdir /mnt/shell/emulated/0/Userdata
mount -o bind /storage/userdata /mnt/shell/emulated/0/Userdata
mkdir /data/media/0/Userdata
mount -o bind /storage/userdata /data/media/0/Userdata
chmod 0777 /storage/userdata
mount -o remount,ro /
exit; fi
done &)

You can mount it on sdcard1 instead too if using sdcard1 as primary storage for example:

mkdir /storage/sdcard1/Userdata
mount -o bind /storage/userdata /storage/sdcard1/Userdata

 

[saldymhmd]

Anyone can help me? I'm planned to move to another rom. Already backup everything and formatted everything. But now my /data partition seems broken, it's only available 128MB. How to get back the /data partition as usual?

 

[LordNerevar]

Anyone can help me? I'm planned to move to another rom. Already backup everything and formatted everything. But now my /data partition seems broken, it's only available 128MB. How to get back the /data partition as usual?

What did you use to repartition/format and which recovery sees it as 128MB? 128MB sounds like possibly a swap partition but none of the recoveries I've seen would mistake a swap partition for /data.

Edit: Remember to revert /cache and /data to ext4 if moving to a ROM that doesn't support f2fs.

 

[andy hall]

WARNING: This beta release uses /data/media as the primary storage location. It is not recommended for use by those who have not configured an SD-EXT partition.

Hi, I have installed the rom and found my way around the "new way" with data storage.
Really happy, smooth and very nice interface.
All my apps are working fine thought I should share my experiences.
Auto screen brightness seems to have a mind of its own once it goes to max it seems to stick there, so just use the status bar slide option.
I am having really weird battery consumption issues.
It will stick on a figure, say 75% for ages and then seemingly drop of 10-20% in an hour or two. then repeat.
I have used greeinfy and an app killer as I have done before on loads of roms.
It is not play services but is listed as Android System. I have added Viper to system partition and also adaway.

Any ideas?
I have jsut flattened the battery as much as possible to see if that helps, as soon as charger was plugged in with the phone turned off, the screen flicked on with 12%, odd.

 

[LordNerevar]

Any ideas?

Sounds like one of those app killers is killing a system process that is needed to poll/read the battery for status. You may want to uninstall those and see if the problem goes away after a reboot. If not, their damage is probably permanent and it will take a clean install to recover. While not as easy to setup, you may want to look into the permissions that can be modified on installed apps (Settings->Apps->(troublesome app)->Scroll down to Permissions (Modify button)). Hope that helps.

 

[andy hall]

Sounds like one of those app killers is killing a system process that is needed to poll/read the battery for status. You may want to uninstall those and see if the problem goes away after a reboot. If not, their damage is probably permanent and it will take a clean install to recover. While not as easy to setup, you may want to look into the permissions that can be modified on installed apps (Settings->Apps->(troublesome app)->Scroll down to Permissions (Modify button)). Hope that helps.

Thanks for the idea, I acctually found that the GPS was keeping the phone awake for the whole time. will post some screenshots a bit later.

 

[Kameo]

Just flashed this to my Sensation.
Been struggling for 2 days with this issue : no signal/sim card detected... (while my sim is working in my other phones !).
For the record and anyone who faces this, just enable the sim card unlock with pin code and it will work (seems a weird bug with CM/AOSP).
Go to Settings > Security > UNLOCK SIM > Configure sim unlock > and check "Ask for pin code to use the phone".

 

[LordNerevar]

I've been able to build TWRP with /data/media support. A big thanks to @ivanich. His cm-12.1 repos were used to build this recovery. I haven't tested everything in this recovery, but the basics work well. Please post if you run into issues.

Edit: This recovery will allow you to do multiple things with /data/media that a normal recovery won't. It will allow you to access internal storage from your PC, wipe /data w/o wiping /data/media, backup /data w/o backing up /data/media and restore said /data.

Note: This recovery is only useful for /data/media ROMs (iow, ROMs with /data on SD-EXT). Please do not flash for "normal" ROMs.

recovery: here
md5sum:67f81b39cd51abc131e8b6266a89d4c3

 

[andy hall]

Sounds like one of those app killers is killing a system process that is needed to poll/read the battery for status. You may want to uninstall those and see if the problem goes away after a reboot. If not, their damage is probably permanent and it will take a clean install to recover. While not as easy to setup, you may want to look into the permissions that can be modified on installed apps (Settings->Apps->(troublesome app)->Scroll down to Permissions (Modify button)). Hope that helps.

I could not find an individual APP to cause the issue.
The mods I made were to REMOVE DSP, music, exchange, and email apks, ADD adaway, cLock and viper4android. into the /system/apps folder. cLock as I prefer the widget.
at this point I had not bee fiddling with blocking things and GPS was running rampant, I have a feeling Clock was the issue, will try again later.
Just as a side question, is ther a reason not to use Mounts2SD, after installing I experienced GooglePlay Services FC's on the older version of this rom.

 

[LordNerevar]

I could not find an individual APP to cause the issue.
The mods I made were to REMOVE DSP, music, exchange, and email apks, ADD adaway, cLock and viper4android. into the /system/apps folder. cLock as I prefer the widget.
at this point I had not bee fiddling with blocking things and GPS was running rampant, I have a feeling Clock was the issue, will try again later.
Just as a side question, is ther a reason not to use Mounts2SD, after installing I experienced GooglePlay Services FC's on the older version of this rom.

For GPS on that version of the ROM, you might try the AGPS patch from here. I haven't used Mounts2SD or similar apps. Maybe somebody who's tried those with this ROM can help. Which GApps did you use?