[ROM/TOOL][10.x] RattlesnakeOS [Pixel 3a]

[dantheman78]

This is a bit different than most postings here, as I'm not directly providing any binaries to install on your phone and instead providing a simple tool, rattlesnakeos-stack, to build your own customized ROM based with latest AOSP on a regular basis, with your own signing keys, and your own OTA updates. This probably will be interesting to a small subset of users as it requires some technical knowledge and costs money to run this infrastructure in AWS to produce your own builds.

You can read more about the project here: https://github.com/dan-v/rattlesnakeos-stack
I'm generally more active on the subreddit if you have any questions: https://www.reddit.com/r/RattlesnakeOS/

XDA:DevDB Information
RattlesnakeOS [Pixel 3a], ROM for the Google Pixel 3a

Contributors
dantheman78
Source Code: https://github.com/dan-v/rattlesnakeos-stack

ROM OS Version: Android 10
ROM Kernel: Linux 4.x
Based On: AOSP

Version Information
Status: Stable
Current Stable Version: v9.0.35
Stable Release Date: 2019-09-08
Current Beta Version: v10.0.0-beta.1
Beta Release Date: 2019-09-12

Created 2019-09-13
Last Updated 2019-09-13

 

[flocke000]

I really like the idea. I have some experience in building Android, so I might try this if I find some time. Be prepared for LOTS of questions if I do

 

[dantheman78]

I really like the idea. I have some experience in building Android, so I might try this if I find some time. Be prepared for LOTS of questions if I do

Happy to help answer any question if you decide to make the jump. Also, thanks so much for your work on andOTP, such a great app!

 

[flocke000]

Happy to help answer any question if you decide to make the jump. Also, thanks so much for your work on andOTP, such a great app!

Thank you, every time I encounter someone using andOTP I remember how much I love developing it. My main problem is that I don't have any time to spend working on it right now (same as with trying this). Let's hope that changes soon ... :good:

 

[Helios747]

Oh dang! This is way more robust than I expected going into your repo! This is impressive! I like this! I have my own build systems setup locally but I'm digging into this now and seeing what you did better than I did. I have some security features disabled due to vendor being obnoxious. My AOSP infra work is a bit dead in the water until TWRP updates for Android 10 though. Excited to play with this when I can.

 

[Helios747]

So one thing I'm wondering though is, why provide options for building in apps that can trivially be downloaded (and maintained!) From fdroid? Unless I'm missing something, I feel like adding in chromium and pushing every update for that via OTA is fairly excessive.

 

[dantheman78]

So one thing I'm wondering though is, why provide options for building in apps that can trivially be downloaded (and maintained!) From fdroid? Unless I'm missing something, I feel like adding in chromium and pushing every update for that via OTA is fairly excessive.

The primary reason for shipping F-Droid is to be able to include the privileged extension which is configured during the build to only trust your signing key. The privileged extension provides least privilege elevated install/uninstall permissions to make installing/updating F-Droid apps not require 'unknown sources' to be enabled or constant prompts, essentially making it behave like the Google app store.

The reason for shipping Chromium is not for the browser, but for the webview. The standard webview that ships with AOSP is meant for testing purposes, is not updated regularly and likely has security issues. So building a modern webview and keeping up to date is important. The general idea is that the average user would build this once a month and would get an updated webview with each release. If this sounds too frequent to you, you may pick and choose when to rebuild Chromium by locking onto a particular Chromium version in the config file.

 

[Helios747]

The reason for shipping Chromium is not for the browser, but for the webview. The standard webview that ships with AOSP is meant for testing purposes, is not updated regularly and likely has security issues. So building a modern webview and keeping up to date is important. The general idea is that the average user would build this once a month and would get an updated webview with each release. If this sounds too frequent to you, you may pick and choose when to rebuild Chromium by locking onto a particular Chromium version in the config file.

Ah. That makes perfect sense. I forgot that you can set system webview providers.