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Android on the HD2 - is it just run from the microSD card or an actual "ROM" ?
I'm not new to ROMs (been mucking around with cell phones and PocketPCs for many many years now) but I'm a bit confused about the Android situation with respect to the HD2 (just found one, literally found one, and if I can get it functional I'm keeping it).
I see all these "ROMs" here and I have to ask the question:
Are they actually ROMs that I'd be using to replace the Windows Mobile stock factory ROM, or all these just "ROMs" that exist in a folder on the microSD card and I simply run some executable that fires up Android as though it were just another application running on top of Windows Mobile?
Trying to make the question simple so I hope that's enough. Wasn't sure exactly where to put it so Q&A seemed the best choice.
Thanks for any information anyone can provide.
br0adband said:
...Are they actually ROMs that I'd be using to replace the Windows Mobile stock factory ROM, or all these just "ROMs" that exist in a folder on the microSD card and I simply run some executable that fires up Android as though it were just another application running on top of Windows Mobile?...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the latter...you fire up haret which shuts down windows and loads android. android does not / cannot (for the time being) exist without windows. if you remove the sd card, android ceases to exist on your phone; windows cannot be removed.
hope that answers your question.
Ok, so when you say that one app "shuts down windows" does that mean that Android fires up and is in complete control of the device as though it had actually booted off it directly from ROM, or is it running as an application on top of Windows Mobile, that's where I get confused.
I saw a reference that some Android builds on the HD2 actually run faster or at least they benchmark higher than a real Android device like the Nexus One. I find that tough to believe but hey, if the HD2 can do it, awesome...
br0adband said:
Ok, so when you say that one app "shuts down windows" does that mean that Android fires up and is in complete control of the device as though it had actually booted off it directly from ROM, or is it running as an application on top of Windows Mobile, that's where I get confused.
I saw a reference that some Android builds on the HD2 actually run faster or at least they benchmark higher than a real Android device like the Nexus One. I find that tough to believe but hey, if the HD2 can do it, awesome...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my understanding is it shuts windows down - it is not running as an app on top of windows, though uses the hardware to fire android. when android runs it is in control of the device. you cannot have windows and android running at the same time.
"But Maaaaaaa" (ala Eric Cartman, South Park)
Ok, so we can only run Android from the SD card. But this begs the question....WHY? What is it about the HD2 that precludes the ability to remove Winjunk altogether?
To be able to run android directly from ROM, Android needs to use NAND.
AFAIK NAND is available, but noone knows how to use it directly.
Developpers are busy trying [thread], but until now without success, however signs are it is nearly completed.
As far as I understand, NAND preloads some drivers needed for Android. (like CLRCAD which is needed for sound)
Someone knows answer to folowing:
If NAND is possible/available, will booting Android be faster? Will the "Linux boot output" disappear or not.
Until now I think Android is booting (very) slow, partially due to the "Linux boot output" (scrolling lines)
Hello all,
Was thinking if there could be way to have some android live versions of the rOM images similar to the OSes having Live CD/DVD Where in you could boot up your machine with the Live CD/DVD and work on the OS from the CD/DVD.
We could have all the different ROM mods being put on the SD card, boot up the phone via SD card and test the ROMs before really flashing them on to the Phones.
I know the Gurus and geniuses here can make it happen.
Waiting for this to happen.
I am not sure if its version 1.5 or 1.6 but after one or the other Android stopped being able to boot to x86 chips. Which means you could build a live CD to do this but it would have to be a relatively old version of android. I believe google did this because if I remember correctly they were starting to support x86 architecture on chrome.
jvward said:
I am not sure if its version 1.5 or 1.6 but after one or the other Android stopped being able to boot to x86 chips. Which means you could build a live CD to do this but it would have to be a relatively old version of android. I believe google did this because if I remember correctly they were starting to support x86 architecture on chrome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure If I was clear. What I am talking here is about having a mechanism for the Modified Phone ROMs to be on the SD card, boot up the phone with the ROM on the SD card and test the ROM before flashing it on the Phone.
jvward said:
I am not sure if its version 1.5 or 1.6 but after one or the other Android stopped being able to boot to x86 chips. Which means you could build a live CD to do this but it would have to be a relatively old version of android. I believe google did this because if I remember correctly they were starting to support x86 architecture on chrome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe he want's a way to test the roms on his phone using some kind of a virtual machine type of program on his phone.
sada23 said:
I am not sure If I was clear. What I am talking here is about having a mechanism for the Modified Phone ROMs to be on the SD card, boot up the phone with the ROM on the SD card and test the ROM before flashing it on the Phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not know of anything like this for the phone itself, but what you can do is get the Android SDK and use the emulator to run the rom you want to run and test it out that way.
Cody,
Thanks for the hint. I do have the andoid emulator installed on my machine and will try your suggestion. I have interest in developing some apps or even compile the android ROMs . Will have to start somewhere.
I have read a few posts in this section, but it is totally impossible for someone like me (new to smartphones, flashing and the rest) to understand anything. Would you please explain some of the terminologies used here? Some of them are: kernel, 3g, port, system.ext2, BT... and thousands more.
Thank you very much!
you don't really "need" to understand any of that.
all you need to do is to learn how to download files, learn how to extract the downloaded file, learn how to copy them to an sd card, and learn how to run a program inside windows mobile.
if you can do all that, you should be set!!!
just follow steps 1-6 (ignore step 1b - the part about system.ext2) - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=951962
Well noted AkumaX. Thank you very much!
XDAndroid is a project to port Android onto older HTC phones.
There are two main parts of XDAndroid, which combine to form a complete port:
Kernel/drivers: You can find packages to run Android on old HTC phones from a variety of sources, but whatever package you use, all rely upon the kernels/drivers created by the XDAndroid team to enable the basic hardware.
Android system: The Android system forms all of the parts of the phone's interface that you can directly interact with. Once the kernel/drivers have setup the hardware, you can add on an Android system port of your choice to form a complete build. Many system ports are available, both in terms of different versions (2.1 Eclair, 2.2 Froyo, 2.3 Gingerbread, etc.) and different starting points in the case of ports written by those outside of XDAndroid.
XDAndroid releases an "official" system port you can use, which is directly ported over by the XDAndroid team from the Android Open Source Project, and is very close to stock. Many of the alternative builds you come across are modifications of the XDAndroid system, containing customizations that deviate farther from stock Android, while others have different starting points altogether, and are ports of the ROMs found on official shipping devices that have already been customized (but still use the same basic kernel/drivers found here).
Android is a framework that runs on top of Linux. In order to get Android running on our devices, first we must get Linux running on the hardware with all drivers implemented, and then, we hook Android into these drivers. Thus, broadly viewed, the XDAndroid project is divided into two parts: the kernel/drivers and the Android port.
When you look at the files in your Android directory, you'll probably see something like the following:
zImage: The Linux kernel and drivers.
modules-###: Additional drivers for the kernel. Your system will load without this, but things like wifi may not work, or you may encounter instability.
initrd.gz: Used in the Linux boot process.
system.ext2: Most of the Android framework.
rootfs.img: Additional parts of the Android framework that are customized for our devices.
data.img: This file contains what would be your internal memory on a real Android device. Whenever you install a program it goes in to here. A new empty one will be automatically created if you don't have one.
haret.exe: Reboots you from Windows into XDAndroid.
startup.txt: Commands passed to XDAndroid on bootup that are customized by the user.
ts-calibration: Contains calibration information for the touch screen. If you don't have this file, you will be prompted to calibrate your screen on startup.
AndroidApps: A folder where if you copy any apks into it, they will be automatically installed on bootup.
manekineko said:
XDAndroid is a project to port Android onto older HTC phones.
-------.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good explanation manekineko!...I believe this is what op was looking for.
there is light at the end of the tunnel, it wont take much longer if the devs keep up this good work, until there can be made stable and good builds with good battery life etc. when the time is there i will create an complete noob friendly installation guide (with pics and maybe even an vid).
I'm currently trying to figure out which one to install!
manekineko said:
XDAndroid is a project to port Android onto older HTC phones.
There are two main parts of XDAndroid, which combine to form a complete port:
Kernel/drivers: You can find packages to run Android on old HTC phones from a variety of sources, but whatever package you use, all rely upon the kernels/drivers created by the XDAndroid team to enable the basic hardware.
Android system: The Android system forms all of the parts of the phone's interface that you can directly interact with. Once the kernel/drivers have setup the hardware, you can add on an Android system port of your choice to form a complete build. Many system ports are available, both in terms of different versions (2.1 Eclair, 2.2 Froyo, 2.3 Gingerbread, etc.) and different starting points in the case of ports written by those outside of XDAndroid.
XDAndroid releases an "official" system port you can use, which is directly ported over by the XDAndroid team from the Android Open Source Project, and is very close to stock. Many of the alternative builds you come across are modifications of the XDAndroid system, containing customizations that deviate farther from stock Android, while others have different starting points altogether, and are ports of the ROMs found on official shipping devices that have already been customized (but still use the same basic kernel/drivers found here).
Android is a framework that runs on top of Linux. In order to get Android running on our devices, first we must get Linux running on the hardware with all drivers implemented, and then, we hook Android into these drivers. Thus, broadly viewed, the XDAndroid project is divided into two parts: the kernel/drivers and the Android port.
When you look at the files in your Android directory, you'll probably see something like the following:
zImage: The Linux kernel and drivers.
modules-###: Additional drivers for the kernel. Your system will load without this, but things like wifi may not work, or you may encounter instability.
initrd.gz: Used in the Linux boot process.
system.ext2: Most of the Android framework.
rootfs.img: Additional parts of the Android framework that are customized for our devices.
data.img: This file contains what would be your internal memory on a real Android device. Whenever you install a program it goes in to here. A new empty one will be automatically created if you don't have one.
haret.exe: Reboots you from Windows into XDAndroid.
startup.txt: Commands passed to XDAndroid on bootup that are customized by the user.
ts-calibration: Contains calibration information for the touch screen. If you don't have this file, you will be prompted to calibrate your screen on startup.
AndroidApps: A folder where if you copy any apks into it, they will be automatically installed on bootup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you so much for your explanations, manekineko. I believe that I am now ready to cruise through all the threads of this section without fear.
shatred said:
there is light at the end of the tunnel, it wont take much longer if the devs keep up this good work, until there can be made stable and good builds with good battery life etc. when the time is there i will create an complete noob friendly installation guide (with pics and maybe even an vid).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
shatred, I am eagerly waiting for two things: (i) for the developers to release the perfect Android builds (my sincere encouragements to them by the way!!!) and (ii) for your installation guide.
gueyenono said:
I'm currently trying to figure out which one to install!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
tell me your phone type, so an rhod-100? 200? 300? etc.
and tell me what you prefer more, an good battery life and an stable running system without camera support OR less stable system, bad battery life but with camera support.
Tell me and i will help you
shatred said:
tell me your phone type, so an rhod-100? 200? 300? etc.
and tell me what you prefer more, an good battery life and an stable running system without camera support OR less stable system, bad battery life but with camera support.
Tell me and i will help you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uhm... You no longer have to choose. WisTilt2 pulled the latest commits from GIT into his test kernel.
arrrghhh said:
Uhm... You no longer have to choose. WisTilt2 pulled the latest commits from GIT into his test kernel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah but if you activate the camera libs the phone wont go into deep sleep mode right? or is that fixed already?
shatred said:
yeah but if you activate the camera libs the phone wont go into deep sleep mode right? or is that fixed already?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems I was wrong about that. It was the other way around, if the libs are disabled the phone won't sleep.
However, with FRX05 there's no need for the libs. FRX05 + GIT kernel or WisTilt2's newest kernel is all you need for cam.
arrrghhh said:
Seems I was wrong about that. It was the other way around, if the libs are disabled the phone won't sleep.
However, with FRX05 there's no need for the libs. FRX05 + GIT kernel or WisTilt2's newest kernel is all you need for cam.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmm yeah about that, i tried frx05 with wistilt2 latest kernels but it doesnt work for me, i think its an problem with my user conf... can you perhaps send me your user conf from frx05?
shatred said:
hmm yeah about that, i tried frx05 with wistilt2 latest kernels but it doesnt work for me, i think its an problem with my user conf... can you perhaps send me your user conf from frx05?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same for FRX04... It's in my bundle.
If you remove all of the ln -s and bind mounts, should work just fine...
Hi,
first of all, I'm no Dev and I (for now) don't know much about Android...
Wanted to post this into DEV-related Forums, but I can't coz of my little post-count (I just registered yesterday)
But I am very interested in flashing/downgrading and just play around with Video Game Consoles Firmware such as PSP, Xbox(360), PS3 and so on.
In 2005/2006 (early years of the PSP) it was not yet possible to downgrade to older or install Custom Firmwares on PSP for the ability to run homebrew, but there was a nice workaround called "Devhook" or "Devicehook".
Trough Devhook it was possible to emulate firmware Image stored on MemoryStick.
Would something like this not be an opinion to run our Android Devices as "multiboot" or , maybe, run an custom Bootloader on locked down devices like U20i?
I mean we are already able to install custom ROMs on our Devices, we are able to boot into xrecovery, nearly full access (?!?!) to the nand?
Would it not be possible to have one firmware/bootloader in the Nand and one ore multiple Firmwares/Bootloader on SD, Boot into a menue (like booting into xrecovery) and choose which one to load at next Startup?
I am also interested in the question how to organize multiboot through xRecovery?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=847423
Hi folks.
I'm an Android firmware developer (you can see my posts here in xda) that got a yoga book yesterday. For me it works at it should (by now) but my hacker soul speak to me and said: "at least take a look to see what you can get from this device". I don't have many time, so I can't spend time doing roms or fixing things by myself, but I can share with you some info I get and help you with my knowledge if someone is interested in "play" with this device.
First of all, I'm not responsable of anything that you can break following these steps. Almost all of them are tested and with some common sense you will not break anything, and if you break anything I will try to help you to fix it (if you are polite), but this is a work in progress and hacking and the possibility of brick the device is always there.
I only have the Android version without LTE, so I only tested in my Book.
So, here we go:
1) Secret codes:
I get this codes decompiling EngineeringCode.apk with apktool. Be carefull with them:
####0000# - Display version info
####7599# - Display hardware info
####8375# - Display baseband info
####1111# - Factory test
####2222# - Display SN
####7777# - Factory Reset???
####5993# - Display internal frameWork version
####7642# - Cut the power off to reload the PMIC - This command shutdowns the device. Just press the power button to reboot.
####5236# - Display LCD name
####2834# - ES close test
####8899# - open the ums mode default for debug
####3333# - offline log
####3334# - offline modem log
####9527# - Mediaplayer setting
####78646# - RunIn test
####6020# - switch country code
####59930# - Display current country code
####8746# - Enter engineering mode
####4227# - Enter engineer test
####357# - DLP_TEST
To use these codes, open the contacts app, press the search button and enter the code in the search bar.
2) OTA Images
You can get OTA images directly from lenovo servers. Just open your browser and paste this url:
http://fus.lenovomm.com/firmware/3....WW06_BP_ROW&action=querynewfirmware&locale=en
Change device model if needed (LenovoYB1-X90F or LenovoYB1-X90L)
Change curfirmwarever to a valid OLD firmware, this way you will get the next one in age.
Change locale if needed.
With this url you will get a download url at the end of the result page. In this case: http://tabdl.ota.lenovomm.com/dls/v...S000426_1705080316_WW06_BP_ROW_WC80C2A0F2.zip
These images are not full ota images, they are diff versions. This means that we can't use them to mod the image, or recover a bricked device, but this is a first step
3) Custom images
We don't have real sources to build a custom image (the lenovo's open source files are useless), but this doesn't mean that we couldn't modify stock images to take out useless apks or get better performance.
We can get this using an Android Kitchen and a full update image for the device.
As Android kitchen you can use SuperR kitchen (https://forum.xda-developers.com/ap...chen-superr-s-kitchen-v1-1-50-v2-1-6-t3597434)
As full image, I only tested the one here (https://easy-firmware.com/index.php?a=browse&b=category&id=19521) because I can't download any newer one.
I tested uncompressing it, deodexing the apks and doing a new image. But I don't test it in the device because I need to install twrp to flash the new image and I don't have time to test. But this should work, I did it many times so if someone is interested I can give steps to do it and support for testing.
If someone can get the latest full images, send then to me and maybe I can get some time to do some tests.
PD: Probably we could use this as a base to get LineageOS 14.1 working: https://github.com/latte-dev/android_device_xiaomi_latte/tree/cm-14.1
So, if you are interested in some hacking with the Yoga Book, contact me and we could team to get the most of this device.
First of all thank you for your post, it´s really useful
if you could somehow manage to boot windows on this machine it´s by far the greatest war we have right now.
Il promise you a lunch or dinner on Lisbon whenevere you want!
joao1979 said:
First of all thank you for your post, it´s really useful
if you could somehow manage to boot windows on this machine it´s by far the greatest war we have right now.
Il promise you a lunch or dinner on Lisbon whenevere you want!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, my knowledge of Windows is only user level . Install it in personal computer to play games .
But I really don't know why people wants to run Windows there, it will go slowly than Android and its less touch oriented... but I suppose that this is a chat for another thread
corvus said:
Sorry, my knowledge of Windows is only user level . Install it in personal computer to play games .
But I really don't know why people wants to run Windows there, it will go slowly than Android and its less touch oriented... but I suppose that this is a chat for another thread
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
in my particular case, i´l admit that is for football manager the touch version
joao1979 said:
in my particular case, i´l admit that is for football manager the touch version
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried running it through Crossover? It may be in its infancy but i have got a few apps running OK with it.
I have the full "YB1-X90F_USR_S000196_1611040312_WW06_BP_ROW" I can upload somewhere if anyone can suggest a good site to do so without signing up? The file is about 2.5gb
It will be great if we could get the latest version, because maybe these older versions have older files that we have updated in our tablets.
Mixing files could give unknown problems
The current TWRP is based on the new Yoga Tab 3
I am starting to think they do not do full roms for this in the same way they do for a lot of their other devices.
We know the otas are available from tabdl.ota.lenovomm.com/dls/v6/ and are named according to the 2 builds that it bridges. As easy-firmware had the december full rom under the file name B1-X90F_USR_S000196_1611040312_WW06_BP_ROW-flashfiles.zip I had hoped that I could work out the file path to pull it down.
There were some interesting ideas here, https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/help/how-download-stock-roms-lenovos-ota-t3109507 but it seems there is a difference between phonedl.ota and tabdl.ota
Queries to full roms that work for phones, don't seem to work for the yoga book.
Anyone with more web knowledge able to pick this up? I am not sure the files are there but I feel they should be.
Good luck
Update: the downloads seem to be hosted via CloudFront. An Amazon service, but I can not find out a way of listing the available files. The latest full rom would be
http://tabdl.ota.lenovomm.com/dls/v6/YB1-X90F_USR_S000426_1705080316_WW06_BP_ROW_WC80C2A0F2.zip
But the Last 8 chars are random and we do not know what they are.
So we have two hopes. First work out the right query to the link from fus.lenovomm.com or two find a way of listing files available in tabdl.ota.lenovomm.com/dls/v6
Not sure I have got much further but ill keep trying when I can.
Hey, I should mention that I have some files that you may find helpful; I got them from the easy firmware website. They're all the .img files for each partition in Android (ie. boot.img, cache.img, config.img, factory.img, recovery.img, system.img) as well as: biosupdate.fv, bootloader, firmware.bin and gpt.bin. However, these of course aren't in the normal "flashable .zip ROM" format. So unless you know how to take apart these .img files they aren't very useful. If you need any more help or have any other questions about how far we've come on our own, feel free to ask. danjac also has great knowledge of our efforts.
Yes, I know how to use them, unpack, modify, etc. But what I want is the latest version, no a old version (I hav these files too). If you have them I can do some changes, debloat, etc.
Anyway, I see little interest in custom roms in this forum ( probably because it's not a device with a lot of users or the users are not the techy kind), so I prefer to help others with info than do a custom rom that only 2 or 3 people will use. Doing custom roms is a time hungry task and probably it doesnt worth the effort. Anyway this device is not full of bloatware like samsung ones, so it useable as it is.
As I said in my first post if anyone is interested I can give some hints and support to modify the full image (but only the latest one).
It's so sad that there are only a few interested owners of this tab - it's such a nice device but i fear the day lenovo decides to end their support for it. There will be no custom roms to switch to and keep the device alive - it will be a soon to be bit of old tech garbage BTW. I still use my Asus Transformer Prime because of the nice community
@NiffStipples I fully agree. This device is so powerful and its a suprise that it is invisible to the "market". In my humple opinion the normal ROMs aren't that bad besides missing updates but I would love to see all the power served through a custom rom. unfortunately programming is not my business
Stefan
Broomfundel said:
Have you tried running it through Crossover? It may be in its infancy but i have got a few apps running OK with it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting - is Crossover good (and does it require factory reset)?
Hi, It works well with some things and not others. Often the why and where are not obvious. It is basically "wine" the layer that allows some windows apps to run on a linux install. Tweeked to work with android. Just an install to put crossover on. Then another install (Within crossover), to put you app on crossover. If it doesn't work out of the box, there windows libraries you can switch out and dependencies you can install. (Eg: directx , .net) Even if your not technical. I would say get on the beta program and give it a try.
Hi! what do you mean by "lenovo's open source files are useless"? do you refer to this packet on lenovo's suppport site? download.lenovo.com/consumer/open_source_code/lenovo_yb1_x90f_l_osc_201608.zip
I've entered the Android YogaBook's BIOS and noticed that VT-X is enabled by default! With Limbo x86 we could get a fully working virtualized Windows or Linux, if it wasn't for... KVM. It seems like it's not enabled in Lenovo's default kernel. Could we get to recompile the kernel with this option on? i'm not a big android/ROM expert but i surfed the open_source_code folder from Lenovo and it seemed, to me, that we could rebuild the Kernel at least.
This could really change things!
morrolinux said:
Hi! what do you mean by "lenovo's open source files are useless"? do you refer to this packet on lenovo's suppport site? download.lenovo.com/consumer/open_source_code/lenovo_yb1_x90f_l_osc_201608.zip
I've entered the Android YogaBook's BIOS and noticed that VT-X is enabled by default! With Limbo x86 we could get a fully working virtualized Windows or Linux, if it wasn't for... KVM. It seems like it's not enabled in Lenovo's default kernel. Could we get to recompile the kernel with this option on? i'm not a big android/ROM expert but i surfed the open_source_code folder from Lenovo and it seemed, to me, that we could rebuild the Kernel at least.
This could really change things!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you enter the bios? Can you boot from usb?
anyone managed to use swiftkey keyboard?