Hi! This is my first post on XDA.
As a user of CM for more than a year ago on my i9300, and after enduring a lot of bugs, I wonder: What happens to CM?
It's a known fact that the Exynos platform is a headache for developers because there is no documentation or open sources from Samsung. So, things like the camera, the sound system, the HDMI output and the GPU do not work as they should.
However, here are many good developers who have fixed these bugs, or at least improve them a bit. And most of these fixes are open source and accessible by everyone on Github.
So, what is waiting CM to implement them? Giving credit to their authors, obviously.
CyanogenMod announces itself as an alternative to the stock firmware that lets you take full advantage of your smartphone, making it better and more stable. Now they are also a company: Cyanogen Inc. As a reputable brand, it should offer a higher quality firmware. ROMs like Nameless (I'm using it right now) works better even being "not official".
This is just an opinion as a user. I'm not criticizing or forcing anyone to do anything. But if there are hundreds of people using a ROM with bugs that were fixed, why not implement them? I would be the first to help, but my skills are just about webdev.
Respect and thanks for i9300 developers on XDA, and sorry about my bad English. When I use my native language I express myself MUCH better. Trust me. lol
Thanks for reading.
There's no i9300 maintainer, and they accept pull requests (on gerrit) when somebody sends them.
Also, the fact that there's no i9300 maintainer is directly connected with what you already said - lack of proper documentation. Nobody wants to fix the mess that has been created since whole this time. The amount of hacks required to make AOSP work on i9300 is too damn high. I'm slowly fixing this mess, making i9300 a bit better supported, but it's still a long way until it's done. Take a look at ArchiKernel for example, why I had to create my own kernel? Because smdk4412 sources were so much outdated that they finished around update7, right after sudden death fix. XXELLA, 4.1.2 Android times, hello. So first thing was to cleanup the kernel mess, use up-to-date samsung sources (used for stocks) and make them work with AOSP. Now, if I commit my work to CM, they'll deny this instantly because new kernel supports only i9300 and this commit would break all other exynos4 variants from compiling. Yes, together we COULD fix it, make it work with other devices. But I have better things to do than trying to fix whole exynos4 family, I focus on i9300.
This is one of the reasons why we won't see any official cm12 nightly for i9300. Because nobody is going to maintain that. Even if we can fix something, nobody is going to commit that, unless we put serious effort for making it universal across all supported devices.
That's a real shame the device is in such a mess.
Actually, to be fair, using Omnirom 4.4.4, I'm finding that the only thing that doesn't work properly is the notification led (no one seems to know why it only works 3 times out of 4).
I'll probably end up buying a new phone next year, anyway, since buy this time next year the i9300 will be almost 4 years old. In smartphone terms, that means it's getting along a bit.
(oh, and thanks for all your work on it, JustArchi!)
JustArchi said:
There's no i9300 maintainer, and they accept pull requests (on gerrit) when somebody sends them.
Also, the fact that there's no i9300 maintainer is directly connected with what you already said - lack of proper documentation. Nobody wants to fix the mess that has been created since whole this time. The amount of hacks required to make AOSP work on i9300 is too damn high. I'm slowly fixing this mess, making i9300 a bit better supported, but it's still a long way until it's done. Take a look at ArchiKernel for example, why I had to create my own kernel? Because smdk4412 sources were so much outdated that they finished around update7, right after sudden death fix. XXELLA, 4.1.2 Android times, hello. So first thing was to cleanup the kernel mess, use up-to-date samsung sources (used for stocks) and make them work with AOSP. Now, if I commit my work to CM, they'll deny this instantly because new kernel supports only i9300 and this commit would break all other exynos4 variants from compiling. Yes, together we COULD fix it, make it work with other devices. But I have better things to do than trying to fix whole exynos4 family, I focus on i9300.
This is one of the reasons why we won't see any official cm12 nightly for i9300. Because nobody is going to maintain that. Even if we can fix something, nobody is going to commit that, unless we put serious effort for making it universal across all supported devices.
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Thanks for answering my topic. The opinion of a developer like you is very appreciated.
This situation only seems to give more reasons for not buy a Samsung phone again. This lack of support from the manufacturer is a disrespect to the user's investment. And fragmentation strikes again. Sad but true.
Thanks again for your great work of keeping this device alive for all of us.
StephenJSweeney said:
That's a real shame the device is in such a mess.
Actually, to be fair, using Omnirom 4.4.4, I'm finding that the only thing that doesn't work properly is the notification led (no one seems to know why it only works 3 times out of 4).
I'll probably end up buying a new phone next year, anyway, since buy this time next year the i9300 will be almost 4 years old. In smartphone terms, that means it's getting along a bit.
(oh, and thanks for all your work on it, JustArchi!)
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I tried OmniROM few months ago, but it had some annoying bugs (like camera crashes) and I missed some customizations of CyanogenMod. Anyway, I'll try it again. My next buy might be a Motorola phone. The AOSP support is priceless.
ouch01 said:
I tried OmniROM few months ago, but it had some annoying bugs (like camera crashes) and I missed some customizations of CyanogenMod. Anyway, I'll try it again. My next buy might be a Motorola phone. The AOSP support is priceless.
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I had the camera crash on CM11 M11, and switched over to Omnirom shortly after that. I'm using Google Camera with an Omnirom nightly from November, and I've never had a camera crash.
Agree with you about getting a Motorola. I'd love it if the next Moto G refresh (if there is one) came with some more RAM, increased storage (16GB instead of 8), 4G, and a multicolour led. Being able to customize the colours to suit the category of app is something I love about custom ROMs. That should be baked into Android, to be honest (but at least there's LightFlow).
JustArchi said:
There's no i9300 maintainer, and they accept pull requests (on gerrit) when somebody sends them.
Also, the fact that there's no i9300 maintainer is directly connected with what you already said - lack of proper documentation. Nobody wants to fix the mess that has been created since whole this time. The amount of hacks required to make AOSP work on i9300 is too damn high. I'm slowly fixing this mess, making i9300 a bit better supported, but it's still a long way until it's done. Take a look at ArchiKernel for example, why I had to create my own kernel? Because smdk4412 sources were so much outdated that they finished around update7, right after sudden death fix. XXELLA, 4.1.2 Android times, hello. So first thing was to cleanup the kernel mess, use up-to-date samsung sources (used for stocks) and make them work with AOSP. Now, if I commit my work to CM, they'll deny this instantly because new kernel supports only i9300 and this commit would break all other exynos4 variants from compiling. Yes, together we COULD fix it, make it work with other devices. But I have better things to do than trying to fix whole exynos4 family, I focus on i9300.
This is one of the reasons why we won't see any official cm12 nightly for i9300. Because nobody is going to maintain that. Even if we can fix something, nobody is going to commit that, unless we put serious effort for making it universal across all supported devices.
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i feel you
SlimRoms is the answer
unlike CM, Slim has a I9300 maintainer, has support, every weekly update works properly.
Devs should really take a look at Slim's Gerrit and Freenode/#SlimDev
StephenJSweeney said:
I had the camera crash on CM11 M11, and switched over to Omnirom shortly after that. I'm using Google Camera with an Omnirom nightly from November, and I've never had a camera crash.
Agree with you about getting a Motorola. I'd love it if the next Moto G refresh (if there is one) came with some more RAM, increased storage (16GB instead of 8), 4G, and a multicolour led. Being able to customize the colours to suit the category of app is something I love about custom ROMs. That should be baked into Android, to be honest (but at least there's LightFlow).
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Click to collapse
The thing with Motorola is that their stock roms are basically just stock android. No laggy touchwiz skins, just a google launcher. Bloatware is at a minimum. A low spec phone like the moto G still is great because of how vanilla its experience is.
Rumours have it that the galaxy S6 international variant will have an exynos processor. I found a thread comparing the leaked info of the snapdragon 810 vs the next exynos processor and it seems that the exynos is getting a lot of popularity from users on the thread and it ain't no slouch. As it is now, phone's are so fast, that it's very hard to find a way of improving them. Like who compares app opening times nowadays? That will be much the case for 2015's flagships as well. I doubt I'd be disappointed if I had the next Samsung release if I thought I'd be in for a laggy UI, it's just whether I can tolerate the touchwiz experience or if I wanna switch to a vanilla aosp rom. That's where the problem arises.
arashvenus said:
SlimRoms is the answer
unlike CM, Slim has a I9300 maintainer, has support, every weekly update works properly.
Devs should really take a look at Slim's Gerrit and Freenode/#SlimDev
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But only in your imagination. There is noone at slimrom. Just check their gerrit.
whatsgood said:
Rumours have it that the galaxy S6 international variant will have an exynos processor .... I found a thread comparing the leaked info of the snapdragon 810 vs the next exynos processor and it seems that the exynos is getting a lot of popularity from users on the thread and it ain't no slouch.
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Aren't the Exynos processors the cause of much grief in the open source community, though? Aren't Qualcomm processors, such as the Snapdragon, much more popular because they're easier to work with..?
StephenJSweeney said:
Aren't the Exynos processors the cause of much grief in the open source community, though? Aren't Qualcomm processors, such as the Snapdragon, much more popular because they're easier to work with..?
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Correct.
Eleve11 said:
Correct.
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Well then, no more Samsung phones for me, then. Not unless they use Qualcomm..!
StephenJSweeney said:
Aren't the Exynos processors the cause of much grief in the open source community, though? Aren't Qualcomm processors, such as the Snapdragon, much more popular because they're easier to work with..?
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Yes, that's what i thought but people are showing interests due to how powerful the processor is. I think they're saying it's more powerful than the snapdragon 810. I'm not that techy but they were mentioning that the new exynos will be smaller in size or something, whilst the snapdragon will be bigger. Apparently smaller is better, but yes the problem is open sourcing. If you want to install a stock android custom rom, it will be difficult for developers to build a rom that can push your phone to it's full potential. Snapdragon doesn't have this problem.
Basically if you love flashing different roms that are fully functional a snapdragon 810 phone is for you. If you like what Samsung offers in it's next flagship and won't be tempted to flash other roms then the exynos is for you
whatsgood said:
Yes, that's what i thought but people are showing interests due to how powerful the processor is. I think they're saying it's more powerful than the snapdragon 810. I'm not that techy but they were mentioning that the new exynos will be smaller in size or something, whilst the snapdragon will be bigger. Apparently smaller is better, but yes the problem is open sourcing. If you want to install a stock android custom rom, it will be difficult for developers to build a rom that can push your phone to it's full potential. Snapdragon doesn't have this problem.
Basically if you love flashing different roms that are fully functional a snapdragon 810 phone is for you. If you like what Samsung offers in it's next flagship and won't be tempted to flash other roms then the exynos is for you
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I prefer to have less powerful processor, with full documentation how it works, rather than exynos and big giant hackish black box, which noone understands.
The problem is not with the exynos, but with Samsung. Judging from Exynos4, their kernel sources and own experience, exynos may look like it works, but amount of hacks and dirty workarounds to make it work, is too damn high. This could all be solved if Samsung changed their policy from "respect GPL, f*ck the rest" to "respect developers, show them that our SoC can be developer-friendly, too".
The problem is that we're not even 0.01% of Samsung sales, so why should they care. I'm not going to buy Samsung phone again, regardless if it has Snapdragon inside or not. The problem is not with the Exynos, the problem is in Samsung's policy.
JustArchi said:
I prefer to have less powerful processor, with full documentation how it works, rather than exynos and big giant hackish black box, which noone understands.
The problem is not with the exynos, but with Samsung. Judging from Exynos4, their kernel sources and own experience, exynos may look like it works, but amount of hacks and dirty workarounds to make it work, is too damn high. This could all be solved if Samsung changed their policy from "respect GPL, f*ck the rest" to "respect developers, show them that our SoC can be developer-friendly, too".
The problem is that we're not even 0.01% of Samsung sales, so why should they care. I'm not going to buy Samsung phone again, regardless if it has Snapdragon inside or not. The problem is not with the Exynos, the problem is in Samsung's policy.
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Yeah +1 for that. My next Phone will be definitly a Sony or a One plus. I think both are the developer friendliest in android ...
what for get android with huge ram but still lag? i won't go for android for sure. just stick with ios better. with android 8gb & asop, cm etc still can't fix the bugs. android received update so slow than ios.
khanmein said:
what for get android with huge ram but still lag? i won't go for android for sure. just stick with ios better. with android 8gb & asop, cm etc still can't fix the bugs. android received update so slow than ios.
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Yeah you are right but i think the most decent phone is the htc one......i would buy a windows phone rather than an iPhone
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/2qn8s4/new_impressive_lollipop_touchwiz_gives_nexus_line/
This is an interesting article on the new touchwiz that appears in android lollipop on the galaxy note 3. Surprisingly I can see nothing but praise from this person, apparently it seems to be running very well in comparison to touchwiz on KitKat. Is Samsung finally doing something good?
whatsgood said:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/2qn8s4/new_impressive_lollipop_touchwiz_gives_nexus_line/
This is an interesting article on the new touchwiz that appears in android lollipop on the galaxy note 3. Surprisingly I can see nothing but praise from this person, apparently it seems to be running very well in comparison to touchwiz on KitKat. Is Samsung finally doing something good?
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Click to collapse
its useless even if they port it to our i9300..1gb of ram..maybe its time to upgrade to more stronger phone..
I am about to buy this phone because it is just so damn good for it's very low price tag, however one thing is bugging me about it. I came here to find that there are no Marshmallow ROMs for it yet and the main reason for me wanting to upgrade my phone in the first place is so that I will be able to run the latest Android ROM's without performance problems. I am currently on CyanogenMod 13 on my old Samsung Galaxy S3 and I like it, but it is slow. The Redmi Note 2 doesn't even have CyanogenMod support.
Is this because Xiaomi are going to release an official MIUI based on Marshmallow? I don't want to buy this phone if it means I am going to be stuck on MIUI or on an older version of Android. I am a bit perplexed because this phone sold a lot so why hasn't anyone made Marshmallow for it yet?
Do you think that development is going to pick up for this device or is this device a bad option if you want to run the latest Google Android (not MIUI)?
Certainly, the RN2 is a lot of hardware for the money, but without source code, things are limited to either repacked/tweaked roms, or roms that are built from source, but have significant hardware functionality imperfections because source is not available. It doesn't seem clear to me whether Xiaomi will release a Marshmallow-based MIUI for the RN2 or not. Some people say yes, some people say no, so until it actually happens (if it ever does), who knows. I also bought the RN2 because it was so much hardware for the price, but I am also disappointed with the lack of CM and similar. This is certainly not for a lack of people not trying, but it seems like certain parts of the hardware will never become functional with CM unless the necessary source code is released. If you don't happen to use these parts of the hardware, well, maybe it doesn't matter. Personally, I have stuck with sMIUI because all the hardware is completely working, but I sure wish a CM version with all working hardware will eventually emerge.
verbage said:
Certainly, the RN2 is a lot of hardware for the money, but without source code, things are limited to either repacked/tweaked roms, or roms that are built from source, but have significant hardware functionality imperfections because source is not available. It doesn't seem clear to me whether Xiaomi will release a Marshmallow-based MIUI for the RN2 or not. Some people say yes, some people say no, so until it actually happens (if it ever does), who knows. I also bought the RN2 because it was so much hardware for the price, but I am also disappointed with the lack of CM and similar. This is certainly not for a lack of people not trying, but it seems like certain parts of the hardware will never become functional with CM unless the necessary source code is released. If you don't happen to use these parts of the hardware, well, maybe it doesn't matter. Personally, I have stuck with sMIUI because all the hardware is completely working, but I sure wish a CM version with all working hardware will eventually emerge.
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Thanks for the explanation. It seems really unfortunate that they haven't released the source. I guess I should either buy the more expensive Mi4 (which I believe the source is released for) or I can just wait it out and see if the source code get's released for the RN2. It seems strange to me that they wouldn't release Marshmallow-based MIUI for such a popular, fairly new phone. I think they will release it. If they release MM-MIUI then will that enable other developers to bring stock Android Marshmallow or CyanogenMod to the RN2?
M will deffo be released for RN2. Main reason we still dont have it is:
a) first "official" device with M is supposed to be mi5
b) MTK prolly didnt polish 6.0 yet
Major companies that use X10 (eg Sony & HTC) didnt realse M for their devices either, at least as far as i know, however they are planned. So yeah M will arrive eventually, which is great, but that doesnt mean custom roms will get any better. And knowing xiaomi, and their kernel release policies, this is pretty much 100%. Pretty sure they still havent released any kernel source for their older MTK powered devices.
I think I'm going to buy the Mi4 rather because its kernel is open. I want to know that I'll be able to get android roms of any new releases. It's a real shame because the Redmi Note 2 is cheaper and a more superior device, but I have read that Mediatek are scumbags when it comes to releasing kernels because they want to force you to buy a new device when your OS becomes outdated which goes against the open source licence of Linux. Oh well, I guess that's business.
rimpy said:
If they release MM-MIUI then will that enable other developers to bring stock Android Marshmallow or CyanogenMod to the RN2?
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If they release MM-MIUI for the RN2, unless they release the source code, this will still mean that roms are cooked/repacked, or built from source, but probably imperfectly due to lack of source. Though MIUI is based on Android, I don't think there are free and open MIUI repositories where one could grab the necessary source code for the RN2.
At this point, like everyone said, it is very unlikely that Xiaomi will ever release the source code for the RN2. Without it, custom ROMs will never be proper, and it's the reason there are no MM builds yet.
However, even though MIUI is horrible and God knows that I hate it, it's quite usable. A version of the Xposed framework that works on the latest MIUI builds has been released a couple of days ago, and with it you can get most of the functionality a custom ROM provides. It's not perfect, and I'd prefer AOSP, but it is, IMO, the best this phone has to offer at the moment.
I only got mine about three months ago, and while there were many times I came to regret my purchase, every other phone in this price range and slightly above has inferior hardware. With that said, if you want a phone running AOSP or something very close to it, you'd be better off getting a Nexus or a device that is officially supported by CM.
Thanks all. I was just about to buy the RN2 but I am glad I posted here first. I've learnt a lot and I don't think I would be happy with a phone that has a closed source kernel. The Mi4 has a smaller screen, no SD slot, slower, and costs more, but its kernel source is released and it is supported by CM13. Still very good value for money so that's gonna be my next phone.
It actually isnt slower. Benchmarks only. If you run them side by side with either MIUI or CM youll see than Mi4 is actually much faster than RN2, so yeah, its a better option if you have the money
Motorola finally releases Oreo Kernal source code..
https://github.com/MotorolaMobilityLLC/kernel-msm/releases/tag/MMI-OPW27.57-40
Expect some goodies today :victory:
It's GREAT to see some action on this. I haven't unlocked my bootloader yet, but between Magisk and a kernel, I'm very tempted. Many thanks to this great community!
Does this mean that quality of roms for the x4 in the future will be on the same level as phones that have Project Treble,
or will the Quality of roms on treble. enabled phones likely still have significantly less bugs?
I'm asking because i wonder if its worth selling the moto x4 to buy a treble enabled phone.
i dont really care about having the newest android version, i just want to have security updates every few months after motorola has pulled the plug on official support.
pietpietersen said:
Does this mean that quality of roms for the x4 in the future will be on the same level as phones that have Project Treble,
or will the Quality of roms on treble. enabled phones likely still have significantly less bugs?
I'm asking because i wonder if its worth selling the moto x4 to buy a treble enabled phone.
i dont really care about having the newest android version, i just want to have security updates every few months after motorola has pulled the plug on official support.
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i really doubt 6gb version is having treble.
kraatus90 said:
i really doubt 6gb version is having treble.
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Phones that come out on Oreo, must have treble according to Google's new policies.
But the question I posed was, if treble is really all that important.
If the community has the oreo kernel source codes like the ones above, isn't it possible to continue to provide security updates for this phone without making the phone become buggy? (Which is often the case when one runs something like LineageOS if i'm not mistaken)
pietpietersen said:
Phones that come out on Oreo, must have treble according to Google's new policies.
But the question I posed was, if treble is really all that important.
If the community has the oreo kernel source codes like the ones above, isn't it possible to continue to provide security updates for this phone without making the phone become buggy? (Which is often the case when one runs something like LineageOS if i'm not mistaken)
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Click to collapse
But the phone didn't really launch with oreo, it's upgrade has oreo out of the box. i'm pretty sure Motorola will find a way to dodge the bullet here.
Anyway, about security updates, nobody can say for sure. we don't even have 100% fully featured twrp yet. roms are long shot. with kernel source you can have latest security updates that are kernel side only. rom side fixes/updates cannot be done by kernel. hope that helps.
Oh, I thought that the Treble thing was already confirmed. Bummer
Title says it all.
There are only really 2 custom ROMs for the H9, and only one which seems to be stable enough to be a daily driver.
LOS 15.1 is available on the HV10, any chance it would be ported over to the H9 also?
I know the dev team is small, and the work they have done so far is brilliant, but it just seems to have gone a bit quite around here recently.
ambitiousButRubbish said:
Title says it all.
There are only really 2 custom ROMs for the H9, and only one which seems to be stable enough to be a daily driver.
LOS 15.1 is available on the HV10, any chance it would be ported over to the H9 also?
I know the dev team is small, and the work they have done so far is brilliant, but it just seems to have gone a bit quite around here recently.
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Click to collapse
I feel the same way...
Such a good device, well known and supported it seems, but only one Dev team (that can do only so much) and no custom kernels or a fully working Oreo TWRP yet.
I'm just hoping to see RROS reach 100% functionality at least, and at least one good custom kernel with some extra features that are missing (like other tcp algorithms, since cubic and reno are not that good and cripple the potential)
We have Treble, try phhTreble or some other treble ROM.
Rommco05 said:
View10 roms works on P10Plus so will work Honor 9 too, treble...
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They work but not 100% from what I've read, they need to be fixed to work with the H9 or else a bunch of stuff doesn't work.
Finally.
But just one problem. Is the hardware of Shamu still able of supporting Android Pie??
I hope so. I'm not a Dev, but I research a lot. I'm waiting for any port even if it's buggy as hell I can be a tester and provide feedback for any dev who needs?
I am also ready to test and provide feedback on any Android P ROM. I want this device alive as long as possible.
camcory already got Pie to boot:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6/development/aosip-8-1-official-t3801408/post77273542
No doubt there is still a huge amount of work to do before everything works satisfactorily - but a great start!
Considering our great devs, I'm confident that we'll get there - at least for the open source part of Android. Only gapps (and potentially some third party apps) may present unsolvable problems, if they can no longer run on 32-bit hardware.
runekock said:
camcory already got Pie to boot:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6/development/aosip-8-1-official-t3801408/post77273542
No doubt there is still a huge amount of work to do before everything works satisfactorily - but a great start!
Considering our great devs, I'm confident that we'll get there - at least for the open source part of Android. Only gapps (and potentially some third party apps) may present unsolvable problems, if they can no longer run on 32-bit hardware.
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Click to collapse
I believe it's gonna work. I was planning to buy Xiaomi redmi 5 plus This fall, but I'll wait till February or March next year. Shamu is till there!?
runekock said:
camcory already got Pie to boot:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6/development/aosip-8-1-official-t3801408/post77273542
No doubt there is still a huge amount of work to do before everything works satisfactorily - but a great start!
Considering our great devs, I'm confident that we'll get there - at least for the open source part of Android. Only gapps (and potentially some third party apps) may present unsolvable problems, if they can no longer run on 32-bit hardware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe it's gonna work. I was planning to buy Xiaomi redmi 5 plus This fall, but I'll wait till February or March next year. Shamu is till there!?
Oops