Hi all,
I am noob at XDA. (About myself: I am a software engineer aged 30. I have been hacking computers since I was 10.)
I am here because I am planning to buy a new Android device soon. (And unless something really revolutionary happens, I don't plan to upgrade it in the next 2 years or so, so it's a long-term decision.)
My short-list is:
- HTC One S
- Sony Xperia S
or, if everything else fails:
- Samsung Galaxy Nexus
The hardware of the One S and the Xperia S is obviously more powerful than the Galaxy Nexus; my only concern is the software side of things.
The thing is, I really don't like the customization the hardware vendors do with the software, so I want to run raw vanilla AOSP, or something very close to it.
(CM definitely qualifies.)
Also, I am sick of waiting for ages for new android versions to be ported to my device.
Obviously, Galaxy Nexus is guaranteed to be get Android upgrades first, so that's a safe choice in this respect, but since I like the hardware of Xperia S (and One S) so much, I would like to gain a better understanding the software situation of them, so I can make an informed decision about my purchase.
I am aware of the fact that Sony is actively supporting the Free Xperia Team, which is bringing CM9 to Nozomi (among other devices), but I have no information about the details of the project, or it's limitations.
So, my questions are the following:
1. What is the exact nature of the support Sony is providing to the FXP team? (HW? HW docs? Binary drivers? Driver source? Consultation?) Has this changed in any way, now that Sony Ericsson has become Sony? Was this a one-time action, or have they made any commitment about the future?
2. What does one need to build a vanilla android ROM for the S, using the AOSP sources? (Let's forget Cyanogenmod for now.) What is the status of the required device drivers?
3. What are the current obstacles, hindering the release of CM9 (or any other derivative of AOSP) for this device? As far as I know, Nozomi was released in 2012.02, ~4 months ago. ICS was released in 2011.10, ~8 months ago. Official ICS (Sony's version, with Timescape) is rolling out about now; CM9 is not yet released. I wonder what is taking so long?
(Please understand that I really, literally wonder: I am not demanding anything, and I am not trying to offend or accuse anyone; I am totally aware that I don't understand the process; I would like to have more information to understand what needs to be done. And since I am software engineer, and I am not afraid of getting my hand dirty, so eventually, I might end up helping with it...)
4. Do we have any information about Sony's plan for this device beyond ICS? Jelly Bean is coming up soon. Regardless of Sony's decision, when JB is released, I would like to run it on my device, as soon as possible. What are our prospects for porting JB to Nozomi? Is Sony going to help with porting the device drivers to the new kernel, is something like that would come up?
* * *
Thank you for explaining this:
Csillag
1) No one knows for sure, but I'm pretty sure that it's not game changing, judging by the progress me and Doomlord made on AOKP without any help from Sony (obviously).
2) You can try building Gingerbread, but no one cares, right? For ICS, see the next answer.
3) The most important problem is that we don't have the drivers/kernel sources, and there's not much motivation for building it from scratch considering the soon(ish) ICS release. There are leaks with files for so called 'brown' or developer devices, but they also don't give much because of different low-level software. So the state of things is that almost everything but wireless is working, but wireless doesn't work at all. That means data, calls and WiFi.
4) JellyBean will likely be a minor upgrade (4.1 that is) and there's nothing stopping Sony from releasing anything on the 4.x branch. When 5.0 comes, it will depend on the hardware requirements but I'd guess we're getting it too.
K900 said:
1) No one knows for sure,
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How is that possible?
The FXP guys (bin4ry, jerpelea, etc) are here on these forums...
... did they have to swear secrecy, even about the circumstances?
but I'm pretty sure that it's not game changing, judging by the progress me and Doomlord made on AOKP without any help from Sony (obviously).
2) You can try building Gingerbread, but no one cares, right? For ICS, see the next answer.
3) The most important problem is that we don't have the drivers/kernel sources,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You mean we don't have the kernel sources for ICS, right? Because for GB, we do have something, in this thread... I guess I should ask this in the relevant thread, but has anybody determined the exact differences between this source and the stock ( 2.6.35 ? ) kernel this is based on? How many non-standard drivers are there? Do they come from Sony directly, or do they come from 3rd parties? I will need to look into this...
and there's not much motivation for building it from scratch considering the soon(ish) ICS release.
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And according to past experience, how long does it take Sony to release the kernel for ICS, after the imminent official ICS release?
There are leaks with files for so called 'brown' or developer devices, but they also don't give much because of different low-level software. So the state of things is that almost everything but wireless is working, but wireless doesn't work at all. That means data, calls and WiFi.
4) JellyBean will likely be a minor upgrade (4.1 that is) and there's nothing stopping Sony from releasing anything on the 4.x branch. When 5.0 comes, it will depend on the hardware requirements but I'd guess we're getting it too.
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OK, that part sound good.
* * *
Thank you for explaining:
Csillag
csillag said:
How is that possible?
The FXP guys (bin4ry, jerpelea, etc) are here on these forums...
... did they have to swear secrecy, even about the circumstances?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't seen them tell anyone, and I've never seen them do anything that's not available for everyone else (thankfully).
csillag said:
You mean we don't have the kernel sources for ICS, right? Because for GB, we do have something, in this thread... I guess I should ask this in the relevant thread, but has anybody determined the exact differences between this source and the stock ( 2.6.35 ? ) kernel this is based on? How many non-standard drivers are there? Do they come from Sony directly, or do they come from 3rd parties? I will need to look into this...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are kernel sources for GB, the same ones from which the stock kernel was built. If you mean the upstream Linux kernel, it'll be a huge diff that's not so easy to port without datasheets (which we don't have) and actual understanding of how the hardware works. Speaking of drivers, I'm pretty sure you misunderstand the way Linux / Android 'drivers' work. Kernel-space drivers (modules) and userspace drivers (libraries and daemons) are two different things. They have to open source their kernels because Linus's tree ('official' Linux) is GPL, but the userspace parts are proprietary. ICS also brought many ABI changes, so just taking old libs and placing them in a new ROM often doesn't suffice.
csillag said:
And according to past experience, how long does it take Sony to release the kernel for ICS, after the imminent official ICS release?
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Click to collapse
It takes time, can't say how long really, but it shouldn't take too long because they know we want those sources.
K900 said:
I haven't seen them tell anyone, and I've never seen them do anything that's not available for everyone else (thankfully).
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Click to collapse
Have you seen them being explicitly asked about this?
(Because not saying anything because not being asked is completely different that refusing to reveal this info....)
There are kernel sources for GB, the same ones from which the stock kernel was built. If you mean the upstream Linux kernel,
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Yes, that was what I have meant when I wrote "stock". Now I see that it was ambiguous wording...
it'll be a huge diff
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That's sad.
I was hoping for finding only some added drivers, plus some small configuration changes elsewhere.
that's not so easy to port without datasheets
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obviously
(which we don't have)
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We don't have it, but the "official" FreeXperia team might, or they might be able to ask for it. This is exactly the kind of information I am trying to find about their collaboration with Sony...
and actual understanding of how the hardware works. Speaking of drivers, I'm pretty sure you misunderstand the way Linux / Android 'drivers' work.
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No, actually I get that part. (I am exclusively using Linux for about 13 years now, and I have also done some kernel hacks earlier.) But maybe my wording was ambiguous again...
Kernel-space drivers (modules) and userspace drivers (libraries and daemons) are two different things. They have to open source their kernels because Linus's tree ('official' Linux) is GPL,
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Well, that does not stop some vendors (like NVidia) to ship binary kernel modules, so I would not be too surprised to find even binary kernel modules bundled with the code. But if they are open source, that that's great.
but the userspace parts are proprietary.
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I did not know the devices require userspace parts. I was assuming that the kernel modules implement standard linux device interfaces; for example cameras are simply accessible via v4l[2], the modem is a character device, etc...
...so you say this is not the situation, and besides the kernel modules, they require custom user-space parts for operation, right?
ICS also brought many ABI changes, so just taking old libs and placing them in a new ROM often doesn't suffice.
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Yes, that part is clean.
It takes time, can't say how long really, but it shouldn't take too long because they know we want those sources.
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So, you say that it's a totally possible situation that we need to wait for several further months until we can get access to the kernel sources, and build proper CM9, right?
Unfortunately, this is exactly what I would like to avoid.
Maybe I should just stick to Galaxy Nexus, in spite of the older hardware...
Thank you for explaining:
Csillag
csillag said:
Have you seen them being explicitly asked about this?
(Because not saying anything because not being asked is completely different that refusing to reveal this info....)
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They tend to ignore such questions. PM me if you want my personal opinion, I'll try to stick to the facts here.
csillag said:
Yes, that was what I have meant when I wrote "stock". Now I see that it was ambiguous wording...
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Nevermind.
csillag said:
That's sad.
I was hoping for finding only some added drivers, plus some small configuration changes elsewhere.
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They add some stuff, but they also change stuff internally. Tweaks and patches and many different things to get the best performance on this specific board. CAF has a generic msm-3.0 kernel, but that's not as customized. And we're not really waiting for the kernelspace here.
csillag said:
We don't have it, but the "official" FreeXperia team might, or they might be able to ask for it. This is exactly the kind of information I am trying to find about their collaboration with Sony...
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Such things are very, very strongly NDA protected. That's Qualcomm's secret sauce, and it wouldn't be secret any more if they gave datasheets to the community.
csillag said:
No, actually I get that part. (I am exclusively using Linux for about 13 years now, and I have also done some kernel hacks earlier.) But maybe my wording was ambiguous again...
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Nevermind
csillag said:
Well, that does not stop some vendors (like NVidia) to ship binary kernel modules, so I would not be too surprised to find even binary kernel modules bundled with the code. But if they are open source, that that's great.
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Actually what NVIDIA does is ship a GPL'ed kernel module whose only function is to set up an interface through which the userspace (libGL) can talk to the hardware. So their kernel module is open source, but all the magic happens in the proprietary userspace.
csillag said:
I did not know the devices require userspace parts. I was assuming that the kernel modules implement standard linux device interfaces; for example cameras are simply accessible via v4l[2], the modem is a character device, etc...
...so you say this is not the situation, and besides the kernel modules, they require custom user-space parts for operation, right?
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Click to collapse
Android has a HAL of its own, so mostly it's about HAL modules, libGL and libril (Radio Interface Layer) to talk to the modem. And here is where many hardware vendors pull an NVIDIA.
csillag said:
So, you say that it's a totally possible situation that we need to wait for several further months until we can get access to the kernel sources, and build proper CM9, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, the kernel isn't that much of a problem. If we have to wait for too long, we'll just take CodeAurora msm-3.0 and port it which shouldn't be too hard cause it's as generic as possible.
csillag said:
Maybe I should just stick to Galaxy Nexus, in spite of the older hardware...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want AOSP now, you should go with the GNex. But the XPS is a nice phone, and the prospects with AOSP are good. Also would be nice to have someone more experienced with Linux (I'm just a student here) on the team/forums. If you get the XPS, PM me or Doomlord and I hope you'll help get AOKP running
I have wondered on and off occasionally what happens if a security issue happens with the android OS.
Currently as we all know android is incredibly fragmented, mainly due to a system where the phone vendors roll out updates at their own leisure and google upgrading the OS at a very fast pace. Combination of the two equals fragmented userbase. But I have never seen an update for android on any version stated to fix a security issue.
Then I read this article.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23431281
It mentiones manufacturers have yet to pass on the patch which is no surprise as here in the uk the phones that still do get updates tend to be 12 months behind google's updates (unless a new model on market), which is a deliberate policy so people buy a new phone to get new android.
Does anyone here know which android version's are affected and if custom roms have it patched?
chrcol said:
I have wondered on and off occasionally what happens if a security issue happens with the android OS.
Currently as we all know android is incredibly fragmented, mainly due to a system where the phone vendors roll out updates at their own leisure and google upgrading the OS at a very fast pace. Combination of the two equals fragmented userbase. But I have never seen an update for android on any version stated to fix a security issue.
Then I read this article.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23431281
It mentiones manufacturers have yet to pass on the patch which is no surprise as here in the uk the phones that still do get updates tend to be 12 months behind google's updates (unless a new model on market), which is a deliberate policy so people buy a new phone to get new android.
Does anyone here know which android version's are affected and if custom roms have it patched?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you're rooted (which i assume seeing your signature) you're safe.
Also read this: http://www.androidcentral.com/making-sense-latest-android-security-scare
well it doesnt say you safe if rooted it just says you have bigger security concerns to worry about so dont worry about this.
So in short if that article is right, its been a problem since android 1.6, all that time google hasnt bothered to patch it, samsung did their own patch but only on the s4, and android 4.3 is expected to be patched.
In the meantime ensure unknown app sources is disabled.
thats what I get from that article.
Very important thread.
Thanks for posting.
I'm glad I'm rooted
another article.
http://searchnetworking.techtarget....s-Report-Mobile-malware-attacks-grew-over-600
Seems android not disclosing the security issues and it wouldnt surprise me all the older phones with no updates are full of security holes.
should google be backporting security fixes to 2.2.x 2.1.x etc?
Install Xposed framework and then load the patch module to fix both security exploits, or simply only install well trusted apps
yeah I patched my AOKP now.
looking at this url it seems I can do the same on TW rom also.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2374453
Why is there such alot more development and forum activity on for example the Xiaomi Redmi phones than on this one? The p9000 got excellent hardware for a great price but the community is really small somehow and the software is still buggy? How come? Do you think its still worth to wait for more activity and responses from developers for this phone or is it a "dead cow" already and better to swap to another brand to get support from developers on for example CM or RR?
furchtlos76 said:
Why is there such alot more development and forum activity on for example the Xiaomi Redmi phones than on this one? The p9000 got excellent hardware for a great price but the community is really small somehow and the software is still buggy? How come? Do you think its still worth to wait for more activity and responses from developers for this phone or is it a "dead cow" already and better to swap to another brand to get support from developers on for example CM or RR?
Click to expand...
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Development for this device is far from dead, we have a stable device tree for building custom ROM's, CM and RR ROM's already released, a fully source built TWRP and work on custom kernels is just beginning. That's a lot more development already than an awful lot of devices see in their entire lifetime.
I would rather say it has just begun. Development for this MTK chip is not a matter of course and the outcome so far is pretty exciting. This opens the way for other devs who work on other devices with the same chipset. It's just that many devs simply prefer Snapdragon which leads to higher dev count on those devices, faster bug fixing etc. I am pretty excited what the future brings not only for our P9000 but MTK devices in general as far as flashing and development goes.
Development is dead? What gave you that impression? For starter this phone already has a working twrp recovery. That is more then some Chinese phones get in their whole lifetime. Kernels is the area of development next and elephone has been kind to release the source code for the phone. Again more then most developers even bother with.
well, it got twrp,root and xposed working. More than some name brand phones that stop official updates after a year.
But i admit it is easier to update my old nexus 4 with cm downloader. Just click the update notification and latest cm gets installed.
It is also getting nougat in November hopefully
mangoman said:
well, it got twrp,root and xposed working. More than some name brand phones that stop official updates after a year.
But i admit it is easier to update my old nexus 4 with cm downloader. Just click the update notification and latest cm gets installed.
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That's because Nexus 4 is an officially supported device by CM.
It's very difficult for MTK devices in general to get official CM support because we have to patch some things in the framework to make camera, RIL (mobile data) etc working.
The official stance is that these things should be done in device tree as no proprietary code is allowed in CM framework.
Initially when our patches were submitted to CM Gerrit they were rejected because of this, Leskal is working on minimising the patch work needed and getting more of the generic MTK code accepted on Gerrit.
Not helped by the fact that MTK themselves aren't helpful or willing to support developers as it doesn't suit their replace and force upgrade business model. Technically how they operate and their refusal to release official development tools or code is a violation of the open sources nature of Android. But google has yet to do anything serious about it. As far as I know, any code we have is from reverse engineering and leaks.
Android-UK said:
Not helped by the fact that MTK themselves aren't helpful or willing to support developers as it doesn't suit their replace and force upgrade business model. Technically how they operate and their refusal to release official development tools or code is a violation of the open sources nature of Android. But google has yet to do anything serious about it. As far as I know, any code we have is from reverse engineering and leaks.
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Not true, I've met up with MTK engineers at DevCon and they do actually encourage development, they just seem to lately be wanting to protect their HAL's and drivers which as pointed out on the XDA portal article about this is sort of ridiculous. But then again it's proprietary code and not under the GPL so whilst we can say it's stupid we can't really contest it, it's their choice.
The code we have is completely official and not gotten from reverse engineering.
Jonny said:
Not true, I've met up with MTK engineers at DevCon and they do actually encourage development, they just seem to lately be wanting to protect their HAL's and drivers which as pointed out on the XDA portal article about this is sort of ridiculous. But then again it's proprietary code and not under the GPL so whilst we can say it's stupid we can't really contest ot, it's their choice.
The code we have is completely official and not gotten from reverse engineering.
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I have seen many a leak before. But OK they support developing but at the same time they don't help provide any decent tools for troubleshooting or development.
Android-UK said:
I have seen many a leak before. But OK they support developing but at the same time they don't help provide any decent tools for troubleshooting or development.
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Why do they need to? There's already great tools around for that, I know Qualcomm certainly used to provide a package for debugging the lower system levels but it wasn't widely available as the lower levels of the device booting process are not needed to be modified outside of OEM labs and manufacturing.
The lowest level we need is kernel debugging and the kernel already provides that via last_kmsg and desmsg etc, all other tools are already available as part of ADB, logcat etc. There are also a plethora of other tools readily available.
I would call it pretty dead now Well, if not dead then dying.
Let's hope for a Christmas special
Hi guys,
Would like to ask if there is anyway to validate the date/version of the "Security Patch Level, in the About phone.
I'm currently using a Xiaomi Note (Not Pro) and I use their China Development Rom, updating every 2 weeks usually, unless theres a bug fix/feature I want then I'll update to the following week as well.
I check on my Security Patch Level every update, and I find that it is really inconsistent with Google's Schedule. For example, Xiaomi uses only the 1st day of the month patches, ignoring any that come later in the month. Currently last week's (2016-11-24) Rom update states that it is on 2016-12-01 patch. Before that it is 2016-11-01, with no updates to 11-05 or 11-06 patches in between. AFAIK there are no details on December's patch so there's that too. Why don't they just put 11-05/06 which is on the Security Bulletin instead?
Earlier I also reported to MIUI forums regarding inconsistencies in the patch level dates when the Quadrooter vulnerability was reported and fixed, but it wasn't really well received. More information: en.miui.com/thread-346357-1-1.html
Additionally, I am still on Xposed v86 MIUI edition. Seeing that my phone is now on december security patch, why is it not affected by the Bootloop issue which was fixed in Xposed v87? Does that mean I don't have the security patch which affects Xposed? Is the MIUI edition of Xposed not affected by this security patch?
So if manufacturers are putting whatever dates they wish without honoring Google's guidelines, does it mean that we have to take their word for it? Does this apply to other chinese brand phones?
Considering the amount of scary security issues android is facing lately, maybe it's time to finally change my phone? Instead of trusting Xiaomi's monthly security updates which seems superior to most other brands at first, but it's getting more and more suspicious with each passing month.
Thanks everyone.
PS: Hopefully this is the right place to ask this. I also searched quite a bit before asking this, so if discussion already exists I hope u can point me in the right direction. Thanks again.