Root [Boost Mobile] [DEV] Kitkat development

[rbheromax]

Hello all!

I picked up this phone from a rather unlikely source. My "dealer". $10 with a cracked screen (really not all that bad), I saw a deal I couldn't give up. I went ahead and tried porting CM11.

I have a simple device tree setup, it compiles fully, and flashes fine, but doesnt boot. I know the "kernel" itself boots (since it doesn't just panic and reboot immediately), but not the "android system", and adb is detected as "ZTEPHONE". Its stuck on Green Andy right before boot animation. In a few days this should be bootable and then we can start knocking out bugs.

***DEV ONLY.......DO NOT FLASH UNLESS YOU HAVE A BACKUP***
Link here:
http://d-h.st/BBY
***DEV ONLY.......DO NOT FLASH UNLESS YOU HAVE A BACKUP***
​

Any help would be much appreciated
The easiest way to message me would be either this thread, room #zte8930 on freenode (I recommend this one), or through PM (which is flooded with support from my other devices, which I don't mind, but its a ton of messages).

device tree:
https://github.com/rbheromax/android_device_zte_arthur

my cm manifest so far:
http://dt11.net/rbheromax/manifest.xml

 

[Rukbat]

I'm as green as Andy with envy. A $10 phone to play with? Send one up I95.

 

[rbheromax]

lol im reading thru the init process and seeing whats missing and wat needs to be added .im basically doing ALL of wat team Osiris did, from scratch

 

[rbheromax]

well for one, my build had no /system/framework/ so thats probably why its not booting lol
my source decided to be non compliant, just go ahead and skip that.
im building it separately now and gonna see if i get a boot then

 

[Sergio22]

Wow kit kat on the warp? I like the sound of that! Let me know if there's anything You want me to test

 

[Rukbat]

Only way to really learn what's going on - code on the bare metal. After that any major disaster is just a minor annoyance.

You may need haircuts less often once you get through, but you'll be able to build another ROM from old gum wrappers and straw.

 

[Dslack420]

kool am downloading now to have a lookski but not im still a novice

 

[rbheromax]

as it stands, it wont boot cuz of frameworks missing but im sure after that it'll boot to a hella broken kitkat

 

[Rukbat]

kool am downloading now to have a lookski but not im still a novice

Well, see, those of us who were born programming geniuses ...

I guess Niklaus Wirth is about the only one who qualifies. There was a time I couldn't even read BASIC. Now I think "problem", then "solution", then the code in 5 different languages is there for me to choose from.

When you've been cutting code for 40 years, you'll be like me - one step above novice. When there's nothing left for me to learn, either they'll have nailed the lid shut or the universe will have ended.

 

[rbheromax]

Well, see, those of us who were born programming geniuses ...

I guess Niklaus Wirth is about the only one who qualifies. There was a time I couldn't even read BASIC. Now I think "problem", then "solution", then the code in 5 different languages is there for me to choose from.

When you've been cutting code for 40 years, you'll be like me - one step above novice. When there's nothing left for me to learn, either they'll have nailed the lid shut or the universe will have ended.

i wish i could program like that. The closest I can come to that....my bash scripting. With this android thing, I know my way around C/C++ code but can't write it myself. I've gotten used to compiling and editing what I want. I just learn rather quickly and remember how to do something, from the first time I do it.

On another note:
I fought with the source...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................it lost
im making a flashable zip now.
it'll prolly be about 50 mb bigger since it actually has its needed frameworks built in

 

[rbheromax]

ok so build is at:
http://dt11.net/rbheromax/cm-11-20140121-UNOFFICIAL-arthur.zip

still doesnt boot, play around with it

 

[Dm47021]

Hello all!

I picked up this phone from a rather unlikely source. My "dealer". $10 with a cracked screen (really not all that bad), I saw a deal I couldn't give up. I went ahead and tried porting CM11.

I have a simple device tree setup, it compiles fully, and flashes fine, but doesnt boot. I know the "kernel" itself boots (since it doesn't just panic and reboot immediately), but not the "android system", and adb is detected as "ZTEPHONE". Its stuck on Green Andy right before boot animation. In a few days this should be bootable and then we can start knocking out bugs.

***DEV ONLY.......DO NOT FLASH UNLESS YOU HAVE A BACKUP***
Link here:
Dev-Host - cm-11-20140120-UNOFFICIAL-arthur0.zip - The Ultimate Free File Hosting / File Sharing Service
***DEV ONLY.......DO NOT FLASH UNLESS YOU HAVE A BACKUP***
​

Any help would be much appreciated
The easiest way to message me would be either this thread, room #zte8930 on freenode (I recommend this one), or through PM (which is flooded with support from my other devices, which I don't mind, but its a ton of messages).

device tree:
https://github.com/rbheromax/android_device_zte_arthur

my cm manifest so far:
http://dt11.net/rbheromax/manifest.xml

I fully encourage you to go for it.. but... you will get no where with that tree, its almost 2yrs old.

also it wont boot because you are missing the required emmc boot flag the init binary uses in 4.3/4.4

if you want help. we will be glad to help. but trying to do it all over again from scratch is just insanity, its taken me over a year

 

[rbheromax]

I fully encourage you to go for it.. but... you will get no where with that tree, its almost 2yrs old.

also it wont boot because you are missing the required emmc boot flag the init binary uses in 4.3/4.4

if you want help. we will be glad to help. but trying to do it all over again from scratch is just insanity, its taken me over a year

thats not the same tree from your github, it just shares the forked base, and I took the Sony Xperia Z1 tree (which was rather short) and converted it and uploaded. From there I made changes to get where I am now. I will hack out a logcat (make logcat start RIGHT after /system mounts in init.rc) and output that log file to /data, then flash a rom to pull it because it seems after i flash cm11 recovery adb/usb mounting stops working.

required emmc boot flag?

 

[mercury0x000d]

Well, see, those of us who were born programming geniuses ...

I guess Niklaus Wirth is about the only one who qualifies. There was a time I couldn't even read BASIC. Now I think "problem", then "solution", then the code in 5 different languages is there for me to choose from.

When you've been cutting code for 40 years, you'll be like me - one step above novice. When there's nothing left for me to learn, either they'll have nailed the lid shut or the universe will have ended.

i wish i could program like that. The closest I can come to that....my bash scripting. With this android thing, I know my way around C/C++ code but can't write it myself. I've gotten used to compiling and editing what I want. I just learn rather quickly and remember how to do something, from the first time I do it.
...

I hear you! My list of languages is short at a mere 3, including the newest one I'm learning - C. Well, I've been able to read and step through C to a limited extent for awhile but not until recent weeks have I decided to actually write anything in it lol

But hey, anything beats assembly code! :argh:

 

[rbheromax]

so i reverted adb to use older insecure
commit to revert is here:
https://github.com/android/platform_system_core/commit/d5fcafaf41f8ec90986c813f75ec78402096af2d

im gonna grab a logcat for cm11 in a few hours, im still at school

 

[rbheromax]

...
also it wont boot because you are missing the required emmc boot flag the init binary uses in 4.3/4.4 ...

i didnt realize i NEEDED to use "mount_all <fstab>"
reverting adb gives me this logcat:

- exec '/system/bin/sh' failed: No such file or directory (2) -

which i KNOW means its not mounting system from emmc, thanks for reminder

 

[Dm47021]

i didnt realize i NEEDED to use "mount_all <fstab>"
reverting adb gives me this logcat:

- exec '/system/bin/sh' failed: No such file or directory (2) -

which i KNOW means its not mounting system from emmc, thanks for reminder

Let me show you something....

https://github.com/Dm47021/Android_Device_Zte_Arthur/commits/CM11.0

 

[Rukbat]

Mercury, rb, let me introduce you to the man who invented modern programming. Learning language or 10 is good, but knowing how to write a program is better. Read Algorithms and Data Structures It;s not programming languages, it's programming. Once you learn that, and a few languages, programming and scratching an itch are about at the same difficulty level. Coding can be difficult, programming isn't.

BTW, nothing beats assembly (except machine language). There are some things you just can't do in some high-level language - the syntax isn't there. In assembly, if the hardware can do it, you can write it. You never get a compiler telling you that what you wrote is illegal. The CPU might lock up tighter than Fort Knox, but disabling interrupts, then entering a tight loop is trivial code (if good only for a laugh). No compiler error.

In fact, in Dr. Dobbs, we used to have contest going for the shortest completing code possible. IIRC, the winner was 3 bytes. Try writing a 3 byte program these days. Even a 3k program is a bit of work.

Not that Google is ever going to come out with a version of Android that runs ML apps, but they'd be a lot shorter and a lot faster than hauling in a Java class to put a dot on the screen.

 

[rbheromax]

Mercury, rb, let me introduce you to the man who invented modern programming. Learning language or 10 is good, but knowing how to write a program is better. Read Algorithms and Data Structures It;s not programming languages, it's programming. Once you learn that, and a few languages, programming and scratching an itch are about at the same difficulty level. Coding can be difficult, programming isn't.

BTW, nothing beats assembly (except machine language). There are some things you just can't do in some high-level language - the syntax isn't there. In assembly, if the hardware can do it, you can write it. You never get a compiler telling you that what you wrote is illegal. The CPU might lock up tighter than Fort Knox, but disabling interrupts, then entering a tight loop is trivial code (if good only for a laugh). No compiler error.

In fact, in Dr. Dobbs, we used to have contest going for the shortest completing code possible. IIRC, the winner was 3 bytes. Try writing a 3 byte program these days. Even a 3k program is a bit of work.

Not that Google is ever going to come out with a version of Android that runs ML apps, but they'd be a lot shorter and a lot faster than hauling in a Java class to put a dot on the screen.

Sounds like a wet dream I once had. I need to start learning ALOT. Problem is, idk where to start

 

[Rukbat]

Algorithms and Data Structures. Treat it as a college course. Study a paragraph until you understand it. Then go to the next one.

When I taught programming, this was my text. Understand what Wirth is teaching and ... they say that 10% of programmers write 90% of the programs. Understanding Wirth makes you one of the top 1% of the 10%.

And it's not that difficult, If you're analytical it'll make sense. It's almost all "oh, sure, of course". (If you're right-brained, artistic, you might make a great artist, but your code will reek of "wrongness".)

 

[mercury0x000d]

Mercury, rb, let me introduce you to the man who invented modern programming. Learning language or 10 is good, but knowing how to write a program is better. Read Algorithms and Data Structures It;s not programming languages, it's programming. Once you learn that, and a few languages, programming and scratching an itch are about at the same difficulty level. Coding can be difficult, programming isn't.

BTW, nothing beats assembly (except machine language). There are some things you just can't do in some high-level language - the syntax isn't there. In assembly, if the hardware can do it, you can write it. You never get a compiler telling you that what you wrote is illegal. The CPU might lock up tighter than Fort Knox, but disabling interrupts, then entering a tight loop is trivial code (if good only for a laugh). No compiler error.

In fact, in Dr. Dobbs, we used to have contest going for the shortest completing code possible. IIRC, the winner was 3 bytes. Try writing a 3 byte program these days. Even a 3k program is a bit of work.

Not that Google is ever going to come out with a version of Android that runs ML apps, but they'd be a lot shorter and a lot faster than hauling in a Java class to put a dot on the screen.

I agree 110% on assembly. It's indispensable when you need raw, overflowing speed - like when your game needs to draw 120 objects to the screen and you have to rock a blitter like nobody's business!

Three bytes is amazing... Heck, nowadays we can't even get a printer install disk under a few hundred megs! *cough* Hewlett *cough* Packard *cough*

 

[Rukbat]

*cough*Kodak*cough*

The 3 bytes were to push a 0 on the stack and inc the SP (twice, maybe? Dec it? Something like that.). Eventually all of RAM, with the exception of one bit, were 0. The one bit, IIRC, made a 20 or 40 which was an NOP, the same as a 0, so once the "program" had run its course, it just NOPped away until the heat death of the universe.

We had some pretty small interpreters in those days too. Tom Pittman's BASIC fit into almost every machine available - it took 2k. And came as a hex dump. No "copy protection" back then. Sargon Chess ran in about 2k also.

When I look at a 2GB "program" these days, it makes me wonder things I can't repeat on a family forum. We never wrote code without a shoehorn and a hammer.

 

[rbheromax]

Let me show you something....

https://github.com/Dm47021/Android_Device_Zte_Arthur/commits/CM11.0

I'll take look. Thanks

 

[mercury0x000d]

*cough*Kodak*cough*

The 3 bytes were to push a 0 on the stack and inc the SP (twice, maybe? Dec it? Something like that.). Eventually all of RAM, with the exception of one bit, were 0. The one bit, IIRC, made a 20 or 40 which was an NOP, the same as a 0, so once the "program" had run its course, it just NOPped away until the heat death of the universe.

We had some pretty small interpreters in those days too. Tom Pittman's BASIC fit into almost every machine available - it took 2k. And came as a hex dump. No "copy protection" back then. Sargon Chess ran in about 2k also.

When I look at a 2GB "program" these days, it makes me wonder things I can't repeat on a family forum. We never wrote code without a shoehorn and a hammer.

That's a refreshing outlook on programming to hear. It boggles my mind how bloated and wasteful apps nowadays are! Just because high-powered hardware is coming within reach of an ever-growing number of folks doesn't mean a programmer should take the easy (e.g. lazy) route. Why waste when you don't have to? Make it run, first, then optimize and optimize some more, until it executes faster than a crack-snorting cheetah on fire riding a bolt of greased lightning.

I've been working on making an OS / GUI shell in my rare moments of spare time, and it just amazes me how much I can accomplish on basic hardware when meanwhile the big boys at Microsoft require a dual core processor and a couple gigs of RAM before they'll even install. :argh:

*steps off soapbox*

 

[Rukbat]

I've been working on making an OS / GUI shell in my rare moments of spare time, and it just amazes me how much I can accomplish on basic hardware when meanwhile the big boys at Microsoft require a dual core processor and a couple gigs of RAM before they'll even install. :argh:

CP/M (No GUI, strictly command line) ran in about 4k. Complete operating system including the hardware interface (BIOS) and the disk operating system (BDOS).

There was an accounting package written in S-Basic that ran in CP/M that was a full accounting package - A/R, A/P, inventory, payroll, the whole shooting match. And remember - those were 16 address bit computers - 64k total memory space. And the accounting package wasn't pushing any limits - it ran in about 32k.

I look at the source of some web pages and shudder. Why do people go to such lengths to make sure that their pages WON'T reflow. Widen the page to get a larger font and you have to scroll horizontally - when it takes extra code to do that, and allowing reflow (meaning NOT writing code to prevent it) makes more sense.

I think we could both rant for weeks.