• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Root [Boost Mobile] Deving under *nix

Blyss

Blyss

Android Enthusiast
So here's a question. You guys know by now that before I was developing a B08C based rom and now I'm gonna base one on droidsmith. Here's the question:
Before I was on Windows 7 using the customary Windows based tools.

Now my main box is running Kubuntu 13.04. I supposed I could always run the windows stuff under Wine(like im doing for my IDE for FreeBASIC) but I bet there's a better way.

My box HAS to run linux, it still has no hard drive(remember that old laptop with no cooling and no hard drive? That's mine now. Booting off of a 16GB SD card with a house fan aiming straight on it for cooling). I actually followed some internet directions and made a Windows XP install disc that will install to flash media, but it's SLOW off the flash drive. That card is a class 4. Kubuntu runs smooth as silk off of it. Windows is like autistic. So Kubuntu it is. This Windows 8 laptop is just not available often enough for my deving needs.

So what's the preferred ROM deving setup under linux?
 
Oh my goodness... the windows tools are secondary to the linux tools... welcome to fun town!

DSIXDA android kitchen is a must.
apktool of course
ARK is useful for unpacking ramdisk
Gimp
The only thing i find easier on windows is the apk decompiling and recompiling... for everything else its all linux! :)
 
smartmanvartan said:
Oh my goodness... the windows tools are secondary to the linux tools... welcome to fun town!

DSIXDA android kitchen is a must.
apktool of course
ARK is useful for unpacking ramdisk
Gimp
The only thing i find easier on windows is the apk decompiling and recompiling... for everything else its all linux! :)
Click to expand...

:thumb:
 
BTW I've never been a fan of GIMP... unless they've updated the UI in the last few years I will do my artwork in paint.net for windows
 
Uh, since Android Kitchen was mentioned.... I can't seem to get a working folder set up :( I have everything set up correctly, cygwin is installed, everything is in the proper directories, but I can't build a working folder no matter what. Any help on this?
EDIT: It just keeps saying that I can't create a working folder from it because its an update.zip, not a full rom... dunno if I have to convert the updater-script to an update-script for it to work?
 
Skinnyjeans21 said:
Uh, since Android Kitchen was mentioned.... I can't seem to get a working folder set up :( I have everything set up correctly, cygwin is installed, everything is in the proper directories, but I can't build a working folder no matter what. Any help on this?
EDIT: It just keeps saying that I can't create a working folder from it because its an update.zip, not a full rom... dunno if I have to convert the updater-script to an update-script for it to work?
Click to expand...

what is cygwig? is that part of the set up in windows?
 
Yeah, I already tried dual booting a linux distro on my laptop, but its got a weird partitioning set-up since its an HP (idk what went through their heads while doing all this...), and apart from that I can't boot from usb for some unknown reason, even though I know I burned to my USB correctly. I had no choice but to use cygwin and Windows... this would've been so much easier on linux though.
 
Skinnyjeans21 said:
Yeah, I already tried dual booting a linux distro on my laptop, but its got a weird partitioning set-up since its an HP (idk what went through their heads while doing all this...), and apart from that I can't boot from usb for some unknown reason, even though I know I burned to my USB correctly. I had no choice but to use cygwin and Windows... this would've been so much easier on linux though.
Click to expand...


Just unzip your Tom in a folder called WORKING. That's all you need.
 
Blyss said:
So here's a question. You guys know by now that before I was developing a B08C based rom and now I'm gonna base one on droidsmith. Here's the question:
Before I was on Windows 7 using the customary Windows based tools.

Now my main box is running Kubuntu 13.04. I supposed I could always run the windows stuff under Wine(like im doing for my IDE for FreeBASIC) but I bet there's a better way.

My box HAS to run linux, it still has no hard drive(remember that old laptop with no cooling and no hard drive? That's mine now. Booting off of a 16GB SD card with a house fan aiming straight on it for cooling). I actually followed some internet directions and made a Windows XP install disc that will install to flash media, but it's SLOW off the flash drive. That card is a class 4. Kubuntu runs smooth as silk off of it. Windows is like autistic. So Kubuntu it is. This Windows 8 laptop is just not available often enough for my deving needs.

So what's the preferred ROM deving setup under linux?
Click to expand...


DS was built 100% on a debian system. Apktool, smali, and baksmali are about to become your best friends. If you want a slightly more automated approach than apktool provides you can always use APK-Manager. Its a shell script for apktool and signapk.jar
 
Skinnyjeans21 said:
Uh, since Android Kitchen was mentioned.... I can't seem to get a working folder set up :( I have everything set up correctly, cygwin is installed, everything is in the proper directories, but I can't build a working folder no matter what. Any help on this?
EDIT: It just keeps saying that I can't create a working folder from it because its an update.zip, not a full rom... dunno if I have to convert the updater-script to an update-script for it to work?
Click to expand...

Yes, you do have to convert - otherwise you'll encounter little issues like that throughout your build. If you need a hand, send me a PM and I can set it up for you with TeamViewer.
 
mercury0x000d said:
Yes, you do have to convert - otherwise you'll encounter little issues like that throughout your build. If you need a hand, send me a PM and I can set it up for you with TeamViewer.
Click to expand...

If its all the same with you, I'd rather do it myself or else I wouldn't really learn anything :o otherwise if I get another laptop (which is bound to happen in a couple of months) I'm not gonna know exactly how to set it up. Sorry. .
 
Skinnyjeans21 said:
If its all the same with you, I'd rather do it myself or else I wouldn't really learn anything :o otherwise if I get another laptop (which is bound to happen in a couple of months) I'm not gonna know exactly how to set it up. Sorry. .
Click to expand...

Hey, no problem, I totally understand! I tend to want to do things like that too. For example, when I was integrating the "deeper" features of Warp OEM, I did all the necessary steps myself, like translating the examples from the tut I was following to the Smali found on the Warp, and things like that. Sure, I could've started with a base with all the tweaks already done for me - and by no means am I faulting those that take that route! - but what would I have learned? How much more could I have learned if I did it on my own?

I do that in my own coding projects, too. Even if there happens to be a library I could add to give me access to a certain feature, I'd rather write my own code to do the job.
 
mercury0x000d said:
Hey, no problem, I totally understand! I tend to want to do things like that too. For example, when I was integrating the "deeper" features of Warp OEM, I did all the necessary steps myself, like translating the examples from the tut I was following to the Smali found on the Warp, and things like that. Sure, I could've started with a base with all the tweaks already done for me - and by no means am I faulting those that take that route! - but what would I have learned? How much more could I have learned if I did it on my own?

I do that in my own coding projects, too. Even if there happens to be a library I could add to give me access to a certain feature, I'd rather write my own code to do the job.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's what I did when BLVCKHVLO gave me his rom, the Wi-Fi tethering smali file was already in the rom but it wasn't integrated into the settings menu, and even though he said he'd integrate it, I just went ahead and poked through DS and WOEM to see how everything is set up, then I added wifi tethering myself, so now I know how to add things in to settings when necessary. Besides I like learning so either way I'm gonna end up doing things the hard way to learn how it works :)
 
Skinnyjeans21 said:
Yeah, I already tried dual booting a linux distro on my laptop, but its got a weird partitioning set-up since its an HP (idk what went through their heads while doing all this...), and apart from that I can't boot from usb for some unknown reason, even though I know I burned to my USB correctly. I had no choice but to use cygwin and Windows... this would've been so much easier on linux though.
Click to expand...

If it's HP it probably has a recovery partition, size should be around 30-50 gigs. Then if it's Win 7 or 8(not sure about Vista, but probably that too) the bootloader is kept on a separate partition, should be about 128mb. After that you should have your main OS partition in the amount of how ever much space you have left.

As far as booting from USB, did you check in the bios and make sure it was able to boot from USB. Should be able to find something like boot order where it lists your cdvd, hdd, usb, network as possible boot options. You can set usb to be the first one and then it will always boot to usb if it's available and a suitable drive in place.

Alternatively you can usually mash a button during the POST(power on self test) to bring up a menu called something like "Boot device selector" and choose your USB from there when you want to boot from it. In my case it's F12, but that's on an Acer. If you have no boot splash it should say what button it is as the bottom of the screen for 3-5 seconds when your screen first powers on. Also it probably says in your manual.

If you don't do EITHER of those things, and if your HDD is set to higher priority in your bios than your USB, then you will never boot to USB. Unless you take your HDD out lol.

Also, cygwin is a pain IMO.
 
Since we are all speaking the linux language here, here's my question. I've been doing some programming in FreeBASIC lately. The compiler is multi platform, so that's not a problem. But the IDE I've been using for year is Windows only. Now, it run's under wine. Of course being an IDE I can compile from it. However if I point set my compiler path to the linux compiler, it doesn't play nice and won't work. So right now I've set it to point to the windows version of the compiler and that's working but it's laggy since the IDE is in wine, launches the compiler in wine, and then of course it makes a Windows binary so that launches in Wine too. I fear as my app grows more complicated this is gonna be a bottleneck. Any ideas on getting a Windows based IDE running in Wine to point to a linux version of the compiler, and launching a linux binary?
 
smartmanvartan said:
Oh my goodness... the windows tools are secondary to the linux tools... welcome to fun town!

DSIXDA android kitchen is a must.
apktool of course
ARK is useful for unpacking ramdisk
Gimp
The only thing i find easier on windows is the apk decompiling and recompiling... for everything else its all linux! :)
Click to expand...

you can use android kitchen to unpack ramdisk aswell, also compiling / decompiling apk is pretty simple. apktool d Settings.apk Settings.out
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom