Any interest in a sort-of-ROM?

[Fenuxx]

Long time lurker, (honestly had nothing major to contribute, until now) first time poster.

I came from the "OG Droid" and was used to the custom ROMs out there (Bugless, CM, Sapphire, SS, etc etc). Unfortunately, since I now have a D2G, I've realized that the ROM scene for the D2G is virtually non-existent.

So, I've been working on a pseudo-ROM.

What do I mean by pseudo-ROM? Basically, it's a modified version of the stock 2.4.330 system that's been out. A few tweaks in it, of course, but nothing major. A few points on it are:

• Blur-intact ROM (I've used things like Apex and Fission, and while they're nice, too many things just flat don't work, or only sort-of work. Face it, thanks to the phone being locked down, we can't completely get rid of it.
• Bloat removed. All of the bloat is gone. Everything that's unnecessary is gone (this includes things like Backup Assistant).
• A few minor tweaks. Unfortunately, I'm not an adept programmer, so don't expect things like custom tweak menus and whatnot, but expect the system as a whole to be tweaked and optimized

Just trying to see what any interest on this might be. Please remember, this is just a bloat-stripped stock ROM with a few minor tweaks. It's nothing incredibly major, but with this, everything just "works".


BTW, for anyone who *MIGHT* recognize my name, I used to be involved in the NVIDIA driver modding scene, modding drivers for laptops (MobileForce, Google it ) before it became largely redundant for me to do so.

 

[xPhoenix777]

Hey!

I would be interested in helping tweak it even further. I hate stock. I also dislike Fission, since it seemed to function much the same.

Ideally I would love to see an AOSP ROM, but since there seems to be little to no knowledge in that area, I would say a heavily tweaked ROM for performance and battery life would be great!

Let me know if you need help in any area. I did some work with the GRD team, but my job took over my life for a bit, so I am not sure where they are at. I know my way around the Android system quite well, but not enough to recompile a full system for our phones sadly.

 

[Fenuxx]

Help is always good. I too, would ideally like an AOSP ROM, but that isn't going to happen unless we get an unlocked bootloader and can remove Blur from the kernel. That's why no AOSP ROMs have been released.

Thusfar, I've:

• Deodexed everything. All apps are from the 2.4.330 build, except the Blur_Contacts.apk, which is from the 2.4.29 build. Just like the GRD team found out, the 2.4.330 version gets messed up somehow (not sure how) during deodexing.
• All APK's have been opt_png'ed and zip_align'ed, save for A few (Blur Contacts, Vending, VoiceSearch, QuickSearchBox) as those all had issues.
• Several build.prop tweaks, as well as a custom local.prop which includes the launcher force-in-memory tweak/hack

And, of course, it's been de-bloated and several things have been updated, including:

• Market, 2.3.4
• QuickSearchBox, 1.1.2.64376 (latest from market)
• VoiceSearch, 2.1.1 (latest from market)
• GenieWidget, 1.3.04 (latest, from Gingerbread GApps)

I also replaced the Blur Alarm/Clock app with the stock Google DeskClock as the Blur one is just outright junk (then again, 99% of Blur is junk).



I don't really feel it's ready for prime-time just yet, but I'd be happy to toss it up for some private testing.

 

[bdsullivan76]

If you have something please share. I am willing to test it out. I am at the point where I regret buying the d2g since there is so little that can be done with it. I don't like stock or fission. Liberty is great but it comes with a lot of bugs (at least on the d2g).

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using DroidForums

 

[clouse2013]

I would be interested in testing to. Ill gladly be a guinea pig for whatever comes out. The only other thing that I would like to see is a little bit of theme options. I just hate how stock looks. Especially the notification bar.

 

[Fenuxx]

I agree on themes and how crappy stock looks, however, themes wouldn't come from me anytime soon, so someone else would have to step up for that.

 

[Fenuxx]

OK, anyone who's interested in testing, send me a PM. I'll pick a few to test, and we'll go from there. If I don't pick you, don't be insulted, I'm not sure how many people will PM me, and again, I don't quite think it's ready for prime-time just yet, and I'd rather get a small sample out there to start, and work my way up.


@xPhoenix777:

Check your PMs

 

[pswin09]

I also interest in trying it.

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using DroidForums

 

[Fenuxx]

As an update:

I've had a few people test so far, and everything is running pretty smoothly. There's a few things I want to do yet before I make it public, but I'm looking to put up a public beta tonight/early tomorrow morning.

 

[Grog]

What's the difference between freezing an app and removing it entirely as far as performance?

 

[Fenuxx]

From what I understand, (though don't quote me on this, I could be completely wrong) when freezing an app, it just renames the .APK. Thus, the app can't be run, but it's still there if you need it to be.

Completely removing it altogether removes all references to the app (or in this case, the references aren't even created to begin with) within the Android filesystem. It's cleaner, debatable whether or not it's "faster".

However, if you're concerned with receiving OTAs, then custom ROMs aren't for you, and sticking to freezing APKs is your best option. I've completely removed the ability to receive OTAs from the system (I think, since we have no OTAs to test with, unless I built on top of the original, 2.4.29, framework to try, I can't be 100% certain).

 

[Grog]

I don't really care about OTA's but some Roms for the D2G are too buggy and a compromise. Fission seems to be a dead end now and Liberty is ignoring the D2G. Stock is slow and battery draining although stable and if you can keep the stability and extend battery life that'll be worth while.

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using DroidForums

 

[Asphyx]

What's the difference between freezing an app and removing it entirely as far as performance?

No Performance difference whatsoever but by freezing it makes it much easier to restore so you can receive OTA updates.

OTAs will not work unless all the files from the stock rom are present.

Freezing gets you the same performance benefit but is quickly undoable when it's time to upgrade.

 

[xPhoenix777]

What's the difference between freezing an app and removing it entirely as far as performance?

No Performance difference whatsoever but by freezing it makes it much easier to restore so you can receive OTA updates.

OTAs will not work unless all the files from the stock rom are present.

Freezing gets you the same performance benefit but is quickly undoable when it's time to upgrade.

There is a performance increase, generally speaking. The app is renamed, therefor the system doesn't load it. It is still present on the phone, for OTA quick restore purposes. There are guides on how to accomplish this throughout the forum. I highly recommend freezing apps if you are not actively pursuing a ROM, then you can at least restore for OTAs.

I have a significant jump in performance and battery life when I freeze much of the unnecessary apps. Removing it permanently may yield a slight bit more performance enhancement, since its not on the phone. But seeing as the phone has 8gb internal storage, there is no need to go out of your way to remove the app. If we had less internal storage, removing it would have more impact on performance.

 

[Fenuxx]

Another update.

I've modified my original goal to now go a bit further. Here's what I've done so far:

• Modded (black background) stock MMS App (pulled from CyanogenMod)
• Stock Android calendar app
• OI File Manager integrated (several testers requested an integrated file manager for ease).
• LauncherPro integrated (replaces stock Blur launcher, and is far superior)
• SpareParts added in

The only Blur elements that remain are:

• Camera/Camcorder
• Gallery (I actually like it better than the overly sluggish Gallery3D)
• Phone App/Contacts (I tried to replace it, but it just caused massive force closes everywhere, maybe at some point I can solve that)
• Theme/Framework

Everything seems to run very smooth, and once I have at least a couple of my testers try it out, I hope to get it out to the public to try out.