Related
So you’ve got a nice, shiny, new G1 and you’ve been hearing about all the amazing things you can do with it but you “MUST HAVE ROOT”. As far as you know, you’re not a plant (although you may feel as smart as one at this point) and beyond that, you have no clue what any of the terms or concepts mean in context.
Well, I’m bored so I’m going to try and clear some things up.
There are a lot of threads that cover each of these things but I’m going to try and put as many basics into one post as possible. Hopefully it can be a perfect start for n00bs and good reference in lieu of search for others. Please feel free to correct any semantic (or blatant) mistakes I make.
I’ll keep the glossary here and update terms as I add to this post:
Android OS - Like Windows Mobile but based on Linux, using a Java based front end.
Linux - Open Source operating system used instead of Windows XP/Vista, Mac OSX etc... it's free (as in beer).
Open Source (From Wiki) – Free and open source software, also F/OSS, FOSS, or FLOSS (free/libre/open source software) is software which is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code.
Root (as in access)- root is like the administrator account on a windows machine (also referred to as su, or superuser). It allows you to have complete access to the underlying OS of a linux or *nix based machine. For the G1, it allows for the use of themes, native backup functionality, manually selecting which apps can utilize root access, auto-rotate screen, multi-touch in browser, moving applications/caches to the sd card etc...
Root (as in location)- the 'root' of a folder or drive is the top most area of that location. In windows, C:\ is the 'root' of your hard drive. The 'root' of your SD card just means you haven't moved into any subfolders.
Shell – (also heard as terminal, bash, command line) This is a loose definition, but it’s basically a command line to run specific actions against the OS.
Bootloader – the SPL and IPL of a flash based device. See jashu’s description here.
SPL (Secondary Program Loader) - You get to the SPL by holding the camera button while powering on your phone. This is where you flash NBH images. See bootloader above.
Recovery Mode - Holding the 'Home' key while while powering on the G1 will take you into Recovery Mode. From here you can perform a NANDroid backup, wipe your phone, access a command line and of course, flash your phone with an update.zip file.
RC## (or release candidate) – In context to the G1, it is an official release of Android from T-Mobile meant specifically for the G1 (not ADP).
ADP (Android Developer Phone) – A Google specific (or carrier non-specific) version of the G1/Dream that has root access by default and is meant for developers writing apps for the G1, or Android in general.
ADP vs. RC## - Neither RC’s or ADP versions are tied to their respective hardware. With the right bootloader, you can flash an ADP image to a G1 or an RC image to an ADP.
JFV1.## - Is a specific Version of a JesusFreke ROM. JesusFreke is a developer on this website that has graciously spent his time to modify the G1 OS to allow us to have root access to our phones. This gives us the ability to explore and modify our phones via a command line.
Cupcake – a development branch of the Android OS that contains many improvements that was merged into the master build of Android and is currently being released to new phones as Android 1.5.
Nandroid – a utility, accessible through Recovery Mode, that allows you to backup your phone and restore to the exact condition at backup.
Apps2SD – Applications moved to your SD card instead of internal memory. Some people like the extra room, some people don’t want to hassle with the partitioning.
Partition – just like the partitions that separate cubicles in an office, a partition separates parts of a drive.
File system – there are many. It’s basically a specific way of organizing data on a partition. FAT(32) is generally windows, ext2 is generally linux. This is not a hard and fast rule, just most common in context with what you’ll see here.
Scripts – scripts are text files that contain a list of commands to perform. Instead of typing each command out multiple times, a script can be run that will initiate all steps listed in the script.
Android SDK (System Developer’s Kit) – This includes all tools (sans fastboot) that a developer needs to create applications for the G1. It also has tools for interacting with the phone via a command line (ADB).
ADB - is a part of the SDK that allows you to run commands against the G1 in lieu of using the terminal on the phone itself.
Fastboot - is a tool used to flash system images (.img files) to the G1 from a command line on your pc. IMG files are created when you do NANDroid backups and official images can be downloaded from HTC as well. To get to fastboot mode on your phone, hold the back button while powering on.
When T-Mobile first released the G1, they left a bug in the Android OS that allowed anything typed on the keyboard to be passed on to a root shell running in the background. This really was a major flaw and needed to be patched. Unfortunately, when they patched it, they really patched it. RC29 was the last version that still had root. With all versions RC30 on, it was removed. It completely denied us any hope at modding our “open-source” phone.
Somehow, the base image for RC29 (dreaimg.nbh) was leaked and some enterprising developers were able get access to the bootloader and return an updated G1 (RC30+) to RC29 and use this to regain root.
Somewhere along this road, Google released the ADP (Android Developer Phone), which has root enabled and uses a specific SPL (EngineeringSPL) that was the base for the modified HardSPL that most of us use now. Nandroid was included to allow us to back up our phones and shortly after, JesusFreke modified RC30 to keep root and still provide the fixes and improvements that came with it.
I’m not sure where it all started, but eventually, LucidREM released a modified version of JesusFreke’s ROM. This made moving applications to SD painless and freed up system storage and now we can have 32 flashlights and 62 tip calculators installed all at once.
Apps2sd has been the bane of many peoples existence. It requires you to partition your SD card in to separate file systems (FAT32 to remain compatible with windows computers as a mass storage device and ext2 to maintain compatibility with the underlying linux OS of the G1). It also requires you to move your apps to the SD card and then create symbolic links (similar to a windows shortcut) from the internal location pointing to the SD card. Lots can go wrong in this process and that’s why LucidREM, MartinFick, MarcusMaximus04 and others have created tools to help simplify the process.
Now of course, to achieve any of the things you want to do with the G1, you have to interact with it. There are at least 2 main ways to do this. Some prefer to do everything from the phone itself using a terminal, while some prefer to use their PC with the phone connected via USB. Others avoid both of these, as best they can, and use other peoples apps or scripts anywhere they can get away with it. This is why you may find many different explanations of the same goal.
In order to interact with your phone from a pc, you need the Android SDK, which includes ADB. ADB is basically a linux shell that communicates with the G1. It is easier to copy and paste from threads and insert commands without worrying about making typos. It also requires it’s own bit of hoops to jump through (unless you use a mac or linux ;-)) and sometimes scares people away. It is highly recommended if you plan on hacking at your phone with any regularity.
Of course, there are some sadists (I once was one) that like to type line after line of code on a tiny keyboard and use the terminal directly from the phone. This is fun and it makes you feel 1337, but it also leaves a lot of room for error. Remember, you are a root user now, and any mistake you make can be potentially huge.
Well, that’s all for now folks. Please feel free to add, subtract, reorganize, correct anything I’ve said, in the comments. Also, I’ve tried to add links to any relevant threads and sources that I used in making this… this, whatever you wanna call it.
Thanks to everyone in this community for doing what you do. We are all geeks and enjoy doing this stuff. It's good to have so many talented people taking an interest in Android and the G1 in general. It is open source communites that keep technology interesting and exciting.
Thanks to Haykuro, TheDudeofLife, all the theme devs, and all the big players that I didn't reference in this post. Oh, and SolemWishing for the Timeline! It helped, thanks!
Reserved for future posting
Awesome post for nuubs. This should be permanently stickied!
Very cool. a couple terms you should add:
Fastboot
SPL
Recovery mode
(including what key strokes you need to hit to get into spl and recov. modes)
Thanks for the feedback!
I added SPL and Recovery... let me get my facts straight on fastboot and I'll add that tomorrow.
I don't know if it is the right place for it, but there seem to have been lots of question about "radio" or more specifically "radio update".
I feel smarter already.
I particularly found the file system explanation useful, i put it together that fat32 and the other were the two partitions but didnt realize which was for cpu. Not ready to attempt but definitely closer (although Im not even sure if I want to partition i have no need for all that space at this point) It doesnt affect performance does it?
Agreed. Good stuff. Definitely noob required reading material.
Yes, indeed a very nice guide for the beginners. Hell we ALL started that way...i remember when I first got this phone ~6 months ago (no root), and there was almost nothing about it, no support, no add-ons, no hacks, nothing. It was boring, and for me I was coming from a motorola (motomodders?), so going to something that was far superior but didnt have community support made me almost cry.
Though look now, 3 months later the market was filling up and being abundent of new stuff to play with (I didnt even try rooting for a while, until it became a lot more well-known [fixes and the likes], and themes became a necessity because they started to get really good), and now 6 months later people are hacking away figuring out soo much stuff about it. Amazing work everyone, seriously.
Something good: It all starts at the roots .
Well, I added info on fastboot and exceeded my 10000 character limit. Now I understand why so many people reserve the second post. lol...
I'll make some changes so I can add info about the radio, however the link to fastboot explains the radio fairly well.
Thanks for the feedback everybody, I hope this helps some people out.
skri11a said:
So you’ve got a nice, shiny, new G1 and you’ve been hearing about all the amazing things you can do with it but you “MUST HAVE ROOT”. As far as you know, you’re not a plant (although you may feel as smart as one at this point) and beyond that, you have no clue what any of the terms or concepts mean in context.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When i read those lines i knew that this post would be worth reading
It was a really nice n00b guide, though ive done some WiMo flashing so some of the terms sounded familliar i certanly learned a thing or two
I would say it should be stickied and put on the wiki - oh and perhaps list it in alphabetic order, it would make it more usefull as a "I dont understand this term so ill just look it up"-thread...
Perhaps you can get a mod to give you post #2 & #3
//M
DMaverick50 said:
I feel smarter already.
I particularly found the file system explanation useful, i put it together that fat32 and the other were the two partitions but didnt realize which was for cpu. Not ready to attempt but definitely closer (although Im not even sure if I want to partition i have no need for all that space at this point) It doesnt affect performance does it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm glad it helped. As far as performance issues, I've had none. In fact, when I was skating along with 12-19MB of free space, my phone would crall and cause me all sorts of grief. Since I've moved the apps and dalvik-cache, it's been very responsive and reliable. That being said, get a GOOD sd card. I see a lot of people having problems using cheap or < class4 sd cards.
m.klinge said:
When i read those lines i knew that this post would be worth reading
It was a really nice n00b guide, though ive done some WiMo flashing so some of the terms sounded familliar i certanly learned a thing or two
I would say it should be stickied and put on the wiki - oh and perhaps list it in alphabetic order, it would make it more usefull as a "I dont understand this term so ill just look it up"-thread...
Perhaps you can get a mod to give you post #2 & #3
//M
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol... I'm glad you liked it.
And thanks for the tips. I'm gone for the weekend, but I'll alphabetize it when I get back. Not sure what I can do about getting it stickied but I'll look into the wiki on monday too.
can you add busybox
in the nandroid instructions it requires busybox but I didnt see an explanation for what busybox is. Thanks and this thread has already been very helpful for me
speaking of stickying this....
who is in charge of stickies? A lot of stickable topics aren't stickied and a lot of topics that should be unstickied are still stuck...
DMaverick50 said:
in the nandroid instructions it requires busybox but I didnt see an explanation for what busybox is. Thanks and this thread has already been very helpful for me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey sorry for the late reply... Been pretty busy since Friday.
I'll try and add this to the first post shortly. I may have to remove some of the history lesson if I can't get a mod to give me the second/third post.
BusyBox - This is a single executable utility that contains many common Linux commands, instead of having an individual executable for each command. As far as I know this is built into all of the JF releases, as well as Dude's. It is also usable in the JF recovery console by hitting alt-x. To use busybox, just type "busybox" in front of the command you want to use (i.e. #busybox ls -L --to get a list of your directory).
AbsoluteDesignz said:
speaking of stickying this....
who is in charge of stickies? A lot of stickable topics aren't stickied and a lot of topics that should be unstickied are still stuck...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you figure this out, let me know. I haven't tried to PM a mod or anything but I'd still be curious to know what the magic requirements are.
This will definitely help a lot of newcomers. Thanks for taking the time to make it.
Way to get stickied! Now I can stop copying pasting updates worrying I might not be able to find the post...
skri11a:
BusyBox - This is a single executable utility that contains many common Linux commands, instead of having an individual executable for each command. As far as I know this is built into all of the JF releases, as well as Dude's. It is also usable in the JF recovery console by hitting alt-x. To use busybox, just type "busybox" in front of the command you want to use (i.e. #busybox ls -L --to get a list of your directory).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wouldn't "Unix utilities" be more correct than "Linux commands"?
And saying Android is "like windows mobile" is blasphemy! You can't compare Unix to Micro$oft Windoze (Yes, that's a very sophisticated and mature way to express my hatred of the OS )! >:|
Anyway, it's good that you wrote this, theres probably a lot around here not having a clue about how things work in the world of unix
Re: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1119555
webtop2sd
Hi,
While battling the dependencies issue last night I remembered that when I first used one of the original methods to open up the webtop (your method I believe), we did not have this problem. I was able to just use apt-get to install abiword and emacs for example.
Is it worth going back (mentally at least) to those older methods for an idea on how to solve the dependency problems we now have? Perhaps a naive question?
Thanks so much for all the work you are doing. At some point it would be great to either have a step by step expose on how your method now works, or perhaps just post the source (perhaps this is not open source, not sure) so we can learn how it all works rather than just install an app and push a button! (If you need help writing documentation I would be happy to help (not being able to do much else to help!!: that seems to be a big problem with the forum format for presenting development... reading dozens of pages of postings is not a very efficient way of presenting information and so you end up with the same questions coming up all the time).
Thanks again.
Best wishes,
Bill.
Info:
my device is rooted (fully) and my phone consist of Supersu, Nethunter terminal, bcmon, Reaver.
(below are the codes i modified for my device)
The history
when I first started running reaver i would receive many errors; [...not found] [...can't enable] [...can't change permissions (appearently you can't change permissions within sdcard folder... anyways, moving on.)]
[...no internet connection found]
my point is after looking at the custom scripts I had installed (with notepad++) i noticed that the actual scripts were the big issue. so I started changing things one by one in-order to not mess-up everything. yeah sure, I made some errors that made things last longer- way longer than normal. Nevertheless, at some point I actually started making things better and slowly started knocking down those errors!! until i hit the 'test' button and sure enough
"Cannot link executable... libfake_driver.so is 32 instead of 64.... only PIE are supported."
Truth Be Told
as you might can tell from the kind of question I'm asking, I am not an expert.
And I understand these kind of questions comes with others looking at the questioner as annoying- and with the thought of 'these beginners just want everyone to give answers instead of learning themselves...' It's NOT COMPLETELY wrong, since now days a comment like such is ... pretty much true-
So i'll say this: Not Every One Is The Same.
I am a programmer. my programming is mostly within game design/ game development so if more coding is needed to solve my issue at hand, then let me know and please (at the lease) point me in the right direction.
if I need to google something, please clarify what to search. For I am just one person, so it is possible I haven't thought of something to type in- however, that does not mean I haven't type MANY searches in already.
The Question
Am I able to use Rfa and bcmon on nexus 5x, and if so, then what is needed to get my phone operating (the app(s)) correctly? This is the complete error i am receiving in RfA.
CANNOT LINK EXECUTABLE: "/system/app/bcmon/assets/libs/libfake_driver.so" is 32-bit instead of 64-bit page record for 0x7f98e8c010 was not found (block_size=64)
error: only position independent executables (PIE) are supported.
My Done Work
with the rfa settings you can choose to use custom scripts the following shows the scripts i used and it's placement.
these scripts i had to modify to get the device's errors fixed ( not all though )
Activation Script:
#!/bin/bash
svc wifi disable
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libs
LD_PRELOAD=/data/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libs/libfake_driver.so sh
cd /sdcard/bcmon/assets/tools
./enable_bcmon
echo “rfasuccess”
exit
Warm-up Script
#!/bin/bash
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libs
LD_PRELOAD=/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libslibfake_driver.so sh
cd /sdcard/bcmon/assets/tools
Stop Script
#!/bin/bash
svc wifi enable
echo “rfasuccess”
Will you care to help me?
Hi,
Try posting your question here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-5/help
The experts there may be able to help.
Good luck!
Info:
my device is rooted (fully) and my phone consist of Supersu, Nethunter terminal, bcmon, Reaver.
(below are the codes i modified for my device)
The history
when I first started running reaver i would receive many errors; [...not found] [...can't enable] [...can't change permissions (appearently you can't change permissions within sdcard folder... anyways, moving on.)]
[...no internet connection found]
my point is after looking at the custom scripts I had installed (with notepad++) i noticed that the actual scripts were the big issue. so I started changing things one by one in-order to not mess-up everything. yeah sure, I made some errors that made things last longer- way longer than normal. Nevertheless, at some point I actually started making things better and slowly started knocking down those errors!! until i hit the 'test' button and sure enough
"Cannot link executable... libfake_driver.so is 32 instead of 64.... only PIE are supported."
Truth Be Told
as you might can tell from the kind of question I'm asking, I am not an expert.
And I understand these kind of questions comes with others looking at the questioner as annoying- and with the thought of 'these beginners just want everyone to give answers instead of learning themselves...' It's NOT COMPLETELY wrong, since now days a comment like such is ... pretty much true-
So i'll say this: Not Every One Is The Same.
I am a programmer. my programming is mostly within game design/ game development so if more coding is needed to solve my issue at hand, then let me know and please (at the lease) point me in the right direction.
if I need to google something, please clarify what to search. For I am just one person, so it is possible I haven't thought of something to type in- however, that does not mean I haven't type MANY searches in already.
The Question
Am I able to use Rfa and bcmon on nexus 5x, and if so, then what is needed to get my phone operating (the app(s)) correctly? This is the complete error i am receiving in RfA.
CANNOT LINK EXECUTABLE: "/system/app/bcmon/assets/libs/libfake_driver.so" is 32-bit instead of 64-bit page record for 0x7f98e8c010 was not found (block_size=64)
error: only position independent executables (PIE) are supported.
My Done Work
with the rfa settings you can choose to use custom scripts the following shows the scripts i used and it's placement.
these scripts i had to modify to get the device's errors fixed ( not all though )
Activation Script:
#!/bin/bash
svc wifi disable
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libs
LD_PRELOAD=/data/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libs/libfake_driver.so sh
cd /sdcard/bcmon/assets/tools
./enable_bcmon
echo “rfasuccess”
exit
Warm-up Script
#!/bin/bash
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libs
LD_PRELOAD=/sdcard/bcmon/assets/libslibfake_driver.so sh
cd /sdcard/bcmon/assets/tools
Stop Script
#!/bin/bash
svc wifi enable
echo “rfasuccess”
Will you care to help me?
ABANDONED
Hi! Does anyone here use Linux desktop distributions in chroot environment on Android device?
I am developing wayland protocol server for Android devices. If anyone is interested in checking my project, latest version of apk is always available here:
ftp://ftp.drivehq.com/mogryph/sparkle/
Currently I am only focused on running Xwayland as client. Also apk supports audio output.
Simplest instruction:
1. Android 6 or newer required, busybox required, root required
2. Prepare linux distribution in directory, image or on partition. Make sure you have Xwayland installed in it. Make sure you specify which DE to run (or at least xterm) in ~/.xinitrc
3. Install and start sparkle.apk
4. Press "edit user.sh", uncomment (remove #) line starting with start_generic_container. Change rest of this line to match your device:
first arg - image or partition where distribution is installed. If distribution is installed in directory and mouting is not needed, leave this arg unchanged.
second arg - mount point or directory with distribution. If you use mounting (first arg), this arg can be left unchanged.
third arg - name of the user which will be used to start Xwayland and DE. Its better to specify non-root. Also this is the user who must have .xinitrc in his home dir (see step 2).
5. Save user.sh and click "Start".
6. Any problems and crashes will be reflected in the log.
If you want audio output:
1. Compile and install driver from pcm_sparkle.tar.gz in your distribtion
2. cp 1.asoundrc ~/.asoundrc
If you have blinking problem, change upload_mode from 1 to 2 in settings. If you have bad performance, setting no_damage to true may help, but in most cases no_damage=false is better. Fastest upload mode is 0 (if it works).
If you don't trust me and don't want to give sparkle root permissions (I perfectly understand this) you don't have to. Also you can do without busybox.
But in this case, you need to understand and do a lot of things. Check sparkle's user.sh to get idea about what needs to be done. Basically:
1. You need to make /data/data/com.sion.sparkle/files accessible from inside chroot container. You can use bind bound.
2. Make sure you have tmpfs mounted over /tmp in container.
3. You may need to change selinux context on /tmp to match sparkle's context or disable SELinux.
4. You need to create new directory in /tmp, symlink sparkle's wayland socket from /data/data/com.sion.sparkle/files/wayland-0 to this dir. And export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR to point to this dir. Dir must be (ch)owned by user who will be running Xwayland and DE.
5. After all this, you can try to start Xwayland and your DE.
new version
New version
rgho.st/8Fbz64Rxj
Added x86 and x86_64 support. Actually it is rewritten almost from scratch but x86 support is the only thing others can notice...
Hello! This project is interesting. I tried you app and it works on my Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X(chromium and glmark from chrooted environment works very well)! Can you publish source code on Github, because it really interesting project?
Also I'm interested, please post it on github!
Did you put this up on github or move this thread? Looks very interesting.
1
Argh, sorry, I decided to abandon this project. You are free to delete thread. Also no copyleft-licensed components were used so I don't have to bother releasing sources.
Hentacler said:
Argh, sorry, I decided to abandon this project. You are free to delete thread. Also no copyleft-licensed components were used so I don't have to bother releasing sources.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check your PM please!
1
Hello again.
For last two weeks I was rewriting it from scratch (yes. again... yes, third time).
Probably need another week to make it stable.
Currently I am not sure it runs on any device except my own 5-year old phone (LineageOS 14).
I will maintain last version here:
ftp://ftp.drivehq.com/mogryph/sparkle/
There is no English documentation, but you can see script "user.sh" to get idea about how to start xwayland. In most cases it should be enough to edit few lines in that script to make it work on another device. If you execute this script on your device with "install" argument, it is supposed to place itself into sparkle's directory and sparkle is supposed to run it ("start" function) automatically. Sparkle doesn't request root unless script does.
Here is video of sparkle working:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOSFYxCF7Q8
But it seems that KDE + video recording was too much for my old phone
Still, if you going to see video, don't close it until 2:00 where I turned of composition which caused lags.
Also on device everything looks much smoother than on video, even after 2:00.
When I watch fullscreen (1280x720) video on my device, sparkle + xwayland together add just 5% of CPU load (20% load of single core).
Thats it I guess... I tried to to discuss sparkle on 4pda.ru (russian forums), but got very bad reception. "xsdl is perfect, dont reinvent the wheel" they say. So I started to hate humanity and I decided to make sparkle personal project. Also this is last time I am solving reCAPTCHA to leave post on XDA.
Still alive
We are still alive. I've changed first post to reflect actual state. Now sparkle supports audio, auto-mouting containers and is lot more stable.
Yet there are still many things I want to improve in sparkle's core before adding new functions.
Also there are few demo videos on ftp.
Amazing!
Working great on my redmi 6 pro. Stock miui 9.9.3 rom. With linuxdeploy and sparkle from your ftp. No lag on visual and sound. My Linux distribution is alpinelinux arm64 arch.
Since first time I see your posting on 4pda. I'm interested in it. And finally it's on xda.
Thanks dev.
---------- Post added at 02:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:44 AM ----------
For anyone interested in the topic. Please follow the instructions in documentation from ftp. And Translate it to eng from rus.
This sounds amazing! Just curious, is it related to https://github.com/twaik/sparkle ?
I now have it working very well on my Samsung Tab S3 using Xwayland and a tiling window manager. Firefox runs amazingly well!
Is it meant to be used only with Xwayland or will it also work with native Wayland applications?
BTW, I think if you open sourced this project and promoted it a bit, it could become quite popular. It's basically the first way to run X11 GUI applications on Android devices at full speed. If you set up a donation link, you could also get compensated for your time and effort. I'll personally contribute $20 if it's open sourced, and I'm sure others will chip in as well.
robsmith11 said:
This sounds amazing! Just curious, is it related to https://github.com/twaik/sparkle ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for feedback. Nice to hear that someone managed to start this thing
Twaik's repository is clone of my very very old version of sparkle. I made that version years ago when I was just starting to learn linux and C++. Sparkle was rewritten from scratch two or three times since that version. And (I believe) current version is much better.
Regarding making it open source... Few months ago I had to find real job. Can't spend much time on personal projects any more. But I have my own strange programming style and my own vision of what sparkle should be. Not sure I want others to paint on my picture. It's probably all because of Twaik! I hate how he used old open source version of sparkle. He did terrible things to it, outraging all my beliefs Sorry!
P.S.: Yesterday I've uploaded another apk to my ftp. The file is called "sparkle-testing.apk". This version is much newer and has many fixes. But I've also changed to many things since tested version including some fundamental changes. No guarantee it will run at all on other devices. Interest is mega low and I get no test reports at all.
Hi Hentacler, I've just found your project - it looks really promising. Unfortunately, the only link currently working on this thread is to github. Is this project still live?
I have a samsung galaxy note 10+, and am using it as a laptop replacement. In addition to the android apps using Samsung Dex (Samsung's desktop solution), I have several linux distributions installed inside a chroot using userLand - so far, its working great. I'd be keen to give you project a try if it's still live, and am happy to help out with testing from my device.
Re open source - while I like your project, I'm not super interested in investing time into something that's not open sourced - I appreciate your concerns about wanting to maintain the direction, but having transparent development is pretty important to me. Is Twaik's fork of your project a better place to go?
Cheers.
tillum said:
Hi Hentacler, I've just found your project - it looks really promising. Unfortunately, the only link currently working on this thread is to github. Is this project still live?
I have a samsung galaxy note 10+, and am using it as a laptop replacement. In addition to the android apps using Samsung Dex (Samsung's desktop solution), I have several linux distributions installed inside a chroot using userLand - so far, its working great. I'd be keen to give you project a try if it's still live, and am happy to help out with testing from my device.
Re open source - while I like your project, I'm not super interested in investing time into something that's not open sourced - I appreciate your concerns about wanting to maintain the direction, but having transparent development is pretty important to me. Is Twaik's fork of your project a better place to go?
Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ftp://ftp.drivehq.com/mogryph/sparkle/
Link to FTP should work and there you can get two versions:
sparkle.apk - old version, but confirmed to work by 3-4 people.
sparkle-testing.apk - latest version, but only briefly tested by me.
I don't ask anyone to invest anything... Sparkle doesn't request root access or any other dangerous permissions (unless you enable automatic container mounting and starting) so it's safe to try for anyone who wants.
Btw, somewhere between these two versions I've replaced BASH container initialization script with LUA version. That was probably a bad idea. LUA script is harder to start directly as root and hacks I used may not work (currently may even cause application freeze if root access is denied). Going to revert to BASH probably. But this only touches people who want sparkle to mount container and launch everything automatically on single button press.
p.s.: Why I need to solve captcha every time I post something?
Thanks for the new release! I've updated and everything seems to be working without any changes on my Samsung Tab S3 with chroot and Arch Arm Linux.
Your changes also solved the flickering for me! The old version would flicker the screen whenever my keyboard's trackpoint activated, but it's not flickering at all any more. Performance seems to be about the same.
I think this could be quite popular, but not many people know about it. Perhaps a post on Hacker News or Reddit would raise awareness.
I understand your position on open source and maintaining control. One idea if you haven't already considered it is releasing the code with a restrictive license that forbids any forks. But either way, I'm enjoying being to properly use X11 on my tablet.
BTW, have you tried any native Wayland compositors? I don't really understand the Wayland ecosystem that well. I gave Sway a brief try, but it didn't seem to work. I've only been using XWayland.
@Hentacler Thanks for your reply! Very keen to get this working, but having a few issues. I'm unsure how to configure the user.lua file - I'm using your latest apk.
I have a non-rooted device, and am running archlinux under termux. Works fine with xsdl. I have installed xorg-server-wayland for X11. I'd appreciate any advice you have.
@robsmith11 Are you able to share how you got this working on Arch? Thanks!!!!
tillum said:
@Hentacler Thanks for your reply! Very keen to get this working, but having a few issues. I'm unsure how to configure the user.lua file - I'm using your latest apk.
I have a non-rooted device, and am running archlinux under termux. Works fine with xsdl. I have installed xorg-server-wayland for X11. I'd appreciate any advice you have.
@robsmith11 Are you able to share how you got this working on Arch? Thanks!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure it is possible to use sparkle without root...
Sparkle makes it's directory accessible for everyone (chmod 777). Before Android 8 or 9 this was enough and xwayland from termux was able to connect to sparkle. Here is how people used to start it:
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/data/data/com.sion.sparkle/files
Xwayland
But newer versions of Android brought more restrictions and termux can no longer connect to sparkle. These new restrictions are implemented using SELinux if you know what it is. Applications now have different security contexts.
But that is not all. Newest versions of android brought even more terrible meaningless restrictions effectively "killing" applications like termux and many others.
In short, from now one applications are not allowed to execute code (binary) that comes from "untrusted" sources. Termux used to download a lot of such code from it's own repositories. And now it can't. We can't even unpack binaries from assets.
So I can only help with rooted devices.
P.S. Please forgive me, but I am leaving this website. Making people solve recaptcha every time they want to post something is unacceptable level of contempt.
My mail: [email protected]
Thanks for that, will have a play. I could always just root my device. Weird about recaptcha, not having this issue. Currently through termux I have access to the whole sdcard, and am able to download packages (and distros) in it - will have a play and see what else is possible.
@tillum
I basically just followed the instructions on the first post for using Sparkle without busybox. I didn't need to modify the Lua scripts.
I'm guessing SELinux may be a problem without root. I'll try setting it up without root when I have a chance later.