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Idea/Request: Vista(like) rom

I think that would be really cool if someone was able to create a rom that is styled and designed to look and operate like Windows Vista.
I doubt it would be possible to create a rom to do this but the idea is cool. I would try to do it myself but im not able to due to lack of programming skills and knowledge in this particular department.(It took me over a dozen times bricking my phone to finally get the NBD 8.0 rom installed and working properly.
If this isnt possible, then it would be neat to see someone actually create their own rom, something totally custom that isnt anything like anything ever seen before, instead of an imitation WM6 rom(everyone has WM6 these days and if they don't, then theyre probably trying to find a way to get it).
Just food for thought.

dharvey4651 said:
I think that would be really cool if someone was able to create a rom that is styled and designed to look and operate like Windows Vista.
I doubt it would be possible to create a rom to do this but the idea is cool. I would try to do it myself but im not able to due to lack of programming skills and knowledge in this particular department.(It took me over a dozen times bricking my phone to finally get the NBD 8.0 rom installed and working properly.
If this isnt possible, then it would be neat to see someone actually create their own rom, something totally custom that isnt anything like anything ever seen before, instead of an imitation WM6 rom(everyone has WM6 these days and if they don't, then theyre probably trying to find a way to get it).
Just food for thought.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I doubt this will be possible, but have you ever heard of Wisbar Advanced and Wisbar Advanced Desktop? These programs can make your phone look like Vista. Search around on these boards
http://lakeridgesoftware.com/forum/index.php

yes I actually already have both WA2 and WAD licensed but I thought it would be neat to see a rom that emulatad vista to avoid running memory robbing software.

Debian instead of android... can it be done?

I have been a linux user for years, love it. so when i heard about android i bought a g1 as soon as i could... and honestly i HATE the java base... it sucks. For a while ii have been using debian on my sd and i think i have found a way to read ( but not send ) texts from within debian. any chance of developing debian to the point where we could use it as the primary system ? can the g1 g1 boot loader load it ?

No.........

damageless said:
No.........
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Click to collapse
Thanks ****, how about some reasoning or logic ? nothing cannot be done it is just a matter of how much effort is required to achieve the desired result.

modem_over said:
I have been a linux user for years, love it. so when i heard about android i bought a g1 as soon as i could... and honestly i HATE the java base... it sucks. For a while ii have been using debian on my sd and i think i have found a way to read ( but not send ) texts from within debian. any chance of developing debian to the point where we could use it as the primary system ? can the g1 g1 boot loader load it ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes.
Seriously.
I haven't looked at Android in ages, but regardless - debian is just a packaging and deployment system. It has little to do with the actual code and configuration of what is deployed in the end. It's work, but it's trivial work.
As for your disdain for the Java - how about some elaboration there? Do you really think you feel a performance hit?

i do really feel that java does slow the system down for one, and second, i don't want to learn another language...

...
no..............

yes, the bootloader will load it just fine.
i have played with nothing but debian on my phone... although, it's fairly useless.
until someone reverse engineers some way to talk to rild and control the wifi module and its userspace components you're pretty much tied to the java environment if you want... well, anything but a fancy embedded debian computer.
anyway, initramfs-tools package is your friend, as well as the android development environment. the bootloader will load the kernel + initramfs, and from there the sky (and linux) is the limit.

and i had to comment on the java performance... seriously, does anyone doubt that there is a *huge* performance hit? while a register based vm is fancy and fairly efficient as far as non JIT vm's go, it's still ridiculously slow and wasteful for the operating specs of this machine. 96mb of usable ram? dalvik forks off separate processes for each vm instances, so not only do you incur major pain for the COW operation, but enough changes in the working set to almost eliminate any helpfulness of COW. it's confusing as the point of zygote is to have a basically mostly started vm, but i'm not entirely sure how that's working in the background.
FWIW, when you clock this beast up to full CPU spec speed (528mhz) interface responsiveness doubles in fluidity.

Of course there is a huge performance hit, few people saying no are google's blind lovers.
Im sorry for this useless post..

The issue to me is the time it would take to develop debian to full working capacity with all the hardware. Possible? Yes. Fun? Depends on who you ask. Probability high for it to be actually completed better than Android? Doubtful.
JMO

i agree with you in most points, however, there are already standard non-android mobile linux stacks. the only hardware specific areas that need to be addressed are the wifi and telephony libraries.
the graphics are simple, it's a standard linux framebuffer, and an x server will run directly on it. if that's too heavy for the g1 (likely) directfb can also be used.
in the end - will it be better than android? probably not. too much development has gone into android.
will standard native apps utterly outperform android apps? believe it.
though, without either: a port of an x server to interface with surfaceflinger, or: a modified version of surfaceflinger to talk to an x server running on the framebuffer, you will never get the best of both worlds without some intermediate transport like vnc.
i'm in no way an advocate of 'debian only!' however, the poster of this thread was smacked down by some people who obviously had no real knowledge in the matter, so i sought to inform him.
the better direction i think, is someone to write a nice tight little c api for the binder surface flinger interface so people can start writing some more memory conscious native apps for people with rooted phones. streaming daemons, etc. while i think the stock development capabilities of the android platform is much better than the stock iphone's, a jailbroken iphone is 100% cooler than a jailbroken g1 at this point, but once there is enough community drive - that can change.

Booting into debian primarily which then runs android ontop of it should be possible, and then using android for things until more is developed on debian. Should work.
Still the original post was more about strictly debian only.

modem_over said:
Thanks ****, how about some reasoning or logic ? nothing cannot be done it is just a matter of how much effort is required to achieve the desired result.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Temper tantrums aside, if you knew the answer to your question already what's the point of this thread? There's already a thread for people running debian on their G1, ask it there.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=444419&highlight=debian

nolageek said:
Temper tantrums aside, if you knew the answer to your question already what's the point of this thread? There's already a thread for people running debian on their G1, ask it there.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=444419&highlight=debian
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Guess he can't now - been banned. Shame, too, I am sure we'll miss his pleasant demeanor.

davecanada said:
Yes.
Seriously.
I haven't looked at Android in ages, but regardless - debian is just a packaging and deployment system. It has little to do with the actual code and configuration of what is deployed in the end. It's work, but it's trivial work.
As for your disdain for the Java - how about some elaboration there? Do you really think you feel a performance hit?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OMFG yes there is a performance hit.

Yes i do bring certain special qualities to this forum don't I. at any rate i have began to build a port to be able to run directly off the jf bootloader.
vettejock99 said:
Guess he can't now - been banned. Shame, too, I am sure we'll miss his pleasant demeanor.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Yes i do bring certain special qualities to this forum don't I. at any rate i have began to build a port to be able to run directly off the jf bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cool i can't wait to try it out

modem_over said:
Yes i do bring certain special qualities to this forum don't I. at any rate i have began to build a port to be able to run directly off the jf bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool - that sounds great

modem_over said:
Yes i do bring certain special qualities to this forum don't I. at any rate i have began to build a port to be able to run directly off the jf bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
any bootloader will work. there is no verification done by the bootloader during the bootstrap process, only during the flash process. flashing of the modified boot image with a debian initramfs instead of an android initramfs can be done from a functioning rooted android os, or from a test-keys enabled recovery partition. the method i used was to do a normal debian install on a partition of the sd card, installing initramfs-tools, building an initramfs, built a new boot.img with the stock android dev environment.

i've also compiled a kernel with full namespace support and a custom init that launches the android init and debian inits in separate namespaces allowing them to run concurrently. not much use since they can't talk to each other, but it is somewhat neat. virtuozzo like containers on your g1 =)

[Q] Why windows mobile 6.5? Why!

Hi I was just wanting some conformation that i am not the only person who finds windows mobile 6.5 on the HTC HD2 an almost un usable experience.
It crashes so many times in a day, you try to unlock it by sliding the unlock tab and it get to the edge and does nothing, you can’t press any button apart from the off button again and then you have start the whole thing again and if your lucky... after 5 attempts it works or you have to reset!
The typing in messages and on most other programs is so slow it cant keep up, it hangs and stalls and looses most of the spaces and jumps around the txt typing in where ever it wants.
Its incapable to switch from the home screen to the programs screen without stalling and hanging around, and the general user experience of all the user input is slow!
Forgive me if this is covered ground for everyone but for me it’s the most powerful phone on the market and it’s still useless!?
Does anyone have and tips? or any other rants about it?

you can always flash it

Dude just flash a custom ROM on there, what phone do you have and what network?

Before flashing, try doing a hard-reset (you'll have to do that anyway if you are going to flash). See if that solves the problem. Could well be that it is some prog or a left-over of some prog that is screwing things up. I still have the shipped ROM on-board and it runs silky smooth, until I try to be too clever, but then it's my fault
Good luck!

im on a HD2 and looking at puting android on it, but waiting for a new memory card later this week.
what other roms can i flash to it? im on o2...?
but my point was rarther why the hell can microsoft get away wit hreleasing stuff that doesent work still but help is great!

its nothing to do with microsoft, MS release software to a developer who then fits it in to a handset, that process need drivers and a much of work, its not like Windows on a desktop where you can simply update a driver or two with an exe.
read all of the work here regarding flashing, Update to a new ROM, i use Energy, make sure you do it correctly, and it will fly, i have Energys latest and its great, no crashes, good bat, very fast, there is nothing id like to change...well the HSDPA is crap but that might just be my area.
Speaking of Android, i have a copy running from my SD and removing the obvious issues with it just now and assuming it will be fixed by the time it becomes flashable Android brigs nothing new, in my opinion its the same as WM6.5.x with sence 2.5 the only advantage that i can see is the app store

ahh i see, so HTC are to blame for it all! ok i will have a look at some other roms but the app store on andoid was one of the main reasons i wanted to switch to that, winmo marketplace is just awfull and full of usless junk.
there are alot of different stages in puting android on do you have to do all the same spl, radio and other changes to get other roms working?

i HATE wm with a passion! get rid of it lol and put android on it!

WM is just fine for me.

peel1e said:
ahh i see, so HTC are to blame for it all! ok i will have a look at some other roms but the app store on andoid was one of the main reasons i wanted to switch to that, winmo marketplace is just awfull and full of usless junk.
there are alot of different stages in puting android on do you have to do all the same spl, radio and other changes to get other roms working?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, as was said before, it's not necessarily MS's fault the rom sucks. First, HTC effs everything up and then the carrier drops the final turds in the mix. Look for OMarket-it has many more apps than marketplace, and they're all free. There's a lot of junk, but there's very good stuff there, too.

peel1e said:
ahh i see, so HTC are to blame for it all! ok i will have a look at some other roms but the app store on andoid was one of the main reasons i wanted to switch to that, winmo marketplace is just awfull and full of usless junk.
there are alot of different stages in puting android on do you have to do all the same spl, radio and other changes to get other roms working?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In a manor of speak yes HTC are to blame for most of the issues we have on the devices, first and formost is the fact that HTC never licenced the graphics drivers from QC, second MS provide a blank slate that HTC fills in, lets assume for a second that its all up to MS and in so asuming every WM device ever made is also MS fault, then why is it that some devices work fantastic? the reason is because the manufacture and finally the networks stick their greedy paws on it and bodge it, this is exactly why windows phone 7 is so locked down, MS know for well that the manufactures and networks screw their image so much with WM that they have reduced their ability to do so.
but anyway you will believe what you want, if you look at a ROM with a preconception that its going to be crap then you will only ever see a crap ROM so you may as well give up now.
as for the app store vs the WM market place, your choice of words is intresting.
the marketplace actually has quite a few pieces of decent software, you know in the £20+ range, the app store has shed loads of....well, crap really, but there is much more to choose from and you are more likely to find something thats worth getting so again its down to choice, quality / quantity to suite your needs argument again.
installing android is easy if you already have HSPL 2 or 3 installed. seriously worth reading the guides to make sure you have the correct versions of radio and ROM installed!!
So flash the latest radio, and one of the recomended ROMs, ive used energy without issue, once you done that its just a matter of downloading a build of android, that usually containes everything to give things a quick bash, if you fancy it, you can then do some updating, but its your call, if your using cooked ROMs then as long as you have a recent ROM your most of the way there.
ive tried a newer android build for a couple of days and again, assuming all the bugs are to go and speed is improved, i still dont see a huge difference, its perhaps a bit more refreshing, but its also a bit more limited, ill continue to test it out

Sorry it took me so long to get back but thanks for all of this im now happily running froyo 2.1 on the hd2 now looking for an updated cooked rom because of the google update!

yeah I know

[Q] Ubuntu

Hey guys ive been really happy with my Android device the OS is wonderful but this whole open source thing has really been making me hate the whole world of Mac Windows ATT Samsung ie. big companies. Im currently downloading Ubuntu and was wondering if anyone else was running Ubuntu on their PC. If so how do you like it? Pros and Cons? i know it cant be perfect but im imagining ill like it way more than anything Mac or PC.

I think it's safe to say that a whole BUNCH of people on XDA use or have used Ubuntu.
Personally, I have xp on my primary laptop, but it has intel-vt which allows me to run a 64-bit ubuntu vm for compiling android when the mood strikes.
My experiences with it have been good. It's just like the first time you sat at a windows pc or mac. You just have to learn where everything is again. Also, it depends what kind of user you are and why you're trying linux at all... I started in to linux to build android and get more familiar with the shell and it's been a very good experience.
If you're just trying it to 'get free', then you should like it just fine. Looks nice, runs well, tons of software, package management that windows will (probably) never have... hope you enjoy!

you can try it without installing and see if you like it or not. personally, i think ubuntu is better than both os x and windows, but that's just my opinion.

I've studied linux at uni and I've used Ubuntu and CentOS many many times for servers and whatnot. While I know exactly the potential of linux I still don't use it as a primary OS.
I too don't like M$ and other big companies but I must say W7 is a pretty sweet OS. I game a lot so naturally I use W7 for that reason, but I would say Windows has nothing on Linux except maybe a user friendlier GUI.

Thanks guys i spent a day on it. and just my improved internet experience alone has pushed me to just install it completely. i figured now was the time i got a trojan horse that attacked my antivirus about a month ago and it wiped my whole pc had to format and lost a lot anyways i hadnt put anything back was keeping all my important stuff far away from my pc. so far im loving ubuntu its amazing for me.

Hydro360 said:
i know it cant be perfect but im imagining ill like it way more than anything Mac or PC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh but it can!! Or at least is the only thing that can get damn close depending what you are willing to learn about it
********
Sent from my Samsung Captivate using the XDA app
ROM: Paragon RC5 1200 mhz/100hz kernel

Ubuntu as a Phone OS

Well, ubnuntu just made an annoucnement that they will have a mobile tablet and phone os, that will be matched with thier other versions so it is one os that will work on all your computing devices using all the same apps that you already run. They will also have the HTML 5 apps as part of this.
Just thought you guys might be interested.
I am very excited about this.
Sound off and let's discuss after you check out the video on the link below:
http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/phone

I see android becoming a GUI skin for Ubuntu. It's been nothing more than a matter of time before PC OS's merged with phone OS's . With some of the new hardware technologies almost ready for primetime our mobiles will take the place of PC/laptops in our lives. Desktops are evolving into more of a server role in the home. Appliances , home entertainment, environmental control will all be run from a central home super PC/server. The technology is out now but advances are coming that will make it more practical for the masses.

mtnlion said:
I see android becoming a GUI skin for Ubuntu. It's been nothing more than a matter of time before PC OS's merged with phone OS's . With some of the new hardware technologies almost ready for primetime our mobiles will take the place of PC/laptops in our lives. Desktops are evolving into more of a server role in the home. Appliances , home entertainment, environmental control will all be run from a central home super PC/server. The technology is out now but advances are coming that will make it more practical for the masses.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually it is the other way around.... in the video it was said that the ubuntu phone os will work with the android kernel, so it should work on any current android hardware, and should be very easy to implement it.
This is really because the android kernel is really the general linux 3.0 kernel.
I am going to work on getting this working on this phone, as soon they release the OS to everyone. I can see this taking this phone to where it should be as far as performance is concerned.

jimbridgman said:
Actually it is the other way around.... in the video it was said that the ubuntu phone os will work with the android kernel, so it should work on any current android hardware, and should be very easy to implement it.
This is really because the android kernel is really the general linux 3.0 kernel.
I am going to work on getting this working on this phone, as soon they release the OS to everyone. I can see this taking this phone to where it should be as far as performance is concerned.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are saying You can boot this version of Ubuntu with our stock moto kernel?

mtnlion said:
You are saying You can boot this version of Ubuntu with our stock moto kernel?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure yet, but from the video in the link I posted toward the end, it sure sounded like that was the case. I am sure some work will have to be done, but it sounded promising.

I'm most interested in seeing how this turns out when you unleash your kung fu on it. My nexus 4 should be here soon, after it arrives my A2 will be at your disposal for any alpha testing. Then again my A2 has always been available for testing anything you or certain other devs come up with.

This is super sexy. I cannot wait for this to come out. I have been using Linux, mainly Ubuntu off and on for years now. This just made my day. I love the GUI. I wonder... What type of bootloader this will use. Some modified versions of Lilo, or Grub?

Maribou said:
This is super sexy. I cannot wait for this to come out. I have been using Linux, mainly Ubuntu off and on for years now. This just made my day. I love the GUI. I wonder... What type of bootloader this will use. Some modified versions of Lilo, or Grub?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Prolly not going to be lilo, it has been a while since lilo was a default BL for linux. Grub, both in the the gui and text bootloaders has been the BL of choice for most linux distros for some time now.
I am guessing that if this works with the android kernel, that it might not use a separate BL for those devices, but I would guess that again grub would be on new devices that are made to run this by default.

I can see this taking this phone to where it should be as far as performance is concerned.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm curious as to why you say this. Is there any particular reason that performance would be better with Ubuntu over Android? If the kernel is the same, it would seem to me that the performance level achievable would be the same with either.

jimbridgman said:
Prolly not going to be lilo, it has been a while since lilo was a default BL for linux. Grub, both in the the gui and text bootloaders has been the BL of choice for most linux distros for some time now.
I am guessing that if this works with the android kernel, that it might not use a separate BL for those devices, but I would guess that again grub would be on new devices that are made to run this by default.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool.Since it is open source do you think the BL will be locked down? I'm actually kinda confused as to how this would work. Would we still have our locked down BL if we installed a port of the Ubuntu OS? Or would the Ubuntu OS totally replace everything?

It looks like the original phone this is made for is a galaxy Nexus, so.... We should be able to get this running on our A2 fairly easily.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/02/ubuntu-for-smartphones/
As to the person who asked about why I feel the performance will be better, is because of how linux itself and the apps that are used, use hardware, android itself does not handle apps talking to hardware very well, and tend to kill battery in the process much faster.
I run linux on a ton of my computers and devices, and I will tell you, I have a netbook running ubuntu and I get 13 hours on battery with it, where with any other OS I get maybe 6 hours. And yes it runs an atom processor, and I have been able to test running android on it, and ran very poorly as far as battery and performance was concerned, even with linaro running.
The ONLY reason we will not be able to run the true ubuntu kernel with this is thanks to motorola locking this thing down so tight that we can not run any other bootloader or kernel on this device.

Maribou said:
Cool.Since it is open source do you think the BL will be locked down? I'm actually kinda confused as to how this would work. Would we still have our locked down BL if we installed a port of the Ubuntu OS? Or would the Ubuntu OS totally replace everything?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to say for our phone, we will not be able to run the whole thing. We will have to keep our bootloader and kernel, but basically run this from our /system partition much like flashing a ROM.

jimbridgman said:
Sorry to say for our phone, we will not be able to run the whole thing. We will have to keep our bootloader and kernel, but basically run this from our /system partition much like flashing a ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for clearing that up. I was thinking that was how it would be. I still can't wait to try this out!

This may be a dumb question.... but wasn't ubuntu designed to run on x86? How would it work on ARM?
Sent from my MB865 using xda app-developers app

farshad525hou said:
This may be a dumb question.... but wasn't ubuntu designed to run on x86? How would it work on ARM?
Sent from my MB865 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ubuntu has come a long way. There are many different variations of it now. http://www.ubuntu.com/download/arm

WOW this is a real game changer here..... Have been thinking for a while what could be the next BIG thing looks like this is it..... Take a quad core with 2gb ram 32gb onboard and 32gb sd and this is going to be a beasted laptop in your pocket.....
Haha just read the other part of the page and it almost looks loke a direct quote.....

I don't know if I'm remembering correctly but wasn't Canonical working with Motorola on Ubuntu for Android? And wasn't even the phone they demoed it on in the video an Atrix 2?
They are obviously different projects as Ubuntu for Android was to allow the ability to boot into Ubuntu from inside android much like Jim's Webtop hack, but I just thought I should bring it up.

Generally speaking, I'm pretty excited about this too. I haven't been able to find any information on the ubuntu "dock ". Availability, price, inputs/outputs, etc. I think it will be awesome to have a dockable piece of hardware to run as a mobile or home device.
Sent from my MB865 using xda app-developers app

Oh wow this is gonna be just amazing a true Linux mobile os I for one can't wait to load an Ubuntu based ROM onto my a2
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

This is going to be so awesome if it really works. I'm already setting up a dev environment to port it to my tablet, where it will really be awesome.
EDIT: PS will it be able to run normal andriod apps too?