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[Q] Trying to create a CW zip with all the apps i want to install automatically

Can some one provide some instructions on how to go about making a CW zip file to flash and install all the apps that is on my phone?
I've seen a few of these floating around in the forum, and wanted to make my own to save time after every ROM flash
Do I just grab all the APK files throw them into a folder and Zip & Sign it?
or do I have to do a Nandroid backup first, then only use the app files from the backup?

I would like to know this too....

Would be nice as well instead of restoring
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

Take an existing update.zip type file. Add a folder to it with the full proper path for your apps you want to pre-install (typically this will be /data/app) and put all the apps in that folder. Should look something like this in a windows/mac explorer window:
Code:
META-INF
/com/google/android/updater-script
data
/app/myfirstapp.apk
/app/mysecondapp.apk
Then use a text editor to edit the META-INF/com/google/android/updater-script file to include the commands to copy over your stuff. It would something along the lines of:
Code:
ui_print("Installing New App Files to /data");
package_extract_dir("data", "/data");
Edit out anything in the update template you're working out of that you don't want to happen (ie., format or symlinks, etc).
Repackage the zip file and make sure nothing else got in there by mistake by re-opening it (like those pesky Mac .ds-store files).
You can re-sign it with the android tools, but I don't believe you need to with Clockwork.
I would have a fresh nandroid before testing anything, of course.
You feel this approach is better than just using Titanium to restore apps? You won't get back any app data that isn't stored on the sdcard.

Thanks!
yes, now that makes sense, i recall reading that some where else to add extra APK to the ROMs
so it's the same idea, just without the ROM portion
now i get it

distortedloop said:
Take an existing update.zip type file. Add a folder to it with the full proper path for your apps you want to pre-install (typically this will be /data/app) and put all the apps in that folder. Should look something like this in a windows/mac explorer window:
Code:
META-INF
/com/google/android/updater-script
data
/app/myfirstapp.apk
/app/mysecondapp.apk
Then use a text editor to edit the META-INF/com/google/android/updater-script file to include the commands to copy over your stuff. It would something along the lines of:
Code:
ui_print("Installing New App Files to /data");
package_extract_dir("data", "/data");
Edit out anything in the update template you're working out of that you don't want to happen (ie., format or symlinks, etc).
Repackage the zip file and make sure nothing else got in there by mistake by re-opening it (like those pesky Mac .ds-store files).
You can re-sign it with the android tools, but I don't believe you need to with Clockwork.
I would have a fresh nandroid before testing anything, of course.
You feel this approach is better than just using Titanium to restore apps? You won't get back any app data that isn't stored on the sdcard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ya essentially this method is doingan advanced nandroid restore for data only except without the settings.
Sent from my MattedBlues CM7 Nexus S from the XDA Premium app.

kenvan19 said:
Ya essentially this method is doingan advanced nandroid restore for data only except without the settings.
Sent from my MattedBlues CM7 Nexus S from the XDA Premium app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suppose if you want the app data restored as well, you would just need to identify it's location in the /data directory and add it to the /data folder in the update you're making. Seems like most of the app data goes into /data/data.
Just thinking out loud here...
So for a sample app on my phone I have called jefit pro I'd put the following in the update file.
Code:
/data/je.fit.pro-1.apk <---apk itself
/data/data/je.fit.pro <--the folder
/data/data/je.fit.pro/databases/data
/data/data/je.fit.pro/lib
/data/data/je.fit.pro/preferences/preferences.xml
I'd just pull the whole folder for the /data/data/je.fit.pro from the phone via adb.
I'm not sure how useful putting the data back is, since that's not a static set of files on many apps, but for some apps where the data is just some settings or preference files it may be a nice touch.
I don't really see any advantage to this over just use Titanium to restore apps and data, but it should work.
(<<---- this would be the whole folder and its subfolders that I pulled via adb off the phone)

distortedloop said:
I don't really see any advantage to this over just use Titanium to restore apps and data, but it should work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AllGamer, I'm glad you brought this up, while I don't personally have any apps I want to put on the phone in this method, except perhaps titanium itself, I just realized we could of course do the same thing for all those little custom tweaks we put on our phones, like for me I push my personalized ringtones/notification sounds to /system. That's easy enough with adb or rootexplorer, but why not just flash them from a zip while in CW after a wipe or install of a new rom?

distortedloop said:
AllGamer, I'm glad you brought this up, while I don't personally have any apps I want to put on the phone in this method, except perhaps titanium itself, I just realized we could of course do the same thing for all those little custom tweaks we put on our phones, like for me I push my personalized ringtones/notification sounds to /system. That's easy enough with adb or rootexplorer, but why not just flash them from a zip while in CW after a wipe or install of a new rom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the idea came up from several places, first Titanium Backup itself offers to create a signed .zip installer for CW
and i've seen other devices forums with people packing up like 100+ apps/tweaks/mods into it to flash after CW is done flashing the new ROM
yes, of course we can use TI, i have TI pro and it's very easy, but Ti is slow.... at restoring 300+ Apps
but everytime i see CW restoring a Zip file or even a full Nandroid backup, it does it so fast and quickly, that i though... hell might as well keep an updated signed .zip wtih all my must have apps, and flash it along right after any new ROM flash (when testing out different Custom ROMs) then i don't need to spend like an hour everytime restoring + configuring the phones
i noticed that Ti works a hell of a lot faster if the apps are already installed, and you only need to restore the data.
and that is the main reason i want to compile a list of all the apps
once they are all installed, then i can use any of the good market utilities that can do mass Apps2SD and i'll be up and running in as quickly as 15min vs. a whole hour waste on a restore/config everytime you change the ROM
using Ti i found most of the System settings can be restored safely without corrupting the new ROM
email
accounts & syncs
bluetooth pairings
wifi
... ah shoot forgot the rest
only do not restore settings for:
launcher,
wireless network (phone company)
android market
and anything that has to do with default settings
probably this weekend i'll dissect the CW zip created by Ti itself, and add more to it

Sounds like a good plan...but you've got 300+ apps if I recall correctly. I imagine that will take a long time to restore either method!
The Titanium update zip is a good place to start. Use the setting to make it a "user" app and it will put it in /data, where you want the rest of your apps as well. You could just dump what you want right into the zip file there in the folder that has titanium's apk itself and not even worry about messing with the updater-script file.

[Q] apk installer zip file to bootstrap app re-installs

Hi all.
I play with quite a few different roms, and currently add a little program apkinstaller to the rom before I load it.
I use the apkinstaller to first re-install TB off the SD card, and then I use TB to re-install everything else, then I go setup my accounts for market and syncing (don't need the cloud servers to do the re-installs wasting bandwidth).
It would be even better if I could put this apkinstaller and TB into a zip file which I could install after loading the rom.
If I can get it to load from a zip file, then I wouldn't even need the apk installer; I would just install TB from the zip file, reboot, and reload from there.
Where can I find information about what I need to do in a zip file to install an apk?
Thanks all.

Yeah I have the same question. Any one have any suggestions?

no-one able to assist
Seems there isn't much interest in replying - I assume this rather than no-one actually knowing.
I need my post count up anyway so I might as well reply with what I have seen. There was a thread somewhere else that I saw someone had a fresh_install.zip script to delete a set of files, and add launcher pro. I guess I need to pull that apart and see what I can work out from it. I only want to do the single file add, so it hopefully will be simple.

easier solution already available
Adding to my own thread again in case anyone else is interested.
I have been looking at the file, and have information about what would need to be done, but now find an easier alternative. It seems that many (most?) of the file managers have an apk installer built in. The roms typically come with a file manager, so I can just use that to start off my re-install process- nothing else required.
Will probably still play with the .zip file though just to understand what it needs.

[Q] Is it safe to remove files from a custom rom zip for android?

Hopefully this is a simple answer. I'm using a custom rom on my phone, flashed through CWM. I would like to delete most of the ringtones that come inside the zip file, prior to flashing it to my phone, to make the process quicker/easier than doing the cleanup after they are installed on my phone in /system/media.
If I open the custom rom zip file, and simply delete the ringtones, will CWM simply skip those files? Or will this error on me and cause the installation to fail?
If i cannot simply delete these files, what process would i need to do to remove these from the rom zip?
I have been lurking for a while, and slowly digging in more and more on my android phone, getting more comfortable doing things with it, without being afraid of breaking it. I'm still a bit cautious so far though.
Thanks in advance for any help with my question!

It should be safe. I haven't removed ringtones before, but i have deleted apps before flashing.
Do not unzip the file, but just open thg zip file with WinRAR or something and delete the stuff from within WinRAR. Then flash it.
If you don't feel good about doing this, check out ROM Cleaner (google it). If you want to completly delete stock apps and stuff after you've flashed, use "Root App Remover" from the market
Sent from my HTC Desire HD using XDA Premium App

Some apps such as system ones will cause errors on the final product once done flashing, but removing such unimportant files as ringtones will cause no problem what so ever. Go ahead with it.
Sent from my tiamat hammerhead xoom
P.s. if this helped please press the thanks button

Thank you very much for the answers!

edited build.prop; phone can only boot into recovery mode and download mode

So, I was trying to get Google Wallet to work on my VZW rooted Galaxy S3. I edited three lines in my build.prop. Specifically, my edits were
Code:
ro.product.model=Galaxy Nexus
ro.product.name=yakju
ro.product.device=maguro
They had been suggested on another site as a way to allow the installation of Google Wallet. In hindsight, probably shouldn't have gone with that advice. I did not perform a nandroid backup via CWM before starting, but did back up build.prop on my computer.
I rebooted my phone, and the phone got past the first Samsung logo, and then the Samsung Galaxy S3 screen, and went to a black screen after that. None of the buttons do anything, and the LED does nothing. Removing the battery is the only way to get back to a powered-off state from which I can re-enter the boot cycle. I can enter both recovery mode and download mode, and if I plug my phone into my computer at the black-screen point after normal boot, I can access the phone via adb.
So here's the real problem. I need to replace my build.prop with the backed-up version. In order to modify build.prop in the first place, I found that adb remount failed (I think I got permission denied or something), so after pulling build.prop, editing it, and saving it locally on the computer (using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS), I pushed the file to /mnt/sdcard/ so as not to encounter permission problems. I found that entering adb shell and going to su did not allow me to switch out the edited file, as I got a cross-device error. So in the phone I entered ES File Explorer (in which I enabled root explorer, and which I had previously used to remount the file system as read-write), and switched out the build.prop with my edited version.
Obviously, I cannot use my ES File Explorer trick to replace build.prop now that the phone is not working. So I try using adb shell. I again encounter the remount issue:
Code:
[email protected]:/Onyx/adiv/android-sdk-linux_x86/platform-tools$ ./adb remount
remount failed: Operation not permitted
I saw elsewhere that the same can be accomplished via adb shell with su. So I try, and get this far:
Code:
[email protected]:/ $ su
Segmentation fault
Definitely not good. Having now realized the error of my ways in not creating a nandroid before messing things up, I think, hey, I can make a nandroid now, pull the backup to my computer, and replace the build.prop in the backup, figure out how to update the MD5 sum, and recover from the modified backup. So I backup in CWM (recall that I can still enter recovery mode), pull the recovery, and take a look.
First I notice that the folder under clockworkmod/backup/ is quite oddly named 1970-01-30.22.07.14. I don't expect this to be a huge issue. I need to edit the system component, which I see seems to be distributed between system.ext4.tar.a (1.0 gb), system.ext4.tar (0 bytes), and system.ext4.tar.b (136.1 mb). I'm unable to unpack any of these three, as they don't seem to be packed like normal tarballs. And this is where I hit a dead-end for this method.
A third option which I admit I haven't fully explored is throwing the original build.prop in an update.zip and flashing that via recovery, and I haven't explored that option fully because I really have no idea what the inside of an update.zip looks like, or how I would go about building my own, and the few guides I looked at for building my own update.zip focused on either installing custom roms or installing apps, not replacing individual system files.
Any advice on where to go from here? I'd really rather not have to do a factory restore and re-apply root and re-install my apps and reconfigure everything and all that jazz, but if that's the only option I have, it's not like it's the end of the world--I can at least pull my data off the device using adb.
To summarize:
What I need to accomplish:
Replace my modified build.prop with the original build.prop that I backed up
Obstacles:
su in adb shell no longer appears to be working due to a "segmentation fault".
adb remount does not work, as the "Operation [is] not permitted."
I can't seem to unpack the system component of the nandroid backup, which has the wrong date.
How I thought I might fix it:
Use adb to push the new build.prop file and get it in its correct spot.
Edit a backup created by clockwork mod to have the correct build.prop and flash the backup via recovery.
Throw the correct build.prop in an update.zip file and install via recovery.
Any suggestions, ideas, or tips?
If I have to use option 3, does anybody have any tips as to building the update.zip? (Don't worry, if that's what I have to do, I'll do my due diligence and read up on update.zips and look through a few example update.zips)
Thanks,
Adiv

Stock build.prop in a convenient zip file. Enjoy.

Vorfidus said:
Stock build.prop in a convenient zip file. Enjoy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! Will post back when I have results.
EDIT:
It seems the update-script in the zip file you provided was written in Amend, which is no longer supported--since 3.0, Android uses Edify. CWM throws an error accordingly. However, what you have provided is pretty much all I need to put together a new update.zip (I hope) with the correct scripting language.

adiv.paradise said:
Thanks! Will post back when I have results.
EDIT:
It seems the update-script in the zip file you provided was written in Amend, which is no longer supported--since 3.0, Android uses Edify. CWM throws an error accordingly. However, what you have provided is pretty much all I need to put together a new update.zip (I hope) with the correct scripting language.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I replaced update-script with updater-script. I then spent roughly two hours or so trying to find an update-binary that worked on the GS3 US variants. I have included the new update.zip file, with the update-binary inside. After switching to updater-script (written in Edify), and using the correct updater-binary, I finally got the updater-script to run. And I got as far as injecting the new build.prop. I get the following error:
Code:
assert failed: package_extract_file("build.prop","/system/build.prop")
E:Error in /sdcard/update.zip
(Status 7)
Installation aborted.
Here is my updater-script:
Code:
ui_print(" Mounting system...");
assert(mount("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p14", "/system"));
set_progress(0.100000);
ui_print(" Deleting old build.prop...");
delete("/system/build.prop");
set_progress(0.400000);
ui_print(" Injecting build.prop....");
set_progress(0.410000);
assert(package_extract_file("build.prop","/system/build.prop"));
set_progress(0.800000);
ui_print(" build.prop successfully injected!");
ui_print(" unmounting /system...");
assert(unmount("/system"));
set_progress(1.000000);
ui_print(" Done! Yay!");
I'll try the package_extract_dir command as well, but my experience thus far has been that it probably won't make a difference.
Anybody have any quick tips on getting the build.prop to actually inject? My hunch is that this is coming back to the difficulties I had with mounting /system as -rw.

OH GOOD LORD I HAVE DONE IT!
Switching to package_extract_dir did the trick.
For posterity, I'm uploading the final update.zip, and I'm posting here my updater-script:
Code:
ui_print(" Mounting system...");
assert(mount("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p14", "/system"));
set_progress(0.100000);
ui_print(" Deleting old build.prop...");
delete("/system/build.prop");
set_progress(0.400000);
ui_print(" Injecting build.prop....");
set_progress(0.410000);
assert(package_extract_dir("system","/system"));
set_progress(0.800000);
ui_print(" build.prop successfully injected!");
ui_print(" unmounting /system...");
assert(unmount("/system"));
set_progress(1.000000);
ui_print(" Done! Yay!");
Hopefully, I never again do something like this without first performing a nandroid backup :/

So I guess my half done update zip did it. I knew I missed something haha.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

adiv.paradise said:
OH GOOD LORD I HAVE DONE IT!
Switching to package_extract_dir did the trick.
For posterity, I'm uploading the final update.zip, and I'm posting here my updater-script:
Code:
ui_print(" Mounting system...");
assert(mount("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p14", "/system"));
set_progress(0.100000);
ui_print(" Deleting old build.prop...");
delete("/system/build.prop");
set_progress(0.400000);
ui_print(" Injecting build.prop....");
set_progress(0.410000);
assert(package_extract_dir("system","/system"));
set_progress(0.800000);
ui_print(" build.prop successfully injected!");
ui_print(" unmounting /system...");
assert(unmount("/system"));
set_progress(1.000000);
ui_print(" Done! Yay!");
Hopefully, I never again do something like this without first performing a nandroid backup :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So if I lost my build.prop (Idk how, don't ask) flashing this in cwm will restore it?

Probably. The only thing you might run into is there's a line in the updater script that deletes the current build.prop before injecting the new one. If there is no current build.prop, it might throw an error. If it does, just delete that line from the script, repackage the zip, and flash from cwm.

Help my tablet - ramos w30 can not boot after edited build.prob
Hi all,
Please help me, after i edited file build.prob, my tablet (ramos w30) can not boot, it stop at logo.
Now i get origin file build.prob from another tablet and i want recopy to tablet to sovle this case.
I dont know way to make file update.zip with file build.prob thus please help me.
This is my origin build.prob , hope to get your update.zip from you
Thank you billion time.

jo_blow421 said:
So if I lost my build.prop (Idk how, don't ask) flashing this in cwm will restore it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tank you

thaibao1269 said:
Hi all,
Please help me, after i edited file build.prob, my tablet (ramos w30) can not boot, it stop at logo.
Now i get origin file build.prob from another tablet and i want recopy to tablet to sovle this case.
I dont know way to make file update.zip with file build.prob thus please help me.
This is my origin build.prob , hope to get your update.zip from you
Thank you billion time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry I never responded to this... That's what happens when you comment on an old thread.
I can't put together an update.zip for you, or rather, I won't. I'm not an update.zip factory to which you can place an order for an update.zip that will magically solve all your problems. Particularly for a device I don't have. However, I have in this thread laid out all the groundwork you'll need to do it yourself. You'll need to acquire a working build.prop for your device (using any other will brick your device), an update-binary specific to your device (you can't use the one in my update.zip, that's for the Verizon GS3), and then you'll need to change the update script that was discussed in detail here. For one, the memory addresses will be different, so for example mmcblk0p14 will be different for your device, and the directory structure might be different as well. You'll need to do some research and dig around in my update.zip to see how it was done.

Error on sideloading
adiv.paradise said:
OH GOOD LORD I HAVE DONE IT!
Switching to package_extract_dir did the trick.
For posterity, I'm uploading the final update.zip, and I'm posting here my updater-script:
Code:
ui_print(" Mounting system...");
assert(mount("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p14", "/system"));
set_progress(0.100000);
ui_print(" Deleting old build.prop...");
delete("/system/build.prop");
set_progress(0.400000);
ui_print(" Injecting build.prop....");
set_progress(0.410000);
assert(package_extract_dir("system","/system"));
set_progress(0.800000);
ui_print(" build.prop successfully injected!");
ui_print(" unmounting /system...");
assert(unmount("/system"));
set_progress(1.000000);
ui_print(" Done! Yay!");
Hopefully, I never again do something like this without first performing a nandroid backup :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am trying to sideload my LG g2 (LS980) with this update.zip. Obviously I have modified the build.prop file inside it. But when sideloading i get the following error. E: footer is wrong
E: Signature verification failed
Do you know why this happen?

Anoop S S said:
I am trying to sideload my LG g2 (LS980) with this update.zip. Obviously I have modified the build.prop file inside it. But when sideloading i get the following error. E: footer is wrong
E: Signature verification failed
Do you know why this happen?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same Error here, i only have Chance to recover my build.prop from update via sideload or directly from sdcard. Thanks for any hints.

Dude need help also. i have Lenovo A328, when i edited my build.prop i forgot to change the permisssions and then i rebooted it. unfortunately it ends up in black screen. and i cant seem to fix the problem using update.zip. it always says INSTALLATION ABORTED.

Guys, you need to realize that a solution for the Verizon GS3 (sch-i535) is not going to work for any other model--the firmware is different, the memory layouts are different, and the binaries involved are different. You can't just stick in a build.prop for your own phone. You need to find an update-binary or updater-binary or whatever that works with your specific model, do research on the memory layout used in your phone, edit the injection script accordingly (that means actually learning a bit of Edify, you can't just do a search-replace to make it work, you actually need to understand what the script is doing if you want any chance of building a proper script), and use the correct build.prop. It's going to take some legwork. Also, keep in mind that I found my solution about two and a half years ago--Android has gone through I think 3 or 4 significant revisions since then--I think my phone was still on ICS (4.0) at the time, we've since had 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, and now 5.0 if you're on that. Things may have changed, and my solution may no longer work, even for the VZW GS3.

Alcatel 4011x bootloop after editing build.prop. Need script file
Help me (im newbie) can you guys make a update.zip for me.
My phone is alcatel one touch glory 2S pro (4011x). Please make me a update.zip to inject my backup build.prop. my phone bootloop because I did not change the permission I guess :what:
sorry for my grammar because english is not my native langguage
Ps: i cant use adb because i dont have a pc
Please help me I really need a script that can inject this build.prop

[Q] Is it possible to just flash /system?

I am running a rooted stock tf300t. In CWM-touch-6.0.1.4 I created an image zip. I reboot the tablet and using ES File Explorer I transfer the image file from CWM to my external SD Card. On my computer, I use an unarchiving tool to unpack the .tar file and I am able to see all the files within /system. My question is: Is it possible to remove certain apps from /system/app and then rezip the file and flash it over the current /system folder?

justin.blake said:
I am running a rooted stock tf300t. In CWM-touch-6.0.1.4 I created an image zip. I reboot the tablet and using ES File Explorer I transfer the image file from CWM to my external SD Card. On my computer, I use an unarchiving tool to unpack the .tar file and I am able to see all the files within /system. My question is: Is it possible to remove certain apps from /system/app and then rezip the file and flash it over the current /system folder?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes of course.

Saving the file
Thanks, is there a certain way I should save it? Would fastboot be better or should I save it onto an sd card and flash it from CWM? If I do it in CWM should I format /system first and then flash it or would it automatically overwrite everything? I'm still pretty new to android and appreciate any and all help.

What exactly are you trying to achieve? Maybe if you explain it we can help you
Fast boot will do you no good.
You can prepare an installer script for flashing with just system apps in it but if you are not that familiar with Android this will be quite a tall order for you to do straight off the bat. I wouldn't format system until you know what you are doing.

flashing system
I work for a company that does MDM but as of now they primarily use iPads. They want to be able to get rid of practically everything except a browser and our own software. I have been successful implementing our software, but with all the other apps we are running into a few problems. I have found that if I go into the app folder and remove all the unnecessary apps, everything runs a lot smoother. It is possible to get rid of practically everything using the file explorer but that is a lot more time consuming than just flashing a system partition that has already been modified.
I have been successful in modifying a cm9 build for a Samsung Galaxy Tab2 and running it. As the picture shows I only have the browser, play store, settings, and SuperSU. For whatever reason, since the Asus is running 4.1.1, the cm10 build isn't as easy to modify and run. Instead I'm trying this route.

justin.blake said:
I work for a company that does MDM but as of now they primarily use iPads. They want to be able to get rid of practically everything except a browser and our own software. I have been successful implementing our software, but with all the other apps we are running into a few problems. I have found that if I go into the app folder and remove all the unnecessary apps, everything runs a lot smoother. It is possible to get rid of practically everything using the file explorer but that is a lot more time consuming than just flashing a system partition that has already been modified.
I have been successful in modifying a cm9 build for a Samsung Galaxy Tab2 and running it. As the picture shows I only have the browser, play store, settings, and SuperSU. For whatever reason, since the Asus is running 4.1.1, the cm10 build isn't as easy to modify and run. Instead I'm trying this route.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah right.
You could use adb to pull /system/app to some folder. delete what you want. Wipe the system/app folder on the device and then just push back the necessary apks.
Or build a simple installer script to do the same thing.

Excellent, thank you very much for your help.

justin.blake said:
I am running a rooted stock tf300t. In CWM-touch-6.0.1.4 I created an image zip. I reboot the tablet and using ES File Explorer I transfer the image file from CWM to my external SD Card. On my computer, I use an unarchiving tool to unpack the .tar file and I am able to see all the files within /system. My question is: Is it possible to remove certain apps from /system/app and then rezip the file and flash it over the current /system folder?
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Click to collapse
Er yes Kind of but you need to think in terms of linux and ext partitions. I haven't got time right now to go into the details. If you grab a simple installer script, Make sure you have notepad++ installed on Windows and you can see what the script is doing.
Let me see if I have a quick flashable zip I can attach.
I find it easier to connect the tab to my windows laptop and via an adb cmd line prompt type
adb pull /system/app /system/app
Which extracts all the files in /system/app to a folder called /system/app on my hardisk.
You can then put whatever you want back into the flashable zip in the system/app folder and away you go. In your case it's a bit more complex as you want to format the system/app directory first before inserting system/app back on but it's easy enough to show you how.
The file below when flashed from recovery installs the mynet.apk file into /system/app
if you go into
META-INF/com/google/android and open updater-script in notepad++ you'll see the following
show_progress(0.1, 0);
ui_print("Quick system update");
ui_print("");
set_progress(1.000000);
mount("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p1", "/system");
ui_print("Installing files..");
package_extract_dir("system", "/system");
ui_print("Setting Permissions...");
set_perm_recursive(0, 0, 0755, 0644, "/system/app");
show_progress(0.200000, 10);
unmount("/system");
ui_print("Done. Reboot to enjoy!");
the line in red mounts the system partition and the line in blue does the inserting of the file.
Now if you were to add the following at the beginning before mounting you would wipe the whole system partition.
format("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p1", "0");
So as long as you inserted all the necessary apps needed to boot and the apps you want to provide you would have a nice lean, bloat free rom.
Hope that makes sense?
Darren