I wanted to get some insight, direction and perhaps guidance on how to take the existing Deodexed ED2 ROM and get inside and make some edits, remove bloatware, replace Touchwiz with a different launcher etc. I am not looking to build a full blown custom ROM, I am just looking to edit a stock (yet deodexed) ROM to meet my needs.
Any help would be greatly appreciated so I can learn more about this process.
There are two ways you can do it. First way, that is usually a little easier to work with, is to extract the zip file, make the changes you want, and re-zip the whole thing. The other method is to just open the zip file (7zip or similar will make this a little easier) and add/delete stuff as you want. It eliminates the decompress/recompress part, but is a little harder to work with unless you know exactly what you want to do.
As far as figuring out what to remove and such, some files are named in a manner that they are easy to figure out (Mms.apk for example) and other files are not (Dlna.apk is AllShare). If you want to figure out what an APK file is, a good indication is sometimes opening it with say 7zip (they are essentially zip files) and extracting res/drawable-hdpi/icon.png and you can see what the icon is. Astro File Manager can also give you some info on the specific Apks, as can Titanium Backup I believe.
As for replacing things (like the launcher) it is as simple as taking one out and putting another in for most stuff. I will let you know that I had battery drain issues when I removed the stock TWLauncher, but I believe I know how to fix it then. A lot of stuff though, if you are replacing things, you'll want to do 1 or 2 things at a time and also be familiar with logcat as it is an invaluable tool when testing out ROM changes and problems.
Thanks imnuts, I will start to play with a zip file and go from there. As you mentioned the bloatware is in the system folder and not the data folder so perhaps I will just delete the bloat, and install GB Launcher on my phone and make it default so that TW is still there just not in use.
Hi,
a little late, but...
did you actually make this work? I'm trying the exact same thing, but my 4ext recovery always aborts the installation. Do I need to sign it or what is wrong?
Thanks a lot...
Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
Moving to Q&A
Hello Guys,
I need to make a flashable ROM.... I already have boot.img and system from nand backup... Now all i need is the META-INF.... Where can I get it? Thanks.
You can pull the meta-inf from any other rom. Be careful though with your flashing. Especially if your are changing the boot.img. If something goes wrong, the phone will stay at your splash screen. the only thing you will be able to do is restore from a backup. So def. nandroid.
smoochiezz24 said:
You can pull the meta-inf from any other rom. Be careful though with your flashing. Especially if your are changing the boot.img. If something goes wrong, the phone will stay at your splash screen. the only thing you will be able to do is restore from a backup. So def. nandroid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So what do i do to make the ROM then?
I really don't suggest you try to make your own ROM if you don't know to set it up at all. The only reason i'm saying this is because you have to learn the basic file system structure before you even get into modding the system. The flashable zip has the same structure. And it's critical that things are in the right place. It's just not easy for me to show you with out you doing some research. What exactly are you looking to change that the other already made roms don't have? I can surely help you out with modding a rom but I can't tell you how to create a rom.
smoochiezz24 said:
I really don't suggest you try to make your own ROM if you don't know to set it up at all. The only reason i'm saying this is because you have to learn the basic file system structure before you even get into modding the system. The flashable zip has the same structure. And it's critical that things are in the right place. It's just not easy for me to show you with out you doing some research. What exactly are you looking to change that the other already made roms don't have? I can surely help you out with modding a rom but I can't tell you how to create a rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, my ROM consist of Android Revolution Dual Core and Tweaks and removed nearly all HTC apks and edited some extra files and themed i
Okay. Sounds cool enough. Have you modded the files on your PC and are looking to flash them to your phone to test them out? Or are the modded files already on your phone and you just want to package the whole thing up?
If you're looking to make your own ROM just extract out the ROM you're basing it on, delete the apks you don't want and then ZIP it up again. Otherwise you have to deal with setting up the Android kitchen to make your own ROM
smoochiezz24 said:
Okay. Sounds cool enough. Have you modded the files on your PC and are looking to flash them to your phone to test them out? Or are the modded files already on your phone and you just want to package the whole thing up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The modded files are already on my phone
In this tutorial I will show you how to create your own T.W. rom using your GS3 and Root Explorer. There are many ways you can create a rom but not everyone has the time to sit at a computer every night. However, your phone is always on you and can find a few minutes here and there to create your own masterpiece.
For the sake of this tutorial, we will name our new rom "SLICK".
Here are a few things you will need...
1. The rom base from Scottsroms. I'm NOT talking about Cleanrom but the unmodified stock rooted rom.
2. Root Explorer.
3. Script Manager
4. Any mod you can flash or come up with on your own.
1. GET STARTED!
Download the base rom to your phones EXT-sdcard and extract it using Root Explorer. After it's extracted the new unziped rom will be located in /storage/sdcard0/SpeedSoftware/Extracted. The extracted rom is now your new base. At this point it would be a great idea to move it to your EXT-sdcard and create a new project folder for it and label the folder "Project SLICK". inside the folder is your rom. lets rename that rom "SLICK".
Lets open your new SLICK rom. You should have some folders...
BOOT IMAGE
DATA
META-INF
SYSTEM
3. THE SYSTEM FOLDER
/SYSTEM/APP
Most of your work will done in the System folder so lets open that up. This is the heart of your rom! There are many folders here but lets start with the app folder. This folder has every app installed in your rom. This is a good time to remove the bloat you don't want in your rom. Go ahead and delete the apk's you don't want or need.
/SYSTEM/BIN
Here you can speed up your system or make it more battery efficient by deleting things like "mpdecision" and things like that. Be careful what you delete though. In general you won't do much in here.
/SYSTEM/BUILD.PROP
Here you can change values or add values. The one value we are concerned with is "ro.build.display.id" This build property's value will be displayed in the end users settings menu under "about phone". So let's give this property the correct value "ro.build.display.id=SLICK ROM v1.0" The rest of the build properties you can do as you wish. Build.prop is simply a text file. You can use the text editor built into Root Explorer.
/SYSTEM/CSC
Open this file and you will see more files. Listed is "feature.xml". Here you can edit values for various items for texting and mms.
/SYSTEM/ETC
Here is where you will find a folder called "init.d". Located in this folder are various text files. The text files are scripts that are told to run when your phone boots. You can add or modify to the existing scripts or create a new text file.
So we went over a few of the basics of modding your new rom and molding it into something you can call your own but does it work??
4. TESTING YOUR NEW BASE.
So we have already modified our rom a considerable amount and should have a good solid base. Before we go any further we should really test things out first. If we did something wrong earlier we will at least have an idea where to look. So lets flash our new rom. Go to you EXT-sdcard and find our project folder. you should still have your SLICK file. Zip this file with Root Explorer. Make sure you have a good battery and a cool environment because it's going to take your GS3 about 30min of hard work to zip this file. When that is finally completed, flash your new rom located in /storage/sdcard0/SpeedSoftware/Archives. Flash it just like you would any other rom.
Test your new rom out on your GS3 and see how things are running. Check your existing modifications you did earlier. If everything looks good, we can continue modding. If not you will need to go back to your base to see where you went wrong. This is also a great time to check your init.d scripts. One way to do this is to download "Script manager" from the market and click on your init scripts to read there log. It will tell you if something went wrong.
If everything is looking good, we can continue modding...
5. THE MODS
So we have that nice clean base but what about all them mods in the roms we download and flash everyday? There are a few different ways we can do this and we will start with the easiest but first, do a nandroid backup of your new base. If one of your mods you perform next goes bad it's simply quicker to recover. Now, If you have flashable zips of some of the mods you like then you can flash them now and make sure they are working the way they should in your rom. Remember, just cause we have the d2vzw does not mean mods from the sprint or T-mobile won't work on our devices. Sometimes it's worth a try. It's all about which firmware they are on and what has changed with the firmware.
So we flashed a few mods but don't have everything we wanted. At this point you are left with only one option and that is to get on that PC of yours and learn to decompile a APK. I may touch on this subject later as it is a bit more involved for someone new to this sort of thing.
6. UNDERSTANDING THE FLASHABLE ZIP
The alternate method of a flashable zip is to extract your flashable using Root Explorer and picking it apart. For example we will use "Lean Kernel" and kill 2 topics with one stone. If you unzip the kernel you will see...
BOOT.IMG
META-INF
SYSTEM
As you can see there are some familiar files to us just like when we extracted our base rom in the beginning. Basically when you flash a mod like this or any flashable for that matter, it installs files into your rom in certain places. In this example we will be installing in BOOT.IMG and SYSTEM. But what? And what is that META-INF file for? Well this META-INF file is what tells your rom what files and what to do with those files. Inside META-INF is a text file called an "updater script".
Here is what it looks like...
Code:
show_progress(0.500000, 0);
mount("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p14", "/system");
package_extract_dir("system", "/system");
set_perm(0, 0, 0777, "/system/etc/init.d/00leanKernel");
unmount("/system");
assert(package_extract_file("boot.img", "/cache/boot.img"),
write_raw_image("/cache/boot.img", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p7"),
delete("/cache/boot.img"));
show_progress(0.100000, 0);
Line 2 shows it mounting the system so we can write to it.
Line 3 shows us extracting the entire directory of the system file in the flashable into the system file of our rom.
Line 4 shows we are setting permissions for one of the system files we just installed in the rom. In this case it is an INIT.D file.
Line 5 shows us returning the system to an un-writable state.
Line 6 shows we are now installing the other file called BOOT.IMG.
So we installed BOOT.IMG and the SYSTEM file. The BOOT.IMG file is usually only found in a rom or kernel zip so most of the time you won't see this file in a flashable but I wanted to use this as an example to show a bit about the kernel side of things.
Ok, so lets get back to the original files of this flashable zip. The updater script stated we installed a new system file into the rom so whats in there? If we open the SYSTEM file from our flashable with Root Explorer you will find a file hierarchy...
SYSTEM
-- ETC
--- INIT.D
---- "00LEANKERNEL"
-- LIB
--- MODULES
---- Listed here are a bunch of ".ko" modules and i'm not listing them all.
So whats the point of all this? Well lets say when we originally debloated our rom in the begining we could of included some of our flashable mods like a custom kernel before we zip the rom to test the base. So in this case we can manually install this kernel before we zip the base. We can take the BOOT.IMG from our extracted kernel and replace the BOOT.IMG in our extracted rom. We only need the files from the flashable so we need to copy and paste the "00LEANKERNEL" file from our flashable to our roms /system/etc/init.d folder. We can also take those ".ko" files from the flashable and dump those into the /system/lib/module folder and we are done. You have now manually installed a kernel into your base rom before you zipped it. Now when you zip your rom and flash it, your new base rom will boot with your custom kernel. Since we manually installed the kernel we don't need the META-INF file provides an auto install script for installing through recovery. Technically we could take all of our flashable mods, extract them, look at the file hierarchy and copy and paste the those files to our extracted base rom. That way we can zip our rom and test it with the mods right off the bat. You can really make things quicker this way and is in general the way to go.
I think it's rather important to fully understand a flashable zip. How it's built and how it completes it's task. It's used so often and makes mods so incredibly easy to install but it is also what installs our rom! One of the files we see when we open "slick" is a META-INF and there inside is the updater script to flash the rom. Again we are doing the same thing as we do with the flashable mod but this time we are installing a lot more files with a lot more permissions. It is the exact same thing as shown above just a bit more extensive.
7. PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER
Ok so we have our base rom running on our phone and possibly a few mods installed. We also have our extracted and debloated "slick" rom on the EXT-sdcard inside our project folder. The next part is rather easy if you understand how those flashable mods were installed. If you understand the whole flashable and its files, your better off just extracting them and then copy and paste them where they need to go. After you have all your mod files in place you can now zip your official "Slick" rom using Root Explorer of course. Prepare yourself for another 30 minutes for it to zip. After it's zipped your done. You have now created your first fully modded rom! However...
Lets say you don't get the whole flashable thing and or you had made some other changes to the rom while you were testing. Lets say you flashed some mods and created a few init.d scripts or the build.prop along the way. NO WORRIES! We can put the rom together another way. A lot of the mods you flash will install files in some usual areas of the rom like your Framework folder and such. Lets just say we don't know though. You can actually copy complete folders from the rom you are running right there and now and paste them into your extracted "Slick" base rom using Root Explorer. So you can take "/system/framework" from your currently running rom, copy it, and paste it in "/storage/EXT-sdcard/project folder/slick/system/framework". In short just take your copy of the framework file and put it in your extracted base and paste it. Root Explorer will then ask you if you want to replace this file and click yes. You have just transferred any modded file that might have been in framework to your extracted rom. Any folder you may think was modded, simply copy and paste it to your extracted base rom on your EXT-sdcard. Once you think you have it all the modded files transferred you can zip your new "Slick rom! Flash and enjoy!!
FINISHED
So we have now completed our own rom on the device itself. It's really not too difficult just a bit more time consuming with zipping and that. However, you may need to do a bit more research on how to decompile and recompile an APK. This is one of things that can really be a pain to setup. It's again the basics that will kill you. The whole PITA is not decompiling or making changes to a framework file, it's setting up the environment that sucked for me. You have to get the Java and files in order and all the little crap to get it to work. IMO, if you haven't decompiled an APK yet it's really not difficult at all. Like I said. It's the basics. I encourage you to learn this because it's so freakin easy after it's all setup and you will be able to do so much more with your rom. Once you get this APK thing down don't be afraid to take someone elses work and reverse engineer it. Try to figure out what that developer did to accomplish what he wanted. It's a great way to learn and thats what it's about.
I may add to this somewhere down the road but for now it's all I have. I hope this helped and motivated someone to create a rom and begin there journey to become developer someday! We can all use fresh ideas for development. There is so much more to come for Android so get your hands dirty and share!
Thanks guys!
Ha never really thought of doing this on the fly with my phone. Even though all the right stuff was sitting in my face thanks for opening my eyes razz1
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
dincdoes.me said:
Ha never really thought of doing this on the fly with my phone. Even though all the right stuff was sitting in my face thanks for opening my eyes razz1
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's another way. May not be the fastest way but it's another option. I also wanted to write this as a general rom creation and learning some basics. It's always the basics that will kill a project and motivation. I would like to see a complete newb to be able to complete a rom with this tutorial. Then I accomplished something. Going to have to finish this tomorrow though. It's taking longer than I thought lol.
Yea I mean I'm a newb at doing it from my phone if that counts =) .. What explorer do you like to use to repack the zips. I'm sure I'll try this method soon to play while bored at work. Rom tool box will help with boot animations, fonts and transition animations too take care thanks for giving our community some new skills I'm sure it will help out down the road.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Thank you for this post. This will definitely get me to try and make my own ROM the way I like, also I might just learn some new stuff. Great post thanks again
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
Nice tutorial.
It's a great way to show what can be done just from your phone.
:good:
Right on man. Been waiting for this. Thank you.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
dincdoes.me said:
Yea I mean I'm a newb at doing it from my phone if that counts =) .. What explorer do you like to use to repack the zips. I'm sure I'll try this method soon to play while bored at work. Rom tool box will help with boot animations, fonts and transition animations too take care thanks for giving our community some new skills I'm sure it will help out down the road.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use androzip man.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
More added
So would I make, say ROM manager a system app? Just copy the apk into the /System/App folder?
Evil Genius Jr. said:
So would I make, say ROM manager a system app? Just copy the apk into the /System/App folder?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but not all apps you download from google play work in /system/app. Some want to be installed into /data/app. However /data/app doesn't exist till after the rom is booted. You would need to add the folder to your extracted rom and modify the updater script.
razz1 said:
Yes, but not all apps you download from google play work in /system/app. Some want to be installed into /data/app. However /data/app doesn't exist till after the rom is booted. You would need to add the folder to your extracted rom and modify the updater script.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are the fu**ing man razz1.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
That's about all I have for now. OP completed!:sly:
Hello. Ok so I created a ROM what I call MyTWGE (Tuchwiz Google Edition). Followed the instructions, unzipped the stock Verizon OS went into the -app- folder deleted all the Verizon, Samsung and Google apps (only the ones that are download able from Google Play). Replaced the stock launcher with the 5x6 version that I extracted from another zip, replaced the camera with the Google edition camera (download able from GP), replaced the keyboard with the Note2 keyboard (also unzipped from another zip). Looked around and deleted a few more files I found that were connected to some Samsung apps and zipped it up. Flashed the zip yesterday onto the phone and it's ALIVE working.
Thank you for your patience to write up all these instructions. I previously used TB to debloat my phone and that was it, learned a few thing thanks again
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
Lehocki said:
Hello. Ok so I created a ROM what I call MyTWGE (Tuchwiz Google Edition). Followed the instructions, unzipped the stock Verizon OS went into the -app- folder deleted all the Verizon, Samsung and Google apps (only the ones that are download able from Google Play). Replaced the stock launcher with the 5x6 version that I extracted from another zip, replaced the camera with the Google edition camera (download able from GP), replaced the keyboard with the Note2 keyboard (also unzipped from another zip). Looked around and deleted a few more files I found that were connected to some Samsung apps and zipped it up. Flashed the zip yesterday onto the phone and it's ALIVE working.
Thank you for your patience to write up all these instructions. I previously used TB to debloat my phone and that was it, learned a few thing thanks again
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol the whole time I was reading this I was waiting for you to say something didn't work out for you but it all did I guess. Nice!!
Yeah running for the past 24h no problems everything works. Thanks
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
---------- Post added at 02:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:07 AM ----------
Only thing that that's annoying is the wifi in the taskbar. I read in one of the posts that I have to go into systemui and some other files within n delete lines 12 through 21 but that didn't work , am guessing I need to decompile systemui to do that. The person in the post didn't clarify and I'm not ready to do that yet. Reason is I don't know anything about programming or linux or decompiler or anything like that. Deleting files I can do replacing some sure. But I'm happy my first attempt to mix something together worked and I'll keep doing it till I actually figure out what it is that I am doing. Thanks again for the post
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Yea. Follow Didacts write ups to get you through it. It's all in framework res apk.
From CM Gapps page it says
It is possible to perform a "backup" of the Google Apps on your device and then "restore" them, but this does take additional steps which are not covered here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd like to know how can I do this.
I've searched all across the forum but had no luck. It looks like some kind of trade secret.
I know that it's not just a matter of pulling the apk files. Because I can see that the zip has .apk, .jars, .so, configuration and certificate files.
I'm guessing this is done by extracting the files from a system.img.
But how is this done?
Is there some script available to build a gapps zip from a system.img file?
Another thing is that my OnePlus phone doesn't has an official LP update yet (although CM12 and their gapps work fine) so I suspect this would have to be done using the stock ROM of another device, maybe a Nexus. Is this correct?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks
Hello! I'm working on making a debloated ROM for the samsung galaxy j7 (j700p) model. I have these files: https://gyazo.com/24b7abcb91a62cfaa0e8fd80ca6731be
I can still always create a new system image.
I was wondering, how would one include things like Xposed and SuperSU as system apps? Here's a picture of the system. https://gyazo.com/341a4bd5ebc0d4fd49a0368520a9df4c
With Xposed, I'm not sure how to put in META-INF. Everything else is in. Not sure what to do with that folder.
I'm not sure where to get the app folder. I was going to put it in the app directory.
How do I get the image pre-rooted? I'm not too sure on that either.
Finally, what files do I need to create the final ROM? I have those files, but I'm not sure if I'm supposed to have anything else or something.
Thanks for the help in advance!
minz1 said:
Hello! I'm working on making a debloated ROM for the samsung galaxy j7 (j700p) model. I have these files: https://gyazo.com/24b7abcb91a62cfaa0e8fd80ca6731be
I can still always create a new system image.
I was wondering, how would one include things like Xposed and SuperSU as system apps? Here's a picture of the system. https://gyazo.com/341a4bd5ebc0d4fd49a0368520a9df4c
With Xposed, I'm not sure how to put in META-INF. Everything else is in. Not sure what to do with that folder.
I'm not sure where to get the app folder. I was going to put it in the app directory.
How do I get the image pre-rooted? I'm not too sure on that either.
Finally, what files do I need to create the final ROM? I have those files, but I'm not sure if I'm supposed to have anything else or something.
Thanks for the help in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use superr kitchen it can do all this
messi2050 said:
Use superr kitchen it can do all this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What files does super kitchen need to make a rom?
minz1 said:
What files does super kitchen need to make a rom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
stock samsung rom
messi2050 said:
Use superr kitchen it can do all this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pm me for ROM advice
messi2050 said:
stock samsung rom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey I'm getting some error with not having permission with a system .sh file. Any help?