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Hello,
I made that account in order write about some things that I’m annoyed of or which I find very alarming. I’m sure there are some other people in here, who feel the same. I think it’s time to change something about it. I know some of you might be not interested in that and many people just want to get CM12 as fast as possible. This people should maybe not take part of this. To each man his own. I do understand that but this is about changing CM11 to a REAL “Daily Driver”, where everything works right and stable (at least the device-independent things).
This is about the following:
For many mobile phones like the well known Samsung Galaxy Models will be a Kitkat for real the last “halfway functioning” system. Also there has been put a lot of work into CM11, which a have a lot of respect for. Newly Cyanogenmod got a company and as such this Custom Rom is totally different than others – which do their work completely non-paid and voluntary e.g. Omnirom. As a company you have, except of making a lot of money, some responsibilities. You have to place a working product on the marked and I appeal here and today for calling in this responsibility or rather to introduce CM to move form there previous “Kindergarden” to a CM11 which is made perfect. After all Cyanogenmod as a company benefits of us using CM11 (the Community/Open source Project) on your mobile phones. We users are the best Beta-Testers and if CM just doesn’t fix bugs it is not better than Samsung.
Everyday we are complaining about producers like Samsung, because they e.g. do not bring out a 4.4 for the S3. But they at least perform their obligations somehow and continue improving and fixing 4.3. Anyway it (mostly) gets a real functioning product. CM should be interested in satisfying us with this/their product (CM11/s; Oneplus one). Even if we don’t actually have Oneplus one now we are ALL potential, future costumers! And nearby the most buy a Oneplus one BECAUSE they feel confident with CM and their Android Rom! Unfortunately in reality CM11 is far away from real stability and I don’t mean features, which are hardwarenear and sources for drivers like the S3 camera are needed, but completely normal features in the system.
If you only use a few Apps a few times then the current CM11 will work for you and it is usable, but as soon as you need something which is rarely used or which is more complicated you will find bugs. Although, this could be different.
I think it’s shocking that I often read when people are swearing “why should we want Android 5.0 if not even Android 4.4 is working stable!” (Look at the people from N7000, who have not even a M-Release from CM11). But no one is doing anything against it. CM should know that there are people who want stability! Please note that I’m talking about device-independent features. Especially because CM11 current is the BASIS for the CM11S, which is the system for Oneplus one! But what does the community see? The “CM12 roadmap” in which they are talking about: “freezing” CM11 and focusing on CM12. No, that can’t be. Every lifeblood-Custom-Rom maybe could get away with that (even Omni tries to go on with 4.4 for older devices as a “long-term-project”), but no new, real organization. Some may argument and say that with CM10.2 it has been the same, that with the first Nightlys or in general at the beginning of CM11 the final has been there after a very short time, but CM 10.2 as we all know, from past developers who left CM and now work for Omnirom, never had gone through as a stable. They just wanted it to seem like that in order to get sponsors and to show with the statistics, which CM introduced at that time, how many people already use CM. And the i9300 practically is the most used device in that case!
I have posted this post on November the 22nd 2014(as abruptly the Nightlys from CM11 stood still) in a German Android Forum. On the 24th of November 2014 all the Nightlys suddenly worked again, but if you look at the most Changes you could think that CM had not interest in creating a stable OS or a really stable CM and they are only trying to make it seem like they would still work on that. (Changes like the design template file or adjusting readmes).
Nevertheless there are still many bugs and some elementary features are missing! That can’t be. The worst is, that CM doesn’t get things straight for the community. I can understand if the creators don’t want to have any pressure because many people are asking for appointments but at least they should get the things straight concerning if and how long CM11 should be supported! ESPECIALLY if CM bet on that with their Oneplus One!
I have started to work on this on November the 22nd 2014 and reported about 40 bugs and maybe needed but simply to integrate features in the CM Bugtracker JIRA. I commit that I have never done this before. I do have enough other things to do and I always thought the creators would take care of that or anyone else would report the problem. But apparently this won’t happen. In order to prohibit a fiasco like CM10.2, should we all take care of it NOW!
I will post a list of bugs and eventually some useful and first of all realisable features in the course of this theme. Some of them I already have reported –but the most of them have been closed again. One of them was a appeal to CM and it said that they should get CM11 ready and stable – this Bug of course has been closed immediately and without actual statement.
I want to ask you to vote for all these things. If you have bugs yourself and never have been reported such please make an account on JIRA, it is easy and doesn’t take much time. Even if it’s just in order to vote for my bugs and features later. It would be nice to spread this and the text in JIRA, in other Android / CM-Forums and in social networks in order to have a real group or better sent a link or the post itself to some devs of cyanogenmod so that they are knowing about the problem and can take action on this.
Please don’t see this as agitation or something like that. I have great respect to the creators and their achievements! But CM now is a company and they geared to their (potential) customers. Without us making noise CM will concentrate on CM12 and we all have (again), a half-finished “gerfrickel”-Sytem. Also think that all the improvements in CM will get back to the Custom Roms.
Willingly you can send me your bugs, ideas or suggestions per PM here but better post it here or write it down to the JIRA bugtrakcer. The more, the better!
For so many Smartphones the CM11 is the last thing which they will be seeing more or less stable without an unbelievable reduced battery power. If we don’t do something now, the game will be replayed with CM12. And don’t hope that it will be different there. A really STABLE Custom Rom – that is missing somehow. That’s at least what I think and if read in the forums now, there are many others who think the same…
I hope on active cooperation, feedbacks and opinions on that and ask for not deleting this thread but eventually moving it to the right place (maybe a seperate section about android in general?) and make it sticky for all people to see. I hope we can find some way here to CM changing his mind about working on their custom rom and supporting CM11 for some time until it's a really stable product (maybe until first or second “stable” M-release of CM12 is out). If you want a stable CM11, please write it down here!:good::victory:
BTW: I am from Germany, sorry for my maybe bad English.
Chris
Stability depends on device. CM11 is superbly stable on a Nexus 4 or 5, but could be extremely buggy on some random cheap Chinese phone bought from aliexpress because lots of people use and develop for Nexuses, but only a handful of people will be working on that Chinese one. There are also often hardware issues.
Thanks for your reply, i totally agree with you but if you have rightly read my topic you can read that I dont write about device specific features. If I can reproduce a handfull bugs everytime, on every CM11 rom, than that are real bugs on which CM should take care. I will also show some here but I need time to tanslate it here and to write it.
I also totally agree if a device have no maintainer it cant be tested and made fully working - but the problem most of the time is that there are A LOT of people who make their own kernels, own custom roms on base of CM11 and they COULD be maintainer of the device but dont want it or cant do it because of CM itself. If you look how CM is treating the people and not comunicate with them you will understand why there is a lack of maintainer and so many people which COULD be a maintainer because of the knowledge. But that is a other topic. CM need to change his way to talk with the community. If there are bugs, which are easy to reproduce and they will be reported to bugtracker and CM is closing it because the log is not attached, because the reporter CANT BRINGT IT, BUT the bug can be EASILY reproduced WITHOUT A LOG, than it is CMs fault. People want to help and they (CM) close the bugreports. It should be in their interest to test every bugreport to MAYBE find a potential bug. Also look at the bugtracker, there are issues which were reported for years and CM dont care about it. Look for the lack of using the calendar without a google account for example. On the other hand side: They add features which nobody wanted to have and mostly the people dont use. where is ther sense here?
Personally, I quit using any cm or cm based ROMs on my nexus because it seemed to lack speed and stability compared to stock or aosp based ROMs.
I had better luck with early custom lollipop ROMs than with cm. Right now I'm using slimkat until black themed lollipop ROMs are stable and bug free.
So basically, I agree that cm should be more stable. But I don't really care cause there are lots of good options out there instead of cm.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Free mobile app
Ow mannnnn .. Thank you so much !!! you are pro !!!
Well first thing is that bugs happen when you use open source drivers and software. This is because it is not coded just for a single device like the OEM drivers and software is.
Second CM is not required to do anything. That includes fixing bugs that they don't care about.
Next. And to be flatly honest they have no reason to talk to the community. Can't blame them as most have nothing more productive to say then "duh this is busted" why talk to those people when you can talk to people that can offer advise and maybe help salve an issue. Nor are they required to post any update at all.
Devs have the right to post a build in the OP and never post support, leaving all support up to the user's.
It doesn't matter if you can produce the error. They have their rules about posting bug reports. If you don't follow them and it gets closed without it even being looked at well then that's your fault.
If you want stable then stay stock. Or learn to fix it yourself. There is no obligation for anyone to even touch aosp based code. Even Google has most stopped updating those apps and files.
Now as for you saying device independent issues. The issue here is that one device could be rebooting every ten min but other devices don't do it.
The only device as a company they need to worry about is the one that sells with their roms. All others are hobby projects and treated as such.
zelendel said:
Well first thing is that bugs happen when you use open source drivers and software. This is because it is not coded just for a single device like the OEM drivers and software is. .
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Firstly thanks for your feedback
I dont understand what you want to say. If bugs happen and when is not the content of the topic. I am using linux on my workstation and server itself, everyday. (Linus Torvalds is also talking to the people). I know that bugs can happen and open source drivers and software can have bugs. I do not blame people for this. I do respect their work! I blame people for activly ignoring bugs which are easy to fix (atleast for this people) and activly ignoring bugs in addition to don't communicate why they don't care about this bugs which they could easily fix. This is a human fault. I also have written in my text above that I DO NOT MEAN DEVICE SPECIFIC BUGS. So I don't really understand whats your point here, sorry.
zelendel said:
Second CM is not required to do anything. That includes fixing bugs that they don't care about.
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Yes, in theory they dont have to do anything. But we are all human. We have a moral commitment. Also I think every group who wants to make their custom rom succesfull, want to make the users happy. If not so, why CM is releasing this to the community? Is it forbidden to say my and many peoples opinion here? If I follow your logic of arguing then we all were not allowed to blame samsung for their bad software and bad support, right? Or specially if something is for free we don't have the right to critisize things? Why? If you create something, you have to count on the fact that people will complain about things. If the people complain with arguments and everyone respect each other that is totally ok in my opinion. If that is too hard for the dev than he should maybe not release his work. So our world is working. Why you argue for a group which doesn't speak to you or here forself? I don't know if you would care about if you were one of those people who wait for years that a bug or improvement is realized which is important for you.
zelendel said:
Next. And to be flatly honest they have no reason to talk to the community. Can't blame them as most have nothing more productive to say then "duh this is busted" why talk to those people when you can talk to people that can offer advise and maybe help salve an issue. Nor are they required to post any update at all.
Devs have the right to post a build in the OP and never post support, leaving all support up to the user's.
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if a human being thinks like this, he should really start to think about himself. It is a very arogant attitude against other people. If a person thinks "I have no reason to talk to you", then I would think this person is not really a nice and good human. People like you describe, they think that they are better than all other and that is not a good attitude. I totaly agree that it is not helpfull if someone says: "duh this is busted", but I and some other people report bugs, want to help, ALSO if they don't have the ability to develvop something on their own. But the point is the following: The people who are only complaining and say: "duh this is busted" are the people for who CM is making a software. They (CM) should care about them. They are mostly the people who BUY their Oneplus one. Why I don't talk to CM itself? You have written it here exactly: They "have no reason to talk to the community". So I am talking to the people here, the commnunity and looking for all this people who don't do anything because they think they are alone, can't do anything. The goal is to give the people of CM a reason to talk to the commnunity. This is a attempt to change their mind about their style of communication. and make CM11 fully stable.
zelendel said:
It doesn't matter if you can produce the error. They have their rules about posting bug reports. If you don't follow them and it gets closed without it even being looked at well then that's your fault.
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How easy is live, what? If so, then they should close the bugtracker. I was thinking the bugtracker is for the community to HELP CM finding bugs so that THEY can make the product better. This is an opensource project. They make money with the code at the end in form of "CM11S", which is CM11 + closed source apps. And I also understand that they want to make money with their work now. If an opensource project is making benefit in form of money without the need of beta testers because the community finds the bugs they should be HAPPY. But they do ignore it, they think they are above all. You say they: "dont have to talk to the community". Look for omnirom, look for other projects, they are gracefull if someone find a bug, can reporduce it. The devs can fix it. It makes the software better and better. Samsung has to pay people for this. I totally understand if there is a bug which is to repoduce, the dev test for it, can't find it and order the log in addition from the bugreporer. Thats a real reason. But they (CM) dont read this bug. They dont care. Do you want to say that's a good attitude to the users and the community? I don't think so. We can talk with each other.
zelendel said:
If you want stable then stay stock. Or learn to fix it yourself. There is no obligation for anyone to even touch aosp based code. Even Google has most stopped updating those apps and files.
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Sorry, but thats not a real argument. Then we all would be on stock, no one should be allowed to say: "this could be better." That would be a bad world. It is not wrong to expect a stable product. Let it be opensource or propritary. In addition: Not everyone can code something and if so, not everyone has the time to do so. This people have created the maybe most famous custom rom. They SHOULD talk to the people who are using their software, who are all potential customers of their PRODUCT, the oneplus one. The product which makes USE of CM11. So if I am thinking about to buy it, I think about all blame samsung and I think about that CM11 is ignoring user bugreports AND they "don't need to talk to the people". Not a good image, or do your think so? Samsung is not giving 4.4 to the i9300 for example, BUT they make 4.3 better and they make it STABLE and FULL. I don't like samsung for their software and other things, but it is working. But people like CM are blaming them for their support, so me and other people, we have the right to blame CM for THEIR support, or not? Also think about freedom of speech.
What google does is a other thing. Google is also making enough crap and I have also my optionion about it. I also dont install google apps for myself. But google and CM are a different story and thats not the topic of this thread. Also I don't think that it is really nice to say to the people: "Eat what we give you and shut up otherwise you don't have anything.". But you are saying this between the words.
zelendel said:
Now as for you saying device independent issues. The issue here is that one device could be rebooting every ten min but other devices don't do it.
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I dont understand what is the point here? I have clearly written: "Device independend". I didn't writte about random reboots. I totally agree with you that this are a other sort of problem. But if you tap on a "private number" on dialer/phone statistics and will get a FC, and that on M12 and also on the newest nightly, also on 5 different devices, you report that and the mod of the bugtracker dont care about it and simply lock down the bugreport and the dev team totally IGNORE the problem because no log was added (because maybe the reporter dont have a official supported device because they also close the bugreport if this is not?), but they only had to test what the reporter described, then someone can clearly say two things: First thing is that the bug is easily to reproduce and it is device indepently. And second thing is that the CM team or at least the mod of the bugtracker really DONT CARE about the bug existence if he is simply closing down the bug without looking for it or test to repoduce it and THEN, if it is NOT easily to reproduce, order a log from the bugreporter. We are people, we can talk to each other. There is NO NEED to simply close things down, don't community and at the end write down: "This is CM11 final, look at our bugtracker: there are NO BUGS!". Yes, if you don't care about the bugs people report then yes - it is bugfree. Nice way of make something stable. Like chainfire wrote about CM10.2 to the time he left CM Team.
zelendel said:
The only device as a company they need to worry about is the one that sells with their roms. All others are hobby projects and treated as such.
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I agree with you, but have I written something other? I have written nearly the same. CM11 is the basis of CM11S, which is THE SYSTEM THEY SELL on Oneplus one, their PRODUCT.
But in theory if someone, like the creator of "nameless rom". make HW composer working for the i9300 or Teamasek make a camera restart workaround for it and they (CM) DONT CARE about it for example, they know it, people report it. They ignore it. Then something is really wrong here. People like creator of "nameless rom" or Temasek are creating their own custom rom on basis of CM11. They (CM) could easily say: „we have no time, sorry.“ Or: "it is not stable right now, we will wait for it." or simply: „No, we can't do it because....“ Then people totally UNDERSTAND it. But they only say like you said: "We have not to talk to you." nice, nor? Everyone is talking to the people, why they think they don't need that?
And to make it clear here: I am dont fighting against CM, I really like their art of making a rom. I like their software, I want to have and sell my customers a oneplus one if it is out to the global market. I want to make CM better. I dont say look at XXX rom, they make all right, then I could go to a other rom like someone in the thread posted before. I am like this person, but I want to change something and want to help CM so that people dont all leave CM or make their own custom rom. If we would all help us togehter, every device of CM would have a maintainer. The world would be right and nice. But CM makes it to difficult to help. But why? They win, they loose nothing. Let's make them change their mind so that things will get better.
By the way: Oneplus is looking for a other rom for their oneplus one. Also there are articles about: "the flaggschiff killer kills themself". They have problems. CM11/S is not really stable on the oneplus one. Oppo is looking for a other software, CM is working on CM12, it won't make the things better. But CM is building on the oneplus two. It will make it worse. Why all the way begin new and dont make things fully stable? So in theory it would be right to further work on CM11 until it is really stable and also bring the oneplus one on the global market for real and support it some years really. Otherwise they have newest android but it is less stable than software of samsung. If you or anyone else think I am wrong than write that to CM, they can easily write down the facts here in this topic if they care about their users and the most of their further customers. So back to the topic. How can we make things on CM11 better and change CMs mind? chris
XXchrisXX said:
Firstly thanks for your feedback
I dont understand what you want to say. If bugs happen and when is not the content of the topic. I am using linux on my workstation and server itself, everyday. (Linus Torvalds is also talking to the people). I know that bugs can happen and open source drivers and software can have bugs. I do not blame people for this. I do respect their work! I blame people for activly ignoring bugs which are easy to fix (atleast for this people) and activly ignoring bugs in addition to don't communicate why they don't care about this bugs which they could easily fix. This is a human fault. I also have written in my text above that I DO NOT MEAN DEVICE SPECIFIC BUGS. So I don't really understand whats your point here, sorry.
Think its so easy then try it your self. You seem to think anything about this is easy. Until you try to do it yourself you have no room to talk about it being easy.
Yes, in theory they dont have to do anything. But we are all human. We have a moral commitment. Also I think every group who wants to make their custom rom succesfull, want to make the users happy. If not so, why CM is releasing this to the community? Is it forbidden to say my and many peoples opinion here? If I follow your logic of arguing then we all were not allowed to blame samsung for their bad software and bad support, right? Or specially if something is for free we don't have the right to critisize things? Why? If you create something, you have to count on the fact that people will complain about things. If the people complain with arguments and everyone respect each other that is totally ok in my opinion. If that is too hard for the dev than he should maybe not release his work. So our world is working. Why you argue for a group which doesn't speak to you or here forself? I don't know if you would care about if you were one of those people who wait for years that a bug or improvement is realized which is important for you.
You have the right to blame them if you want but then they also have the right not to care. There are many bugs that I have had on AOSP for years. They have not been fixed and I cant fix them so guess what, I dont complain.
if a human being thinks like this, he should really start to think about himself. It is a very arogant attitude against other people. If a person thinks "I have no reason to talk to you", then I would think this person is not really a nice and good human. People like you describe, they think that they are better than all other and that is not a good attitude. I totaly agree that it is not helpfull if someone says: "duh this is busted", but I and some other people report bugs, want to help, ALSO if they don't have the ability to develvop something on their own. But the point is the following: The people who are only complaining and say: "duh this is busted" are the people for who CM is making a software. They (CM) should care about them. They are mostly the people who BUY their Oneplus one. Why I don't talk to CM itself? You have written it here exactly: They "have no reason to talk to the community". So I am talking to the people here, the commnunity and looking for all this people who don't do anything because they think they are alone, can't do anything. The goal is to give the people of CM a reason to talk to the commnunity. This is a attempt to change their mind about their style of communication. and make CM11 fully stable.
A nice and good human? Really?!?! What world do you live in. Alot of the best Devs here are antisocial people. They dont like other people let alone people cant follow simple instructions.
Look People did it themselves. CM used to be active in the community but then people kept doing just what you have stated. Not posting proper bug reports with logs that are needed. (if the dev says post a log with the bug report, this is not an option). The one plus one is a the joke of the Dev world. Most devs already sold theirs and will not go back.
How easy is live, what? If so, then they should close the bugtracker. I was thinking the bugtracker is for the community to HELP CM finding bugs so that THEY can make the product better. This is an opensource project. They make money with the code at the end in form of "CM11S", which is CM11 + closed source apps. And I also understand that they want to make money with their work now. If an opensource project is making benefit in form of money without the need of beta testers because the community finds the bugs they should be HAPPY. But they do ignore it, they think they are above all. You say they: "dont have to talk to the community". Look for omnirom, look for other projects, they are gracefull if someone find a bug, can reporduce it. The devs can fix it. It makes the software better and better. Samsung has to pay people for this. I totally understand if there is a bug which is to repoduce, the dev test for it, can't find it and order the log in addition from the bugreporer. Thats a real reason. But they (CM) dont read this bug. They dont care. Do you want to say that's a good attitude to the users and the community? I don't think so. We can talk with each other.
Yes it is. As long as people follow the proper bug reporting steps. Yeah and if you report some bugs to many devs without the proper logs they will ignore you as well. Many devs are moving over to the bug tracker just like CM and will require the same logs. This is troubleshooting 101. If you cant even get a log then you should rethink using custom roms.
Sorry, but thats not a real argument. Then we all would be on stock, no one should be allowed to say: "this could be better." That would be a bad world. It is not wrong to expect a stable product. Let it be opensource or propritary. In addition: Not everyone can code something and if so, not everyone has the time to do so. This people have created the maybe most famous custom rom. They SHOULD talk to the people who are using their software, who are all potential customers of their PRODUCT, the oneplus one. The product which makes USE of CM11. So if I am thinking about to buy it, I think about all blame samsung and I think about that CM11 is ignoring user bugreports AND they "don't need to talk to the people". Not a good image, or do your think so? Samsung is not giving 4.4 to the i9300 for example, BUT they make 4.3 better and they make it STABLE and FULL. I don't like samsung for their software and other things, but it is working. But people like CM are blaming them for their support, so me and other people, we have the right to blame CM for THEIR support, or not? Also think about freedom of speech.
Ill be honest and this is the thought with alot of Devs. Most normal users SHOULD stay on stock. Saying Samsung is stable is too funny. Most Devs have left those devices all together as well. Once again you dont post the proper and requested logs with the bug reprot expect to be ignored. As for freedom of speech Refer to the link below. Your on a private site. The right doenst apply.
What google does is a other thing. Google is also making enough crap and I have also my optionion about it. I also dont install google apps for myself. But google and CM are a different story and thats not the topic of this thread. Also I don't think that it is really nice to say to the people: "Eat what we give you and shut up otherwise you don't have anything.". But you are saying this between the words.
If your not part of the solution then your part of the problem. And that is with proper bug reports and logs.
I dont understand what is the point here? I have clearly written: "Device independend". I didn't writte about random reboots. I totally agree with you that this are a other sort of problem. But if you tap on a "private number" on dialer/phone statistics and will get a FC, and that on M12 and also on the newest nightly, also on 5 different devices, you report that and the mod of the bugtracker dont care about it and simply lock down the bugreport and the dev team totally IGNORE the problem because no log was added (because maybe the reporter dont have a official supported device because they also close the bugreport if this is not?), but they only had to test what the reporter described, then someone can clearly say two things: First thing is that the bug is easily to reproduce and it is device indepently. And second thing is that the CM team or at least the mod of the bugtracker really DONT CARE about the bug existence if he is simply closing down the bug without looking for it or test to repoduce it and THEN, if it is NOT easily to reproduce, order a log from the bugreporter. We are people, we can talk to each other. There is NO NEED to simply close things down, don't community and at the end write down: "This is CM11 final, look at our bugtracker: there are NO BUGS!". Yes, if you don't care about the bugs people report then yes - it is bugfree. Nice way of make something stable. Like chainfire wrote about CM10.2 to the time he left CM Team.
If the device is not supported then they shouldnt be posting a report at all. Do you have any idea how long it would take to "test" each bug report? The log is much faster and more useful. To many people are installing stupid stuff like xposed that randomly causes code crashs. This is where the logs will show this. If it is bug free on their devices then they can call it bug free. In the end it is all how it runs on their devices.
I agree with you, but have I written something other? I have written nearly the same. CM11 is the basis of CM11S, which is THE SYSTEM THEY SELL on Oneplus one, their PRODUCT.
But in theory if someone, like the creator of "nameless rom". make HW composer working for the i9300 or Teamasek make a camera restart workaround for it and they (CM) DONT CARE about it for example, they know it, people report it. They ignore it. Then something is really wrong here. People like creator of "nameless rom" or Temasek are creating their own custom rom on basis of CM11. They (CM) could easily say: „we have no time, sorry.“ Or: "it is not stable right now, we will wait for it." or simply: „No, we can't do it because....“ Then people totally UNDERSTAND it. But they only say like you said: "We have not to talk to you." nice, nor? Everyone is talking to the people, why they think they don't need that?
If they are basing their rom off of CM then they accept it. People did it themselves. As already stated. You really must be new to this.
And to make it clear here: I am dont fighting against CM, I really like their art of making a rom. I like their software, I want to have and sell my customers a oneplus one if it is out to the global market. I want to make CM better. I dont say look at XXX rom, they make all right, then I could go to a other rom like someone in the thread posted before. I am like this person, but I want to change something and want to help CM so that people dont all leave CM or make their own custom rom. If we would all help us togehter, every device of CM would have a maintainer. The world would be right and nice. But CM makes it to difficult to help. But why? They win, they loose nothing. Let's make them change their mind so that things will get better.
To be honest alot of people couldnt careless about CM. Any real team uses aosp as a base and not CM. This is due to CM changing the base AOSP code to fit what they think android should be. To me it sounds like you have a device that was dropped by the team and are now mad about it.
By the way: Oneplus is looking for a other rom for their oneplus one. Also there are articles about: "the flaggschiff killer kills themself". They have problems. CM11/S is not really stable on the oneplus one. Oppo is looking for a other software, CM is working on CM12, it won't make the things better. But CM is building on the oneplus two. It will make it worse. Why all the way begin new and dont make things fully stable? So in theory it would be right to further work on CM11 until it is really stable and also bring the oneplus one on the global market for real and support it some years really. Otherwise they have newest android but it is less stable than software of samsung. If you or anyone else think I am wrong than write that to CM, they can easily write down the facts here in this topic if they care about their users and the most of their further customers. So back to the topic. How can we make things on CM11 better and change CMs mind? chris
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Once again CM has not posted here in years. AOSP will never be completely stable. Deal with it. and a news flash the oneplusone 2 will not have CM. They have already signed a contract exclusive in some places with another company.
Now to end this. Here is a link. Have a good read.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=16682226&postcount=2441
Ok so I've read the cluster that is your post @XXchrisXX and I have to say a few things
First off, I'm probably the last person you would ever see saying anything remotely nice about CM but what's right is right....
1. There is no moral commitment or obligation or ANYTHING that CM (the open source side of things) has to follow. You are getting a FREE product. In exchange your feedback may or may not be useful to the developers and device maintainers. You signed no contract. You didn't agree to anything with CyanogenMod or any of it's developers or maintainers. XDA-Developers is and always has been a AT-YOUR-OWN-RISK type of site.
As stated above, you can stick with the stock ROM from the OEM if you want stability and some kind of warranty.
2. There are two different sides of CM. There is the open source side which is what you're griping about and then there's the company, CM Inc.
One is run by volunteers and hundreds of contributors (Open Source side) and the other one is run by employees who are under contract (CM Inc). Don't confuse the two and think that you can hold the open source side to the same things you hold the company to.
Do many employees from CM Inc. contribute to the Open Source side? Yes, but that is a hobby. You want a warranty and someone to yell at for not fixing bugs? Go buy a One Plus One and get you a warranty, simple as that!
3. Who are you to tell them (the Open Source side of CM) what they can and can't do? You should be lucky that your device is even supported by CM or any AOSP based custom ROM.
You talk about Samsung and other OEMs but what you fail to realize is that most OEMs give you a one and done. They give you kitkat and that's it.........they TOO move on to bigger and better things.
Don't be foolish here and think that your device that's 3 years old is going to run KitKat like a champ. You say you "understand" about open source drivers but yet continue to argue your pointless cluster because you think that CM (the open source side) should behave like the company.
YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! If you did, you would of never made this post and thank your lucky stars that your device even got on CM's radar for support.
Again, I know CM inc has done some messed up things in the past and are arguably run by a circus but what I hate more then them is ungrateful people like yourself.
Stop while you're ahead @XXchrisXX
What... the... fk...
Seriously... It's obvious you've violated XDA's "search before posting" rules.
Now, you've given enough information that you're obviously a haxxinos4 user. (You mention N7000 so probably a 4210, but I sort of recall seeing something indicating you might have a 4412 device...)
The only devices that actually have received benefits from Cyngn corporate are their "Cyanogen OS" devices. Oppo N1 and OnePlus One. Those are the two devices where Cyngn corporate staff have NDAs signed with the OEM and Qualcomm (and other suppliers) to fully support every piece of hardware within the device. Now, if your complaint is about those devices (which Cyngn HAS ****ed up too), you have a right to complain. But to be honest, you'll find little sympathy here since the Cyngn corporate guys and XDA don't really get along.
If you're a Haxxinos4 user, and actually PAID ATTENTION, you'd know that Samsung has continually bent the community over and ****ed them time and time again. (Especially in 2012, with the Superbrick fiasco and their broken promises at BABBQ 2012). You'd also know that basically everyone that USED to be a Haxxinos4 maintainer either retired from Android development or left CM after the Focal relicensing disaster. (And even after moving to Omni, Haxxinos4 is pretty much dead to most of us...)
So Mazda is right... While he (nor I) have any love for Cyngn (Kondick has blocked me on G+ for calling him out on various things back during the Focal relicensing fiasco - and I used to be the CM maintainer for multiple Haxxinos4 devices and the Oppo Find5)... Your post just reeks of "typical ungrateful user who can't even search to find the basic backstory of their device"...
Funny thing: Oppo N1 was Cyngn's first official device. Its predecessor, the Find 5, was entirely maintained by people who left CM to found Omni after the Focal relicensing fiasco. All of those people were former Haxxinos4 maintainers who were sick and tired of Samsung's bull**** already.
@XXchrisXX wow, you ungrateful twerp. If you don't like it, try another ROM. I'm anti CM after the things the company side did to the community, but they don't deserve this.
There are other ROMs that are more stable and have more features. Try those. Look at liquid smooth, omni, Dirty Unicorns... Way more options than just CM. But if you go to those Roms with this type of attitude expect zero support.
mazwoz said:
@XXchrisXX wow, you ungrateful twerp. If you don't like it, try another ROM. I'm anti CM after the things the company side did to the community, but they don't deserve this.
There are other ROMs that are more stable and have more features. Try those. Look at liquid smooth, omni, Dirty Unicorns... Way more options than just CM. But if you go to those Roms with this type of attitude expect zero support.
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Sorry to sound like a moron from left field, but what did CM do to the community? I've been out of the loop.
Saint Isaiah said:
Sorry to sound like a moron from left field, but what did CM do to the community? I've been out of the loop.
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They took the work of hundreds, forced people to relicense their work so that CM owned it, and then made millions on some contracts when they became a company. None of that money went to the people who spent years working on cm and helping them be what they are. It went to a few key people, and that's it. This people signed contracts with cm inc. Since then they have poached the lead developers from other ROMs to work with them, eliminating any possible competition.
mazwoz said:
They took the work of hundreds, forced people to relicense their work so that CM owned it, and then made millions on some contracts when they became a company. None of that money went to the people who spent years working on cm and helping them be what they are. It went to a few key people, and that's it. This people signed contracts with cm inc. Since then they have poached the lead developers from other ROMs to work with them, eliminating any possible competition.
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Wow that's super ****ty! I'm guessing this is related to the work they did with the OnePlus One phone? Either way, thanks for the info.
Saint Isaiah said:
Sorry to sound like a moron from left field, but what did CM do to the community? I've been out of the loop.
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Saint Isaiah said:
Wow that's super ****ty! I'm guessing this is related to the work they did with the OnePlus One phone? Either way, thanks for the info.
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Yes and no, they did all of this before the OnePlus. The first CM phone was the Oppo N1, that contact came about a few months after this went down. Omni ROM was founded because of this.
Saint Isaiah said:
Sorry to sound like a moron from left field, but what did CM do to the community? I've been out of the loop.
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I can't dig up a direct link currently, but do a search for "Focal relicensing"
I think there's a link to Guillaume's post on the issue from the CM wikipedia page, but I'm not sure.
Entropy512 said:
I can't dig up a direct link currently, but do a search for "Focal relicensing"
I think there's a link to Guillaume's post on the issue from the CM wikipedia page, but I'm not sure.
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http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2451752
To the OP @XXchrisXX or is it @Noteguy? I am so confused. One of you has 1 post, the other one of you has 4 (all of them in here). Would the real OP PLEASE STAND UP????
That being said, it's quite obvious that you have nothing to offer this community except for whinging - and if you were the only one doing that on XDA then I would say the community should take note and listen to what you have to say. BUT - seeing as you're just another whiny user I think we can all, CM included, just ignore you.
I can't say anything more than what @Entropy512 and @Mazda has already said. You must be very young, because you seriously remind me of my kids sometimes. Get stuff for free, but still complain because its not 100% to your liking. Not sure about Germany, but here we call that ungrateful. Long ago I was not satisfied with the lack of development for my aging device, instead of calling out developers that work, have a family and spend what little free time they have giving me free stuff, I learned to develop myself as to not bother them. Its not plug and play. Most do this for themselves and share. Ranting will only cause them not to share. If you want to kill support for your device faster than the hurdles that are already present with trying to piece together the little bits of open source code we can use, then your on the right track. If you want continued support then sometimes a simple Thank you works wonders. Nobody is making a living off of this (open source side at least). Donations are nice, but I know first hand that both @Mazda and I have on certain occasions returned donations to users. We don't do it because of the money, we do it because its fun. Don't take the fun out of it is all I'm saying. Be grateful that you aren't stuck on OE jellybean or less software. You owe/need the development community more than the developers do, the sooner you realize that, the better off you'll be.
Translation if exact:
Hi everyone is
concerned about the recent part of rice noodles care about the red rice phone 4 high version with Android 7.0, this proposal we have noticed very early, and the internal communication and coordination. The latest conclusion is that the red rice cell phone 4 version with no adaptation of Android 7.0 plan. Here's a detailed description of the situation with you.
Some people say that the underlying Android is not a very simple matter? In actual fact, each time the end-of-package version upgrade is a huge project, which involves various aspects of adaptation, adjustment, etc., the actual work is very complicated. Each Android version update, we will seriously evaluate, not to simply upgrade the Android version number and adaptation. In fact, many of MIUI system features experience even earlier than the Android version, such as rights management, wake up power-saving features such as MIUI is the first. We very much hope that through the MIUI system upgrade to bring you more fun and easy to use features.
After engineers, product managers and project management departments negotiate a number of comprehensive assessment and decision, red rice cell phone 4 high version with no current Android 7.x adaptation plan. But for everyone concerned about the split screen, portal, information assistant function, as well as MIUI 9 stable version of the release plan has some new progress, and here to share with you.
Split screen:
split screen team engineers are currently actively adapted based on Android 6.x models, is expected to go online in early January to 6.x trial version of the model to be tested until the test is completed, it will go online to the development version And follow-up stable version.
Portal:
Currently supports Android 5.x and above models.
Information Assistant:
Currently supports Android 5.x and above models, Android 4.4 version of the model support does not include "My expenses", "My Favorites" two cards other information assistant function.
MIUI 9 stable version:
Red rice cell phone 4 standard / high version of the MIUI 9 stable version has been tested in-house, is expected in mid-to-late open part of the rice for closed beta, to be tested after the push update to everyone upgrade, will push to upgrade, please everyone rest assured.
MIUI is committed to providing you with a better system experience. For the Android underlay, we also make a comprehensive evaluation based on the characteristics of different models to determine the fit plan. Thank you for your love of millet and MIUI team work understanding, and sometimes, do not say do not mean do not do, we must do a good job, this is MIUI
If you have a better idea, please leave a message with us Exchange ~
Source:
http://www.miui.com/thread-11634030-1-1.html
I guess its time to flush this mobile in toilet.
It was a nice sad story with Xiaomi and i wish this company will learn about valuable customers.
I still have faith in Xiaomi if they changed themselves.
Picture taken with OP5
That was expected.But still noone gives a valid explanation why same hardwarre, different screen size phone will get android 7 and not RN4 prime.The whole situation is a joke.
kardinal969 said:
I guess its time to flush this mobile in toilet.
It was a nice sad story with Xiaomi and i wish this company will learn about valuable customers.
I still have faith in Xiaomi if they changed themselves.
Picture taken with OP5
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You can donate it to unterwelt instead of flushing it into toilet, that will help us to get oreo faster
T3sla said:
That was expected.But still noone gives a valid explanation why same hardwarre, different screen size phone will get android 7 and not RN4 prime.The whole situation is a joke.
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One possible explanation is that probably markw isn't actually a xiaomi's in-house product and they dumping it because ODM is failing to/not interested in/refusing to provide xiaomi with updated kernel/blobs. "It's too complex" explanation is too childish to be heard from technology corporation.
kibuuka said:
One possible explanation is that probably markw isn't actually a xiaomi's in-house product and they dumping it because ODM is failing to/not interested in/refusing to provide xiaomi with updated kernel/blobs. "It's too complex" explanation is too childish to be heard from technology corporation.
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Not only childish but insulting too.You can't dump a phone you sell as prime/pro and people paid signifficant more money not only for better hardware but better support too.After mi2s and R4P i think i'm done with xiaomi.On top of that, it seems the new Redmi's have smaller batteries so i can't find a good reason to trust xiaomi for my next phone.
T3sla said:
Not only childish but insulting too.You can't dump a phone you sell as prime/pro and people paid signifficant more money not only for better hardware but better support too.After mi2s and R4P i think i'm done with xiaomi.On top of that, it seems the new Redmi's have smaller batteries so i can't find a good reason to trust xiaomi for my next phone.
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Yeah, their updated product line is pure disappointment. Bigger screens, smaller batteries, same SoCs. Meh.
Lets wait for their golden boy product, Redmi Note 5 that speculated to use snapdragon 636.
here is a post from en.miui.com: http://en.miui.com/thread-1001529-1-1.html
dels07 said:
Lets wait for their golden boy product, Redmi Note 5 that speculated to use snapdragon 636.
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Are they going to replace our markws with this at no price and will take legal obligations to provide base system updates for at least two major versions? No? Then thanks, but no, thanks. Personally, I'll keep using mine till noticeable battery degradation. Then I'll switch to other vendor.
dels07 said:
Lets wait for their golden boy product, Redmi Note 5 that speculated to use snapdragon 636.
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Yeah 636, the new holy grail for two more years i guess.So basically 10-15% performance bump, unknown support policy, significant smaller battery and no medium size screen.Oh right...maybe they'll make a prime version with sd 660, after 6-8 months of the first R5 release, wich will come with android 7 and stay with 7 just a few months before the R6 release.Nope...
kibuuka said:
Are they going to replace our markws with this at no price and will take legal obligations to provide base system updates for at least two major versions? No? Then thanks, but no, thanks. Personally, I'll keep using mine till noticeable battery degradation. Then I'll switch to other vendor.
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That is exactly my plan too.
There is a petition for Redmi 4 Prime.
If you want you can help us with it (or just try)
https://www.change.org/p/xiaomi-mas...ium=email&utm_campaign=share_email_responsive
N1ck474 said:
There is a petition for Redmi 4 Prime.
If you want you can help us with it (or just try)
https://www.change.org/p/xiaomi-mas...ium=email&utm_campaign=share_email_responsive
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Click to collapse
Xiaomi constantly ignores requests on their own forum, what makes you think this petition would be noticed? I would rather suggest mass recruitment requests for beta-testing Oreo (who needs Nougat, anyway?) in a (very little) hope these requests are processed by officials (unlike forum requests that are moderated by usual users, mods there aren't xiaomi employees, afaik) and there will be some kind of output.
kibuuka said:
Xiaomi constantly ignores requests on their own forum, what makes you think this petition would be noticed? I would rather suggest mass recruitment requests for beta-testing Oreo (who needs Nougat, anyway?) in a (very little) hope these requests are processed by officials (unlike forum requests that are moderated by usual users, mods there aren't xiaomi employees, afaik) and there will be some kind of output.
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Click to collapse
I haven't created this petition, it's just a try from MIUI Forum, if you want you can help, if you don't it's ok, i've just shared the link.
N1ck474 said:
I haven't created this petition, it's just a try from MIUI Forum, if you want you can help, if you don't it's ok, i've just shared the link.
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Click to collapse
I know where it originates from. Also, I signed it, though I think it's not going to work. Peace.
@N1ck474 not going to work dude :| History shows they don't give a damn about petitions.I signed though...
T3sla said:
@N1ck474 not going to work dude :| History shows they don't give a damn about petitions.I signed though...
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I know, but we don't lose anything so...why not?
Sort of official statement (provided by one of xiaomi forum's supermods) related to thread subject. In short words - maybe later. Not this time.
kibuuka said:
Sort of official statement (provided by one of xiaomi forum's supermods) related to thread subject. In short words - maybe later. Not this time.
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Click to collapse
Haha... complex issues in compatibility??? Guys are a joke, they even erase a message from brigudav.There is not going to be a "later" for sure.
redmi 5 plus vs redmi 4 prime = same spec. = Nougat 7.1 vs MM 6
xiaomi and the magic miui, sorry but you finished for me.
With rumours of Treble support coming along with 8.1 that have been debunked by the actual updates, I couldn't help but wonder how plausible it even is that we'll be getting Treble-support on our devices? I know that the Pixel got it and some other devices that came with Nougat got it as well but I can appreciate the complexity of the situation. That being said, I wanted to start a discussion, trying to gain some knowledge by people who have a deeper understanding of how Treble works and how plausible this actually happening for us.
Also, if we were to stay on the a/b partition system without Treble support, how plausible would it be that Xiaomi keeps its promise to deliver Android P for the Mi A1? I get the feeling that it'll be more or less obligated to be able to upgrade.
This is not an attempt to complain about update frequency, I'm very content with the monthly updates and if updates stop I'm pretty sure custom ROMs will provide us with extended support. I'm just trying to get some more insight and I know that there are a lot of people on this forum who have a lot of knowledge to share about stuff like this.
The thing is that xiaomi will never care about this phone and i bet that mi a2 will have the same end. No Support. I think that xiaomi was not really ready to make an android one phone.
billis2020 said:
The thing is that xiaomi will never care about this phone and i bet that mi a2 will have the same end. No Support. I think that xiaomi was not really ready to make an android one phone.
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I don't really agree with that. We've gotten updates every month, we were one of the first to get Oreo, one of the first to get 8.1. If you look at the Android adoptions rates and the Android One project guidelines, objectively speaking, we really have nothing to complain about.
That aside, i wasn't looking for subjective comments on why Xiaomi "isn't doing a good job" but more for comments that can give me more knowledge on the questions I was asking.
How can people say xiaomi doesn't care about this phone? We've been getting updates consistently every 3rd week of every month and among the 3% of all phones in the world to actually have Oreo 8.1. Think about that for a moment....
Look at all the other OEMs, LG barely just updated it's almost 2 year old LG V20 to Oreo 8.0, not even 8 1 and it'll get stuck on oreo 8.0. They haven't given the V10 a single uodate for almost more than a year and y'all still complain about the Mi A1?
Also keep in mind that all OEMs will have bugs in initial releases of updates that eventually, are fixed in a timely manner.
Y'all seriously need to chill. If you want daily updates, go develop your own rom and stop complaining.
berezker said:
How can people say xiaomi doesn't care about this phone?
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Click to collapse
people like to create drama, always.
I don't think they will add treble support for this device. But who knows!
Well I thought it was impossible because messing with the partition table could lead to bricked devices, but seeing the treble port and even Android P is kinda giving me hope we'll get it in some update (Android P perhaps, after it's release this or next month).
here's my opinion, Xiaomi is unlikely to give A1 a treble support, but constant update will be given to the phone, and as far as I can tell Xiaomi is trying their best to give the user a bug-free experience, I mean it's their first time giving a REAL stock android experience, heck A1 made them more popular... I think?
PaulDnoOb said:
here's my opinion, Xiaomi is unlikely to give A1 a treble support, but constant update will be given to the phone, and as far as I can tell Xiaomi is trying their best to give the user a bug-free experience, I mean it's their first time giving a REAL stock android experience, heck A1 made them more popular... I think?
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I have no doubts about the constant updates. They have been very consistent and monthly so they are doing a very good job at that.
I don't know if someone can give me a more technical explaination of how OTA Treble support would work and what the risks are, that would be nice. Also does anyone know what the requirements are when it comes to Android P? Will Treble be required to be able to upgrade?
I find a lot of info pointing out the dangers of moving from a/b to Treble but I can't seem to find any good ELI5 info that explains why
berezker said:
How can people say xiaomi doesn't care about this phone? We've been getting updates consistently every 3rd week of every month and among the 3% of all phones in the world to actually have Oreo 8.1. Think about that for a moment....
Look at all the other OEMs, LG barely just updated it's almost 2 year old LG V20 to Oreo 8.0, not even 8 1 and it'll get stuck on oreo 8.0. They haven't given the V10 a single uodate for almost more than a year and y'all still complain about the Mi A1?
Also keep in mind that all OEMs will have bugs in initial releases of updates that eventually, are fixed in a timely manner.
Y'all seriously need to chill. If you want daily updates, go develop your own rom and stop complaining.
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Click to collapse
I couldn't agree more, I open this thread trying to educate myself on Treble and Android P upgrading process and the very first comment is about how Xioami isn't doing a good job with the Mi A1
Mi A1 is an Android One device which should get an priority to having updates to the latest version asap as Google stated, so comparing Mi A1 with other device that out of the Android One Program is nonsense.
From the very first release of the device Mi A1 get poorly support from Xiaomi, which includes very late deploying source code that almost make the device developing community dies.
Actually the monthly update is just 'OK', everyone knows that we received new bugs on every update even with they have beta program to testing before deploy the stable release.
tanapak1 said:
Mi A1 is an Android One device which should get an priority to having updates to the latest version asap as Google stated, so comparing Mi A1 with other device that out of the Android One Program is nonsense.
From the very first release of the device Mi A1 get poorly support from Xiaomi, which includes very late deploying source code that almost make the device developing community dies.
Actually the monthly update is just 'OK', everyone knows that we received new bugs on every update even with they have beta program to testing before deploy the stable release.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for your contribution, now all my questions are answered. Thanks!
Aside from the cynical remark to yet another pointless comment that's completely besides the questions I was asking I want to add that you people shouldn't hijack every thread that has the keyword "update" in it to start whining. I actually want to gather some knowledge and so far half of the comments are completely pointless. Here are some facts for you guys, please mess up someone else's thread, thanks.
Android adoption rates
Android One update guidelines
Let me try to be helpful here:
What do you mean by plausible? Plausible is a word for liberal arts, philosophy, literature and other abstract studies or fields. In development, engineering fields no such word is being used. So let us first replace that word, with another one that makes sense.
Is it possible? Yes, everything is.
Is it doable? Yes, it is.
Will Xiaomi ever do it? I can't say for sure since I'm not in anyway affiliated with the development team of Mi A1 updates, but my bet would be on "No".
Now let me explain my reasoning behind this.
To recreate the partition table required for project treble to work (separate system and vendor partitions basically) you need to format your phone. They can't just send an OTA that wipes people's phones. Xiaomi releases an update where the notification led does not blink and people lose their minds. Just imagine what would happen if they put a disclaimer on the OTA, that tells people to backup because the OTA update will wipe their phones for treble support re-partitioning. The majority of people wouldn't even read it and then flood the forums to cry about it (you are experiencing it in this very thread). People expect Google Pixel-like experience (even pixel has hardware and software issues every month) from a 150$ smartphone. You can't afford to do things like that as a company, when you know that your audience is going to publicly execute you, even when they are at fault. It is just not worth it.
There is a make-shift way to enable treble support without re-partitioning and without wiping the phone, but no separate vendor partition is created (Asus has done is on zenfone 3 and google has done it for pixel and pixel xl). However, this procedure is again somewhat risky and could cause soft to semi-hard bricks and alleviates almost all the benefits of project treble due to not having that separate partition. So again, not worth it.
If I was Xiaomi, knowing my customers, I wouldn't have done it either as a marketing strategy. Give people stable updates, less stuff to worry and complain about and also avoid any risky situations that could put the company's name on the front-pages of bad news.
I hope I helped
solis_f said:
Let me try to be helpful here:
What do you mean by plausible? Plausible is a word for liberal arts, philosophy, literature and other abstract studies or fields. In development, engineering fields no such word is being used. So let us first replace that word, with another one that makes sense.
Is it possible? Yes, everything is.
Is it doable? Yes, it is.
Will Xiaomi ever do it? I can't say for sure since I'm not in anyway affiliated with the development team of Mi A1 updates, but my bet would be on "No".
Now let me explain my reasoning behind this.
To recreate the partition table required for project treble to work (separate system and vendor partitions basically) you need to format your phone. They can't just send an OTA that wipes people's phones. Xiaomi releases an update where the notification led does not blink and people lose their minds. Just imagine what would happen if they put a disclaimer on the OTA, that tells people to backup because the OTA update will wipe their phones for treble support re-partitioning. The majority of people wouldn't even read it and then flood the forums to cry about it (you are experiencing it in this very thread). People expect Google Pixel-like experience (even pixel has hardware and software issues every month) from a 150$ smartphone. You can't afford to do things like that as a company, when you know that your audience is going to publicly execute you, even when they are at fault. It is just not worth it.
There is a make-shift way to enable treble support without re-partitioning and without wiping the phone, but no separate vendor partition is created (Asus has done is on zenfone 3 and google has done it for pixel and pixel xl). However, this procedure is again somewhat risky and could cause soft to semi-hard bricks and alleviates almost all the benefits of project treble due to not having that separate partition. So again, not worth it.
If I was Xiaomi, knowing my customers, I wouldn't have done it either as a marketing strategy. Give people stable updates, less stuff to worry and complain about and also avoid any risky situations that could put the company's name on the front-pages of bad news.
I hope I helped
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Thanks, this was actually helpful. I completely agree that procedures like that would flood all Mi A1 forums with people who didn't inform themselves and it would backfire so that makes perfect sense. I didn't knew that the procedure Google did for the Pixel phones did not unlock full Treble capabilities, kind of strange that they decided to take the risk at all for that.
denisval said:
Thanks, this was actually helpful. I completely agree that procedures like that would flood all Mi A1 forums with people who didn't inform themselves and it would backfire so that makes perfect sense. I didn't knew that the procedure Google did for the Pixel phones did not unlock full Treble capabilities, kind of strange that they decided to take the risk at all for that.
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Well since they are at the forefront of Android development they are required to have the latest and greatest thing as they promised for the Pixel lineup. They were somewhat forced to do it because they promised for it. Imagine Google not keeping true to their written statements to customers.
tanapak1 said:
Mi A1 is an Android One device which should get an priority to having updates to the latest version asap as Google stated, so comparing Mi A1 with other device that out of the Android One Program is nonsense.
From the very first release of the device Mi A1 get poorly support from Xiaomi, which includes very late deploying source code that almost make the device developing community dies.
Actually the monthly update is just 'OK', everyone knows that we received new bugs on every update even with they have beta program to testing before deploy the stable release.
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Click to collapse
Get a new phone then lol
Let me give you a piece of advice, OP
If you want an actual, on-topic and useful discussion, NEVER do that on either XDA or MIUI (Much worse btw)
The only people who can discuss these topics mindfully are the developers and a few handful of people that don't get triggered the moment they see the word "update"
Good luck to you
apexashwin said:
Get a new phone then lol
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Click to collapse
Why would I have to? We already have strong developing community which is better than manufacturer's support.
berezker said:
Let me give you a piece of advice, OP
If you want an actual, on-topic and useful discussion, NEVER do that on either XDA or MIUI (Much worse btw)
The only people who can discuss these topics mindfully are the developers and a few handful of people that don't get triggered the moment they see the word "update"
Good luck to you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually deleted my account at the MIUI forum because of the poisonous attitude people have over there. The little useful information people post on there is buried immediately by brainless toddlers who clearly don't know how a forum works.
Maybe I was naive thinking this section of XDA would be better but at least a couple of people in these 17 comments were actually helpful so yeah ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
tanapak1 said:
Why would I have to? We already have strong developing community which is better than manufacturer's support.
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Click to collapse
Look man, if you have nothing relevant to say about what I'm asking here just don't comment. I didn't create this thread to give complainers like you another platform to post your unfounded and subjective views on support for our device. If you want to see what the Android One update guidelines or the Android adoption rates are, scroll up, I've posted the links. Educate yourself. But please, stop with the complaining, my thread is not the place for it. If you want to contribute be my guest, if you don't, leave.
cmon man, I was answered the one I quoted to.
Did you tried to fight with everyone who doesn't the same as yours?
For what I thought about the topic, ofc it should be 'No' and also you shoudn't pretend yourself and believe on what you think.
If Xiaomi want to do, they will do, but also think that they just released Mi A2 Lite which should be replaced Mi A1 eventually
It's a marketing, business things.
Last thing is, if you really want to make some topic support, just make some online petition and spread them, and I would sign them one if someone make it.
Like somebody said, making the discussion in here is useless, Xiaomi customer support or something else wouldn't response them.
hey folks,
PREFACE:
I'm posting this so that others thinking about purchasing the device may get a perspective that they won't find in a YouTube product review, on the huawei subreddit, etc... I'm also posting to bring awareness to device owners/this community... Before replying, please have a look through the thread; I'm starting to provide a lot of info, that may give better insights to the problems I see...
NOTE:
I'm not bashing you for buying this device, so don't take my criticisms personally... I will try to provide as much info as I can. feel free to ask questions, share your own insights/experiences, etc...
First, i'd like to point out that the hardware is great, EMUI is better than i expected and has some nice extras (compared with stock android). There are many aspects that I do like about the phone, however there are many problems too. I take issue with a few things that I will outline in this post && in the thread;
- huawei revoking the bootloader unlock service
- huawei is extremely developer unfriendly/hostile.
- huawei's poor management of customers, poor policies && support
- huawei's "technical support" staff lack any real knowledge of their products.
- huawei as a company seems to be shady, imho && lacks any transparency.
It is very unfortunate, because i do like the device (the hardware/build seems to be very good). the leica cameras + camera software are great. i do like the native dark theme, the CPU is fast, nice display, etc.. but given the above and also after poking around the kernel code, in depth;
- huawei's kernel sources are by far the absolute worst kernel source code that I've seen in my life.
- it appears huawei has intentionally obfuscated their changesets, by how they distribute them...
- the code doesn't follow C standards, nor any consistent coding style / best practices typically found in the linux kernel.
- the published source code may not even be what's running on the device (EDIT: It's not. I've now verified this, follow the link at the bottom).
- they are also using a technology that allows live patching the running kernel remotely (so even if the sources are the same, it can be patched at runtime anyway. cant be properly audited)...
- they are a full year behind on linux LTS.
I have contacted huawei directly via email, phone and live chat (EDIT: everyday now, since I posted this thread and I will be continuing to do so). They have given me the run around continually and their staff were not able to give me any satisfactory answers to my concerns, nor did i get the impression they even gave a crap ... They have only added to my suspicions (significantly) and along with the recent bad press that huawei has had in US, UK, Canada (where i am) and Australia; i don't trust huawei, their lack of transparency and lack of cooperation; is rather unsettling... Likewise, I find their hostility towards developers and users who would like to service their own devices (via OEM unlock) to be a brutal policy. (especially since their justifications are mostly FUD/untrue.).
- Audio latency is also horrible on the P20 Pro. it experiences anywhere from 50-500ms of latency with pro audio type apps. (noise app by roli in playstore shows just how bad it is, so does Beatonal app, many others too.) the device uses x6 the audio buffering compared the OG pixel. (the OG pixel has no problems with low latency at all, with far lower specs).
so to recap; it's pretty sad and unfortunate,
- i can't run my apps. (love my music creation apps)
- i have no control or ownership over my P20 Pro. apparently only huawei and the Chinese gov't do.
- i don't trust or have faith in the manufacturer.
- the kernel source code is disgusting and incomplete.
- I find some of the technology used troubling at best.
Here's some links in the thread, where some of the above is discussed in more detail;
some kernel source related issues outlined in more detail by me:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=78186512&postcount=37
(note: I'm discussing evira kernel, but nearly all of the issues apply to the distributed kernel sources that evira is based on)
if you are interested in helping me verify if the kernel sources actually reflect what's running on your device, follow this post;
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=78182210&postcount=32 (this would be very helpful, as it will be ammo that I bring to huawei).
The distributed kernel sources are absolutely NOT the kernel sources used to compile the kernel that's running on your device:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=78188018&postcount=42
(this is an update to the above help request; I've now verified that at least L29/LO4 running kernels differ from the provided sources)
livepatch/OASES/Karma technology used by huawei, zte and others:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=78574615&postcount=86
So wait, you've only had it for a few days and you're trying to make a warning against buying the phone?
Giraff3 said:
So wait, you've only had it for a few days and you're trying to make a warning against buying the phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not exactly. I'm outlining my experience and why i am returning the phone, so that others who may have similar requirements and/or concerns avoid making the same mistake, by purchasing this phone only to be unhappy with it.....
the length of time that I've owned the phone isn't a factor because it doesn't fix any of the issues that i point out... *why would you even think that after reading what i wrote???* ... if it was just a matter of getting used to the device, that would be another story.
to be clear; i don't have any issue with the UX, performance, build quality or any of that jazz, really. the cameras are great, phone is a beast. However, huawei's policies, their lack of transparency, the device being locked down, their source code being sketchy, other security concerns and yeah; the audio latency... big problems (for me, possibly others)...
holding on to or having used the phone for a longer period of time doesn't fix any of these issues... if i wasn't into software development, didn't care about unlocked bootloader, etc - i might very well be happy with the device... It's a great phone, if none of these details/issues effect or matter to you...
the fact you can't run a launcher like Nova does it for me, terrible mistake
ant78 said:
the fact you can't run a launcher like Nova does it for me, terrible mistake
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Click to collapse
I use Nova just fine.
ant78 said:
the fact you can't run a launcher like Nova does it for me, terrible mistake
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Click to collapse
What do you mean? I've had the P20 Pro since end of August, installed Nova Launcher the moment I took it out of the box and been running fine since. Mind you the lack of bootloader unlock or having to pay for it doesn't fly well with me but haven't found myself needing to root this device like all my previous devices for customization. The P20 Pro has let me do everything I wanted.
StatikBlue said:
What do you mean? I've had the P20 Pro since end of August, installed Nova Launcher the moment I took it out of the box and been running fine since. Mind you the lack of bootloader unlock or having to pay for it doesn't fly well with me but haven't found myself needing to root this device like all my previous devices for customization. The P20 Pro has let me do everything I wanted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No idea what they are talking about 3rd part launchers work just fine. It's just less obvious how to change them vs. stock android... but I had Apex launcher installed 15 minutes after turning on the device, wasn't hard to figure out.
the lack of unlocked bootloader is problematic, beyond just having root ~ once huawei stops pushing updates, if you still own the phone; no way to service or update it.... and for me, I actually like to audit my devices and know what's going on inside of them (and that's why I spend days going through their kernel source code too) ~ pretty hard to audit anything on the device though, without unlocked bootloader + root.
I do agree though, there is lots of stuff baked into the rom, so customization OOTB is pretty good...and i do like that...
On the other hand though, I like having AdAway, AFWall and other root apps.... and at least one of the issues that I mentioned; the audio latency problem ~ I could probably fix if I was rooted... I'm actually pretty shocked that huawei software engineers think that high latency is somehow acceptable....
the latency makes playing instruments on my phone impossible ~ latency has to be low, the sound must play as I touch the notes ~ but instead, there is an extremely long delay / completely unusable. The latency is worse than most early / very old android devices...
So you're saying the phone is great then? Bootloader is easily unlocked and if you want to make unsubstantiated claims that Huawei is spying on us you might want to back up with some proof. There would probably more development on this phone if the US didn't stop Huawei from selling it there over unproven spying claims.
Giraff3 said:
So you're saying the phone is great then? Bootloader is easily unlocked and if you want to make unsubstantiated claims that Huawei is spying on us you might want to back up with some proof. There would probably more development on this phone if the US didn't stop Huawei from selling it there over unproven spying claims.
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Click to collapse
That's just the US being the US man. Trump and his clown posse are more of a threat to the citizens then Huawei would ever be.
Giraff3 said:
So you're saying the phone is great then? Bootloader is easily unlocked and if you want to make unsubstantiated claims that Huawei is spying on us you might want to back up with some proof. There would probably more development on this phone if the US didn't stop Huawei from selling it there over unproven spying claims.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm saying it's a mixed bag, not that it's a great phone... some aspects of the phone are great, some are absolutely terrible. ~ even if I ignore the security issues, poor quality of their source code ~ I'm still left with a locked device, slow updates, a company with crappy policies, crappy support, no accountability && a phone that can't even run my applications; the audio latency is worse than most ancient android devices. seriously... in 2018, several hundred ms of latency is unacceptable (samsung devices, google devices, etc - do not have this problem... and apple products NEVER had this problem, even 10years ago).
Bootloader is easily unlocked by paying shady third parties, who I don't know and who I don't want to give my personal nor unique identifiers to... give me a frickin' break and *stop acting like this is some ideal situation, it's not*.... Huawei has screwed end users by discontinuing the service, their justifications is BS... If they want to void a warranty of unlock bootloaders; that's fine, then do that - but don't lock users out of servicing their own devices that they've purchased with their own money and that THEY OWN.... again, it's BS... and guess what; Google doesn't even void your warranty over oem unlocking, it's a supported feature ~ if you brick your device (through your own stupidity), they may invalidate it ~ but unlocking the device, does not void your warranty (i know from direct experience).... I don't buy into Huawei's excuses at all...
The fact that huawei are live patching the kernel, means that they can essentially backdoor your device at any time. you have ZERO idea what the kernel is doing, no way to proper audit the code.... The fact that they've obfuscated their own changes and their source code for the device has all sorts of problems, says a lot ~ They've went well out of there way to provide their source code like this... There is absolutely no way that during development, they were using these sources.... they've intentionally done this.... why do that, if you have nothing to hide? ... it's highly suspicious and dubious, at best... That is proof enough to cast serious doubt on Huawei.
Huawei is using the same kernel live patching technology in both mobile and IOT ~ no wonder the US wants to purge all of huawei's hardware from their infrastructure and why the gov't doesn't want it's employees using Huawei's devices and also why they are putting pressure on Canada to do the same (for our 5G networks)...
huawei has plenty of controversies; intellectual property theft, espionage, etc. it's not like the US is the only country that that is distrusting of huawei's activities.... e.g: Canada excluded huawei from being involved with the gov't secure network infrastructure too (years ago, long before the USA). We've also denied several Huawei employee's permanent residency, over concerns of espionage, gov't subversion, etc...
You can't really blame the USA for the lack of development for this device... there would be way more development if Huawei didn't screw over users by taking away the unlocking service ~ the US blocking their gov't employees from using Huawei devices && the US carriers dropping their devices, has very little to do with the lack of development... I'm not a fan of the current US prez, nor politics ~ but you can't really blame them, when Huawei controls whether or not you can unlock your bootloader ~ it's Huawei's policy, not the US gov't's policy...
and it's huawei's own fault that they're getting bad press.
Google and your information
But you trust pixel?
kolembo said:
But you trust pixel?
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Google operates with far more transparency, than huawei... no contest.
A very large part of google's development happens out in the open, their devices are more secure, their code quality is to a much higher standard... like I said; Huawei's code is by far the worst kernel code that I've ever seen... Google actually takes security seriously, Huawei does not (or they should be shipping quality code, distributing their sources in a non-sketchy way, their kernel would be more reasonably up-to-date, they would operate with more transparency, etc.)...
Does Google collect a lot of data? yes. (most tech companies and gov't do).
Do I think they should be, no ~ as I believe that in general, people need better protections in their online / digital lives. Many rights that people have ''in the real world'', we don't have online ~ that's a problem.... But it's also improving to some extent...
At the end of the day; If I have to pick between google's approach and Huawei's approach ~ google is much better... Regardless, the majority of android devices shipping, will have GAPPs installed; which means the P20 Pro that I bought wouldn't be sharing any less info with google than any other device does ~ Pixels don't have a bunch of magical extra code designed to shovel more data to google, if that what you are thinking...
This guy for real? You want optimized kernels, and all that crap go to iOS but don't slander a device without a ounce of knowledge. Huawei have great customer service representatives Maybe you spoke to one that wasn't very intellectual (every company has them) try speaking to there representatives on Facebook/Twitter they are much better on there
TheDevGuy9497 said:
This guy for real? You want optimized kernels, and all that crap go to iOS but don't slander a device without a ounce of knowledge. Huawei have great customer service representatives Maybe you spoke to one that wasn't very intellectual (every company has them) try speaking to there representatives on Facebook/Twitter they are much better on there
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Click to collapse
It's not slander, when it's true.
I've talked to several of their reps and support staff (on 3 separate occasions.). They may very will be better in a public facing forum, but the fact that on multiple non-public interactions; where they didn't have to be worried about PR => they were pure crap to deal with.... I would hardly call that "great customer support".... it sounds like you think "saving-face" = great customer support. (it isn't)... Also, great customer support involves being knowledgeable about the products and services.... Look at your own thread title; "The lack of knowledge is concerning" from September;
https://forum.xda-developers.com/hu...concerning-t3847975/post77741568#post77741568 ... you can't have it both ways.
I'm correct about the issues that I pointed out, in particular with the kernel code.... You may not like it, but that's your problem, not mine... And no, I don't need to go to iOS to have an optimized kernel or have a device that can provide low latency for audio for applications that need it... Other decent devices manage it just fine in android-land...
A good android/linux kernel that has good coding styles / following standards, where compiler warnings are actually taken seriously, fixed properly and where the code can be can be audited, etc ~ These are reasonable expectations one should have out of ANY android vendor. While no one is perfect and you can knit pick any of the vendor's code -> The P20 Pro's kernel, as I said; is literally the worst kernel source code that I've seen in my life... It's worse than any QC/msm kernel that I've ever seen, worse than any of samsung's kernel code, etc.. (you don't believe me??? download the CLT's kernel sources, breakout your cross compiler, enable some extra warnings and actually look through the god damn code yourself! (Does that sound good to "TheDevGuy"???).... then come back and talk to me.
I've spent several days (hours and hours) now going through it, looking at what Huawei is actually doing in the kernel with livepatch, OASES and how some of their specific features work, poking through driver code, etc, etc (i do this with all vendor code for devices that I own)....
Out of curiosity, How much time have you spent???
I'm guessing it's actually you that is " without a ounce of knowledge" and you're just triggered because you didn't like what I had to say.
There are some valid points, and i am aware of p20 pro flaws but do we really need a separate thread for every personal rant?
forever_lol said:
There are some valid points, and i am aware of p20 pro flaws but do we really need a separate thread for every personal rant?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hey, i get what you're driving at, but when researching the device - i couldn't find a lot of the info that i was after and i don't think some of what I've touched on has been discussed here.... i know a few people are upset or don't like what I've said, but at the same time - i hope they can appreciate where i'm coming from, that I've actually went way out of me way and spent a lot of my free time, digging through the kernel sources...
there is also still a possibility that i may get stuck with this phone, if my carrier screws me around or has changed their policy - and if that does happen; i can pretty much promise that XDA community for this device are going to benefit;
- I've rebased their kernel on a proper git tree, with all mainline commit history, intact.
- I'm in the process of fixing all of the immediate GCC warnings and some other code issues.
- I'll get it compiling with the latest GCC (possibly clang too).
- I'm figuring out how all of huawei's features work
- i have experience porting/backporting kernel features.
- I'm experienced / know my way around the Linux kernel, having been hacking on it since long before XDA or android existed.
i don't really see much kernel development going on for this device, so who knows; even if i end up exchanging the phone, i still may end up cleaning up the sources and publishing them for other people to use (who may be comfortable using git / cherry-picking, etc - but may have difficulty getting huawei's somewhat broken source code to compile, ootb...
Who would have thought Huawei spies on its users? Geezas. Nobody.
It's not like they have done before.
Wait..
They have.
And bad software? Well, that's Huawei's middle name.
FluFlu said:
No idea what they are talking about 3rd part launchers work just fine. It's just less obvious how to change them vs. stock android... but I had Apex launcher installed 15 minutes after turning on the device, wasn't hard to figure out.
the lack of unlocked bootloader is problematic, beyond just having root ~ once huawei stops pushing updates, if you still own the phone; no way to service or update it.... and for me, I actually like to audit my devices and know what's going on inside of them (and that's why I spend days going through their kernel source code too) ~ pretty hard to audit anything on the device though, without unlocked bootloader + root.
I do agree though, there is lots of stuff baked into the rom, so customization OOTB is pretty good...and i do like that...
On the other hand though, I like having AdAway, AFWall and other root apps.... and at least one of the issues that I mentioned; the audio latency problem ~ I could probably fix if I was rooted... I'm actually pretty shocked that huawei software engineers think that high latency is somehow acceptable....
the latency makes playing instruments on my phone impossible ~ latency has to be low, the sound must play as I touch the notes ~ but instead, there is an extremely long delay / completely unusable. The latency is worse than most early / very old android devices...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
erm I think you will find that in Huawei's latest firmware updates they have disabled custom launchers, you can install them but when you pick them as your default launcher you will get an error message and it crashes, there's a thread on here about it.
neflictus said:
Who would have thought Huawei spies on its users? Geezas. Nobody.
It's not like they have done before.
Wait..
They have.
And bad software? Well, that's Huawei's middle name.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's some high-level cynicism, right there.... coupled with apathy.
I've never personally dealt with Huawei directly, nor peaked at any of their code (until very recently... and I doubt that I am the only person in this situation), so it shouldn't be surprising that I've chosen to comment about it. (for others who may not be aware).
with you having such disdain and having previous experience with huawei - why did you even buy the phone?
just curious.
You talk so much... I didn't even bother reading all what you said. Given that your frustration isn't about the phone itself but Huawei as a company, why did you buy the phone in the first place?
I have been a fan of installing custom ROMs, root and other mods to my phones since I first owned an Android phone, which was a Sony Xpera Z3 Compact.
Back then I didn't care so much about security, because I was thinking 'What, are they gonna steal my Instagram account?'. But as I grew older the situation got more complex and now I feel the need to feel secure while using a ROM, which is almost never these days. So here are my reasons:
- Custom ROM developers have the exact same device as we do, so if they wanted to exploit it, they would exploit the hell out of it and get their hands on everything we have. (Looking at you, MIUI port)
- Some ROMs come with SELinux disabled which is a problem in itself, I believe.
- Even apps like Magisk, although they're open source (well, most of them) who knows what they're doing in the background.
- It is fairly easy to install a keylogger built into a custom ROM, how do we know that we are already not compromised a few times?
Am I being paranoid here? Or does everyone just want to install their flashy mods and get on with it, like I used to back in the day?
I would love to hear all of your opinions on this!
interesting thoughts and it's always good to be a little concerned about security and privacy!
for custom roms i think in general they tend to be more secure than most stock roms. especially when they have OFFICIAL status - you often get faster updates or updates at all if you have an older device.
unlike big company's, the developer of these roms do it for fun and in general don't have economical interest. so why would they want to steal data/insert backdoors or whatever? thats something company's and governments are interested in...
what i see is that these devs usually check exactly what's happening inside a ROM and a more likely to remove/block suspicious apps or whatever.
also custom ROMs are always open source, aren't they? so everyone can check what's happening... same like Magisk and stuff. everyone's gonna see it if you are trying to steal people's data or something.
i personally trust ROMs based on Lineage OS more than any other stock ROM because they're developed by normal people and not by greedy company's...
although im using MIUI right now because its comfortable but i don't really trust them chinese stuff in terms of data security
merlin.berlin said:
also custom ROMs are always open source, aren't they? so everyone can check what's happening... same like Magisk and stuff. everyone's gonna see it if you are trying to steal people's data or something.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First off, thanks for sharing your thought on this. Second, that's been a long time debate, whether open source software is really secure or not. Because although the source of the code is open for inspection, especially in small projects - like device specific projects, many of the security threats and bugs go unnoticed. Of course I trust Magisk, because it is open source AND many Android enthusiasts know about it to a level.
But when it comes to custom ROMs, if you actually check the forum, most of them aren't open source. Hell, we don't even know where they're coming from in some cases (MIUI, EvolutionX etc...). Well, I agree with the Official custom ROMs, because most of the time they're open sourced. But you need to be aware that especially the MIUI ports on this forum, are grabbed from Russian forums. So now (I'm not accusing anyone here), possibly the Russians (4pda), Chinese (Xiaomi) and feds (lol) can reach your data.
I share these concerns. I don't understand why xda doesn't have a policy of not allowing custom roms which don't display their origin/source. Miui mods, Gapps I never use. Bottom line is that with all data collection and spying going on through devices one can only protect her/himself based on personal knowledge and level of concern. And official vs. unofficial is a non issue.
Well, shortly - they aren't secure and you can trust them as much as you trust a person behind them, which you probably don't know well - means not much. And even if there is no bad will from trustworthy community member, you still have to trust that they weren't hacked and let's be honest - big companies are being hacked fairly regularly, let alone hobbyst xda developers. Considering the small user base of the roms, in 99% cases nobody would even realize any malicious stuff happening.
Definitely most stock roms are more secure than custom roms. BUT. Then comes privacy. On stock roms, google, and in most cases phone manufacturer harvest virtually all your data and everything you do, so the only plus here is that you may believe that it will never leak. For me it's not better at all.
At this moment probably the best you can get is a custom rom from trustworthy project with big userbase and many eyes watching - Official Lineage OS builds or one of the few serious privacy focused projects.
Hey,
as somebody who has published ROMs here I really wanted to share my thoughts on this.
First of all, you are right on having concerns about the security of custom ROMs.
There are essentially two types of security at stake here: One is the security of your device, if a third person gets physical control over it. Here, the case is quite clear: The moment you unlock the bootloader, an attacker with physical access to the device will be able to flash anything he wants and essentially circumvent any locking mechanism you have in place. Encryption would help, but implementing properly in a custom ROM and still keeping the functionalities users like about custom ROMs (e.g. easy switching between them, proper updates without the need for OTA) is quite difficult. In short, if you want to prevent anybody who might access your phone physically from gaining access to your data, keep stock ROM and boot loader locked.
The second type is data security and privacy, which was treated in OP. And OP was right, that there is a possibility of adding nearly anything to the code. I am speaking for myself right now, but I guarantee you, that I have never added anything to the ROM code (which for all AOSP ROMs needs to be public, any single line can be reviewed), device tree (public on github as well) or kernel (needs to be published as well). I know, it is my word to be taken here and there is nothing preventing e from lying (because I could add local changes to the code that are never made public). And there is a lot of faith involved, which is why I started building my own ROM. So if anybody feels uncomfortable with installing a ROM that potentially could contain malicious changes, it is better to stay on the stock ROM. On the other side though, the probability that devs like me, that do this essentially for fun and because they want more features and better experience than stock has to offer on their own phones, will invest the time to add a keylogger or other malware to than exploit maybe 10 or 12 people that will actually run the ROM, is quite low imho. Xiaomi, Huawei (or any other company) might be forced by some government to install backdoors or reveal userdata as well. It essentially boils down to trusting the open source community and a dev or trusting some corporation. I honestly do not have an easy answer to this and it probably differs for each person.
As why some ROMs (including my AOSiP 10) run with SELinux on permissive: SELinux enforcing is tricky. If the policy is written poorly, it will prevent your phone from booting or block essential features. And although I am quite android and linux savy and can write my own code, getting SELinux right is still a challenge. On Pie we had an experienced dev like Offain who essentially did it for most others as we used his trees, but for Ten we are still trying to get the devices working to their full extent on a never kernel version (4.9 instead of 3.18). SELinux has a lower priority for me, although I definitely want to make it enforcing as soon as possible.
The example of the kernel is a good point though why I think that custom ROMs can be more secure than stock if you are ready to trust the devs: Most of us use a newer, more up to date kernel than Xiaomi with upstreamed security patches, provide Android security patches earlier than Xiaomi and probably will continue to do so even when for Xiaomi the device will have reached EOL. At the moment, stock probably is the safest in terms of integrity, although it lacks features and is not quite up-to-date. But I have found on any device I owned, that keeping it somewhat up-to-date after official EOL through custom ROMs was a very important part of being able to use it longer than its intended life span.
Long story short: I guarantee you all that I am not interested in your private data and will not try to extort you or sell your credit card information or whatever... If there are bugs and vulnerabilities they are absolutely unintentional and I will try to fix them to my best knowledge if I am made aware of them. Anyway, please think critically and feel free to make the decision you feel best with.
opal06 said:
Hey,
as somebody who has published ROMs here I really wanted to share my thoughts on this.
First of all, you are right on having concerns about the security of custom ROMs.
There are essentially two types of security at stake here: One is the security of your device, if a third person gets physical control over it. Here, the case is quite clear: The moment you unlock the bootloader, an attacker with physical access to the device will be able to flash anything he wants and essentially circumvent any locking mechanism you have in place. Encryption would help, but implementing properly in a custom ROM and still keeping the functionalities users like about custom ROMs (e.g. easy switching between them, proper updates without the need for OTA) is quite difficult. In short, if you want to prevent anybody who might access your phone physically from gaining access to your data, keep stock ROM and boot loader locked.
The second type is data security and privacy, which was treated in OP. And OP was right, that there is a possibility of adding nearly anything to the code. I am speaking for myself right now, but I guarantee you, that I have never added anything to the ROM code (which for all AOSP ROMs needs to be public, any single line can be reviewed), device tree (public on github as well) or kernel (needs to be published as well). I know, it is my word to be taken here and there is nothing preventing e from lying (because I could add local changes to the code that are never made public). And there is a lot of faith involved, which is why I started building my own ROM. So if anybody feels uncomfortable with installing a ROM that potentially could contain malicious changes, it is better to stay on the stock ROM. On the other side though, the probability that devs like me, that do this essentially for fun and because they want more features and better experience than stock has to offer on their own phones, will invest the time to add a keylogger or other malware to than exploit maybe 10 or 12 people that will actually run the ROM, is quite low imho. Xiaomi, Huawei (or any other company) might be forced by some government to install backdoors or reveal userdata as well. It essentially boils down to trusting the open source community and a dev or trusting some corporation. I honestly do not have an easy answer to this and it probably differs for each person.
As why some ROMs (including my AOSiP 10) run with SELinux on permissive: SELinux enforcing is tricky. If the policy is written poorly, it will prevent your phone from booting or block essential features. And although I am quite android and linux savy and can write my own code, getting SELinux right is still a challenge. On Pie we had an experienced dev like Offain who essentially did it for most others as we used his trees, but for Ten we are still trying to get the devices working to their full extent on a never kernel version (4.9 instead of 3.18). SELinux has a lower priority for me, although I definitely want to make it enforcing as soon as possible.
The example of the kernel is a good point though why I think that custom ROMs can be more secure than stock if you are ready to trust the devs: Most of us use a newer, more up to date kernel than Xiaomi with upstreamed security patches, provide Android security patches earlier than Xiaomi and probably will continue to do so even when for Xiaomi the device will have reached EOL. At the moment, stock probably is the safest in terms of integrity, although it lacks features and is not quite up-to-date. But I have found on any device I owned, that keeping it somewhat up-to-date after official EOL through custom ROMs was a very important part of being able to use it longer than its intended life span.
Long story short: I guarantee you all that I am not interested in your private data and will not try to extort you or sell your credit card information or whatever... If there are bugs and vulnerabilities they are absolutely unintentional and I will try to fix them to my best knowledge if I am made aware of them. Anyway, please think critically and feel free to make the decision you feel best with.
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exactly, we don't need your data, just why we would want it. additionally, as you said, all is open sources so OP can check all. everything was written here, perfect answer
opal06's post is right on the money as explanation to what security can mean for rom/device. No need to be defensive though, trust in developers is the only thing that keeps the custom roms community going and I've been using them since Gingerbread.
On the other hand, I must say, custom roms that come pre-loaded with all bells and whistles from Google diminish the trust factor.
celrau said:
On the other hand, I must say, custom roms that come pre-loaded with all bells and whistles from Google diminish the trust factor.
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How come ? Could you explain that ?
marstonpear said:
How come ? Could you explain that ?
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I guess what he means is that Google is notorious for grabbing any bit of data and having a custom ROM preloaded with Google stuff diminishes the need for installing it ib the first place, as it will have the same privacy concerns regarding Google as stock has. In general, Google's involvment into Android is a reason for concern to many, myself included. But there are very few ROMs that actually try to be privacy focused and get rid of Google entirely, although the situation can be improved by using MicroG services instead of GAPPS. They already work on many ROMs
opal06 said:
I guess what he means is that Google is notorious for grabbing any bit of data and having a custom ROM preloaded with Google stuff diminishes the need for installing it ib the first place, as it will have the same privacy concerns regarding Google as stock has. In general, Google's involvment into Android is a reason for concern to many, myself included. But there are very few ROMs that actually try to be privacy focused and get rid of Google entirely, although the situation can be improved by using MicroG services instead of GAPPS. They already work on many ROMs
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I was half way through typing pretty much the same thing when I noticed your post, that's exactly what I meant. One more thing, some people really need Gapps (i.e. for some banking apps) but they should install them themselves as opposed to providing custom roms with Gapps preinstalled.
Thank you guys for sharing your thoughts on this! I believe all we can do is trust our devs with our info and devices and as a paranoid user, I believe I won't be able to do that, so I'll stick to stock ROMs for our device. But I also believe this has been very helpful for other users who want to try custom ROMs and if they're not as paranoid as I am, they can safely use the open-sourced/official ROMs in the forum. Cheers.
marstonpear said:
Thank you guys for sharing your thoughts on this! I believe all we can do is trust our devs with our info and devices and as a paranoid user, I believe I won't be able to do that, so I'll stick to stock ROMs for our device. But I also believe this has been very helpful for other users who want to try custom ROMs and if they're not as paranoid as I am, they can safely use the open-sourced/official ROMs in the forum. Cheers.
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I wouldn't call it being paranoid, I think it's very sane.
I agree and have similar view on that, but please ask yourself a question - how much you trust Xiaomi and their security measures? Because in terms of privacy it's obvious that nothing worse than Xiaomi plus Google can happen to you. If you're really what you call "paranoid" you should rather get a device with official Lineage OS support that you would download directly from their servers or systems mentioned here: https://www.privacytools.io/operating-systems/#mobile_os
Thread closed at OP request