Android Smartphone manufacturer with open camera driver / framework for AOSP / Lineag - General Questions and Answers

Hello,
I bought several smartphone in the past until now and I always want to use them as long I can.
So Android obsolescence comes quite quickly once a smartphone arrives on the market (around 2 or 3 years after). We lose security patches, capability to use upper android version.... So each time I try to use custom ROM based on AOSP or Lineage / CM BUT I lose the capability to make decent photo with the Camera.
Currently it is unacceptable because I have to immortalize best moments of my life (childs, family ...).
The questions are simple : Do you know Android smartphone manufacturer or specific models with open / published camera drivers / framework that can be used on AOSP / Lineage OS?
I have the same question, if a manufacturer publish camera drivers that be used on upper Android version (EX: published for Marshmallow but useable on Oreo).
Thanks

There isn't one. This is the difference between open source and closed sourced drivers. The cameras and drivers are not even made by the device oem.
Updates these days are not that bad. You get a flagship and it will easily last 5 years. Even if 2 of them are only with security updates.

Hello zelendel,
Thank you for this reply.
In consequence all smarphone suffer of the same miseries. There is no way to get a Lineage with the same camera quality than stock experience due to closed source?! :crying:

Pretty much yes. I have not found a single device that doesn't suffer. It's one of the things you give up when you swap over to aosp base. Just like when using Linux. You lose anything special the oem did.

Related

Development of a ROM Android pie for the Huawei Y5 2018 or DRA-LX3

Who can develop an Android ROM 9.0 pie for the Huawei Y5 2018 or DRA-LX3 version of 1GB of RAM and 16 storage which comes with Android Go edition which I find very limited to my liking
i would love if someone make a custom rom for this device, i just got one as secondary device for work and i think is really good for the price(Screen is great, battery life is also great, looks ok) but my main problem are the GO apps (Gmail Go, YouTube Go, Maps Go, etc...) that get crash all the time and if a change to another app or if the device locks the apps always reset and is super annoying specially with the Maps app, before this i was using another Huawei with also 1gb of RAM and older android version and all those apps where running smoothly so i think is fault of the Go version of android oreo
I bought this phone a couple of weeks ago mostly for the price. The phone would be great, but the apps just close themselves, any app that is a little more demanding would close instantly. I contacted huawei, but they just told me to do a bunch of useless solutions to optimize the phone that obviously didn't work and they ignored me when i told them that the problem was the "Go" version of the Android Oreo. Anyway it would be awesome if someone would make a pie ROM for the huawei Y5 2018 or Dra-lx3, or another version that's not "Go". Is the only solution i think for this phone since an update solving the problem from huawei is unlikely to arrive any time soon.
Hi...
I experienced the same problem of @Jyroux and @NateXIII
... the apps just close themselves, any app that is a little more demanding would close instantly...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
even, the apps close themselves suddenly!
I wish some improvement, looking for a naked versione of Android (Oreo or Pie...it doesn't really matter).
Have you any info?
Thanks a lot & CIAO!
Hi friends, I have the same problem.
Has someone managed to root the device?
Could you tell me how I do it please?
Raul1720 said:
Who can develop an Android ROM 9.0 pie for the Huawei Y5 2018 or DRA-LX3 version of 1GB of RAM and 16 storage which comes with Android Go edition which I find very limited to my liking
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If a developer that had the ability to build a ROM owned one of these devices, they would already have built a ROM for it. Since there are no ROMs available, one can assume that no such developers own this device.
Building ROMs requires having one of the devices on hand to test what is built. If you want a developer here to build a ROM this device, you'll have to buy another device like this and donate it to the developer, otherwise, you can try learning to build the ROM yourself or you can give up on the whole idea.
You are much more likely to get a ROM for this device by learning to build it yourself, that will probably happen sooner than finding someone to do it for you. No one is going to take the time to build a ROM for a device they do not own or do not use, especially for free.
Sent from my SM-S767VL using Tapatalk
Raul1720 said:
Who can develop an Android ROM 9.0 pie for the Huawei Y5 2018 or DRA-LX3 version of 1GB of RAM and 16 storage which comes with Android Go edition which I find very limited to my liking
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can flash a GSI, which is kind of a generic rom, if you have bootloader unlocked.

My phone may stop working next year

Hello,
I have a LG L90 D415 that I bought back in 2014 and is working perfectly. I was using it with the last official update sent by the manufacturer (Andorid 5.1.1 Lollipop), but one single APP stop working and when I check for that APP, for it to work I needed to have Android 6 Marshmallow. Problem was that the manufacturer stop supporting the unit and they decided not to provide any other update beyond 5.1.1. Luckily I found that there was version 7 Nougat for my unit as an AOSP with Linange OS. Me, being an ignorant of android configuration, had a hard time installing it but finally was able to make it work. If not for that APP that stop working I would never change the OS but at the end I was happy, it was like having a new phone. I was able to install the APP and make it work. Then few days ago I read this article:
Devices may stop working next year: Here's why
The article is talking about devices that won't be able to work due to outdated security certificates. Specifically about andorid devices using Android version 7 Nougat (the one that I recently install on the phone), the article says:
The most vulnerable devices
Helme said users of Windows computers won't need to worry, as Microsoft has built in constant updating of certificates. Web browsers on most platforms get certificate updates regularly. And because iPhones get system updates so frequently, "I wouldn't be too concerned about this problem if I was an iOS user (I am)."
"But it looks like Android users might have some concerns in the not too distant future," Helme added.
That's because as of April 2020, nearly 40% of all Android devices visible to Google were using now-unsupported Android versions such as Nougat or earlier. (These statistics don't include Amazon Fire tablets, Xiaomi Mi phones or other devices that run non-Google versions of Android.) Many of those older devices may soon lose the ability to connect to most app servers and websites.​
Since I have an old unit it seems that there is no interest from the LinageOS people to build at least version 8 of Android for the LG L90. So I need to ask, What are my options? Is there a way to find updated security certificates?
Please advise.
3d1l said:
Hello,
I have a LG L90 D415 that I bought back in 2014 and is working perfectly. I was using it with the last official update sent by the manufacturer (Andorid 5.1.1 Lollipop), but one single APP stop working and when I check for that APP, for it to work I needed to have Android 6 Marshmallow. Problem was that the manufacturer stop supporting the unit and they decided not to provide any other update beyond 5.1.1. Luckily I found that there was version 7 Nougat for my unit as an AOSP with Linange OS. Me, being an ignorant of android configuration, had a hard time installing it but finally was able to make it work. If not for that APP that stop working I would never change the OS but at the end I was happy, it was like having a new phone. I was able to install the APP and make it work. Then few days ago I read this article:
Devices may stop working next year: Here's why
The article is talking about devices that won't be able to work due to outdated security certificates. Specifically about andorid devices using Android version 7 Nougat (the one that I recently install on the phone), the article says:
The most vulnerable devices
Helme said users of Windows computers won't need to worry, as Microsoft has built in constant updating of certificates. Web browsers on most platforms get certificate updates regularly. And because iPhones get system updates so frequently, "I wouldn't be too concerned about this problem if I was an iOS user (I am)."
"But it looks like Android users might have some concerns in the not too distant future," Helme added.
That's because as of April 2020, nearly 40% of all Android devices visible to Google were using now-unsupported Android versions such as Nougat or earlier. (These statistics don't include Amazon Fire tablets, Xiaomi Mi phones or other devices that run non-Google versions of Android.) Many of those older devices may soon lose the ability to connect to most app servers and websites.​
Since I have an old unit it seems that there is no interest from the LinageOS people to build at least version 8 of Android for the LG L90. So I need to ask, What are my options? Is there a way to find updated security certificates?
Please advise.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If the manufacturer stops supports a device and if the device is no longer supported by custom development in the android user community and if security updates are no longer supported by the manufacturer or by custom android developers, the only other options are to support the software development yourself, if possible, or get a new device. You obviously won't be able to do the software/security support yourself so that leaves you only the option of getting a new device.
By the way, whoever wrote that article is an idiot iOS user. Yes, Apple will continue to release security updates, but, not for all Apple devices, they don't offer updates/support on their older devices. Apple doesn't want its users to use Apple devices more than a year or two, for this reason, they discontinue support on those older devices to force its users to buy newer devices.
Sent from my SM-S767VL using Tapatalk
Droidriven said:
If the manufacturer stops supports a device and if the device is no longer supported by custom development in the android user community and if security updates are no longer supported by the manufacturer or by custom android developers, the only other options are to support the software development yourself, if possible, or get a new device. You obviously won't be able to do the software/security support yourself so that leaves you only the option of getting a new device.
By the way, whoever wrote that article is an idiot iOS user. Yes, Apple will continue to release security updates, but, not for all Apple devices, they don't offer updates/support on their older devices. Apple doesn't want its users to use Apple devices more than a year or two, for this reason, they discontinue support on those older devices to force its users to buy newer devices.
Sent from my SM-S767VL using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks,
I definitively won't be able to built my own, I'm just a dumb ignorant normal user, I don't even know how I was able to pull it out, I'm talking about rooting with magisk and installing the Linage version 14 ROM. I read and read, ask a lot of questions that were never answered (nobody seems to be interested). It was like my android lifetime achievement and something that you are able to do only once in your life.
I was checking the phone status and it says that the last uptade that I have installed is Linage OS 14.1 (Andorid 7.1.2), with android security patch level 2019-01-05. I hope that that helps somehow. I also found that there is another ROM of Linage OS using Android 8 (Oreo), for the LG L90 but it says that it is unofficial, so I feel uneasy installing it. It's a shame, the phone is working so fine, it is my first and only smartphone and has been with me... well... more than seven years.

Android One

Hello everyone,
I was searching for Android One topics here and unfortunately found nothing ( probably because of the confusing name)
So can someone explain what's up with this Android One software overlay.
I read some info on wiki but still have some questions:
Is it like normal firmware that only comes with certain smartphones, or you can flash it yourself?
It's a near stock android but, which version is it based on,
does it come out every time new android version rolls out, or it just gets updated to the new one.
and lastly let's say I have android one phone, and after three years they stopped regular updates,
it's still android one compatible phone right, so I can update to the new version myself?
Thank you.
avoup said:
Hello everyone,
I was searching for Android One topics here and unfortunately found nothing ( probably because of the confusing name)
...
and lastly let's say I have android one phone, and after three years they stopped regular updates,
it's still android one compatible phone right, so I can update to the new version myself?
Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, Android One are phones that run a lite weight version of Android for budget phones with small specs (under 2Go of RAM, entry level processor,...) called Android Go. It's supposed to give a fluid experience to phones with limited capacity. Each Android Go version (for each Android One device) is in consequences very specific to the device, in order to use efficiently all of what the different specs has to offer.
You can still build ROMs/TWRP for those devices, and use it as a normal device, but the experience will be much slower. So to answer your 3 questions:
1)It's firmware that only comes with certain phones, it's build to use perfectly the SoC and memory, so it's very specific (not generic like GSI)
2) Android One are phones, Android Go is the Android version. Your phone may or may not receive an update to the Next Android version, on that side it's the same as other phones. If it receives an update, you'll run (for example) Android 10 Go Version. So update exists for Android One phones, they won't stay for ever at the same Android version they had at the beginning.
3) when your phone won't be supported anymore, you won't be able to update your phone to another version of Android Go. You'll still be able to flash ROMs or stuff like that, but since Android Go builds are very specific to each devices, you can't flash them "cross devices".
PS: at the moment I've not heard of Android 10 Go Edition, it's still at Android 9 if I'm correct. But it will be updated, the goal of Android one is to support cheap and often not long lasting phone over time.
Read more here : https://www.android.com/versions/go-edition/

Millions of phones and tablets are obsolete because of sofware. Is there a way around?

Hi everyone.
Every year millions of phones and tablets are produced. Because hardware makers don't worry about updating them, those devices are often dumped. However, lots of them are very capable machines.
As I've read these forums for years, I've seen a lot of work from a lot of people trying to bring those forgotten devices to life again by making unofficial ROMs with tons of customization, new features, and great efforts like LineageOS and PostmarketOS. However, those lack the resources to bring an updated OS for the majority of those binned and obsolete phones.
If I'm not wrong, the biggest issue about replacing the original OS on those devices are the bootloaders and drivers/blobs for the large amount of different hardware configurations. There are multiple workarounds, shims, ports that solve those problems for one or other device.
It might be quite naive, but i'd like to ask a question I've been thinking about lately. AFAIK, if I have the blobs/drivers for a camera, wifi, bluetooth, GPS or other "peripheral" for a devices' original ROM running Android 4.4, I can make it work on AOSP 4.4. I know this might be crazy, but:
As long as I have the blobs for a certain chipset and display/touch, why can't we use a VM running a nano version of AOSP that matches the devices' original ROM that bridges the device IO to the main ROM?
As an example, imagine wifi. I could network bridge AOSP 9 to a VM running AOSP 4, which would then have the drivers so network would work. The same for bluetooth or camera or GPS, maybe? Is this absolutely unfeasible?
Thank you for your time!
wasserprojekt said:
Hi everyone.
Every year millions of phones and tablets are produced. Because hardware makers don't worry about updating them, those devices are often dumped. However, lots of them are very capable machines.
As I've read these forums for years, I've seen a lot of work from a lot of people trying to bring those forgotten devices to life again by making unofficial ROMs with tons of customization, new features, and great efforts like LineageOS and PostmarketOS. However, those lack the resources to bring an updated OS for the majority of those binned and obsolete phones.
If I'm not wrong, the biggest issue about replacing the original OS on those devices are the bootloaders and drivers/blobs for the large amount of different hardware configurations. There are multiple workarounds, shims, ports that solve those problems for one or other device.
It might be quite naive, but i'd like to ask a question I've been thinking about lately. AFAIK, if I have the blobs/drivers for a camera, wifi, bluetooth, GPS or other "peripheral" for a devices' original ROM running Android 4.4, I can make it work on AOSP 4.4. I know this might be crazy, but:
As long as I have the blobs for a certain chipset and display/touch, why can't we use a VM running a nano version of AOSP that matches the devices' original ROM that bridges the device IO to the main ROM?
As an example, imagine wifi. I could network bridge AOSP 9 to a VM running AOSP 4, which would then have the drivers so network would work. The same for bluetooth or camera or GPS, maybe? Is this absolutely unfeasible?
Thank you for your time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's sort of what project treble is.
Project Treble
The Android 8.0 release includes Project Treble, a major re-architect of the Android OS framework designed to make it easier, faster, and less costly for manufacturers to update devices to a new version of Android. Treble is for all new devices launching with Android 8.0 and beyond.
forum.xda-developers.com
I was reading about it and it seems like treble is not very seccessful. I imagine Google isn't very interested on this, as they want phones to be sold every year. Anyway, I was asking about this specific method of making phones and tablets compatible with today's OS or, who knows, even linux.
wasserprojekt said:
I was reading about it and it seems like treble is not very seccessful. I imagine Google isn't very interested on this, as they want phones to be sold every year. Anyway, I was asking about this specific method of making phones and tablets compatible with today's OS or, who knows, even linux.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes and the only way it might work is trebel. Because treble handles lot of the problems involved with booting newer androids on older systems.
You can run linux on older Androids or even Windows XP.
How to install a Linux desktop on your Android device
Get even more from your Android device by running a desktop OS! Lots of options including Debian (no root), Ubuntu, and Kali Linux.
www.androidauthority.com
Running Windows XP on Android
No rooting or custom modifications needed, we’re going to do this with stock Android and a few free (but high-quality) apps.
centerorbit.medium.com
Also, it's not that the OS gets deprecated, it's that the applications like Google Play services which become heavier as years go by.
Degoogled-Android on my Android ICS phone worked fine till it's screen got busted. With Google Play services, it was impossible to install any app since its paltry 400MB storage was extended/
Thanks for your answers!
Running other OSes via VNC is just meant to use the devices as mere thin clients, and that was not the objective.
The Project Treble will never be as widespread as it should be, because Google is obviously not interested in making phones last longer (they want more devices to be sold). Of course I was not talking about devices 10 years old, more about 5yrs. They have specs good enough to run contemporary Android and most of non-entertainment apps.
The obstacles to being able to do this are artificial. The problem is there are no drivers and project Treble does not address this in any meaningful way. Manufacturers aren't interested in this too because they want to sell more chips. So the only way it came to my mind it could work was by running a very light VM with an older Android for which the components' drivers were available. Of course main components would still have to be compatible with newer Android, such as the SOC. But things such as wi-fi, camera... could be bridged from a VM, I believe.
Not sure, but I'd guess the low-level interface would have to be outside the VM.
That is, to be able to run the VM you'd have to have some drivers already in place. I'm also not sure everything can be virtualized. For example, desktop VMs couldn't so easily passthru PCIe or USB to VMs, at least in the past.
There's some EU push to make fixing and servicing some non-phone devices easier, and to mandate labeling phones (and other devices) with repairability scores. Maybe eventually they could mandate, under certain conditions, the logical separation of hardware and software?
Well, after a long time, for those who where curious about this thread: the project Halium is exactly what was in my mind. If I'm not wrong, it basically consists in a minimal Android rom running on a Virtual Machine which then interfaces with any Linux distro, effectively giving the phone the ability to run a (more or less) updated version of Linux kernel and, therefore, many Linux distros. https://docs.halium.org/en/latest/project/Scope.html
hkjo said:
Not sure, but I'd guess the low-level interface would have to be outside the VM.
That is, to be able to run the VM you'd have to have some drivers already in place. I'm also not sure everything can be virtualized. For example, desktop VMs couldn't so easily passthru PCIe or USB to VMs, at least in the past.
There's some EU push to make fixing and servicing some non-phone devices easier, and to mandate labeling phones (and other devices) with repairability scores. Maybe eventually they could mandate, under certain conditions, the logical separation of hardware and software?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are right, and I believe Halium just works on phones which are minimally supported by Linux kernel drivers (like basic SoCs). But all those other hardware parts, like GPS, Wi-Fi, Camera... can be brought to life this way, I think.
Thanks for your insight!

Question I want to buy the Pixel 7 Pro, but my old DVR software doesn't work on new android

I bought my wife a Pixel 7. It's been great. I'd really like to upgrade from my Pixel 3XL to the Pixel 7 Pro, but I have multiple CCTV DVR's that I login to on old Android ROM's that I'd like to still be able to login to. The software is iMon2 and Hybix. Neither of which are supported on the latest Android OS. Last year, I tried installing the latest version of Android in the Pixel 3XL and then using TitaniumBackup to install the two DVR apps. iMon2 was so old, that I couldn't get it working on the latest version of Android then. So I'm confident it won't work on the latest version of Android now. I'm not sure about Hybix at this point. Are there any virtual ROM's like PC's have, where I could load Android 8 from within the latest version of Android, to run my DVR software? If not, any other ideas for getting it to work?
Why not just keep both phones? The old one for your dvr apps and the new one as your daily driver
The P7P doesn't run 32bit apps. If the DVR app doesn't support 64bit architecture, then it might be tough to get it to work. If you plan on rooting the phone, one of the developers here made a magisk module to bring back the ability to run 32bit apps. I haven't tried it, but it seems to be helping others: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/tutorial-magisk-enabling-32-bit-support-for-apps.4521029/unread
This DVR app might not be running for some other reason though. I don't know.
Is it that its a 32 bit application or is android 13 not supported?
If it's that it's a 32 bit application then either the magisk module posted already is an option or a custom rom like Corvus is an option as that allows 32 bit installations
I guess someone has to be the first abandoning the 32 bit era permanently and I'm OK with that.
It did cost me and additional 1500 euros to replace my old amp as the app needed to us it is not being ported to 64 bit. So switching to the p7/p can be an expensive affair if you can't or don't want to root and install the necessary framework....
I would bite the bullet and get a Pixel. Its only a, very short, matter of time when all Android phones will be 64bit only. Google advised app devs a while ago to update their apps to 64bit due to upcoming requirements.
dvrs are cheap and don't last long anyway.
time to upgrade those IMO . and get some more reliable brand. like hikvision, dahua etc

Categories

Resources