D/\SH
11-14-2009, 11:43 PM
flipz(mode) and freshlyill are proud to release: Fresh Rom for CDMA HTC Hero (Sprint) 0.6b! A black friday special.
I am testing out using my blog as a place to announce my releases. It’s quite a bit more organized than the message boards and allows me to quickly update information. I plan to have more information here than the message boards themselves so that every time I update I don’t have to make changes across multiple sites.
[Home Page (http://geekfor.me/)] [Downloads (http://geekfor.me/category/downloads/)] [FAQ (http://geekfor.me/category/faq/)] [Fixes (http://geekfor.me/category/fixes/)] [Known Issues (http://geekfor.me/category/known-issues/)] [News (http://geekfor.me/category/news/)]
Special thanks to all the beta testers. From xda: diesel556, dom2114, watzone69, dagnasty, n0j, mirrorsecond, jaybob413, evening newbs (still waiting on your slow internet lol). And from ppcgeeks: thacounty, athlet1c, ruskiyab, shongboy.
Base: Hero_C_Sprint_1.56.651.1_signed_release (Sprint MR Update)
Tested with: recovery-RA-heroc-v1.2.3
In this release (0.6b) 11/27/09:
This is a minor update that adds freshlyill's theme (fresh water) and a couple of smaller things. If you don't care about anything in the change log then there is no need to get the full update. If you only want to check out the theme then you can grab it here. Also check out the poll on the download page to let us know what you think about the theme being integrated.
Added: Fresh Water theme - View screen shots and more info here.
Added: The themed APK's are optimized and zipaligned to speed up load times and cut down on required storage space.
Added: Screen animations. These are the same ones that are included in other packs. It gives you the "bouncing" between screens more like an iphone rather than the default "slide" that our phone has. Turn them on or off in: Settings < Sound and display < Animation
Added: Astro file manager - I added this because we lack any type of decent file manager that comes stock and I got tired of having to download one every time I did a restore. Astro is an amazing file manager that is free but is in beta and expires at the end of December. By that time I will include a new beta or will change which file manager is included. Check it out, it has a lot of cool features.
Coming soon: Modified and optimized kernel
Maybe coming soon: A stripped down sense-free version.
Download Link: http://geekfor.me/new-release/fresh-rom-06b/
Theme only (with screen shots) : http://geekfor.me/downloads/fresh-water/
http://geekfor.me/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/01-200x300.pnghttp://geekfor.me/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/05-200x300.pnghttp://geekfor.me/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/03-200x300.pnghttp://geekfor.me/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/02-200x300.png
Changes / notes / observations about Sprint update:
- Stock messaging app works. No wake lock on outbound text. But it seems so plain now. Haha.
- HTC's weather seems to be working a lot better. Updates more often.
- Some people complained that apps they could get from the market place before could no longer be seen. I haven't experienced this issue but it's likely caused by the market place not recognizing the new fingerprint. I imagine the problem will be resolved for everyone.
- All stock .apk and .odex files had some type of modification or check digit added to them during the update. I tried putting the old ones back on just to test and was getting force closes. So beware of putting any modified stock apk's back on (like Rosie) until they get re-done.
Flashing this rom should keep all of your personal settings and should not wipe anything but you are doing it at your own risk. I make no promises on what may happen to your device and your data. This also means that unlike winmo, it's not going to look different after you flash. It will look just as it was before hand.
Requirements:
A rooted CDMA HTC Hero by Sprint. RA's recovery loaded on. If you have any questions on that then please visit one of the other various threads on here about how to root your phone.
How to use it:
0. Create a nandroid backup!
1. Copy this rom (do not unzip) to the root of your sdcard using one of the various methods.
2. Go to the recovery program by either typing "reboot recovery" from an adb shell or by powering off the phone and holding Home while you power it on.
3. Scroll down to "Apply sdcard: choose zip" and select the zipped rom. Press the home button to confirm you want to write it.
4. After it finishes (takes several minutes) click "Reboot system now".
Background:
We are both new to Android development having recently switched from Windows Mobile phones. This is our first release. The current goal is to make a rom (from a clean image of stock RUU) that is optimized and stripped of unneeded items. In this case that is mostly going to consists of the Sprint applications that take up space and the HTC apps that like to constantly launch themselves in the background. If we took out anything that you like then they can be added back in manually. We'll provide more instructions and possibly some app packs later to help you with that. I personally would have stripped Rosie (senseui) but freshlyill likes it too much. :-p . I will likely release an ultra-light version that removes it.
What this rom isn't:
This was my blurb talking about how this rom doesn't fix HTC's issues (like the sms/battery issue) but those should be resolved now with the new base.
Bugs? Questions? Comments? Ideas? Please post here. Special thanks to MoDaCo for putting the first CDMA rom out there.
Resolving some issues
1) After upgrading to 0.5d I have root but my apps that require root won't work.
Looks like I packaged the wrong su with 0.5d. My fault! If you need root apps then you will need to re-root. Please check any of the various threads to do that. But other than that 0.5d is safe to upgrade to. I'll fix it in the next one.
---------------------------------------------------
And my rant about apps2sd:
**My note about Apps2SD: I added support for it in this release of the rom because people who were using it in other roms that tried to install this rom were receiving errors. Here's my point of view on it.
I played with it for over 8 hours today between implementing it and then testing it to make sure this fix would work. I have personally come to not like apps2sd, but I am including it for those who use it.
The reason I don't like it is because it puts your phone at a huge risk of having problems once anything goes wrong. If you install a program that causes issues, a nandroid backup will not resolve the issue because the application is installed on your SD card not your phone. If your phone starts going crazy as reported here and here, then even just a restore possibly won't fix it. You might need to go as far as to wipe your SD card too. If you are lucky enough to have a restore fix your problems you will still need to reinstall every app, even if you didn't wipe your card. And on top of that when you try to reinstall any app it will think it's still installed, even though you restored your phone. But when you click "uninstall" it will just freeze half the time because there's nothing on the phone for it to actually install. I have also read many threads that say if you happen to boot the phone up without the SD card in then it will screw everything up.
So now maybe you are wondering why I would add Apps2SD support in this rom. In order for people who are currently using Apps2SD to upgrade to this rom I must support it or require them to do a hard reset before coming to fresh. Clearly I don't want you to have to reset so I have supported it. With that said: I personally recommend not using it. This rom will auto-use it if your SD card is formatted for it (fat32+ext2+swap partitions) but it won't use it if you are only partitioned as 1 fat32. My suggestion is to stick to the 1 partition and let your applications install on the phone. Linux is not like Windows in the sense that it will run the same whether you phone has 140 megs free of storage space or 10 megs free. So unless you plan on installing 100 apps, I don't see the practical purposes of using Apps2SD. But a lot of people like it.
Now with all of THAT said -- this rom officially has and supports Apps2SD. It is a program that I think has the possibility of being great, but has to work within the confines of the phone which means tricking Android in to thinking that the applications are installed on the phone when they aren't. That is what leads to all the problems mentioned above.
I am testing out using my blog as a place to announce my releases. It’s quite a bit more organized than the message boards and allows me to quickly update information. I plan to have more information here than the message boards themselves so that every time I update I don’t have to make changes across multiple sites.
[Home Page (http://geekfor.me/)] [Downloads (http://geekfor.me/category/downloads/)] [FAQ (http://geekfor.me/category/faq/)] [Fixes (http://geekfor.me/category/fixes/)] [Known Issues (http://geekfor.me/category/known-issues/)] [News (http://geekfor.me/category/news/)]
Special thanks to all the beta testers. From xda: diesel556, dom2114, watzone69, dagnasty, n0j, mirrorsecond, jaybob413, evening newbs (still waiting on your slow internet lol). And from ppcgeeks: thacounty, athlet1c, ruskiyab, shongboy.
Base: Hero_C_Sprint_1.56.651.1_signed_release (Sprint MR Update)
Tested with: recovery-RA-heroc-v1.2.3
In this release (0.6b) 11/27/09:
This is a minor update that adds freshlyill's theme (fresh water) and a couple of smaller things. If you don't care about anything in the change log then there is no need to get the full update. If you only want to check out the theme then you can grab it here. Also check out the poll on the download page to let us know what you think about the theme being integrated.
Added: Fresh Water theme - View screen shots and more info here.
Added: The themed APK's are optimized and zipaligned to speed up load times and cut down on required storage space.
Added: Screen animations. These are the same ones that are included in other packs. It gives you the "bouncing" between screens more like an iphone rather than the default "slide" that our phone has. Turn them on or off in: Settings < Sound and display < Animation
Added: Astro file manager - I added this because we lack any type of decent file manager that comes stock and I got tired of having to download one every time I did a restore. Astro is an amazing file manager that is free but is in beta and expires at the end of December. By that time I will include a new beta or will change which file manager is included. Check it out, it has a lot of cool features.
Coming soon: Modified and optimized kernel
Maybe coming soon: A stripped down sense-free version.
Download Link: http://geekfor.me/new-release/fresh-rom-06b/
Theme only (with screen shots) : http://geekfor.me/downloads/fresh-water/
http://geekfor.me/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/01-200x300.pnghttp://geekfor.me/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/05-200x300.pnghttp://geekfor.me/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/03-200x300.pnghttp://geekfor.me/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/02-200x300.png
Changes / notes / observations about Sprint update:
- Stock messaging app works. No wake lock on outbound text. But it seems so plain now. Haha.
- HTC's weather seems to be working a lot better. Updates more often.
- Some people complained that apps they could get from the market place before could no longer be seen. I haven't experienced this issue but it's likely caused by the market place not recognizing the new fingerprint. I imagine the problem will be resolved for everyone.
- All stock .apk and .odex files had some type of modification or check digit added to them during the update. I tried putting the old ones back on just to test and was getting force closes. So beware of putting any modified stock apk's back on (like Rosie) until they get re-done.
Flashing this rom should keep all of your personal settings and should not wipe anything but you are doing it at your own risk. I make no promises on what may happen to your device and your data. This also means that unlike winmo, it's not going to look different after you flash. It will look just as it was before hand.
Requirements:
A rooted CDMA HTC Hero by Sprint. RA's recovery loaded on. If you have any questions on that then please visit one of the other various threads on here about how to root your phone.
How to use it:
0. Create a nandroid backup!
1. Copy this rom (do not unzip) to the root of your sdcard using one of the various methods.
2. Go to the recovery program by either typing "reboot recovery" from an adb shell or by powering off the phone and holding Home while you power it on.
3. Scroll down to "Apply sdcard: choose zip" and select the zipped rom. Press the home button to confirm you want to write it.
4. After it finishes (takes several minutes) click "Reboot system now".
Background:
We are both new to Android development having recently switched from Windows Mobile phones. This is our first release. The current goal is to make a rom (from a clean image of stock RUU) that is optimized and stripped of unneeded items. In this case that is mostly going to consists of the Sprint applications that take up space and the HTC apps that like to constantly launch themselves in the background. If we took out anything that you like then they can be added back in manually. We'll provide more instructions and possibly some app packs later to help you with that. I personally would have stripped Rosie (senseui) but freshlyill likes it too much. :-p . I will likely release an ultra-light version that removes it.
What this rom isn't:
This was my blurb talking about how this rom doesn't fix HTC's issues (like the sms/battery issue) but those should be resolved now with the new base.
Bugs? Questions? Comments? Ideas? Please post here. Special thanks to MoDaCo for putting the first CDMA rom out there.
Resolving some issues
1) After upgrading to 0.5d I have root but my apps that require root won't work.
Looks like I packaged the wrong su with 0.5d. My fault! If you need root apps then you will need to re-root. Please check any of the various threads to do that. But other than that 0.5d is safe to upgrade to. I'll fix it in the next one.
---------------------------------------------------
And my rant about apps2sd:
**My note about Apps2SD: I added support for it in this release of the rom because people who were using it in other roms that tried to install this rom were receiving errors. Here's my point of view on it.
I played with it for over 8 hours today between implementing it and then testing it to make sure this fix would work. I have personally come to not like apps2sd, but I am including it for those who use it.
The reason I don't like it is because it puts your phone at a huge risk of having problems once anything goes wrong. If you install a program that causes issues, a nandroid backup will not resolve the issue because the application is installed on your SD card not your phone. If your phone starts going crazy as reported here and here, then even just a restore possibly won't fix it. You might need to go as far as to wipe your SD card too. If you are lucky enough to have a restore fix your problems you will still need to reinstall every app, even if you didn't wipe your card. And on top of that when you try to reinstall any app it will think it's still installed, even though you restored your phone. But when you click "uninstall" it will just freeze half the time because there's nothing on the phone for it to actually install. I have also read many threads that say if you happen to boot the phone up without the SD card in then it will screw everything up.
So now maybe you are wondering why I would add Apps2SD support in this rom. In order for people who are currently using Apps2SD to upgrade to this rom I must support it or require them to do a hard reset before coming to fresh. Clearly I don't want you to have to reset so I have supported it. With that said: I personally recommend not using it. This rom will auto-use it if your SD card is formatted for it (fat32+ext2+swap partitions) but it won't use it if you are only partitioned as 1 fat32. My suggestion is to stick to the 1 partition and let your applications install on the phone. Linux is not like Windows in the sense that it will run the same whether you phone has 140 megs free of storage space or 10 megs free. So unless you plan on installing 100 apps, I don't see the practical purposes of using Apps2SD. But a lot of people like it.
Now with all of THAT said -- this rom officially has and supports Apps2SD. It is a program that I think has the possibility of being great, but has to work within the confines of the phone which means tricking Android in to thinking that the applications are installed on the phone when they aren't. That is what leads to all the problems mentioned above.