[Fascinate Android Development] djp952:
OK, loyal GeeWiz bretheren ... I present to you a PREVIEW release of the long-teased GeeWiz 3 Player (or JellyWiz or Fascinexus or whatever you want to call it!)

[HA - you forgot how verbose I can be? READ ON! LOL]

This is an AOSP Jelly Bean [JRO03L] Wifi-Only ROM/Kernel for the Verizon Fascinate. There is no voice/data/3G support. The build itself is the same that I use for my Verizon Galaxy Nexus, so the included applications mirror that of what you find on the stock Galaxy Nexus, just without anything that uses NFC or the front-facing camera.

The intention of this ROM is to increase the functional life of the Verizon Fascinate beyond it's usage as a 3G cellular device. The Fascinate is about 2 years old now, so most people's contracts are up and will be (or already) have moved onto another phone. The Fascinate is still an excellent piece of hardware that is capable of serving as a media player.

Unlike the lionshare of ICS/JB ROMs for the Fascinate, this is based on the original device file system design (called BML), just like GeeWiz Froyo and Gingerbread were. So it's mandatory that you are either running stock or a stock-like setup (GeeWiz counts) before you install this. I have implemented the "DBDATA" volume similarly to how Samsung did it to keep the device performance as good as possible. It benchmarks very similarly to Gingerbread.

The ROM/Kernel must be used together; you cannot replace the kernel with another one. In order to maintain the stock-like file system and volume layouts, I had to (heavily) modify the GeeWiz 2.8 (Linux 2.6) kernel. Kernels based on Linux 3.x will not work, nor will any other Linux 2.6-based kernels. Sorry.

Known issues:

- No support for device encryption

- Camera is a trainwreck. No flash, previews are out of focus, 720p video recording isn't great, face detect (disabled) crashes. Just avoid it.

- Customized INSTALLD is missing some hacks for DBDATA, none of which seem to be necessary

- Android "ATRACE" support does not work (traces in Developer Options); this requires some additional kernel changes

- Bluetooth Low Power mode is not enabled; not sure what the impact to battery life is

- CPU usage with screen on and otherwise idle is still around 2-4% due to "events/0" process. I would like to reduce that further.

- Google Service Framework loses it mind if you flash anything after it's been set up (common problem not specific to this ROM). If your Wifi indicator never turns blue and you can't get into Play Store or browse web sites, clear data on Google Service Framework and reboot.

- USB Mass Storage mode seems to cause some issues with the device coming out of sleep (message about SystemUI not responding); have not looked into this yet

Notable Features

- Jelly Bean JRO03L with Galaxy Nexus application suite

- Stock volume/partition support, including DBDATA. RFS and EXT4 are supported on all volumes.

- Samsung support replaced with standard Android Mass Storage support; all the weird devices (CD-ROM/Kies) have been removed

- Custom power-button screen options (Reboot/Recovery/Download/Safe Mode)

- Full support for Fascinate Desk Dock audio (and probably Car Dock too) -- enable in Settings/Dock

- Dock Audio treated as a true USB Audio device, enabling automatic switching on/off when docked

- GeeWiz Kernel updated to have some over/underclocking features and better governors -- enable in Settings/Advanced

- Unique (I think) option to allow control over the maximum battery charge and how much discharge is required before a still-plugged-in device will start recharging again. The concept is to lengthen the lifespan of our aging batteries for a device that may very well just sit on a charger all day long for weeks on end!

Prerequisites

- You must be on a stock or stock-like setup, such as GeeWiz 2.8. If you are running an "MTD" ROM, you must revert your device back to stock before you can install this package. Please refer to the instructions provided by the ROM author.

- You need a recovery in place, GeeWiz 2.8 Recovery is fine, that's what I use. I didn't try Clockworkmod, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.

- You MUST wipe data before installing this package if you are coming from any other ROM! SDCARD should be ok as-is.

- You agree to not ask me for any damn battery meter mods at least until this has a top-level thread of it's own, OK?

If you don't understand any of the pre-requisites or how to implement them, please wait until I can complete a non-preview release and create a top-level thread for this ROM. It's buried in here for a reason :)

Performance seems OK to me, not spectacular, as is the battery life. I am extremely interested in your thoughts and impressions!

NOTE: I strongly recommend letting the device "settle" after you first install the ROM, there are a lot of things that go on after you wipe data and frankly this device was never designed for Jelly Bean. I've observed it takes a fair amount of time and a couple reboots for it to really calm down and perform as well as it should. It's really quite disappointing at first, but trust me - it improves. You can tinker with the new CPU options in Settings/Advanced too -- I suggest trying out the "SmartAss V2" governor, but I still prefer "OnDemand" as the default!

So, go through setup, update the core apps, get a cup of coffee or a beer (or even perhaps a spot of tea or strawberry milk), reboot it. It will work better afterwards :)

Alright, enough of my incessant djp-babble already ...

GeeWiz 3 Player Preview JRO03L.20120912.133503 [update-zip]: (UPDATED: Does not include Google Earth)

http://www.mediafire.com/file/28s6exw86gg12sl/full_atlas-rom-20120912.133503.zip