[G Tablet Android Development] rajeevvp:
Jeebuz, indeed! Looks like no one here's understood the rationale behind the proposal. It's not about ROMs, or the devs, or about the birds, OK? It's just about the pros and cons of 2 different approaches to writing a new boot splash screen.

Look: if you guys want to change the boot splash image, go right ahead. Change it all you want; but, individually, and, as a choice. That's why I publicized that easy to use flash_image method in the first place. You can use other techniques now that we know the bootbmp partition can be written without nvflash:

1. You can use the CWM update.zip method. Create your own file. Share it. There is even a thread for custom boot logos.

2. You can use the flash_image command I gave previously.

3. Or, the devs can create a shell script (a la Roebeet's /system/etc/recovery.sh) which you can run right after an install to remove the birds.

4. You can even, with additional code, put up a dialog box which runs right after the initial setup screens which asks "Do you want to get rid of the birds? [Yes / No]".

5. If you don't like using the command line at all, then it's not terribly difficult to create a separate app which clobbers the hated birds.

6. One can even go whole hog and write a full-blown image editor/converter where you can cut/crop/resize/reconvert any image you want and then write it as a new boot splash .bmp.

On the other hand, if the ROM installation script writes the splash screen then you have these problems:

1. Every time the ROM is installed, updated or re-installed, you will be writing the same blocks on the bootbmp partition of the NAND flash. Every NAND page can typically only be written/erased about a 1000 times before it degrades. YAFFS2 and other NAND flash filesystems make sure that no individual page comes close to that number by spreading the writes across pages.

2. And, if the splash screen that comes with the ROM is not what you like, then you have to write another .bmp after every install, update or re-install of the ROM. So you have more unnecessary writes--in addition to the irritation of re-writing your favourite one in each case.

3. If all the other ROMs here also wrote their own boot splash screens, then the situation quickly becomes untenable. Any time you switch ROMs, you might get a splash screen that you don't like. Those are even more writes.

A much more sensible approach is to have none of the ROMs install a new splash screen during install. Instead, provide a separate update.zip file which can be flashed right after the main ROM install is done. This way there is only one write to the NAND--when really needed. In fact, this approach has already been mooted. See post #775.

Simple enough to understand, right?

Not exactly what "from scratch" usually means then, is it? Still, that's OK, the description makes it clear that the situation is pretty much what I'd pegged it to be.

Eh? I didn't say anything about your or Nobe's ROMs--themed, mod, stock or whatever else. And, I wasn't talking about nvflash changing the boot image either--that's unavoidable. I was talking about the ROM installation script doing it. See discussion above.

See Jedi: we were talking about the merits of a rather simple technical proposal, not a Last Stand at the Alamo For The Sake of More-Options-and-Make-Things-Better. If you have any non-emotional, rational reason why installing a boot bitmap as part of every ROM install is better than doing it separately from it, then let's hear it. Otherwise, you're just inciting unwarranted rebellion instead of bringing peace to the Republic with that kind of hyperbolic rhetoric.