[Galaxy S 4 Active Original Android Development] killkillkill:
I don't have a GS4A, of any kind...

However......

this is not rocket science.

If the rom is installing too fast, then it means one of three things;

1) Its bypassing the whole install process,

2) Its failing to install (i.e., to a place that is readonly),

3) Its installing to an unexpected place, like ramdisk. Any installs to ramdisk will be wickedly fast.

The key is to look at the updater-script. Its a very simple text file that checks a few things, mount, umount, format, mount, extract, etc.

This is the top part of the updater-script from cm-10.2:

assert(getprop("ro.product.device") == "jactive" || getprop("ro.build.product") == "jactive" ||
getprop("ro.product.device") == "jactivelte" || getprop("ro.build.product") == "jactivelte" ||
getprop("ro.product.device") == "jactiveltexx" || getprop("ro.build.product") == "jactiveltexx");
mount("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/system", "/system");
package_extract_file("system/bin/backuptool.sh", "/tmp/backuptool.sh");
package_extract_file("system/bin/backuptool.functions", "/tmp/backuptool.functions");
set_perm(0, 0, 0777, "/tmp/backuptool.sh");
set_perm(0, 0, 0644, "/tmp/backuptool.functions");
run_program("/tmp/backuptool.sh", "backup");
unmount("/system");
show_progress(0.500000, 0);
format("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/system", "0", "/system");
mount("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/system", "/system");
package_extract_dir("system", "/system");

The last line of what I included there will be the line that takes a while.

Now this is the same section from the updater-script of the "googleedition" rom:

ui_print("*******************************************");
ui_print("* Installing Google Edition for GT-I9295! *");
ui_print("*******************************************");
ui_print("* created by jamal2367 *");
ui_print("* ported by Darkman *");
ui_print("*******************************************");
ui_print("-- Mounting System");
mount("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p27", "/preload");
delete_recursive("/preload");
mount("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p18", "/cache");
delete_recursive("/cache");
mount("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p29", "/data");
delete_recursive("/data/dalvik-cache");;
mount("ext4", "EMMC", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p16", "/system");
delete_recursive("/system");
ui_print("-- Writing System");
package_extract_dir("system", "/system");
package_extract_dir("data", "/data");

Notice anything different between the two?

1) The google-edition installer has no "assert" line. The assert line checks that the device being installed to matches the expected devices. If it doesn't match, it will exit the installer without doing anything. So what happens if this occurs? Well, you'll have an active rom-slot with nothing IN it. Boot off of a nothing and you get a nothing.

2) It differs in the way that it identifies the partition to be installed to. /dev/block/mmcblk0p16 vs /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/system. Is the SS recovery able to identify it properly in both ways? If it doesn't mount the target, then it will be trying to install to a readonly filesystem or possibly a ramdisk.

3) The CM installer does a FORMAT on the filesystem, whereas the google-edition installer does a recursive delete.

If you really want to play around with this, I suggest working on the updater-script.

Now here is another possible, MAJOR problem; even if you get it to install correctly, there is a good possibility that it still won't be able to run. The problem is that the userspace and kernel need to get along. If they don't, then there is really no telling what is going wrong.

As for the install sizes;

CM-10.2 wants to install just less than 350 MB to the /system partition. Google-edition is 620 MB. Figure that it should take about HALF the time to install CM.