[Miscellaneous Android Development] steadfasterX:
Questions & Answers

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

(in no special order)

Question #1: Is CM or pure AOSP (or similar) for this device available now?

No. Not AFAIK. If you find some please tell me! But afaik I'm the only one working on that port so if you find someone or you want to help by yourself please send me a PM!!!

I currently trying to port CM to this device and as I'm doing that alone and the whole process is very complex this is nothing you can do in 2 weeks or so.

Question #2: When will be CM or pure AOSP or similar available?

When it is ready. Sorry but for this no timeline can be made. I will update the OP from time to time so come back often to check if there are any news.

Question #3: Why are you doing this?

Well .. the main reason is I want to have an absolutely fully localized (German) Android for my wife. Yes it's that simple. There are plenty of apps who can switch the language in many dialogs but all LG ones (like settings, power menu etc) are all still English.

The following may harm you but the F3Q is not a device

I

would buy for

myself

. I do not really like it's design, it has more weight and height than my current one (Samsung i927). Ok not all is that bad: What I really like is the physical keyboard which is much more better than from the i927..

Nevertheless I own a F3Q since a while because the community sponsored one to me which makes it possible for me to continue developing for this phone. Otherwise I had stopped that at the time where my wife used her F3Q productive.

The other reasons are:

There are problems here in Germany regarding the reception: 3G (or better) is not possible (but it should be from the point of technical specs).

Besides that the displayed information about the speed seems to be wrong in some cases but that is another story..

Last but not least the problem of overfilled storage makes me mad (well in fact makes my wife mad but well that makes me mad then). There is always to less even with tricks like moving apps etc.

So in short: I want to be able to fix problems who are annoying me/my wife.

Question #4: I have bought the phone and need to unlock it (service provider lock, network lock, ...) now. How to do that?

Well there are thousands of services out there who offers unlocking and no guarantees wherever you go.

Just 1 thing before you read on:

I'm not responsible if the mentioned site doesn't work for you! For

me

it had worked but there are no guarantees out there in the evil internet ocean...!

The following describes my personal experiences with those services only. No guarantees no responsibilities no whatever.

I have tested 2 of them:

The first one is a "free" service named www.unlockphone.me.

Free means first of all: WAIT. As an example my request have this as the waiting time:

1027 people are in queue in front of you. 2 weeks, 3days, 10hrs, 14min remaining until you will receive your CODE

The service itself is free but as I do not wanted to wait such long I donated to them 10$ to receive the code more quickly.

Result: Well I got a code but is was not working. I send them 4 mails - never received any answer. Bad luck. That is what I mentioned above. No guarantees. Well you could try it on your own - at least the free one without a donation - and see what happens for you. It's may worth the try.

.

The second one was fine. To be sure: I do not own the following service or get anything for pointing there but I have used them 2 times and at least the service provider lock could be unlocked both times successfully. The first time used they unlocked for $2 CAD (November 2014) and today (April 2015) they unlocked for $7,50 CAD.. Well it still seems to be a reasonable price (at least for me).

freemyblackberry.com

I filled in the following:

Brand = LG

Carrier/Country = USA / T-Mobile

Model = LG Optimus F3Q

When you have received your code (the one way or the other):

if you do not see the unlock screen already type in the following in the dialer: 2945#*520#

in the displayed menu choose the type of unlock you want to do (in my case it was service provider locked so I choosen that)

type in the received unlock code (for my case the freemyblackberry named it SPCK)

the phone may reboot now automatically

enjoy. :cool:

Question #5: What can I do to help?

I thought you would never ask! :victory:

The first one EVERYONE can do even when no programming skills is: Use the "Thanks" button. :good:

This is simple, easy and can be done very quickly. This will not speed up anything of course but it keeps me motivating because it shows me that you like what I do.

.

The second one EVERYONE can do is to participate in beta testing versions.

From time to time I release a new Kernel or TWRP version or some day a CM version. If you want to help you should do that by installing those beta versions (if one is available) and telling me about the good and bad of it.

This needs always a full backup and you may need to restore things afterwards but I'm here to assist you as far as I can.

.

The third one is not for everyone: helping to port.

That means going to the steps of CM porting guide and downloading the LGE sources and cloning my git repos. Get in contact with me before so you use an uptodate repo like the device tree etc.

This one would be the biggest effort but it is the most time consuming. At least for the full port.

If you "only" want to help partly

like making TWRP better or helping with Kernel development it will be much much easier because those both are already fully working and

you can start with fixing things instead of try&error

!

That said Option 3 here is the only option if you really want to speed up the process!

.

The last one I can think of is donating, of course. I do not beg for money here - it is simply one of the available options.

One thing about this is important: a donation is much much more motivating then the mentioned "Thanks" click but you also will not speed up anything (Ok you would speed up things when the donation is about 10.000 € or more ;) haha)!

But seriously: I do all that in my free time atm and that means I need to cut out time somewhere else from RL. This is not a problem for me and if you donate or not I will continue until I reached my personal goal.

That simply means that it will take much more time than doing it full time. The only other option would be developing in the normal work hours which means not earning money here for this time. So there needs to be a balance for if I would do that. That said there will be times where I can work on it and may times not for weeks. It depends.

Question #6: What is that "adb" thing?

adb stands for: Android Debug Bridge and can help a lot when it comes to work with your device. It is not for developers only but they use it a lot of course.

But a normal user can use this to exchange files without the need of mounting, backing up the device, reboot the device and use it as a very comfortable way of having a terminal emulator.

.

Normally adb itself is not available as a standalone application - it comes with the Android SDK which is very big and heavy if you want to use adb and/or fastboot (another great tool) only.

But we live in a great world with many people wanting to make things easy so here you go when you want/need only adb and fastboot:

download & install adb [MENTION=369801]lifehacker[/MENTION]

Question #7: How can I find the LG Hidden Service Menu (STOCK)?

Normally you will not need this! But you may want to enable the USB DIAG mode if you're a developer or you simply want to make your phone unusable ;) - so here we go:

As usual: Use on your own risk!

or simply by typing the following in the dialer: