[Moto G Original Android Development] wskelly:
Thanks [MENTION=3816475]matmutant[/MENTION] for adding that.

Ethan's response concerns me a bit.

Here is the situation:

Everything was working fine.

Suddently, this screen flicker issue comes up. (introduced by kernel?)

Solution -- update bootloader?

The bootloader 0x4113 (what I have on my 1st gen Falcon) -- is that guaranteed superceded by 0x4118 or 0x4119? Who guaranteed that?

Where did 0x4118 and 0x4119 come from? They came from OTA updates -- but to my knowledge there *isn't* an Android 5 OTA for the 1st gen Falcon yet? At least not for everyone?

I don't like the assert in there, it is pushing people to update the bootloader, and now they're finding they can't go back. If there is not a technical reason to update it, it is not necessary. And I also don't like the response that we will ignore bug reports if you don't have this bootloader update. My initial thought is that response is complete nonsense, and it could be actually HURTING development.

Maybe we should discuss what the bootloader does -- here is a great intro, everyone should read, depending on your interest:

Simple:

http://stackoverflow.com/tags/bootloader/info

Medium:

http://www.aleph1.co.uk/boot-loader-responsibilities

Complex:

https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/arm/Booting

So let's say that because of this assert, hundreds of people are actually updating their phone with a bootloader that was never intended for their hardware. But CM says that the official one is 0x4118 or 0x4119, but they don't actually know why. And let's be honest, when was the last time Falcon had a stable or snapshot build from CM? A long damn time ago. So forgive me if I have questions when a new nightly is released that suddenly demands a new bootloader install. And the new bootloader that is being demanded is from test builds, something that was never released for the masses by Motorola, right?

Moto has decided that 1st gen Moto G will go straight for Android 5.1. How timely, these stories are dated with today's date:

http://www.droid-life.com/2015/04/0...d-moto-e-all-jumping-straight-to-android-5-1/

http://www.androidcentral.com/first-generation-moto-x-e-and-g-lte-will-be-updated-kitkat-android-51

So perhaps updating the bootloader from what Moto released FOR TESTING is a bad idea. We don't really know.

It would be more likely to use THAT bootloader when it is officially released by Moto, vs. a bootloader that was released OTA for TESTING.

But hey, CM says that's the official one -- even though Moto never said it was. WTF?

---------- Post added at 01:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:01 AM ----------

No, not really. There are different *recovery* images depending on GB, ICS, or JB, due to different filesystems and locations of things within Android. But not necessarily a different bootloader. I can't think of a reason for this. A bootloader MAY allocate more flash space to fit the kernel, but it doesn't really need to change because of Android. Remember that Anroid runs *on top of* Linux.

The bootloader defines the hardware and loads the OS. Since the hardware hasn't changed there isn't a reason to change the bootloader. Not unless there was a mistake in the bootloader to begin with, but then it would affect all released versions of the phone.