[Galaxy S III I9305 (4G LTE + 2GB RAM) Android Deve] scholbert:
Hi,

i'd like to share my de-bloated & lite arrangement for GT-I9305 with you and hope some of you may like it, or even find it useful!

It all started as an experiment... for personal use only :o

I used an early alpha release of this tweaked ROM (system size < 1GB) to test hardware functionality

and power consumption of one of my devices.

After a while i thought it might be useful for others as well.

Some more words about my intention:

I thought about a stable stock ROM which is as close as possible to the official release but more essential.

As it all started on an experimental base and was focused on best effort, i decided not to start from scratch.

Of course this would have been the more elegant way, but basic work had already been done.

So special thanks go out to kenar2 for dumping, deodexing, zip-aligning and prepare the KK stock ROM for CWM flashing.

A lot of research has been done to seperate the essential parts from the extra stuff.

In the end i stripped of all apps which are not needed for the basic features of the system (tons of MBytes).

Additionally i tried to reduce the background traffic and services to the bare minimum.

Some basic addons (mainly apps) then got implemented to make the ROM at least usable.

I decided to choose mostly open source and non-playstore apps (there are some exceptions though)

and remove Google as far as possible.

The rest is barely as is, so no tweaks at apk level... at least for now.

The ROM is quite stable and you should check it out, if you...

... want good battery life

... like reduced background processes

... like some of the stock goodies (WiFi direct, MHL (HDMI) support, NFC)

... always wanted a good base to implement your own features

... like minimalistic ROMs ;)

So here it is:

I9305XXUFNI3-DLite_V1

Size: 514 MB (539.169.629 Bytes)

MD5: bf481f11f7923f4c2f941a083700f587

- Based on kenar2's I9305XXUFNI3 KK 4.4.4

- Using kernel AGNi pureSTOCK V5.5 from psndna88

boot.img preconfigured and arranged by djb77 for TGP_I9305_XXUFNJ1_v20.20

UPDATE:

I created my own kernel based on psndna88 source branch pureSTOCK-I9305-4.4.4:

- applied offline charging patch

- removed f2fs support in config

- support for FTDI USB serial adaptors

- cleaned/shrinked down initrd

See attachment below!

Clean and mean... works very nice :victory:

- Implemented Superuser V2.45 from Chainfire

(formerly used GPL'd superuser from Koush, but unfortunately it's not ready for SElinux right now)

- Cleany removed KNOX (i don't use it)

- Removed Google apps and background services (not touching any jar files though, mainly for stability reason)

- Disabled and removed SetupWizard's at first boot (i don't need it)

- Added some open source apps mainly taken from http://f-droid.org

Firefox Version 35.0 (License: MPL2)

K-9 Mail Version 5.002 (License: Apache2)

Apollo Version 1.1 (License: Apache2)

Sound Recorder Version 1.0 (License: Apache2)

CM File Manager V1.0.2 taken from cm-11-20141030-NIGHTLY-i9305.zip (License: Apache2)

Hacker's Keyboard Version v1.37 (License: Apache2)

- I replaced Samsungs calendar app with a lightweight one, because I personally didn't like the look

of stock S-Planner and later versions are much too bloated.

Though my intention was to use open source apps, this one is simply the best and lightweight calendar app:

aCalendar V1.0.2 (Free version, Copyright Tapir Apps GmbH)

If you like a very basic calendar, look at f-droid.org again:

Standalone Calendar Version standalone-1.2 (License: Apache2)

Prerequisites:

- You'll need custom recovery installed first.

I recommend philz touch recovery 6.48.4 for i9305

Boot to recovery and do a clean wipe of cache and data partition.

Afterwards step to installation from external SDcard.

- If you're coming from an older version (e.g. 4.3) you'll need a KK modem firmware on your device to use this ROM.

I recommend I9305XXUFNI3 modem firmware to be installed before or directly after ROM has been written to flash.

Place the modem file and the ROM file on your SDcard and boot to recovery.

Get the modem files here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/djb-tgp/files/CWM_Flashables/Modems/4.4.4 Modems/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/amchaprojekt/files/Modems/

Credits go to djb77 and kenar2 again for distributing these files!

- The ROM should work independent of the bootloader version...

... but has only been tested with old bootloader yet.

So as always... i am not responsible for anything you do with your phone. Please keep that in mind!!

Known issues:

- As i did not tweak any apk or jar files so far, there are rare things in the settings that may stop the process.

E.g. setting notfication sound of non existing Samsung Apps, as there are Samsungs Email and S Planner.

(Maybe this will result in a TODO list, if there's time and energy to tweak apk's)

- I decided to remove SetupWizard2013 (Samsung) & SetupWizard (Google) and blocked the processes

from being started by setting the build.prop variable ro.setupwizard.mode=DISABLED

I'm not sure about any flaws, though there might be some side effects (see next two issues).

- At some point i realized that the multiwindow mode has no effect anymore

- The edit button of the notification panel (upper right corner) is not working anymore

- You may notice some messages in logcat from McDaemon stating: Failed to obtain version info Mobicore...

This is a know issue on deodexed stock ROMs:

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=43037197&postcount=9

Nfc payment will not work on deodex rom because of signature checks and looking for particular

odex and odex framework files.

(See 2nd post for a possible workaround)

Further advice:

- I really suggest to install VLC player from f-droid and check it out.

This app works pretty well and supports a lot of video formats.

It also serves video on an external monitor via MHL/HDMI!!

- Press the the menu button in the Data Usage settings and disable "auto sync data".

There's nothing to sync with and it will close some backup services running in background

- If you don't like background traffic or make the ROM even more "silent",

think about using a firewall like AFWall+ or restrict app access with Xposed+Xprivacy.

- You might easily encrypt email and files by using APG

Remark:

- There's nothing to worry about the pre-configured kernel image, but tweaking some of the init.*.rc files

would be a good thing to do :p.

- While using Koush's GPL'd Superuser i observed "Superuser granted to Shell" messages if an app is crashing.

Don't worry too much about it, the message will go away in a couple of seconds and i realized no strange issues.

From what i got so far is, that it might be related to kernel rights management or SElinux extension in specific.

https://github.com/nelenkov/cryptfs-password-manager/issues/5

- During testing i discovered a useful command to identify camera firmware.

On your dialer use *#34971539#

There are multiple threads covering secret codes already... i didn't knew this one before.

Further remarks:

- As Android "is" Google, it is not possible to block background traffic to Mountain View completely.

From time to time system apps use certain service ports to initiate transmissions.

I did not observe any Samsung related traffic anymore though.

Anyway, it was really interesting to observe the effects at certain milestones, while playing with this ROM.

- Users who like to share everything, like cloud services or like to sync all data with Google or Samsung,

should use another ROM.

- I don't like to disappoint you, but this ROM is only a shrinked down version of stock I9305XXUFNI3.

No blasting features, no extras, no special addons...

If you don't like it, tell me... but be polite.

If you like it, leave a comment or at least press thanks button!

O.k. enough talking.

CREDITS:

[MENTION=4320769]kenar2[/MENTION] for his great work and modded Stock ROMs

[MENTION=4280397]djb77[/MENTION] for some advice and also building awesome ROMs with a great user experience

[MENTION=4365701]psndna88[/MENTION] for his extensive work on AGNi kernel

[MENTION=631273]Chainfire[/MENTION] for developing a full featured Superuser

[MENTION=4666971]Phil3759[/MENTION] for his work on PhilZ Touch CWM Advanced Edition and providing this great tool

Contributers at f-droid in general and all the curious and openminded people here at XDA forum.

Have fun!

scholbert