yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xulture:
Android uses Linux Kernel (written in C and C++) and its own big list of bits and pieces, some borrowed from other open source projects, others written from scratch. I'd guess that overall half of the code is c/c++ and other half in java. With some 10-20% in assembly (which is the pain in the neck for us because our cpu is one version down from the cpu instruction set Android uses as a base -- eg they use armv5te, our phone is armv4t, most new phones support armv7te instruction sets, however, android doesn't make use of those instructions yet).

Common sense, passion for hacking, and ability to make 'hello world' app in any language are the most important skills. (Experienced guy may spend 1hr on the task that a newcomer with those skills may take 20hr to do, but that's how you gain experience anyway).
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ydanila:
I found module sourcecode for OmniVision ov2640 here. I want to make some experiments with module params to make barcode readable.

But lsmod returns no module ov2640_reg thats info exists in /proc/driver/

As I understood this module static linked? How I could change module params?
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] annoynimouse:
> and other half in java

not even java, as far as i understand

java is not merely language but aso huge RTL and portable VM

Dalvik replaces both JVM and RTL, though takes the language itself.

It no more Java than C++ would be C++ without stdio, stdlib, etc ;-)
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jbetro:
Does this mean option can be added to the current camera program? Cause it's kinda ridiculous we can't adjust the contrast or brightness.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Ninja WOW:
Can some one help me. I want to do tethering with sciphone N19

Hello my friend I want to do terhering with my sciphone N19

I instal the official upgrade and the tethering aplication.

When I push tethering It says "No net filter" your kernel dont have the necesarry features to tun this application"

You know Where I can find the kernel I need. Or who can develop for me
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xulture:
eclair build

hey guys, just to let you know, eclair build is coming along slowly.

the phone now boots, we're successfully using a file on sd card mounted as /system, so no need to partition your card anymore. This should make update process very simple.

there are still quite a few things to do before it would be usable. Biggest stumbling block at the moment is that the touch screen doesn't respond, so we can't actually check what else is broken (looking at the top status, seems that sim card / radio isn't recognised either). Keypad works, display works, phone boots, adb works, mounting of the drives (/data from internal memory and /system from loop device off of /sdcard/system.img). There are some hacks to get /data/app and /data/dalvik-cache symlinked to /system/data/app and /system/data/dalvik-cache, so there is actually more space to use for the apps.

progress is tracked at http://code.google.com/p/custom-android-sciphone-n19/wiki/Porting#Eclair_Port

If you're keen on compiling android, and have a linux (32bit) box for it, please feel free to download android source, then the stuff off google code, and get going.

cheers,

Sasha
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] lotsofish:
This is good news. Thanks for your hard work. I haven't had a chance to try compiling from source or mess around with changing the phone around lately. I am using 64bit Linux and I am able to get Android 1.5 (not with the N19 patch) to compile, but I had to make some mods to the code to take care of some errors. I might try grabbing the 2.1 code, adding the N19 patch and see what happens. I am using the phone as my main phone now though, so loading on a new version that doesn't work means I also have to have enough time to get the working version back on and everything reconfigured. I hope to help out where I can.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] raul315:
N19 cellular network connectivity issue

Hi,

Is anybody else experiencing issue that the N19 occasionally looses connection to cellular network. Sometimes the connection restores automagically, sometimes I need to do search on network providers and sometimes only reboot helps. By using my other phone Nokia E51, I have no connectivity issues at all and cellular network coverage in my area is top of the line.

I wonder if this issue is software or hardware related. If any of you has experienced the same issue, please provide guidelines how to resolve it.

Best regards,

Raul
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] apeelme:
I am also interested in the solution
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] darkship:
N19 has some issues amongst this Network connectivity issue. I don't really know if N19 will be ever considered a "trusty and reliable" phone. For me it is more like a Android cheap experiment.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] lotsofish:
There are two similar issues with the phone losing connection. They might be related.

1) If you are on wifi for a period of time, most of the time when you turn wifi off, the phone wont reconnect to gsm data.

2) Occasionally the phone will just lose connection. It will sometimes come back, either on it's own or searching for available cell networks.

#1 is fairly easy to reproduce. #2 is very random and doesn't happen that much (at least for me).

I am actually on track to find out why #2 is happening. I was looking at logcat when #2 happened to me. Logcat reported the rild service crashed. When I restarted rild through adb, the radio reconnected to the cell network.

If your phone looses data connection and you don't want to reboot, you could try restarting rild directly on the phone. I haven't been able to try this yet, so I'm not sure if it works. (Might be a permissions problem.)

* Install Terminal Emulator app from Market.

* When the phone loses cell network, start terminal emulator and run `/system/bin/rild`

One thing I am planning on doing is making #1 happen, then seeing if restarting the rild service brings gsm data back. Might be a workaround if you don't want to reboot your phone.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] apeelme:
what is this error messages in logcat?

E/BatteryService( 446): Could not open '/sys/class/power_supply/ac/online'

E/BatteryService( 446): Could not open '/sys/class/power_supply/usb/online'

E/BatteryService( 446): Could not open '/sys/class/power_supply/battery/batt_vo

l'

E/BatteryService( 446): Could not open '/sys/class/power_supply/battery/batt_te

mp'
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] apeelme:
the terminal emulator is not working without keyboard?
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] raul315:
terminal

The terminal started working for me right after I installed the tinykeyboard application :)

I've now tried to re-establish network connection by running /system/bin/rild with some success. Can't recover always and it takes some time too to recover. I'll continue trying, though :)
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] lotsofish:
Yes, you have to long press Menu to bring up the keyboard.

Same here. I lost cell connection last night. Running /system/bin/rild in terminal emulator didn't bring it back. I tried to search for available networks through the settings menu, but it didn't find any. I had to reboot the phone to bring it back. The last time I tried it, it worked. There might be a couple reasons the cell network is being dropped.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] lotsofish:
Restarting `rild` does not bring gsm data back. There are some commands related to pppd, which is what runs the gsm modem, but I haven't been able to pinpoint it yet. If you look at logcat during this condition, you can see it is attempting to read the wifi stats, so something happened that it still thinks wifi is running, even though it's not. I've been able to get gsm data back by enabling/disabling wifi several times.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Ano59:
About "The Robot" (Chinavasion phone)

Hello !

LINK://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=5469028&postcount=1

I've bought the phone mentioned here ("The Robot" from Chinavasion). It works well (at least for its price). I'm not here to make advertisement about it, though.

I'm wondering if your nice work on the Sciphone N19 could help me improve my phone, because both are very similar (that's why I'm posting here). Like using the stable ROM for the Sciphone you may produce one day.

Log Collector version: 1.1.0
Device model: TA1.ANDROID.en
Firmware version: 1.5
Kernel version: 2.6.25
ljx@ljx #560
Thu Dec 3 16:10:27 CST 2009
Build number: TA1-eng 1.5 CUPCAKE eng.robinlaw.20091201.115218 test-keys
[Let's add an info : Processor : ARM920T rev 0 (v4l) 199.88Mhz)]

Normal applications are working well, however I seem to be unable to run root applications (like ShootMe, PicMe (both crash), Superuser (it runs but nothing is displayed), Swapper (most actions fail - I got an 2GB SD card (can't insert SDHC cards) with 2 partitions, FAT32 and linux-swap), etc), even if I got root in terminal. Some rare non-root applications crash too, like Barcode Scanner or Sipdroid.

I have absolutely no idea if I may help you progress with your own phone by giving infos and doing experiments on mine but I'm available to provide any info you need. I can even try some things on my phone if it's not too risky (there's no recovery mode).

Good luck for hacking this Sciphone. :]

Sorry for my bad english, I haven't spoken this language 'till years.

EDIT : I'm not allowed to put links as a new user, please remplace "LINK:" by "http:" in my link.

Oh, I've read the whole topic.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xulture:
really looks like identical phone (down to the username of the person doing the build and the second when the build was created).. I'd try the update thats posted over on google code page. (standard update). If it doesn't do anything -- no harm done. If it works, you can then proceed tinkering and always have a way to restore back to update.

Link for the leaked official update (but noone has yet claimed that it really is official update):

http://custom-android-sciphone-n19....ge_N19_EN_20100106_900_1800_Update_Market.rar

good luck!
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xulture:
some apps that crash straight away (like sipdroid for instance) do that because they're packaged with libraries compiled to work only on ARMv5te cpu (or newer). This phone has ARMv4t. Todays phones run on arm7 or newer, so most phones are compatible. N19/TA1/The Robot isn't.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Ano59:
Thanks for your answer. :)

This topic already made me able to edit my microphone settings (The Robot got the same low mic sound problem) and to use camera zoom (I found no app for video recording though). :)

So there's no (decently) possible fix for Sipdroid & other apps that don't work ? Or SIP apps that run on armv4 ?

I wonder why I can't get a functionnal root for apps too.

I'll try to apply the update you gave to me. However, if it's intended to the Sciphone, would it be fully compatible with my phone, which has a bit better (and different) hardware (even if the basis is almost the same, well it's the same basis) ? And how would I be able to restore my "factory ROM" ?

Sorry for those numerous questions. ^^

I got some basic skills, I can type shell commands without problems and I even know a few simple commands, I know how things work, however I'm not very skilled in Unix/Linux, and I haven't learnt something with computers till years, so I may not be able to try advanced things without instructions.

If you'd like me to try something to get infos, feel free to ask, though.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xulture:
i'll see if there is a way for you to export your rom, then I'll try to apply it to my 'sciphone' phone see if that works and what happens. if it works, or partially works, you'll then be able to re-apply it to your phone to restore it to its original state. then if that works you can go ahead and do other hacks to it.

check if seller of your phone has an update for it?
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Ano59:
Chinavasion never provides updates, that's a part of their policy ; updating most of their products (when it's possible) may void the warranty if it's done (but I don't care).

But I can still try to ask them for the ROM, even if they probably won't give it (they may not even have it theirselves).

I'm able to backup the whole content of NAND on my computer, however it's not like an update, it's a simple files transfer, so I don't know if sending everything back would restore my ROM (I doubt it).
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] lotsofish:
Looks like it's exactly the same thing. Have you confirmed the amount of internal memory by using `df` and `free`?
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Ano59:
Eh you're right, it seems to be the same thing.

I've always done df to check space before...but I never had a closer look on Sciphone specs, I thought it was cheaper and with lower specs but after checking price and specs seem to be the same. :p

It is NOT completely the same though. "Sciphone" is replaced by "Android" on my phone (but we don't care about that), and any mention to "Sciphone" doesn't exist on my phone.

Doesn't that mean that there's something different in the software, at least the bootlogo (I simply got a green robot + "Android"), maybe more ?
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xulture:
"sciphone" version doesn't have that word anywhere on the system drive :-)

the only place where it appears is during the boot loader, and its printed both on the front of the phone and at the back of the phone :-)
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Ano59:
I got no "Sciphone", even on the bootlogo. ^^

Do you think other things may differ, related to boot or not ?

Well, I don't know if I should try the update ; if it's the same phone, there's no need to do that before trying hacks.

I'd like to help, but I don't know how, with my limited skills.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] lotsofish:
You don't have access to the Market or syncing with Google apps, do you?

I see there is another N19/TA1/Robot/Triones/Beyond Radio rebrand called the "Nexus Two".

http://gadgetbuy.com.au/index.php?/...ch-touchscreen-cellphone-with-android-os.html

It seems this phone is everywhere now. "The Robot" is especially prevalent.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Ano59:
I *do* have access to the market, i've already downloaded enough apps to fill the memory. I'm not very interested in Google apps but they seem to work.

LINK://www.chinavasion.com/product_info.php/pName/excalibur-3g-android-32-inch-touchscreen-cellphone/

'looks like a new Chinese Android phone has born. This one is under 1.6.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] lotsofish:
Interesting. Our N19's didn't have access to the Market when purchased. I wonder if the "official" update is already what your phone is running. If you do decide to try the "Beta" upgrade that sasha made, you will be able to install your apps to your sdcard, meaning you will be able to install more apps. (There's still a limit, because the app data is still stored on the phone memory.)

The Excalibur looks interesting, but that's probably more money than I would spend on an unproven no-name phone with probably little to no support. I like the features though, but it would probably be a bit better with a little more memory.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Ano59:
If it's possible to backup my ROM (by another way than simple filetransfer, I've already done that), I'll try the beta after doing a backup. Else, I'll try it too, but yet I don't know if backup is possible, so I'll wait a bit.

Oh, about Chinavasion, they're serious when there's a physical problem, but you're right, don't rely on them to solve "software" problems, you'll get few infos, infos that are on the page of the product and on the user manual. ^^

(it's enough for me though, even if I probably won't buy some 500€-thing here)

I quoted this link because it may be the same guy who builds the OS for those Chinese phones. This one has Android 1.6. It'd be maybe interesting if someone who'd have the phone comes here.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] lotsofish:
Sasha has a method back in the post somewhere. Basically you tar all the files on the phone and save it to the sd card. Then if you need to restore it, you can use mkyaffs2image to create a system.uimg file that can be flashed to the phone.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Ano59:
I've read the whole topic, and xulture gave only the infos you just gave ; tar-ing all the files, saving to the SD card and restoring using mkyaffs2image. Unfortunately, I have no idea about how to do that, as I said I got basic skills only and I'm studying more medicine than computers right now... ;(

Well, I'm not completely stupid, I could learn quickly how to make a good tar file from my NAND, but the yaffs&flashing part confuses me. Usually I'd tinker a bit until I'd get to the right result, but in this particular case, if I don't do it well I won't know it until I can't restore my files.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xulture:
i haven't actually had 100% positive results with extracting the files and repacking into a good set of files to flash with. as it is with all firmware upgrades, if you don't really need it, don't do it. :-)

tar can pull all the files out, but permissions are lost. mkyaffsimage (for this you'll need to setup a linux box or virtual machine, and get it compiled) with my tar extracted images, never produced a perfect image.

My attempt was in working out exactly that -- how to backup the stuff, and have it ready to flash the firmware back to its original state.

adb push busybox, then use its tar to create tar of all the files, transfer them out, get linux box setup to compile mkyaffsimage program, then use it to build the image, then use that image to flash the phone back. after all that, one thing that doesn't work that's noticable is screen brightness -- can't adjust it. Its allways full brightness. I don't know why this happens but I lost interest in the whole operation, and assumed that this proces is 'almost' perfect, therefore it's not good :-)

It may be possible to do a backup with more low level approach: cat all 3 relevant partitions into 3 files, then flash_image back into them, while the phone is working.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Ano59:
Thanks for those infos !

I've got a triple boot including Ubuntu, it's time to use it again. :-)

I've got another question though ; I've read somewhere in the topic that you're using /system/sd to use the SD card...

This directory doesn't exist on my phone, I got /sdcard instead, is it normal ?

EDIT : That's odd, tar "crashes" on a file in /sys (it's probably in /sys/devices/platform ), I only get the message "tar: short read" ('Googled it but found nothing that helped me...).

I tried to tar only a few directories (like /system + /data + /dev...) and it works perfectly...

EDIT² : Btw I discovered this page when looking at the project's page on Google Code : LINK://www.aqumula.com/Aqumula/News.html

"GPS : Optional", does it mean that a GPS could be physically added in the device and would work ?
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] annoynimouse:
OT a bit

thinking about chinavasion model i went for chat with SciPhone

hello! don't you plan upgraded n19 model ?

there some shops selling simiar-ooking mode with twice the RAM memory and twice the flash memory

this model is stop selling
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] annoynimouse:
Read this: http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/android/86477/

sinopsis: one of last bunches of n19, $156 with delivery into Russia (i found $125 phone + $16 delivery at chinashop-easy.com so i wonder which expensive shop used in that review), Android Market works out of the box, this project updates were applied but "changed nothing"

Nothing interesting there except for unjustified overprice.

GM A1 (ex-Cosmos): compare specs and price (none is 100% confirmed, but rumours are bensbazaar.com/general-mobile-cosmos-3g.html )

GM TouchStone aka i-Mobile 858: android.mobile-review.com/news/273/ - no stylus (i hate finger-only touch screens), no scroller/wheel/trackball and price must rocket-jump, yet large screen and someone claimed (if it is ever ossible) 2 GB of RAM (but maybe that is just 2Gb = 256MB word-paying maketing?)

no price though, no warranty of Android 2.x

PS: if we are sure, that Nexus, Robots, etc are full clones, then perhaps on wiki to create page with list of clones ?

PPS: one more el-cheapo ($147) Android device expected. http://www.clonedinchina.com/2010/04/htc-magic-clone-with-android-os-capacitive-touchscreen.html

I wonder if it would sport same CPU platform
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] annoynimouse:
what is said about /sys in /proc/mounts ?

probably /sys is not a files and directories, but just a special interface to kernel (similar to /proc :-) ). Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sysfs

What looks like files there are not really files, are just virtual entities. No wonder tar is confused.

I'd never try to TAR /sys and /proc :-) Anyway you'd not be abe to copy it back :-)
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] crzyruski:
you wont be able to do much without the kernel source code :(

Now say you could get your hands on it you could build your own full Android... 1.6, 2.0 - whatever...

btw, bootloader is usually stuck in its capabilities based on chipset :(
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jubeh:
Sounds like you need a new apns.conf, also, remember that Google Setup Wizard will provision your phone during first boot, but on non-google roms, that function is handled by another provisioner (I don't remember the damn name, but it's part of the AOSP generic build). In order to get gapps working, you need to erase that provisioning app (SdkSetup is the name, I had to look it up!) after pushing the Google Setup Wizard ,change a property in build.prop, i think it's ro.setup, to OPTIONAL (or REQUIRED, but we don't want that), and then factory reset your phone.

You still won't have google contact sync without google contacts provider, if you add google contacts provider, you have to remove the existing contacts provider and then factory reset again, set up your account, and you should get the account synced
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] crzyruski:
DSTL1 / N21 also do not come with Google Apps... an unofficial aftermarket patch has surfaced that allows for Google Apps. I have only tried it with 1.6, I have not heard anyone trying it with 1.5

It is a patch, but you cannot even flash. Maybe you could just extract the necessary components and push with your ADB ROOT abilities?

Try to download it from this post: http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=4858841&postcount=47
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] chronos2111:
I'm thinking getting one of these. I'll try to get in touch with sciphone backoffice/engineers, lets see if they would give out the source.

Do we need something spectacular? Booloader source? Drivers? I woud buy an Android phone for fun :P just to hack it all around. Love open source :) Ubuntu RLZ.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] crzyruski:
See if you could get kernel source.
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sinman:
Sorry for the delay to answer. I can see a CalendarProvider.apk which i should overwrite with one from Google apps.

But in order to Google Apps work, at N19 there are:

SettingsProvider.apk
Settings.apk

and from google there are:

GooglePartnerSetup.apk
GoogleSettingsProvider.apk
SetupWizard.apk

What should i do? Do i rename GoogleSettingsProvider.apk to SettingsProvider.apk or i can define which apk provide settings?
[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] chronos2111:
I've sent out 3 emails, no response yet.. I'll try further. I'm really thinking on getting one N19 for xmas. Cheeaaap :)