yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] AlexxxR:
wifi tether

Speeds for wifi tether are pretty good, all depends on your data connection but mine was generally pretty good.

A few of my previously installed apps are now no longer compatible with my Ideos though, like Astro file manager is still ok but the pro key to remove ads isn't :/
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] trevh:
Tutorial

Please post a link to the tutorial, altwho. :) The more people in here that are proficient with U8800 "hacks", the more there'll be writing code for it! Just substitute spaces around the word " dot " for the punctuation and it will get through (I did that a while ago). But anyway, you have probably passed the "enough posts" test by now. ;)

The way we're all going on this thread, someone will soon be able to join the key posts together and make a "Ideos X5/ U8800 Hacks" book! :cool: I can't wait to try some!

How about one of us buy one? My wife is lusting after my u8800 already so it might be a way to get a second phone, and get stock Android 2.3 at the same time. I can't read Chinese so I can't tell if that page shows where to buy one.

Anyone here read Chinese or know where to buy a c8800?

I visited the hiapk message board and couldn't understand anything there either, but since you mentioned it stockwell, does that mean you or someone you're in touch with reads Chinese / Japanese?
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] trevh:
Native wifi tether

Just to confirm, AlexxxR, wifi tether for which you checked the speed, that's built in to the updated rom? No need for market apps like Barnacle anymore?
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] AlexxxR:
Fully Built in :)

no need for barnacle etc
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] trevh:
Thanks AlexxxR, I suppose we should call the U8800V100R001C00B135SP01 update the "wifi tethering" or "mifi hotspot" update because the opinion around here is that not much has changed ... in fact it looks as if you're the first to confirm that tethering has changed! :)
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] trevh:
Partition Structure

This might be helpful for those who were asking about partition information in preparation for recovery and CM rom upgrades.

Thanks to altwho's instructions (see below) I started up my Ideos X5 with a violet screen, then plugged it in to my Ubuntu Linux Netbook, ran the Red Had Linux Disk Utility and got some partioning information very easily.

The attached file is a screenshot of the partition information as far as that particular Linux disk utility understands it.

I'll now build a table to hold information about what sort of files are in the various partitions, at least for the ones that I can mount on my netbook.

More excitingly, I'll make "dd" command images of the partitions so that we can have the possibility to restore a u8800 to the state it was before even the U8800V100R001C00B135SP01 upgrade, and obviously some more partition images of the "mi-fi hotspot" upgraded phone, and 2.3 images if I can do the same for the c8800 model that seems to have this new "Gingerbread" Android version.

I haven't tested write back to any except the 2.1gb partition but expect to be able to, given that some of you seem to have been writing back to the root file system partition as part of your recovery and root user hacks.

This being so, it seems to me that we have in our hands the most open mobile phone hardware yet to be available to the widespread community. We should be able to modify / replace individual system files from the comfort of our desktop or netbook computers, without needing to deal with decryption, root user vulnerability exploits, piggyback patches and the like. As long as we can follow on behind the EMMCBOOT file, which for the moment I assume is like grub in handling the snapdragon's multi stage boot process, there should be almost no limit as to what we can do for tweaks to the operating system!

WOW!! :) :) :p
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Poulsen8r:
What is the purpose of CMR when we have access to this hardware based recovery environment? If something goes wrong can't we just rewrite the rom from a pc? assuming all partitions are backed up using dd. Shouldn't we skip that step or write a simple script so the less informed users can backup easily like they can with clockwork (except now from a PC).

Also the device does have an FM radio. Just thought I'd mention it. Don't know yet how to enable it though.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] sanpsa:
Did someone actually get the native wifi tethering with V100R001C00B135SP01 update?

I have ran the update twice now and no wifi tether...
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] trevh:
Indeed! Quite right, it seems to me Poulsen8r. Others here say that we are unique in having this facility though, so for others less fortunate who don't have u8800 models, I suppose the need will remain.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] AlexxxR:
I got wifi tether when I updated

There's the proof :)
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Pretor:
That is basic wireless settings page without wifi tether. Only tethering via USB.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] sanpsa:
No wifi tether in there...

The reminder of data usage when turning off wifi can be disabled easily using root explorer, Mount R/W, edit the build.prop like on page 3 on this thread, save, mount R/O, boot.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Taajuus:
Geez, a little bit more precise now when reporting "new" features. Almost wiped my Huawei for nothing :p

So no native wifi tether, bummer :(
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] stockwell:
This is why we need our own section for u8800.. A sticky with Q&A, tweaks etc would solve this kind of confusion.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Taajuus:
Definitely agree.

This is so promising device (price / quality / performance) that it should not be overlooked.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Taajuus:
Proving my words :D

Quadrant 1479.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Taajuus:
Me and my wife both have been using U8800's for couple weeks now. I am more like power user and my wife casual phone user.

I dont have anything major negative about U8800. Some people have reported wifi problems and I have experienced few times myself also. Turning off all wifi sleep policies minimizes that problem and anyway I mostly use mobile data. Camera gives moderate quality, but bigger problem that stock camera program is SLOW as hell. But that is not major problem for me, only take shots with phone casually.

U8800 looks stylish, build quality is good, performance beats most phones with similar specs, price is cheap and its Android is pretty vanilla. There is already rising intrest in community so I bet in future we will see loads of community development as tweaks and roms.

My wife has simply stated "she loves it". Shes typical female user and just need her phone to work stable. And that has U8800 done. Also she has experienced many "cool feature!" moments with Android, since its her first smartphone :)
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Taajuus:
Oh, one more thing - dont know if this has already been mentioned.

It seems that (at least in Finland) there has been at least two "hardware versions" of U8800 available.

First ones delivered by operator Saunalahti had memorycard slot where card was inserted from bottom. They had older firmware build and apparently more instability problems.

Next hw-gen had memorycard slot where card is inserted from side. Firmware is newer (2.6.32.9-perf, Build U8800V100R001C00B133SP15) and these seem to be very stable.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] langers1972:
Wifif tethering is coming in an imminemt release, the phones sold here by 2Degrees in New Zealand all come with the following info:

"*WiFi Hotspot: please note that the first software release for the X5 does not contain the Android WiFi 'Hotspot' feature meaning that your X5 cannot act as a WiFi Hotspot for other devices (e.g. laptop) to share its mobile data connection. However the standard WiFi function of the X5 itself is unaffected and works very well. There will be a subsequent software release in April/May which will add the WiFi Hotspot function "
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] mejobloggs:
How do you get out of violet screen?

Nothing I've pressed works so far. Guess I'll just have to take battery out

Assumed I could just press (or hold) 'off' to turn it off, weird
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] trevh:
Yeah, I had to take the battery out also. It MAY be a very good sign that there are no remnant bit of the system still running to monitor things like power switch state. Therefore probably no "secure boot" daemons running either.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] mejobloggs:
Even with Root Explore i can't find the init.d folder anywhere

I'm trying to use the init.d script here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1010807

Everyone else seems to have /etc/init.d/ or /system/etc/init.d

Ideos X5 a bit different to normal?
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Taajuus:
Yes, was aware of that info. I was just hoping that this already Huawei released ROM would have had it (since it is updated version to most).
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Taajuus:
Finnish Androidsuomi.fi released review of U8800 with latest firmware

Not much new to table, only negative comments of camera and video recording.

Noticable was the battery test, where U8800 beats for example Xperia Arc and HTC Incredible S.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] trevh:
Searching for files on internal nand storage

It certainly SEEMS to be different from normal, but in the best possible way! :)

For example have you tried the "violet boot screen" method of taking a good long look into all of the internal partitions? (On my X5 there are 4gb worth of them!)

I think I could even use Nautilus file search function on my Linux box to find the directory / files but I'm using usb tether on the X5 to bring this reply, ... there's no internet connection (or much of anything else) in "violet screen" mode. :) :cool:

I'll have a go tomorrow (when I'm not using the phone for internet access) and report on the results. You'll forgive me I'm sure if I tread very carefully until after I've made my backup images of those partitions. Having found a very easy way to the internals of my Ideos X5, the last thing I want to do is accidentally delete something that I shouldn't!
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] okristian1:
Have it, love it.

The standard launcher was laggy for me. but Launcher Pro solved that for me. The only thing I am reminded about every single day is the lacluster sound quality.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Poulsen8r:
My launcher was a bit laggy initially too, which made my first impressions a bit disappointing but for some reason after some time has passed and I removed a few of the pre-installed bloatware the launcher is now fast and I can't get it to lag ever. I suppose like any OS android takes a little while to optimise everything for best running. And IMO, the sound quality is good. Definitely beats my iPod that's for sure, plus the inbuilt EQ's are not exactly great but they make a noticeable difference. Hopefully we can get CM7 on here some time soon and get the full DSP that is offered. Maybe that will help you :).
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] okristian1:
Perhaps it will. I Have frozen all the garbage apps and I don't have a lot of market apps innstalled but the the built-in launcher still lags like hell. Launcher Pro is much better anyway so I am happy. I really hope there will be a dedicated section for this phone aswell as a custom rom soon.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] korpenkraxar:
Can you please describe your Linux setup to get usb tether going. I tried a while back but never succeeded. I can mount it as a drive but not much else. Do you have any particular udev specs like something in /etc/udev/rules.d/90-android.rules ?
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] onewilk:
how to vote?i love this phone,and my english is really poor...
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] metareason:
+1 for dedicated ideos x5 forum section

Got my Ideos X5 pricematched to Crazy Johns at **** Smith for $299 and loving it.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] :
I have had this phone for a while and decided to upgrade the rom to the one from Huawei's homepage (U8800 V100R001C00B135SP01(Gene ral version for overseas)), but after installing my wifi is not working nor do any mobile network. Have any of you experienced this? Or do you know where i can download the old rom which was working ok (atleast the internet worked).
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] trevh:
It's a very simple set of gear ... Just an Asus EEE 701 netbook with bog standard but regularly updated Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid) Linux. I just plug my ideos x5 in, ignore the mount usb storage message on the phone's screen, tap home, tap setting, tap wireless & networks, tap tethering then tap the usb tether check box (a green tick appears after a brief delay).

Now I watch the netbook screen for a few seconds as the network manager indicator applet animates a little then displays a message that I have a conection on usb0 (i think)
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Taajuus:
Thats the problem, there is no "old rom" available. And community has not yet been able to create backup roms of orginals.

Many people have made that update with no problems, so I would try to update again if I were you...
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] stockwell:
And yet again, lack of own section causes the spreading of misinformation.

http://wiki.modaco.com/index.php/Huawei_Firmware_U8800

Try the Australia Roadhound firmware.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] :
Okay I see, that sucks. I have tried updating again without succes.

Thanks for the link. I will try that firmware.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] rufnut:
This looks correct as my DSE U8800 has CustC257 somewhere in the version info.

Luckily I didn't upgrade.

Oddly enough **** Smith has an advertisement saying the phone does 14.4 mbps yet they don't seem to sell the U8800H model ?

So who will be game to flash the U8800H firmware into a U8800?

Will the networks even support that in Australia ?
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] sanpsa:
Someone allready did that, apparently there wasnt any real changes...
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Taajuus:
I stand corrected :o

At least I was right that community has not extracted roms, since those are pulled from Huawei site :D

But yes, we REALLY need section for U8800. Information flow is growing too big to handle in one thread...
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Poulsen8r:
Does anyone know the location of the Hi Space .apk? I'm trying to uninstall it but I cant find the directory it is installed to...

Nevermind, found it, it was hiding under a Code name. It couldn't fool titanium backup though :D
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] sakisan:
How to disable Chinese IME on HK ROM.

Hi,

I'm Japanese user of X5. I use X5 Hong Kong version ROM because of ...

Generic ROM : can't use GPS...

UAE ROM : browser shows incorrect HTML...

but, HK ROM's Chinese IME "HwIME" and "TouchPal" blocks another language's

IME.

following procedure is how to remove Chinese IME: (requires root privilege)

$ su
# mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 /cust_backup
# cd /cust/pccw/hk/app
# rm HwIME.apk
# rm Layar.apk
# rm TouchPal.apk

#I remove all /cust/pccw/hk/app applications:D

thanks.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Poulsen8r:
I renamed boot.img and rebooted the phone and predictably got a BSOD (Literally). Just a blank blue screen. But it's ok since Huawei released the ROM for the phone I just popped it on the SD card and rebooted while pressing vol up/down and BAM. Phone fully functional again. I'm pretty sure if you look in the dictionary next to the word 'win' it says 'Huawei letting you do whatever the hell you want, while being able to get your old phone back.' I mean how good is this? I tried the HTC Vision CM7 rom but yet again no luck predictably. I would download the source and build my own but sadly I don't have the bandwidth. I think I'll keep poking around the vision rom and see what I can find but I doubt I will get very far. Anyways, just though you should know that you can repair/reflash your phone if crap goes the wrong way. :D.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] stockwell:
What do you mean when you say you tried the cm7 rom? Are you just replacing the boot.img in the /cust/images directory?
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Poulsen8r:
Well, I just tried to flash it with the default 'Apply Update.zip' but it recognises that the build.prop file in /system contains ro.product.blahblah == vision. Not u8800 like it should be.

Also, I think it would be too complicated to try and 'edit' the vision rom to make it work. So for now I'm giving up. Maybe tomorrow I'll go find some free *cough*unsecured*cough* wireless and try download the source code. Then find out what's next...

I attached the build.prop as a txt file if you want to see what I mean.

Edit: Ok I did change the product names but now I get an error:

E: failed to verify whole-file signature

If anyone has synced with the Cyanogenmod git can you post up the extract-files.sh and envsetup.sh please?
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] stockwell:
Yeah, this is why a custom recovery is needed. There is one on the way soon from a Chinese developer, he seems to have a working clockwork mod recovery built (assuming he releases it).

I haven't had the time to mess more with trying to port recovery, although I really wish I could get one working just for my own gratification.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] pulser_g2:
You must re-sign the zip after changing the script checking for vision.

Also, you do that at your own risk since it might not boot with that kernel - I imagine you need your own boot.img
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] ibnefahim:
Waiting for OWN section , MOD where are u ....
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] thinkingrobot:
+1 for U8800/IDEOS X5
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] panchip:
i bought x5 in HK...and had to uninstall all apps installed by service providers (including QQ and HiSpace).

Since uninstalling HiSpace, my battery life lasts soooooo much longer.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] stockwell:
Okay so got recovery working, but it's a bit weird. On the phone itself the Huawei logo persists (can't see recovery at all) but using the screenshot tool in ddms you can see that the recovery is working with some graphical errors (wrong colour and it's split in four). I have done a backup and it worked fine, haven't tried too much other stuff but most things should work I think.

I'll look into the graphical problems, it might require changes to the kernel though, so that's another bridge to cross.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Poulsen8r:
Any tips on how to resign the zip?

Yes I am aware of that. It should boot, but not everything will be functional that's for sure. Also Huawei did release the source and I've heard that that's great but I have not yet seen a reason why. I think I'm missing something...

Can you upload you recovery.img stockwell? I think some of us would also like to test it :D lol. Or could you post up the code you used to make it?
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] stockwell:
It won't boot unless you at the very least repackage the boot.img with the kernel and init scripts, and even then there are other things (mount points, hardware differences such as display and touchscreen) that would mean it probably wouldn't get to the lock screen.

Don't worry about trying to resign the update.. with cmr it doesn't check if the update is signed, and also it makes it heaps easier to roll back the changes to /data and /system.

As for my cmr build, I will send you a PM. I'm not really comfortable releasing it publicly until it's been tested more thoroughly and the display issues are fixed.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] altwho:
Thanks stockwell, i just realized my cwm recovery was working the whole time, it was only the graphics that were messed up. The question is, why does the cyanogen recovery 1.4 for the g1 display graphics on the u8800 (disable the huawei logo) when cwm only shows up through ddms?

The changes in here: http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/huawei-ideos-s7-development/4184-recovery-working-recovery-ui-glitches-6.html

should work as a workaround for the double screen bug.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] stockwell:
I've repackaged the original recovery so that it has adb now, and then dumped the framebuffers of the original recovery to compare them to the framebuffers when cmr is used. The dumps from cmr turn out as expected (as in, they look fine) when using ffmpeg -vcodec rawvideo -f rawvideo -pix_fmt rgb565 -s 480x800 -i frame1.raw -f image2 -vcodec png 2-%d.png but the dumps from the original firmware looked messed up (almost similar to the way cmr looks in ddms) so I guess the framebuffer driver (or whatever renders the framebuffer) is expecting a different format.

I think we should investigate the differences between the BoardConfig.mk for g1 and ours to see if there's a maybe a property/flag that we're missing.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] Fruitgull:
Exit bootloader mode?

Hi

How do I exit bootloader mode (purple screen) on the U8800?

Thanks!
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] phuongpham:
+1 own section :D:D

I've ordred this phone. Have read thru all post. But no one mention root.

It's possible to root this phone?
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] jukkus:
Yes it is. Z4root works fine
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] stockwell:
Thanks for the link to the s7 patch. I'm guessing our problems have the same root cause as theirs, which according to the developer is that the kernel doesn't support framebuffering. I'm sure that this isn't correct, I think it just doesn't support rgb 565 and also doesn't support buffer switching (double buffering?).

I did a bit of searching around and I think the original recovery uses rgb 32 instead of rgb 565. I'm at work so I can't test this but in miniui/graphics.c you might be able to just change all the references to rgb_565 (ie: fb->format = GGL_PIXEL_FORMAT_RGB_565 ) to a format that it can use (maybe rgb_32 will work but I don't think so).

Another thing is that there is a compile flag in BoardConfig.mk called BOARD_HAS_JANKY_BACKBUFFER which may fix the framebuffer switching problem.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] rockofclay:
Does anyone have any info on whether the MSM7230 chip in this phone supports USB host/USB OTG?
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] phuongpham:
thanks for the info.. the next question is the custom rom for this phone
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] stockwell:
@altwho

I've got an idea for a hack that might work. What if we start the original recovery service (or the recovery from the g1) then start the clockwork service on top of it and kill the original recovery. I was able to sorta test it this morning before I went to work but I didn't really get a chance to do it properly or anything. Anyway, what I did was I had it boot cmr normally then using adb loaded the amon-ra recovery (i just put it in sbin/recovery1) and clockwork showed on alternate framebuffer flips (which was expected) but it crashed after a few keypresses and I was already running late for work so that was as far as I got.

So anyway, if you see this before I get a chance to try it, try using the original recovery to do the same thing first off, and if that works then try modifying the init scripts to first load the original recovery, load cmr then kill the original.

EDIT:

Okay.. that didn't work. It seems that clockwork can't do anything with the framebuffer other than write to it. I tried replacing the minui cmr source with those from ra-recovery and it built but no change so it's probably something that's different in ui.c

I think the path of action from here would be to build ra-recovery.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] AndytheAndroid:
Hi guys,

when are some ROMs going to be cooked?

I'm very hungry ;)

Even the most basic ROM that just removes the bloatware would be nice.

Then again, I'm not a dev so I have no idea what that would involve.

Still, you guys sound pretty smart.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] stockwell:
We are still working on a recovery image.. sit tight and maybe soon you'll see some little mods but unless some more experienced devs jump on board you won't be seeing CM6/7 anytime soon.
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] 357546:
Good job stockwell. I rebuild a clockwork mod recovery for my u8800. but it can not startup. it stop at logo. and adb failed. I dont know whats the matter. Do you any suggestion? I am sorry about my English. hope you can understand
[Huawei Ideos X5 U8800] stockwell:
Try using the screenshot tool in ddms.. your recovery probably is working but just the framebuffer isn't being flushed (or something like that, not 100% sure of the problem). Also, in default.prop make sure you have ro.secure=0, ro.debuggable=1 and persist.service.adb.enable=1