[ROM] TXG (CM6.1 mod), updated 2012 02 02

[Guest twrock]

TXG: the "all-in-one" Froyo rom for Huawei U8220/8230.

This is a modified CyanogenMod 6.1 RC2 rom, originally ported for the U8220 by Tom G. The single installation file combines CyanogenMod, Gapps, and DT Apps2SD. (All apps included in the rom are available free on the Android Market.)

Changelog: See the end of the second post for the changelog.

Note: There are two versions of this rom: "TXG" is the basic rom, and "TXG-TW" is the same rom with Chinese IME support (including handwriting support). I intend to keep everything else about the roms the same. (That will mean that the TXG rom will have a bit smaller size compared to TXG-TW.) This rom is based on my "Basic CM6.1" rom, which was my first attempt at modifying Tom G's CyanogenMod 6.1.0 RC2 port. Tom did all the hard work; I'm just tweaking things and fixing a few bugs. Other people from these forums that are deserving of credit include Starkos, Antonio, Flibblesan, Toti, and a lot of other people from whom I "borrowed" code and good ideas. Thanks for the help you all provided. Also, the developers of the apps I chose to pre-install should be thanked for providing great free software.

Known problems/bugs: (I can't do any more to fix these bugs; you have to just live with them if you want to use this rom.)

• The front facing camera does not work.
• There are times when the GPS icon remains in the notification area after the GPS has been turned off. Ignore it, or reboot to remove it.
• The Camera app included in this rom has been modified by user Anegin and does not crash. However, with many third-party camera apps, attempting to take multiple pictures at 3mp resolution will crash the camera app and then cause a serious battery drain (until reboot). There are a few other camera apps available on the Market that can also be used, but I do not know which ones (reportedly the paid version of Vignette works).
• "Set MAC address" has been installed to solve the bug that reports an incorrect MAC address. Run it once to set your address, and the problem is solved.
• Some people have reported a bug in which the screen auto-rotation gets stuck. Suggested solutions are: (1) while booting, always hold the phone in portrait position until it is finished, and (2) disable 180 and 270 degree rotation in Settings/CyanogenMod settings/User interface (only allow 90 degree rotation).
  Pre-installation requirements. (This is important, so read all of this!) (For a more complete "how-to" on the points below please refer to The Ultimate Pulse Owners Guide.)
  • This ROM has been created for the Huawei U8220/U8230.
  • U8220/Pulse users who are installing the TXG rom must first update to the official UK 2.1 rom from back in 2010. (You can not use the UK 2011 update; the TRE rom and the CHT8000 rom will work as well; see below.)
  • U8220/Pulse users who are installing the TXG-TW rom must first flash the official TRE update, CHT8000 update, or Hungarian update. TXG-TW requires the /system partition to be larger than 100mb.
  • U8230 and U8220-6 users should not flash the official U8220 updates; install this rom over your original U8230 2.1 rom.
  • You must have Clockwork Recovery installed (not AmonRA) in order to install this rom. Incidentally, I'm using CW Recovery 2.5.0.7; apparently, CW Recovery v.3.0.0.5 does not work correctly. Later versions of CW Recovery might work, but I haven't tested any.
  • In order for DT Apps2SD and swap to work properly, you must format your SD card properly before you install this rom. (I have a 8gb class 10 card with 256mb ext2 partition for a2sd and a 32mb Linux swap partition; the rest is formatted to fat32.) However, the rom should work without doing that; you just won't have that added functionality.

  Download links:

  TXG07.zip
  TXG-TW07.zip
  (full rom with Chinese IME support included;
  you must have flashed either the TRE update, CHT8000 update, or Hungarian update if you want to install this rom
  ; see above for links to two of those official updates)
  Arabic language support patch
  (Updated 2011/12/31: corrects problems with Arabic language display; install after the rom; thanks go to Brightidea over at XDA for this patch)
  Previous versions:
  TXG06.zip
  TXG-TW06.zip
  (full rom with Chinese IME support included)

  Basic installation steps:

  [*]Copy the "TXG*.zip" file to your SD card.[*]Reboot into Clockwork Recovery (2.5.0.7) by holding down the red end call and menu buttons and pushing the power button.[*]"nandroid" then "Backup" (if you skip this step, and you might live to regret it)[*]"wipe data/factory reset" and "Yes -- delete all user data"[*]"install zip from sdcard" then "choose zip from sdcard" then scroll to "TXG*.zip" and "Yes - Install TXG*.zip"[*]"reboot system now"

  Post-installation: See the second post in this thread (just below) for some ideas on how to start using this rom.

  Enjoy.

Edited April 8, 2012 by twrock

[Guest twrock]

For people who are new to installing custom roms, here are some ideas to help you get started.

The first boot is always slow and prone to what seems like hangups and hiccups. Don't worry about it. It will all settle down eventually and you will have a nicely working rom. But there are a few things you can do to help get through the initial trouble. Here are some things I do on the first boot:

1. I wait until the SIM unlock shows up before touching anything. Then I wait for the phone to connect before touching anything else.
2. I skip through the setup and don't enter my Google account information at that time.
3. I wait until the ADW Launcher screen is done fully loading and the Cyanogen opt-in to reporting icon has already appeared in the notification bar before I touch anything.
4. When I do touch something, I wait a long time for it to respond. Keeping on banging on the screen while the rom is trying to do a lot of background work is a formula for trouble.
5. I run SuperUser independently once before any other app that will call on it, to see if it needs to update.
6. Only after all of that do I go ahead and login to Google and let it start to synchronize my data.
7. I wait until Google is done synchronizing all my Contacts, Gmail, and Calendar.
8. I get all my Settings squared away before I install any apps. (See the section just below for my suggested settings.)
9. I only install one app at a time.
10. I also make a point of being where I can use Wifi instead of 3g to do all of my synchronizing and app installation, but that's just for speed sake (and because I don't have unlimited access to 3g).

YMMV, but that works for me.

Post-installation settings: Before installation of the rom, I formatted my 8gb Class 10 SD card to have a 256mb ext2 partition for apps and a 32mb linux swap file. The rest of the card was formatted to fat32. Then after rom installation, these are my settings using DTApps2SD, "Settings/CyanogenMod settings/Performance settings", and a couple of the pre-installed apps. (All of this is subject to change often, so don't just accept my opinion that these are the best for you; do your own research/testing and let others know what you discover.)

• a2sd cachesd (Set in terminal for Dalvik cache to be moved SD; this will reboot. NOTE: You need to first enter superuser mode before you can enter many of the commands in terminal for Apps2SD. To get to superuser mode, you must first enter "su".)
• JIT is disabled by default in this rom. Some people report a jump in speed when using JIT. You can turn it back on in CM settings if you want. Reboot is necessary after changing it.
• 691 mhz kernel installed and set to auto-throttle up to 614 and down to 245 by default, so you don't need to change anything if those are the numbers you want. If you prefer, you can change this with No-frills CPU Control (pre-installed in this rom) or other CPU control app. You can lower the maximum CPU speed to 528 if you want to extend your battery life, or raise it to 691 if you want to speed up your phone. From my minimal reading on the subject, I believe that the "I/O scheduler" in No-frills CPU Control is best set on "noop", but you might want to do your own research on that.
• Naturally the built-in "allow application moving" to SD is disabled in CM settings (because this rom uses DT Apps2SD instead)
• a2sd swappy?? (set in terminal; replace the ?? with a number) By default in this rom, the swappiness is set to 15. Some people set this as high as 60, but 60 seemed to be creating serious lag for me so I pushed it way down. Apparently the optimum setting will also depend on the size of your swap file, with some people suggesting that the larger your swap file, the lower this number must be to avoid lag. Yes, this all seems complicated. Setting it to 30 or under seems to work good for me with a 32mb swap file.
• Lock home in memory (CM settings)
• Lock messaging app in memory (CM settings)
• The lowmem killer setting are pre-set in this rom's boot.img to something that seems to work well for me (thank Antonio and Toti). You can experiment with other settings.
• As mentioned in the first post above, there is a solution to the MAC address bug. I installed the "Set MAC address" app from the Market into this rom. Once you set it to your own MAC address, it survives a reboot. So one more bug has been "remedied".
  
  ----------------------------------
  
  Changelog:
  
  2012 02 02: TXG07
  
  • Replaced wpa_supplicant (from CM7.2) to finally correct the wifi reconnection bug! (Thanks to dr.flo)
  • Reduced the wifi.supplicant_scan_interval back to 30 in build.prop (loses a little battery, but 60 seconds is a long wait)
  • Deleted Blade Wifi Fix (no longer needed)
  • Updated apps: AndExplorer, QuickPic, Terminal Emulator, Google Search, Google Maps, No-frills CPU Control, ROM Manager

  2012 01 01: TXG06

  [*]build.prop tweaks for battery savings[*]build.prop tweak to disable debug icon in notification bar[*]Updated /system: Market, QuickPic[*]Updated /data: SmoothCalendar (mod), Maps, RomManager, SetMACaddress, NoFrillsCPUControl

  2011 12 10: TXG05a

  The initial release. This rom retains all bug fixes and tweaks present in the "Basic CM6.1" rom I modfied earlier. This rom combines Tom G's CM6.1 port with a basic set of Google apps and DarkTremor Apps2SD. I replaces some "standard" apps with third-party alternates that I believe work better. I have also added a few other apps that I personally find useful. In order to create more space in the /system partition, quite a few apps have been moved to the /data partition. This means that they can easily be updated or deleted and replaced with other apps you prefer. As of 2011/12/10 all apps were updated to current versions.
  A few other important changes to note are adjustments I made to performance settings. I disabled JIT, and Compcache by default. The boot.img has a 691mhz kernel, but has been pre-set to a minimum of 245mhz and a maximum of 614mhz. Also in the boot.img, I set swappiness to 15 (a conservative number), and the low memory settings by default are similar to the DT Apps2SD setting of "moderate".

Edited February 2, 2012 by twrock

[Guest sporting_exodus]

Thanks twrock, good to know you are still tweaking ROMs for the Pulse!

As a long-term satisfied user of your Basic CM61 rom, is there much different here?

[Guest twrock]

Thanks twrock, good to know you are still tweaking ROMs for the Pulse!

As a long-term satisfied user of your Basic CM61 rom, is there much different here?

Not a lot different.

I really did it for two reasons. I wanted the challenge to see if I could (combine the three previous install files), and I wanted to make a Froyo rom that was easier to install (one file). It was a bonus to be able to update all the /system apps, tweak the initial memory settings (compcache off, JIT off, swappiness=15, etc.). I'd wanted to make the whole installation a bit more "newbie-friendly". Still, the hardest part is getting the SD card ready, and I don't have a script for that. :D I should look into how to format the SD card with Windows and write up instructions so more people can do it easier.

If you've tweaked out your settings to what you like and have a good working system already, I can't see much reason to install this over it. About the only benefit might be that the /system apps are all updated (Gmail, Market, SuperUser, etc.), but none of that is necessary. But if you ever have to reinstall for whatever reason, use this one.

[Guest welly123]

Thanx Twrock

Kindly don't forget to add arabic support to your new rom

[Guest D-D-]

Wait, gapps included in rom?

[Guest Dante2070]

For partitioning in windows, I recommend a program called "Mini Tool Partition Wizard Home Edition". It's free for private use and easy enough for noobs (like me) do understand and to work with. I used it with great success in twrock's 2.1 FTB mod.

Regarding this rom, I'm very interested to hear how it compares to the FTB mod regarding speed and battery life.

[Guest twrock]

Wait, gapps included in rom?

Yes, Gapps are included, along with DT Apps2SD. It is a "complete package". :)

[Guest twrock]

For partitioning in windows, I recommend a program called "Mini Tool Partition Wizard Home Edition". It's free for private use and easy enough for noobs (like me) do understand and to work with. I used it with great success in twrock's 2.1 FTB mod.

Regarding this rom, I'm very interested to hear how it compares to the FTB mod regarding speed and battery life.

Thanks for that reminder. I had forgotten about that tool. (I've not used it, but do remember hearing about it after your reminder.) I will definitely look it up, use it, and write instructions for noobs on how to use it.

Regarding speed and battery life, ... that makes two of us who want to know. ;)

I hope people will install it so I can get some feedback.

[Guest twrock]

Thanx Twrock

Kindly don't forget to add arabic support to your new rom

I don't know how to do that.

I created a thread some month ago in which I tried to both learn how to do that and to help people get Arabic working. I did a lot of background work and asked a lot of questions, and I got very little feedback. But without feedback and help from others, I can not do any more to help get Arabic working. I need feedback from those who are using it in order to continue. If you have that knowledge, please share it.

If you want to try to help further, please refer to this thread to continue the conversation:

That thread says it's about 2.1, but the issues are likely the same. It is complicated to have little bits of information spread all over the forum in a bunch of different threads; I'd like to consolidate the knowledge in one thread.

[Guest welly123]

I don't know how to do that.

I created a thread some month ago in which I tried to both learn how to do that and to help people get Arabic working. I did a lot of background work and asked a lot of questions, and I got very little feedback. But without feedback and help from others, I can not do any more to help get Arabic working. I need feedback from those who are using it in order to continue. If you have that knowledge, please share it.

If you want to try to help further, please refer to this thread to continue the conversation: http://android.modac...cussion-thread/

That thread says it's about 2.1, but the issues are likely the same. It is complicated to have little bits of information spread all over the forum in a bunch of different threads; I'd like to consolidate the knowledge in one thread.

Dear Twrock

For the 2.1 thread the arabic support worked perfect (Thank you again), But our real problem now is to have arabic support to the 2.2 because uptill now there is no rom supporting arabic in a good way. On the other hand the CM 7.1 supports arabic perfectly. So we will be grateful to you to work on this and I will give you my feedback once you start. as I read on some forums the modifications should be in the framework.jar and libwebcore.so to allow arabic support to work.

I think this link will be helpful.

http://blog.devasque.com/how-to-apply-patch/

Although this way allow arabic names to be written in contacts, The browser give separated letters like this ص ب ر instead of this صبر

thanx in progress

[Guest twics]

@twrock more info on partitioning hope this dont confuse you I use Gparted

PARTITIONING SD CARD

HOW TO PARTITION SD CARD WITH VMWARE + GPARTED OR PARTED MAGIC

This attempts to partition our sd card without using live cd or usb devices of gparted or parted magic

This method uses vmware + the gparted or partedmagic isos

IT will use:

1) PC (tested on Windows 7)

2) VMware

3) Gparted ISO or PartedMagic ISO

DOWNLOAD THE HOW TO HERE

http://htcfanboys.com/index.php?app=...ds&showfile=26

Also check out this small video, the guy is partitioning his pc hard drive, but if your phone is connected you will see your sd card aswell as your pc just chose you sd card instead, Note! you may need to use a sd card reader.

Happy to test this rom out

Thanks for trying to keep the Pulse alive.

__________________

Edited December 8, 2011 by twics

[Guest twics]

Can we have one with a black status/notification bar pretty please just a minor preference.

Edit>NVM!!!

Edited December 8, 2011 by twics

[Guest Dante2070]

..., along with DT Apps2SD. It is a "complete package". :)

If it's a cyanogen mod, doesn't it come with the option to install on sd card by default (application management - move to phone/sd card)? If yes, why is dt apps2sd needed?

[Guest D-D-]

If it's a cyanogen mod, doesn't it come with the option to install on sd card by default (application management - move to phone/sd card)? If yes, why is dt apps2sd needed?

Because of cachesd. I don't know why, but froyo uses much more memory than any other android, so u will fill it up way faster than any other version of android.

[Guest twrock]

Can we have one with a black status/notification bar pretty please just a minor preference.

Edit>NVM!!!

:D Looks like you found it. ;)

For others who haven't yet found it, CyanogeMod lets you do that yourself in Settings/CM Settings/User interface/Tweak extras/Select a theme. Yet another reason to appreciate those CyanogenMod devs.

[Guest twrock]

If it's a cyanogen mod, doesn't it come with the option to install on sd card by default (application management - move to phone/sd card)? If yes, why is dt apps2sd needed?

What D-D- said is correct. But that's not all.

Froyo's apps2sd does not handle all apps and doesn't handle widgets at all. So you get less functionality and space than with DT's version. With the addition of Apps2SD GUI (installed in this rom), even noobs who are intimidated by the command line (terminal) can set things up.

If you don't want DT Apps2SD (I can't see why, but maybe you don't), you can use Tom's original rom (missing a lot of fixes and enhancements), Cyanogemod Plus (a great option), or "Basic CM6.1" and don't install DT. As always, YMMV.

Edited December 9, 2011 by twrock

[Guest twrock]

New beta of the rom uploaded. Link to TXG05a.zip in the first post. No Chinese IME in this version.

[Guest Dante2070]

Just installed it. Couldn't sign into my google account via 3g, but that might have been a problem on my side. Installed Zeam launcher (my favorite minimalistic launcher), nothing else. Response time is slower than in FTB mod. But I think that could be solved with some of your voodoo you told us to do in your FTB mod. WIll install all my apps tomorrow, give more feedback.

[Guest twics]

:D Looks like you found it. ;)

For others who haven't yet found it, CyanogeMod lets you do that yourself in Settings/CM Settings/User interface/Tweak extras/Select a theme. Yet another reason to appreciate those CyanogenMod devs.

Yea it took me a little diggiing around :D thought id mention that I took my phone out my pocket today to find it was hot like id been on a call for a good while and the battery was drained down but I ant got a clue what caused it. overall usage of phone is a little laggy at times not sure if its better than CM7 though feels about the same, but at least the cam work.

Edited December 10, 2011 by twics

[Guest twrock]

Just installed it. Couldn't sign into my google account via 3g, but that might have been a problem on my side. Installed Zeam launcher (my favorite minimalistic launcher), nothing else. Response time is slower than in FTB mod. But I think that could be solved with some of your voodoo you told us to do in your FTB mod. WIll install all my apps tomorrow, give more feedback.

I like Zeam a lot too. Two things keep me on ADW: the hidden dockbar and the ability to change the icon graphics so I can pick my own pictures for direct dial contacts.

I found that disabling all of the animations everywhere in the rom (including ADW Launcher) made it "feel" faster than immediately after installation. I'd be surprised if FTB isn't at least a bit faster. Also, JIT is disabled in this rom by default. This might make it slower than the previous "Basic CM6.1" rom.

To be honest, I really don't know which rom I prefer. They both are working well for me. I think TXG is more stable for me.

If I don't see an update to VanillaMusic player today, I'll go ahead and update FTB to the next version without it (but with the current version of VanillaMusic replacing the stock Music app).

Edited December 10, 2011 by twrock

[Guest twrock]

Yea it took me a little diggiing around :D thought id mention that I took my phone out my pocket today to find it was hot like id been on a call for a good while and the battery was drained down but I ant got a clue what caused it. overall usage of phone is a little laggy at times not sure if its better than CM7 though feels about the same, but at least the cam work.

I'd like to try to make CM7 my daily use rom, but the camera issue is a non-starter for me.

I only ever had a hot phone with CM6 back before they figured out how to disable the raised buttons and trackball from turning on the phone. My phone was turning on all the time when in my pocket and killing the battery. Make sure you haven't inadvertently turned those back on the the CM settings.

[Guest twrock]

TXG-TW05a.zip uploaded. This brings the -TW version with Chinese IME up to date with the basic version. Link is in the first post.

[Guest Dante2070]

Installed all the apps, removed some from system to safe space. So far, it is sightly less responsive than FTB mod, but acceptable (to me at least).

Is there a way to add 3g toggle and brightness to the default notification bar? I know that there are various widgets out there, it's just that I'd like to see these two options added, without having to install a widget.

[Guest twrock]

Installed all the apps, removed some from system to safe space. So far, it is sightly less responsive than FTB mod, but acceptable (to me at least).

Is there a way to add 3g toggle and brightness to the default notification bar? I know that there are various widgets out there, it's just that I'd like to see these two options added, without having to install a widget.

You don't have to add any widgets for that. That notification bar functionality is built into CM6. That was one of the main advantages of using CM6 for me. (But I found Quick Settings in the Market and added it to the latest FTB version, meaning that I can come close enough to that functionality in FTB now.)

Dig in deeply to the CM Settings menus and you will find all sorts of cool functionality and options. What you are looking for is in /Settings/Cyanogenmod Settings/??? "somewhere". I would tell you exactly where, but I'm running FTB at the moment and don't want to take time to restore TXG. You can pretty much have every toggle in the notification area that is available in the Power Control widget, but I believe it is limited to six total toggles because of spacing.

Edit: I agree that FTB seems faster, even at the 528mhz default setting. On a positive note, the battery life seemed good to me on TXG. But I will probably stay with FTB because I don't "need" all of the added functionality of CM6. YMMV.

Edited December 11, 2011 by twrock