21/Dec 1.91 - Teknologist kernel with tun.ko, ext4, cifs, and compache ramzswap for GSM Hero

[Guest Patric42]

I agree on the "200 apps" thing... :-) The point for me is, that, even when there's less load, even with 1.8 (which I really really like!) kernel, listening to web radio while any background app does any networking (k9, newsbot, greed, gmail...), the sound drops.

It's a common misunderstanding that the bfs scheduler is for multi processor machines only - the simple, fast and interactive-response oriented "architecture" is good for small cpus, too.

But, sigh, if there's bad experience with it so far (though I would tell crashes is not the schedulers fault, that's probably something else), I'll wait a bit (too less time currently to patch on my own).

I heard rumors that google was thinking about using bfs for future Android kernels.

thanks, though, for everything :-)

Patric

[Guest teknologist]

I agree on the "200 apps" thing... :-) The point for me is, that, even when there's less load, even with 1.8 (which I really really like!) kernel, listening to web radio while any background app does any networking (k9, newsbot, greed, gmail...), the sound drops.

It's a common misunderstanding that the bfs scheduler is for multi processor machines only - the simple, fast and interactive-response oriented "architecture" is good for small cpus, too.

But, sigh, if there's bad experience with it so far (though I would tell crashes is not the schedulers fault, that's probably something else), I'll wait a bit (too less time currently to patch on my own).

I heard rumors that google was thinking about using bfs for future Android kernels.

thanks, though, for everything :-)

Patric

The crashes of Rosie have been proved to be related to BFS as far as I know. Also don't have much time to work on kernel anymore.

And with the 'imminent" ;-) release of Android 2.0 on hero I don't feel it's a good time investment to try to improve marginally the kernel/ROM base on Cupcake.

I do really hope HTC gets it right this time and doesn't release a slow/unusable 2.0 ROM.. ;-)

If you want to try to patch BFS, I have a source/config for 1.8 of my kernel config on github here: http://github.com/teknologist/HTC-Hero-Teknologist-Kernel

Cheers,

-Eric

[Guest kendon]

hi tek, feature request here:

is it possible to enable multicast support in the kernel? when installing ubuntu the installer complains about it. i am not really aware what that means kernel-wise, maybe you could comment? thanks.

[Guest kendon]

i have another one :)

i think this one is really interesting: a vnc server for your mobile! a framebuffer vnc server, works fine so far as sort of a screencast, because mouse and keyboard inputs do not work. according to this it is a matter of the kernel, there is a patch provided, but not for our kernelversion if i am correct. again, if you could comment on this? :D

[Guest killabee44]

Teknologist or anyone else,

Is there any chance of integrating some of the benefits gained here with the HTC Hero CDMA version on Sprint? Thanks.

[Guest kendon]

this is sick. i am just downloading the android source tree, after my self-compiled kernel is now running except wifi. took me while to figure out that i needed the android sources for that :) but i think i am not too bad, compcache is already working, with only two tries and my first kernel-compiling EVER! :D

anyways, i also figured out how to enable multicast (yeah i'm a real kernel hacker now lol but yet to test if it works at all), but i am still interested in the patch for fbvncserver. i am afraid porting a patch is too high for me, so if anyone could assist me here i would be very grateful. now that i can do the compiling and testing* myself it should be feasible.

testing as in "works" or "works not", as i yet have to figure out how to debug :D

edit: btw, if anybody is interested i could write a small howto for ubuntu.

Edited November 14, 2009 by kendon

[Guest Patric42]

edit: btw, if anybody is interested i could write a small howto for ubuntu.

Hi kendon,

that would be great. I'm a bit constrained time-wise, but I'm still eager to dig into these bfs topic... and maybe more. A small howto would get me up and running faster I guess :-)

Thanks in advance!

Patric

[Guest kendon]

ok, i will see what i can do :)

i think i managed to apply the patch manually, once i looked into it it turned out that there where only a few lines in 3 files, plus one completely new file, so it seemed pretty easy. yet to be tested, but first i figure out why the kernel won't boot at all, not even with teks sources...

so stay tuned for the kkernel, with full vnc support!

Edited November 15, 2009 by kendon

[Guest Paul]

killabee44, I don't think we have the CDMA Kernel source as yet.

P

[Guest kendon]

so stay tuned for the kkernel, with full vnc support!

and here we go: the kkernel-1.0

[Guest kendon]

Hi kendon,

that would be great. I'm a bit constrained time-wise, but I'm still eager to dig into these bfs topic... and maybe more. A small howto would get me up and running faster I guess :-)

Thanks in advance!

Patric

i don't have the time to write something (nearly-)foolproof now, but if you are willing to invest some time in trial&error, here is what helped me achieve a working kernel:

by far the best ressources are these, as the guy talks specifically about the hero kernel:

http://blog.coralic.nl/2009/10/25/how-to-c...tc-hero-kernel/

http://blog.coralic.nl/2009/10/26/how-to-u...tc-hero-kernel/

the unpack script doesn't work with pauls boot.img, the one i attached does. use "perl splitimage.pl boot.img" to get the ramdisk file. here is the download for the toolchain i would suggest you download the tarball, make sure you put the "/yourfolder/arm-2009q3/bin" in PATH. also make sure to export "export CROSS_COMPILE=arm-none-linux-gnueabi-" before compiling, the coralic blog guy use some other toolchain i think. oh, you need teks kernel sources from here, and i attached the wifi driver for convinience (no need to install git then for you, please don't sue me goole).

here is some good information: http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?titl...ack_Boot_Images

afaik this applies completely to hero, just remember to build the boot.img with the parameter --base 0x19200000, otherwise it won't boot. feel free to ask if you have problems, maybe open a new thread for it... have fun!

http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?titl...ack_Boot_Images

edit: here is another buttload of information on hero kernel compiling, actually i'm going to ditch the howto, that is all you need. the remaining stuff would be mostly linux basics...

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=577587

split_bootimg.zip

wlan_src.tar.gz

Edited November 16, 2009 by kendon

[Guest ZdenekJi]

I would like to report a problem.

It is about the functionality of the wlan.ko module distributed with your kernel.

When used for ad-hoc tethering, there is a high chance the module will hang unloading. It is hard to reproduce, but when running "Android wifi tether", it will fail on about the second try of the start-stop cycle. It seems to be due to some race condition, because it won't do it if the CPU is idle, but will if something else (UI) is happening.

I finally discovered you as the one who compiles the related files.

Please try to fix this in the next version.

Oh, and WEP doesn't work. Network is always open.

Edited November 17, 2009 by ZdenekJi

[Guest teknologist]

I would like to report a problem.

It is about the functionality of the wlan.ko module distributed with your kernel.

When used for ad-hoc tethering, there is a high chance the module will hang unloading. It is hard to reproduce, but when running "Android wifi tether", it will fail on about the second try of the start-stop cycle. It seems to be due to some race condition, because it won't do it if the CPU is idle, but will if something else (UI) is happening.

I finally discovered you as the one who compiles the related files.

Please try to fix this in the next version.

Oh, and WEP doesn't work. Network is always open.

Hi there,

The distributed wlan.ko is compiled from the official Android Cupcake sources. There are no modifications made to this. I have the same problem with wifi tether and if you read the issues on googlecode you will notice that this has been reported and seems to be related to the userspace wifi tools (ie: wpa supplicant) used in MCR.

There is nothing I can do here. Maybe you could try with the official ROM rooted and see if it happens too.

I also got 100%CPU usage sometimes and if I do a "top" I see wpa-supplicant at 100% CPU usage. This issue only happened to me a couple of times over the past 2 weeks...

Hope this helps.

--Eric

[Guest ZdenekJi]

Hi there,

The distributed wlan.ko is compiled from the official Android Cupcake sources. There are no modifications made to this. I have the same problem with wifi tether and if you read the issues on googlecode you will notice that this has been reported and seems to be related to the userspace wifi tools (ie: wpa supplicant) used in MCR.

There is nothing I can do here. Maybe you could try with the official ROM rooted and see if it happens too.

I also got 100%CPU usage sometimes and if I do a "top" I see wpa-supplicant at 100% CPU usage. This issue only happened to me a couple of times over the past 2 weeks...

Hope this helps.

--Eric

Thank you for your reply. But the official Hero ROM doesn't route tethered traffic. And since the issue didn't occur with modaco 2.8 (with a different kernel), I think it must have something to do with your kernel. Plus the thing hanging is definitely the wlan.ko module. The wpa_supplicant binary is the same in both versions.

Since I don't know how to compile the kernel, let alone fixing it, I think it is needed for people such as yourself to bless us with solution.

Edited November 17, 2009 by ZdenekJi

[Guest teknologist]

Thank you for your reply. But the official Hero ROM doesn't route tethered traffic. And since the issue didn't occur with modaco 2.8 (with a different kernel), I think it must have something to do with your kernel. Plus the thing hanging is definitely the wlan.ko module. The wpa_supplicant binary is the same in both versions.

Since I don't know how to compile the kernel, let alone fixing it, I think it is needed for people such as yourself to bless us with solution.

The MCR 2.9 kernel is the same as my 1.8 kernel for MCR 2.8

Did this happen to you with MCR 2.8 and my 1.8 kernel ?

[Guest richteas]

Anyway, I've written a small guide to make ext4 partition for your SD card.

@ Shahz

Thank you for your very comprehensive writeup on how to create an ext4 partition!

I have a small question, though: After doing a backup of app data on the sd card using adb pull as mentioned above,

adb pull /system/sd/ C:\backup001

when is the correct time to restore the app data to a clean ext2/ext3/ext4 partition? In recovery mode, or after the first normal boot?

Edited November 19, 2009 by richteas

[Guest teknologist]

The MCR 2.9 kernel is the same as my 1.8 kernel for MCR 2.8

Did this happen to you with MCR 2.8 and my 1.8 kernel ?

After investigating I think I found a workaround to avoid that bug. It seems you need to turn off wifi before launching/starting wifi tether.

Found that on the issues page at googlecode for wifi tether.

Please let me know if it solves your problem...

[Guest richteas]

Answering my own question:

When is the correct time to restore the app data to a clean ext2/ext3/ext4 partition? In recovery mode, or after the first normal boot?

Backup restoration by

	 adb push <your_backup_directory_created_by_adb_pull> /system/sd/

should be applied after the first normal boot, not in recovery mode. Immediately after applying the adb push command, the apps installed on the SD card won't work, though. A second reboot is necessary to fix that, but that is all that is needed.

HTH anyone.

[Guest dr_ysp]

everytime i reboot programs from hero disappear is it related to app2sd i have two partition on my hero one is fat32 7gb & other is ext3 1 gb

[Guest dr_ysp]

everytime i reboot programs from hero disappear is it related to app2sd i have two partition on my hero one is fat32 7gb & other is ext3 1 gb

[Guest dr_ysp]

please can someone help me. after installing & uninstalling of hero rom 2.8 2.9

i cannt find the solution my program seem to disappear fix_permissions command doesnt work

whenever i install paul's custom rom google maps disappear after first boot. i have reverted back to stock rom now but appreciate if someone can really help me here

[Guest kendon]

please can someone help me. after installing & uninstalling of hero rom 2.8 2.9

i cannt find the solution my program seem to disappear fix_permissions command doesnt work

whenever i install paul's custom rom google maps disappear after first boot. i have reverted back to stock rom now but appreciate if someone can really help me here

have you tried reinstalling it by one of the variouds methods: through the market, via adb install, via filemanager, pushing it to /data/app, pushing it to /system/app?

[Guest teknologist]

After investigating I think I found a workaround to avoid that bug. It seems you need to turn off wifi before launching/starting wifi tether.

Found that on the issues page at googlecode for wifi tether.

Please let me know if it solves your problem...

Well got the reboots occasionally again when stopping wifi tether (and it's not happening always) and don't know why...don't even see anything in logcat when it happens...

I have tried recompiling the kernel to match initial configs to see if it was caused by my config customization and it seems it is not.

Again, don't know where it is coming from but don't think it's coming from the kernel/modules as *everything else* runs smoothly...I turn on/off wifi all the time (using Y5 battery saver) and have no issue whatsoever ... so it's a total mystery to me....

When I read their support forums/issue page at googlecode there are tons of people with different android devices/roms reporting those reboots...so again, don't mean to say my work is perfect (still free though.. ;-) but don't think wifi tether odd behavior is related to my kernel...

Anyone ?

Edited November 24, 2009 by teknologist

[Guest redcow]

Is it possible to build the wl12xx wifi kernel modules for the 2.6.27-mck-teknologist-1.8 kernel?

http://bobcopeland.com/android_wifi.html

Welcome to all suggestions.

[EDIT]

Compiling Kernel, applying patches... works fine even compiling modules for compat-wireless, unfortunately they cant be loaded probably some incompatibility. Kernel boots without problems, but the kernel modules created by compat-wireless do not load.

[EDIT 2]

compat-wireless-2.6.31-rc7.tar.bz2 looks promising, It gives no unknown symbols errors such as compat-wireless-2.6.32-rc7.tar.bz2 and the modules load fine (cfg80211.ko ....) wl12xx driver seem to be included however they do not get build, have to check why..

[EDIT 3]

The Makefile is somehow messed up, a lot of files are not mentioned in the "obj" parameter even though they should, unfortunately wasnt able to fix it yet, although it seems easy.Ironically all "new" compat wireless releases build the modules without problem, but introduce the use of /net/wireless/compat-2.6.2*.c Which leads to (for all releases newer than 2.6.32-rc7) Aug 20:

WARNING: "usb_get_urb" [/mnt/android/compat-wireless-2009-08-25/net/wireless/cfg80211.ko] undefined!

WARNING: "usb_unanchor_urb" [/mnt/android/compat-wireless-2009-08-25/net/wireless/cfg80211.ko] undefined!

WARNING: "usb_free_urb" [/mnt/android/compat-wireless-2009-08-25/net/wireless/cfg80211.ko] undefined!

WARNING: "crc7" [/mnt/android/compat-wireless-2009-08-25/drivers/net/wireless/wl12xx/wl1271.ko] undefined!

WARNING: "spi_bus_type" [/mnt/android/compat-wireless-2009-08-25/drivers/net/wireless/wl12xx/wl1271.ko] undefined!

WARNING: "spi_sync" [/mnt/android/compat-wireless-2009-08-25/drivers/net/wireless/wl12xx/wl1271.ko] undefined!

WARNING: "spi_register_driver" [/mnt/android/compat-wireless-2009-08-25/drivers/net/wireless/wl12xx/wl1271.ko] undefined!

WARNING: "spi_bus_type" [/mnt/android/compat-wireless-2009-08-25/drivers/net/wireless/wl12xx/wl1251_spi.ko] undefined!

WARNING: "spi_register_driver" [/mnt/android/compat-wireless-2009-08-25/drivers/net/wireless/wl12xx/wl1251_spi.ko] undefined!

WARNING: "crc7" [/mnt/android/compat-wireless-2009-08-25/drivers/net/wireless/wl12xx/wl1251_spi.ko] undefined!

WARNING: "spi_sync" [/mnt/android/compat-wireless-2009-08-25/drivers/net/wireless/wl12xx/wl1251_spi.ko] undefined!

Edited November 27, 2009 by redcow

[Guest teknologist]

Is it possible to build the wl12xx wifi kernel modules for the 2.6.27-mck-teknologist-1.8 kernel?

http://bobcopeland.com/android_wifi.html

Welcome to all suggestions.

[EDIT]

Compiling Kernel, applying patches... works fine even compiling modules for compat-wireless, unfortunately they cant be loaded probably some incompatibility. Kernel boots without problems, but the kernel modules created by compat-wireless do not load.

Good idea. I am trying it as I write this.

I'll keep you all posted!