HTC Sense (ish) themeing/"Porting" Sense to pulse

[Guest BigBearMDC]

So if we had the hero kernel then our phones would be a hero from androids point of view?

I assume that rewriting the pulses drivers in htc style is not an option? And I'm getting the impression that there's more to the framework than the things that we flash to change the look of the notification bar etc. Would porting the whole thing also have the advantage of multitouch and flash and stuff rather than just sense.

Aaron

Yap our Pulse would pretend to be a Hero to Android. Rewriting the drivers is the most difficult part. Instead of porting a HTC ROM we could port Froyo if we had the right kernel.

I think (and this is my own finding, I don't know if its correct) that the frameworks are responsible for all communication to thw hardware. So there are basically 2 hardware abstraction layers: the kernel and the frameworks (well I think there is a HAL somewhere in the radio also). So if we change the way the hardware processes different events we would pretty sure have to change the communication between software and hardware. This is all pretty complex because you have to imagine that this is all like a huge mechanical machine, where every gear has to fit in its neighbours (that might sound a bit silly :( ). So this could really get difficult if we touch a framework that is really 'integrated' in the ROM. It could depend on other functions that depend on the hardware and so on ...

So porting in general is not as easy as copying a file - at least in Android. Imagine how complex the Windows kernel has to be to run on such a big variaty of devices. Many people blame Windows for not being stable enough, but if you ask me it is awesome what Microsoft developed over the years.

Best regards,

BB

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

Yap our Pulse would pretend to be a Hero to Android. Rewriting the drivers is the most difficult part. Instead of porting a HTC ROM we could port Froyo if we had the right kernel.

I think (and this is my own finding, I don't know if its correct) that the frameworks are responsible for all communication to thw hardware. So there are basically 2 hardware abstraction layers: the kernel and the frameworks (well I think there is a HAL somewhere in the radio also). So if we change the way the hardware processes different events we would pretty sure have to change the communication between software and hardware. This is all pretty complex because you have to imagine that this is all like a huge mechanical machine, where every gear has to fit in its neighbours (that might sound a bit silly :( ). So this could really get difficult if we touch a framework that is really 'integrated' in the ROM. It could depend on other functions that depend on the hardware and so on ...

So porting in general is not as easy as copying a file - at least in Android. Imagine how complex the Windows kernel has to be to run on such a big variaty of devices. Many people blame Windows for not being stable enough, but if you ask me it is awesome what Microsoft developed over the years.

Best regards,

BB

So given the fact that the hero has similar hardware to the pulse (same cpu) and a variety of features that the pulse doesn't (sense, multi touch, flash, Froyo roms (maybe an official update coming soon), Cyanogen MOD, etc) porting the whole kernel may be the best option if we can do it.

Apart from replacing the drivers, what exactly does porting involve? I would really like to learn and help as much as possible with this.

Aaron

[Guest tabor56]

would it not be easier to Android 2.2?

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

would it not be easier to Android 2.2?

It may be easier but porting hero will give us more

[Guest BigBearMDC]

So given the fact that the hero has similar hardware to the pulse (same cpu) and a variety of features that the pulse doesn't (sense, multi touch, flash, Froyo roms (maybe an official update coming soon), Cyanogen MOD, etc) porting the whole kernel may be the best option if we can do it.

Apart from replacing the drivers, what exactly does porting involve? I would really like to learn and help as much as possible with this.

Aaron

Porting the kernel is pretty much porting the drivers. Maybe there are some other things also that will have to be modified but I think that major changes need only be done to the drivers. In my opinion porting the Hero (or any other HTC's kernel) is not a good idea. If it works we could maybe just flash any Hero ROM out there (as long as it does not replace the kernel ... but it does) what would be really cool. That would be a way to get the HTC proprietary things running on our Pulse, but keep in mind that we would have to port the kernel again if it gets changed someday ... so at least with the release of Froyo we would have to port the kernel once more. I think it would be better to get the .32 kernel running first. When that's accomplished we can still Herorize the .32 kernel :( All current Android versions should be compatible with the newer kernel versions, so we could run 2.1 with the .32 kernel also. One more thing to say, if we port the Hero kernel it is very likely that only the Hero's frameworks / applications will work on our Pulse, and not automatically every HTC framework /application.

Best regards,

BB

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

Porting the kernel is pretty much porting the drivers. Maybe there are some other things also that will have to be modified but I think that major changes need only be done to the drivers. In my opinion porting the Hero (or any other HTC's kernel) is not a good idea. If it works we could maybe just flash any Hero ROM out there (as long as it does not replace the kernel ... but it does) what would be really cool. That would be a way to get the HTC proprietary things running on our Pulse, but keep in mind that we would have to port the kernel again if it gets changed someday ... so at least with the release of Froyo we would have to port the kernel once more. I think it would be better to get the .32 kernel running first. When that's accomplished we can still Herorize the .32 kernel :( All current Android versions should be compatible with the newer kernel versions, so we could run 2.1 with the .32 kernel also. One more thing to say, if we port the Hero kernel it is very likely that only the Hero's frameworks / applications will work on our Pulse, and not automatically every HTC framework /application.

Best regards,

BB

So we might as well just port sense for now, and then if HTC release FroYo for the Hero we could port that and then make our own custom ROMs on it so we dont have the problem with changing kernels?

To port sense, will we need to find the bits in the framework (and kernel) that the apps rely on and then put them into pulse roms?

Aaron

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

Hi People,

I found this over in the nexus 1 forums. Its a port of the HTC live wallpaper. It is for froyo but they say that the old version no longer works, implying that there was a port for 2.1 . I have asked for a link to this, as it may work on the pulse, and if not we can try and port it ourselves.

It doesnt appear to be dependent on framwork, as people are saying they are running it on stock froyo and cyanogen mod.

Aaron

EDIT: I found something simular on the xda forums (was in the nexus one section but no mention of froyo).

I flashed it and its in the live wallpaper selection, but:

-in the preview it forcecloses and then hangs on loading

-if you then press set as wallpaper it forcecloses and leaves you with a black wallpaper.

The .zip consists of a meta-inf folder and a system folder. The system contains app (which has mode10wallpapers.apk, which is the apk of the sense live wallpaper) and lib (which contains a 5 lib.so files). This may be editable so that it will run on the pulse, but not knowing how it all works im not sure. If someone else could take a look at it that would be great.

HTC_SENSE_LWP_signed.zip

Edited July 30, 2010 by Epic-Emodude

[Guest Epic-Emodude]

I dont know if this will be a problem but I just noticed that the Framework folder in the Hero ROM is about 28mb, as opposed to 10mb in the pulse rom, and that in the hero rom the system folder is almost 200mb (pulse is only 100mb) This could caus some problems if the extras that HTC have added have added another 100mb to the ROM, then porting anything could involve in a huge increase in the size of roms. If we were to port the whole thing we could end up with some things missing or being moved to the SD card.

Aaron