[ROM] FTB (2.1 mod) - updated 2012 01 01

[Guest ganker]

what?? that ext backup issue solved by using ext2 i gotta try that! and return to apps2sd!!

How about the SD card is damaged issue i got :)

attach usb kabel to pc

mount usb

safely unmount and discount .... and i often get a message from android = SD card damaged!

ganker

[Guest perljun]

Please give me a link to that FAQ.

Regarding what will or won't work with roms, most of the time when I'm wondering, I just try it to find out. I haven't destroyed my phone yet. ;)

Hi twrock,

http://code.google.com/p/droidwall/

Usually I'd agree with you but I don't wanna flash a rom just to test out wether one app works with it or not :) I thought it might be faster to just ask the author

edit: I've been reading up a bit on the subject and from what I understand is that these three lines

CONFIG_NETFILTER=y 

CONFIG_NETFILTER_ADVANCED=y 

CONFIG_NETFILTER_XT_MATCH_OWNER=y

have to added in ~/kernel/droid/omap

I'm not certain if that is all thats required though

Edited September 27, 2011 by perljun

[Guest twrock]

Hi twrock,

http://code.google.com/p/droidwall/

Usually I'd agree with you but I don't wanna flash a rom just to test out wether one app works with it or not :) I thought it might be faster to just ask the author

edit: I've been reading up a bit on the subject and from what I understand is that these three lines

CONFIG_NETFILTER=y 

CONFIG_NETFILTER_ADVANCED=y 

CONFIG_NETFILTER_XT_MATCH_OWNER=y

have to added in ~/kernel/droid/omap

I'm not certain if that is all thats required though

Thanks. I'll try to look at that link later. But if your description is correct, that is not something I have the ability to do. Initially it looks like that is part of compiling a kernel. I only know how to work with files in the ramdisk of the boot.img. (boot.img=kernel+ramdisk) So don't get your hopes up.

[Guest twrock]

Well, I don't know if its that FLB boot.img or what but this rom seems to loop ringtones/notification tones, etc automatically - there is no need to edit file tags at all! If you go to 'Sound & display settings' and go to the ringtone selector (or notification selector for that matter), you will notice that the sound file is looped until you click OK/Cancel so this is great. Just tested with an incoming call and the ringtone still loops. Another + for this great rom!

btw, in the end I downloaded a free app called 'Ghost Commander File Manager' which allows rw mounting of /system. Good fast little program, not too large either. Selected 'Root mode on leaving /sdcard' in settings, then go up to / and when prompted, set allow to superuser access prompt. done. You will need to reboot phone (to remount /system) so that Android settings can see your newly pasted media file in /system/media/audio/ringtones directory. Hope it helps others struggling with this.

Once again my memory is failing me. Now that you mention it, I believe the repeating ringtone problem only appeared in Froyo. But don't quote me on that. ;)

[Guest pedrojaime]

Now that we are on a roll ;) does anyone know how to force skype to output sound via the in-call speaker or is this a problem with the skype application itself? Calls only go out through speakerphone for me on this rom (headphones work too btw). thanks!

[Guest huawei8220]

Hello "FTB 2.1 rom users",

is the front-cam working?

Frank

[Guest pedrojaime]

Hello "FTB 2.1 rom users",

is the front-cam working?

Frank

Most definitely, just open up the stock camera app, press menu button and select 'secondary camera' to see yourself ;)

[Guest rangeoshun]

Now that we are on a roll ;) does anyone know how to force skype to output sound via the in-call speaker or is this a problem with the skype application itself? Calls only go out through speakerphone for me on this rom (headphones work too btw). thanks!

It only worked for me on a 2.3 rom, that is neidher the 2.1 nor the 2.2 roms seems to be good for it. And remember it is Microsoft now, so expect as such.

[Guest Dante2070]

Important: Please do yourself a favour and tweak this rom immediately after you finish the initial setup and before you do anything else with it. If you do not reduce the swappiness, you will experience significant lag after a shot time. I have a swap partition of 32mb. So I set swappiness to 30. If your swap partition is bigger than mine, you need to set that number even lower (20 or 15 or 10 depending on the size of your partition).

Open Terminal Emulator and type the following:

su

a2sd swappy30

a2sd lowmem-moderate

a2sd cachesd

Your phone will reboot, and then take some time to move the Dalvik cache. Please be patient and wait for it to finish and settle down. This will take some time. Don't assume anything has gone wrong. Just wait.

Being a noob in these things, where can I look up the size of my partition on the sd card?

The second command "lowmem-moderate", what is it for?

And lastly, is it safe to modify the rom before install, replacing the ADW with launcher pro, the standard keyboard with smart keyboard pro and replace the ringtones in the system/app folder?

[Guest pedrojaime]

@Rangeoshun - that was exactly my experience too

@Dante2070:

The app 'freespace' gives good information on the size of your partitions on the SD card. Beware, only use EXT2 format for the second SD-EXT partition with this rom/Android 2.1 rom.

PARTITIONING SD CARD:

I found these useful guides which explain the process well. Depending on your experience and PC operating system, chose one of these methods:

1. WINDOWS GUIDE: http://android.modac...rtition-sdcard/

2. LINUX GUIDE: http://androidandme....ndroid-apps2sd/

3. ALTERNATIVE: search for Amon_RA to flash instead of Clockwork recovery, explanied somewhere on this forum too (how to partition with Amon_ra)

4. Personally, I did not use amon_ra but connected usb cable from phone to PC (phone must be in recovery mode with Clockwork Recovery v2.5.0.7), go to 'mounts and storage' -> 'mount usb storage'. Once the sd card is mounted on Linux PC, run 'gparted' (with superuser rights), make sure you select your SD card and not your PC hard disk! You can now partition. I deleted all the partitions, then created fat32, ext2, linux-swap, apply, . If it all went well, put the rom .zip file on the phone from the PC, 'unmount usb storage' on phone, install rom selecting the 'install zip from sdcard' option . This worked well for me.

MEMORY AND ANDROID:

There is an excellent article which gives an insight into how Android handles memory (not SD space) here: http://kschang.hubpa...Faster-for-Free which helped me realise which apps were using up most of the memory on my phone (using diskusage app) explained in this article. I recommend going through this before messing with lowmem settings..

lowmem-moderate refers to the internal Android settings for handling memory for foreground apps, background apps, hidden apps, etc. This is a great guide which cleared up a lot for me about the A2SD command line options which you can run from terminal:

http://www.facebook....158826790833326

EDITING ROMS:

You should be able to modify ROMs before installing though I wouldn't uninstall/delete Android keyboard until the other one is up and running. Is there a good guide someone knows about for using online kitchen (brew your own ROM/edit a ROM before installing) ?? I haven't done this too much myself.. yet!

Hope I haven't confused you with so much information. This should keep you busy ;)

Peter

Edited September 29, 2011 by pedrojaime

[Guest Dante2070]

Hope I haven't confused you with so much information. This should keep you busy ;)

Peter

Thanks a lot, man, very appreciated!

[Guest twrock]

Being a noob in these things, where can I look up the size of my partition on the sd card?

The second command "lowmem-moderate", what is it for?

And lastly, is it safe to modify the rom before install, replacing the ADW with launcher pro, the standard keyboard with smart keyboard pro and replace the ringtones in the system/app folder?

Adding only a little to what Peter said. Modifying a rom is very safe. The worst that is likely to happen is that it won't work and you have to restore your backup or reinstall an official update. (You would of course always have a good backup before installing any new rom or working on your rom, wouldn't you?)

A few "minor" pieces of info you might find helpful.

Make sure the apk file names you put into /system/app don't have spaces.

You might need to extract "lib" files out of a few apps and put them into /system/lib in order for apps you put into /system/ app to work. One such app is Terminal Emulator. Another is QuickPic. So if an app won't work after you install your newly modified rom, that might be the problem.

Ringtones are not in /system/app. They are in /system/media/audio/ringtones.

Finally, be careful to not increase the total size of the files in /system in the rom unless you know your /system partition size can handle it.

PS - Boot animations are a complete waste of space. :lol:;)

[Guest Dante2070]

I have trouble partitioning my sd card. I am using the guide pedrojaime posted ( http://android.modac...rd/page__st__20 ).

I get the error "Device not found" when typing adb shell.

EDIT: I have partitioned the sd card now via clockwordmod (version 3.1.....). Set 512 mb for ext and 32 for swap. I assume the EXT is not EXT 2. Being a windows 7 (aka no Linux) user, I have no idea how to turn ext into ext 2.

EDIT 2: downloaded paragon partition manager, turned it into ext 2, commencing with install

Edited September 29, 2011 by Dante2070

[Guest pedrojaime]

EDIT 2: downloaded paragon partition manager, turned it into ext 2, commencing with install

great! Keep at it the effort is worth it, you will have a smooth running phone soon!

@twrock - thanks a lot, good to know these details of modifying /system, will keep this in mind in the future :)

Edited September 29, 2011 by pedrojaime

[Guest Dante2070]

When trying to install the rom, I get the following error:

"Amen scripting (update-script) is no longer supported. Amen scripting was deprecated by Google in Android 1.5. It was necessary to remove it when upgrading to the ClockworkMod 3.0 Gingerbread based recovery. Please switch to Edify scripting (updater-script and update binary) to create working update zip packages. Installation aborted."

So, seems I can't install this with clockworkmod recovery v.3.1.0.1. - install from zip file

[Guest pedrojaime]

When trying to install the rom, I get the following error:

"Amen scripting (update-script) is no longer supported. Amen scripting was deprecated by Google in Android 1.5. It was necessary to remove it when upgrading to the ClockworkMod 3.0 Gingerbread based recovery. Please switch to Edify scripting (updater-script and update binary) to create working update zip packages. Installation aborted."

So, seems I can't install this with clockworkmod recovery v.3.1.0.1. - install from zip file

I believe I came across this same error with this new version of Clockwork. While it is new, with orange text and flashy, I got around this without errors by going back to Clockwork 2.5.0.7 - this is the best and recommended version. Just re-flash 2.5.0.7 over this new version to downgrade and your issue should be solved.

[Guest Dante2070]

I was thinking that might solve the problem. However, when going to http://www.clockworkmod.com/recovery_images.html, the page is empty. Do you know where I can find an older version of clockwordmod? Also, how to flash it? So far, I always used Rom Manager to flash clockwordmod.

[Guest twrock]

I was thinking that might solve the problem. However, when going to http://www.clockwork...ery_images.html, the page is empty. Do you know where I can find an older version of clockwordmod? Also, how to flash it? So far, I always used Rom Manager to flash clockwordmod.

In CW RomManager, you need to choose "Pulse" to get CWRecovery 2.5.0.7. If you can't get that to work, you can try this:

http://www.mediafire.com/?v8z3usr5059ws5z

Unzip that on your computer.

Turn off your phone.

Plug your phone into your computer with a USB cable.

Start you phone in "bootloader" mode by holding in down_volume and end_call when pushing the power button. (bootloader is a blue screen with white text)

Run the installation batch file (or script file on Linux) on your computer.

Unplug your phone and pull out the battery to shut down.

Restart your phone into Recovery and verify you have CWRecovery 2.5.0.7.

[Guest Dante2070]

Thanks again man! I did have pulse listed in the clockworkmod, but it said Huawei Pulse, so I did it the other way.

I learned more installing this rom than any other thus far.

But another problem popped up. The rom started installing and then:

"E: Can't chown/mod /system/xbin/a

2sd

(No such file or directory)

E:Failure at line 41:

set_perm 0 0 0777 SYSTEM:xbin/a

2sd

Installation aborted."

EDIT: I tried installing with and without modifications and redownloaded the rom, still getting the error

Edited September 30, 2011 by Dante2070

[Guest joanorsky]

Can anyone upload this to another mirror?

I don't know why but mediafire is going crazy over here! It does not let me download it.. :\

[Guest pedrojaime]

Strange, never got that error, it seems a2sd program is not able to get correct ownership of a2sd files and set permissions. Does the rom installation complete and boot? If so, I would wait patiently for it to come up and reboot once more and then you can set this later by running in terminal (within android):

su

a2sd reinstall

*Note phone should be rooted to run this. Hope it helps you.

Peter

[Guest pedrojaime]

I have a question - has someone managed to buy/download swype keyboard? I got the beta only and I am specifically looking for a not-too-big english/spanish version. I am able to get English only 1.6 version digging around here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/archive/index.php/t-635849.html I have also worked out that the Pulse needs a HVGA version. Any help here is greatly appreciated :) I have tried alternatives too but keep coming back to Swype, its the best IMHO unless someone knows of a good alternative.. Its the last remaining item to have a perfect phone in my hands!

[Guest twrock]

Thanks again man! I did have pulse listed in the clockworkmod, but it said Huawei Pulse, so I did it the other way.

I learned more installing this rom than any other thus far.

But another problem popped up. The rom started installing and then:

"E: Can't chown/mod /system/xbin/a

2sd

(No such file or directory)

E:Failure at line 41:

set_perm 0 0 0777 SYSTEM:xbin/a

2sd

Installation aborted."

EDIT: I tried installing with and without modifications and redownloaded the rom, still getting the error

Likely the common problem of starting with an official rom that has a smaller /system partition. Click on the link in my signature regarding rom installation problems to have it explained in detail.

[Guest twrock]

I have a question - has someone managed to buy/download swype keyboard? I got the beta only and I am specifically looking for a not-too-big english/spanish version. I am able to get English only 1.6 version digging around here: http://forum.xda-dev...p/t-635849.html I have also worked out that the Pulse needs a HVGA version. Any help here is greatly appreciated :) I have tried alternatives too but keep coming back to Swype, its the best IMHO unless someone knows of a good alternative.. Its the last remaining item to have a perfect phone in my hands!

I am using the Swype you are looking for (English/Spanish). But they are really tricky about controlling the installation process, so I don't think I can pass it on to you.

I thought the beta program was open to everyone. Did you try to sign up for it on their website?

The new Touchpal has "curve", a Swype equivalent. But it is LARGE, and I'm too used to Swype to make a switch needlessly. The advantage of TP is that I could have all my keyboard needs met in one (including Chinese character recognition).

Maybe SlideIt?

[Guest pedrojaime]

Hi twrock, did the beta signup come with both languages? I will try that. Tried many but none are as good as swype!

thanks :)