OTG cable?

[Guest ChrisDodge]

Hello everyone, long time member first time poster here. :D

Ok, so as you can tell by the title I want to get the OTG cable I recently bought to work on my ZTE Blade.

I am completely clueless on how to even start doing this. I bought it a few days ago and spent every single free hour I had on researching it and I found about 3 or so topics on it and all of them too old and basically unanswered. I am not a complete newbie, I can flash a custom rom, clockwork, but thats about it. I'd say I can root too but I only did that once a year ago and its all a haze. xD

This however requires messing with kernel stuff and compiling them on your own which is a bit too much for my current level of knowledge. :S

I found Sven Killig's guide but I really need a for dummies guide on this cause my face was all o.O reading and rereading it.

I am running on [DEV][ROM][10.2.] CyanogenMod 10.1 (Android 4.2.1) atm but was on a Cyanogenmod 7 (cm-7-20130201-NIGHTLY-blade) a day ago. And I wouldn't mind using either. I had best benchmarking scores with Cyanogenmod 7 compared to Swedish Snow RL7 and Cyanogenmod 10.

Kernel: 2.6.35.7-perf+tuomas@hope #2

I have an OTG cable, usb hub, that I can power over the usb charger, usb flash, usb mouse, a male/male usb cable, and a few gamepads to experiment with. When I hook all that up, hub to the phone, and everything else to the hub including the charger, it all lights up but phone doesn't detect it at all. Phone charges however.

Which isn't much of a surprise after a bunch of reading about it. Anyway good thing is nothing caught on fire at least. xD

I'm assuming I need an older version of kernel and a rom that can support that kernel? But I have no idea how to go about that.

I apologize for the lengthy question, I really don't understand much of this so I'm finding it hard to ask the right question.

I guess my questions are:

1. Is there a guide for ZTE Blade for us dummies (yes I searched both modaco and XDA and checked stickies)?

2. What's the latest ZTE Blade rom that can support OTG enabled kernel and which is that?

3. How does one flash a different kernel? And is it independent from the roms and recoveries? Meaning can I flash any kernel for my phone regardless of what rom I'm using?

4. I really really hope I don't have to cause I am exceedingly bad at compiling, but I'll ask anyway. How does one compile a kernel?

I guess that's all. Again I apologize for the lengthy question and thank you for reading it.

[Guest razzmataz1478]

None of them support OTG AFAIK. It needs changes in the kernel and i don't think anyone's done it because battery drain is substantial. C3C0 tried with the skate.

[Guest ChrisDodge]

Ah, thank you for replying. So I should find an older rom that supports it? Because I doubt I'd be able to do something about it with the newer ones since none of you guys made it yet.

Sigh... if that's the case then its either stick with the beauty and stability of newer roms or downgrade to older ones to plug in a cable. xD

Okie, hoping someone else pops up here with a miracle. xD

Otherwise I have to put aside the cable for a year till I can get a new phone. >.<

[Guest ChrisDodge]

Well this is the latest on the subject I found and he managed to do it except I don't understand a thing there. http://forum.cyanogenmod.org/topic/50691-otg-questions-with-zte-blade/

Can't tell what rom he's using tho. It says in his profile info that he uses CyanogenMod-7.2.0-RC1-blade and he's been active for about 10 days so I guess that's it.

So this concludes that its possible, right? xD

Damn I really want it to work. >.<

[Guest matcho13579]

You can try this kernel with CM7. But I'm not sure if it's working properly, I'm not using CM7 since CM9 became stable enough.

Also it's good for developers to analyze what is implemented there (work of member johnsmithx who has been working on USB host for .35 kernel and managed it to work), maybe some useful stuff is in there :)

[Guest ChrisDodge]

Ooooo thank youuuuuu! So do I just flash this on through recovery as in install zip?? Nvm by the time you or someone answers I'll mess up my phone anyway. I'll post the results. xD

Edit: Ok installing a zip doesn't work. Is that what I was suppose to do or not? :S

Edited February 11, 2013 by ChrisDodge

[Guest matcho13579]

Oh damn, there is only recovery.img inside the zip file. I was sure there is a boot.img, but now I'm not, because it isn't there :D sorry... I'll try to find the right file somewhere in my PC

[Guest ChrisDodge]

Okieee thank youuu

Edited February 11, 2013 by ChrisDodge

[Guest ChrisDodge]

Ok I found the one I assume you wanted to give me cause it has boot.img in it, now what do I do with it? :S

Here's the link if anyone else needs it. 2012-01-11-08-38-cm7-johnsmithx-2.6.35.7-#93.zip

The site I found it on was in a diff language and confusing so I uploaded it on mediafire.

Edited February 12, 2013 by ChrisDodge

[Guest matcho13579]

exactly!

Now, just install it like you're installing ROM package in CWM

[Guest ChrisDodge]

Nope that didn't work. Gives an error with no specific description and just aborts. Any other suggestions? xD

[Guest matcho13579]

Try to download the latest CM7 build and copy the whole content of this zip file into ROM package and then install ROM as usual

Oh, I almost forgot...you can remove recovery.img, it's quite an old build of recovery image

Edited February 12, 2013 by matcho13579

[Guest ChrisDodge]

Ok thank you, I will try that in a couple days and then bump the topic. I just restored the phone and all its apps a few times today already and I really don't feel like doing it again. xD

[Guest ChrisDodge]

Okie so I didn't install a new rom, I just removed the recovery from the zip file and tried to install the zip and it aborted again. BUT now the usb mouse works! :D

Except my wifi is screwed up and won't turn on or detect any network, and the automatic screen light doesn't always work. But oh well, we're getting somewhere. xD

Next thing I'll try is wipe it and see if it fixes wifi, if not then I'll do what you suggested, put it all in a latest cm7 and install normally. If it still doesn't work, then I guess I can try deleting the wifi folder in the zip? Could that work? :S

See you in a couple.

EDIT: As expected wipe didn't fix wifi. Now lets flash the same rom again but this time try install the zip without the wifi folder in the system folder of the zip file, and see what happens.

EDIT 2: Same thing happened. I took out the wifi folder, it complained about the recovery.img and aborted unzipping but the wifi was still screwed up and wont work. And same thing happens if i put everything in the rom package i wanna flash.

The files we need are there, and they do work, I just don't know which or how to just install those without screwing everything else up. >.<

EDIT 3: Yaaaaawn... Oh god its 5am... Anyway, managed to install the recovery from the zip, and installed latest nightly, and installed the zip with no error, but now it spins on the cyanogenmod7 boot screen forever. xD

I got about two more things to try but then I'm hitting the bed. Aaaah someone please save meeee. xD

Edited February 15, 2013 by ChrisDodge

[Guest Roeloff]

It's great you're having a stab at this. I'm afraid my knowledge of Android doesn't extend to helping you out, but I hope someone can help. I would love to see OTG support for the Blade. So near yet so far at the moment!

[Guest ChrisDodge]

Yup, well I didn't give up but I can't figure out a thing about this >.<

So unless someone can give me a step by step way of how and what to merge into the rom from the zip file without messing up wifi, since everything else works, we can only wait for a kind soul to have pity on us and do it for us. xD