Flashing Galaxy S devices under Linux (Was: Upgrading Android Under Linux)

[Amos Shapira]

On 14 June 2011 23:35, Gadi Cohen <dragon at wastelands.net> wrote:

>  On 13/06/2011 10:49, Amos Shapira wrote:
>
>  1. I lost root after the flash. All links point to GingerBreak but
> multiple attempts didn't work. I now read that someone noticed it's done
> after leaving it for 2.5 hours so I'll try it again - I stopped it after
> letting it run for an hour. If you know of anything better then I'd love to
> hear.
>
> Yeah, you'll always lose rose if you flash back to a stock image.
> Did GingerBreak help you?
> Otherwise just flash any rooted / insecure kernel.
> (And then download su.apk etc...)
>

No it didn't.
I ended up downloading another kernel and installing it.
Once you go through it with Heimdall the anxiety level drops...:)


>
> Alternatively flash a custom ROM, which will have this all done for you.
>
>   2. Hebrew keyboard - in Froyo I used "Keyboard from Gingerbread" with a
> Hebrew language pack, both from the market. But the Hebrew language pack
> says it doesn't suite a "real" gingerbread environment.
>
> Well, I'm currently using the SlideIT keyboard (like Swype but it's
> Israeli, had Hebrew support long before, and I found it has better 'error
> correction').
>
> The popular hebrew keyboard has always been the AnySoftKeyboard, haven't
> used it in ages though.
>

I used AnySoftKeyboard for a while until Keyboard From Gingerbread was
released on the market and I used that. It also had a Hebrew keyboard pack.
This was the best keyboard I had so far.
The funny thing is that now that I'm on Gingerbread the keyboard there is a
little less convenient than the one on The Market, and doesn't have Hebrew
keyboard option, but the one from the Market can't be used on Gingerbread
(at least it doesn't appear as an option after I installed it on Gingerbread
and tried to "Change Input Method").
Any ideas?

For now I'm trying Better Keyboard 8 and already getting annoyed that
apparently I have to pay even to turn off the vibration (I'm OK with paying
after seeing that the application does what I need - e.g. I sent a donation
to the Heimdall and CWM authors).


>
>   3. Battery life - what else can I do to extend it as this was my main
> problem with Froyo and I'm not sure how well GB does so far (but only one
> day of experience).
>
>
> Often ROMs have various tweaks to help with this.
>

Thanks.
It looks like the Gingerbread ROM with the newer root'ed kernel and some
tweaks turned via an application could sustain for about ~35 hours on one
charge. Still not ideal but far better than what I had before.
I'm still looking for ways to squeeze more from it, though.


>
> On my S1, I was using PilotX ROM and had great battery life; that was still
> Froyo though, but maybe there's an update by now.
>

What do you call "great battery life"?


>
> Don't forget, you may need to recallibrate the battery (more on this
> elsewhere... it involves wiping the battery stats from recovery and doing a
> few full full-empty-full cycles (i think from the lower level charger when
> you don't turn on the phone).
>

Yes I started doing that. Got the 35 hours after one such cycle.


>
> If you use something like OSMonitor and find that kswapd is always using
> lots of CPU, you can change some of the vm settings with sysctl... I don't
> recall off hand but I can check for you if you can't find it... vm_dirty or
> something, and I think one other one.
>

Yes one of the tweaks was to change swappiness, but also speed up SD card
access etc.
I use "Battery Indicator", the graph is useful.


>
> Good luck!
>

Thanks,

--Amos
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