First ROM Since Cyanogen to Truly Embrace Open-Source

[cvpcs]

What benefit is the cron port in the droid? I wondered about cron support in the native source, but have not installed enough pieces of the sdk to download via git and poke around.

I've built a few linux from scratch servers for the house over the last few years so have a bit of a leg up on what the pieces are.

I currently don't use cron, but it has such a tiny footprint (~62k), that I figured it never hurts to be available. The cron daemon itself is set up to never run unless a system crontab exists, so that if it is not actually being used to run anything, it won't sit there and drain the battery for no reason. One possible use for it in the future would be to perform various update or cleanup tasks, especially since ideally a phone should not power off very often.

Something I noticed the other night was that the stock email app (not gmail) if left running as the foreground when you let the screen blank out will chew up the battery over night!

I have never experienced this because my phone is almost always plugged into something (since i'm almost always near a computer). I have added this note to my todo list and will see if the email app continually syncs or something that might drain the battery.

What kinds of tweaks to the source can you make to cut down on battery drain? And I've wondered about all the apps pulling in stock libraries where maybe one or two functions were really called in the whole library.

Battery drain is going to be caused by the system doing more work for longer, not necessarily the size of it. Stock libraries are fine so long as they don't take up too much space (and when compiling from source, we can leave out a lot of bloat that isn't needed when we compile). Also when building from source, we can add hooks and changes directly into how the system runs to implement better features, optimize systems, and so on.

One example for battery life would be the OTA update system. Even if the otacerts package or whatnot is invalid, there is still a process running in system that checks for verizon's OTA updates. We could add the ability to shut off that check. Other changes like that are possible (or more probable) with a source based distro, instead of a hacked distro.

I hope this has answered your questions

 

[arw01]

Very well thank you. Happen to have found a hook for google voice notifications? Or is their a hook that you can see all notifications before they are passed onto the notification bar?

Work provides no SMS plan, so I can only use google voice, which means I cannot use a mobile defender or wave secure or where's my droid app for those times I cannot find where I left the beloved Droid!

Part of why I've started to download the pieces of the sdk was to go looking for such a source code hook. I'd like my phone to report where it is every once in a while so that when I loose it I could find it!

 

[borgey401]

Quietly, a team of 4 Developers/Testers have been working in their labs day and night to produce the first truly open-source ROM since Cyanogen. Without using anything from outside sources this group has managed to re-invent the wheel several times, including the smallest bash shell to date able to be used on the android system, Vixie-Cron for low level task scheduling, Reboot option in the power control menu also allowing for rebooting into recovery, as well as a few other "under the hood" tweaks. The mastermind behind this rom, Austen ****en(CVPCS), has finally deemed the current version 0.5.0 to be open to public beta. The name of this ROM you ask?

Link to the main Sapphire site: start [CVPCS Sapphire Wiki]

While CVPCS was hard at work putting bash into a car crusher. Todd Swindoll (Sniffle), who is well known in the android community for his beginning android compiling guide, has been hard at work on the accompanying site to this ROM. Not only is the ROM site now available, but also there is a wiki available with guides for adding some of these same features to your own "compiled from source" roms including his full original guide in wiki form, Busybox without having to modify source, and Superuser.apk and root while only modifying one source file, with more to come!

Link to generic android wiki site: start [CVPCS Android Wiki]

(quote from CVPCS site)
Special thanks to:
Todd(sniffle): for helping me from the beginning to present on this project, and never tiring of my constant talk over it
Evan(mayh3m): for helping me test EVERYTHING about my ROM, and the continual data/system wipes he no doubt had to endure
Corey(synik4l): for supporting me in this project as well as getting me in touch with many of the android developers
Pete(pete): for answering some of my questions and putting me in touch with several people
Koush: for his willingness to help me with bug fixes, as well as for all of the wonderful work he's done
Cyanogen: for all of his hard work that served as a guide to help me figure out the android build process
Alldroid.org: for graciously offering hosting space for the various files that are available on this site

sniffle you guys are the ****...... you already know that tho . i can't wait to try out ruby on the Dinc. ever since you told me about it i have been DYING to test it out.... but good work man and i look foward to your future releases.

 

[JohnnyACE562]

N00B QUESTION: HOW DID YOU GUYS CRACK THE DROID X? {{o_0}}

 

[thebizz]

They didn't it was bypassed by hijacking the bootup process to load the recovery pretty ingenious