Newb wants to start developing

[koeylondon]

Hey all! Some may have seen me around a bit, but I was hoping for some help here. I'm new to development in any capacity, and being a dad that works 50+ hours a week, I'm looking to get into the arena part time at best. My general idea is I'd like to learn how to port ROMs and builds from other devices, and eventually do complete builds from source. The later I know will take me setting up a dual boot with linux (or at least a virtual machine of some sort. Yea, VMs run slow, but I work 12+ hours a day, so I have lots of time to compile).

So, where do I start? It's development, so I know it's a huge brain investment, but I'm kinda turned around on where to even begin. I found a link on XDA to an android kitchen, but it doesn't seem to support our devices. Would it be hard to set that up to work with an LS670? Thoughts?

Also, thanks in advance for the support. You're all awesome here.

 

[hlxanthus]

Look into dsixda's kitchen.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk 2

 

[koeylondon]

That's actually the Kitchen I mentioned above, but I noted that it officially supports the P500 (the Optimus One standard), but I was unsure what modifications I'd have to make to build for the LS670. Fortune may favor the bold, but the Gods only protect children, fools, and kender, of which I am none.

 

[hlxanthus]

That's actually the Kitchen I mentioned above, but I noted that it officially supports the P500 (the Optimus One standard), but I was unsure what modifications I'd have to make to build for the LS670. Fortune may favor the bold, but the Gods only protect children, fools, and kender, of which I am none.

None that I know of it's what I've always used

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk 2

 

[koeylondon]

Awesome! I got it up and working. I'm poking and prodding, moving slowly. I began with the LS670 community rom as a base to poke around with. I'll take a gander at the inner workings of some CM builds for the Optimus later.

I have a day or so to play around with things (monday/tuesday are my "weekend"), and maybe in a few weeks I'll feel confident enough to play with the "Advanced Porting Options." I'm sure I'll have to learn to code by hand better than I do before I go there, but that is the stated goal, after all.

Thanks again, Hlx, for your encouragement, and for your badass stock rom. Your ROM (and my packrat-like love of my nandroids) saved my bacon when my wife bought an iPhone and they needed to port our numbers back and forth for a moment. I wonder why there's no profile or PRL update ability in these custom roms... I may have to add that to the list of things I fix when I learn to code.

 

[koeylondon]

Thanks again for all the info and such! Recently, I've become enamored of doing things, as some call it, "right." And so I set up a dual boot of Ubuntu and I've gone to town with trying to stumble around through source and such. I'm confused a bit, however on some key points. If someone has input, lemme know:

First, I'm confused as to EXACTLY what is compatible with the LG LS670. If a rom is built for the P500, does it work on the LS670, or does it require further modifications to work at all? What are those modifications and why? I've looked about on various forums, but many just say, "change this and this." No reasoning is given, nor what possible side effects might be. I'm as interested in the whys and wherefores as the result, since this is learning. (yes, I went through culinary school with the same mentality. I had one teacher that answered all my questions, and he's one of my best friends now. The rest of the Chefs wanted to stab me.)

Again, any and all help is appreciated. Also, I'm working with AOSCompiler and DxKitchen for the purposes of rom building. I know Dx is the "so, you want to build roms" solution, but I also know that AOSCompiler is a next step, where my confusion is mainly around the process of taking X rom and source for Y device and making it work on Z, which is an LS670.

 

[cole2kb]

You can't build for the p500 and expect it to work for your phone. As far as specific steps, I have no idea, it's always confused the hell out of me, but you're going to need to pull device files for the branch you're building (Froyo, GB, ICS, JB) into your source tree. A few devs have these public, and because it's open source, you should be able to pull them as long as you give proper credit. I believe TDM pushes all his changes to Github as well as Bobzhome and mrg666. Not sure about kraven or Drew.

 

[koeylondon]

Thanks for the push in the right direction! This is the part that I've found solidly confuddling. Since the P500 is, from what I can tell, as hardware identical to the LS670 as almost everything else in the Optimus One line, that's where things get really sketchy in my brain. I've just never found a solid answer as to what needs to be changed, or what files need to be ported/moved/etc. to make them work.

I know the whole thing is probably second nature to Kraven, Bobz, TDM and the like, but I had the misfortune of being brought up on DOS, Windows, and the occasional Mac product, and to have moved away from my geek roots and into other forms of paid work. As I learn, I'm sure all of these questions will be answered and become all but second nature to me. But for now, it's a whole new world where things may or may not work, and since the device is also my phone (I've ordered a device specifically for development purposes), I'm being extra cautious.

Again, any further info (PM or here, on any of the above questions) is totally appreciated. When I'm done, perhaps I'll put together a "Porting and Compiling for Dummies" post. LOL

 

[cole2kb]

I would send a PM to sellers86. He has done a few source builds and he probably has an explanation for you.

As far as the p500 goes, yes, they are basically the same phone, however, it is GSM, and our phones are CDMA. Besides, there is no reason to build for that when you can build directly for our phones instead.

There is also a thread in the Galaxy Nexus forum called "Compiling Android from Source" that has a wonderfully detailed post on setting up your build environment

Sent from my LG-VM670 using Tapatalk 2

 

[hlxanthus]

http://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?p=1960653

That is the guide Cole was referring to. I am still looking for references to how to implement changes to the ROM being built. Most seem to assume you know what to do from there. Which I don't lol

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[cole2kb]

Sorry I can't be of more assistance. Honestly, it confuses me just as much as you guys. I'd love to have a better understanding of it at some point, but there doesn't seem to be any one stop shop for information..

 

[koeylondon]

Thanks a ton, guys. I'm in the process of setting things up. With 12 hr days in a kitchen, this is SO a for fun thing, so I tend to stop when things don't work right the first time and come back to them.

Per Chris' urging, I poked Sellers, who pointed me at http://forums.androidcentral.com/optimus-v-rooting-roms-hacks/104423-building-your-own-rom.html for some info and post 3 in particular for a build environment setup. NOTE: it's written for a few versions of Ubuntu back, so some of the things there require some finagling to get them to work. I THINK I'm like... 90% of the way there, but I'm probably more like 50%. I'll get there, eventually. I also have AOSC installed, and I'm setting up Dx on my actual linux install right now. Oh, the fun we'll have...

Again, thanks for all the pointers and help. With any luck, we'll all learn from this and become more savvy at this whole coding thing as we go. I can't be more thrilled at the support and resources that have been thrown at me here. Linux, coding, java, development... they've been something I'm recreationally interested in, and it's funny that what's getting me further than ANYTHING ELSE has ever gotten me is this cheap, literally "hey, your other phone died. here, have this one..." phone.

Thank you from the bottom of a busy dad's heart. Down there, where all the dust and dirt collects. Thank you from there. ;-)

EDIT: Also, I found this on the AOKP board. Not really a "how to" in the teaching sense, but I feel that a lot of the packages and such necessary to build a JB ROM are in the first part, and some of the packages that were broken in the previous How To's are fixed... http://rootzwiki.com/topic/31166-tutorial-so-you-want-to-build-aokp-jb-ubuntu-1204/