Hi Roland,
Glad you got the build process going. The second time I installed the
build system/source tree
it kept getting stuck on me too but I finally got it working again. I'll
still detail my process just in
case it can help you or others.
I've listed a lot of different blogs/posts/articles, all credit for how
to do this stuff rests
with the original authors. They figured this all out I'm just following
their path, many thanks to
those folks.
Disclaimer: In terms of computers I'd consider myself above a power user
level but very far from the
guru level and when it comes to tinkering with mobile OS's I'm a novice.
I've flashed a few android roms
but never built or tinkered with them so this is a new frontier for me.
I'll give you my process
in an effort to help but if you break your toy it's not my fault... but
I will try to help you fix it
if you hit any of the obstacles I've hit :-) (I've "broke" my Open
several times, boot loops, standing fox,
wrong region flashes, I've recovered from a few bumps lol).
Preface: Personally I think ZTE are to be applauded for their efforts
with firefox os. Yes, they have
had underwhelming support for the Open but just the fact that they
decided to gamble on firefox os is
awesome in my book. You've got to figure that the market for the Open is
small so I wouldn't expect
quick updates from ZTE anyway (they are probably not making much, if any
money on firefox os right now).
Also ZTE are the only people that have sold a firefox phone in the USA
in volume, so again I applaud them.
I'm not an emerging market but I am an early adopter who has been
ignored by LG, Alcatel, etc and geeksphone
doesn't count since they put out such a limited run of phones and their
only current firefox os phone is Atom
powered (no thank you geeksphone). I paid $70 USD for my unit (2nd batch
ZTE sold on ebay) and I think even
if it doesn't get a stable update beyond 1.3 it was well worth the money
to be able to tinker around with firefox os.
We can probably build the franken-roms you asked about if we don't get
official updates anyway.
My process:
0. flash the official ZTE 1.1 update via SD card and enable remote
debugging.
1. Set up the build environment following the MDN documents.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Firefox_OS_build_prerequisites
2. Set up adb/fastboot by putting them in /usr/bin and modifying a udev
rule (it also talks about
this step at the end of the MDN docs as I'm sure you've seen).
https://developer.android.com/tools/device.html
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/08/pushing-a-firefox-os-web-app-to-zte-open-phone/
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/01/upgrading-your-zte-open-to-firefox-1-1-or-1-2-fastboot-enabled/
3. Fetch the code and configure the build with my device (attach
device). I however use Mike Rowehl's site
about 1.2 as a guide to configure the build modifying his command to
"BRANCH=v1.3 VARIANT=user ./config.sh inari".
The MDN site talks about those commands but it was his site that put the
puzzle together for me.
http://rowehl.com/blog/2013/10/24/firefoxos-1-dot-2-on-zte-open/
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Preparing_for_your_first_B2G_build
4. I built 1.3 again using Mikes blog as a guide modifying his commands
to "BRANCH=v1.3 VARIANT=user ./build.sh"
...wait...
5. I failed to get my builds to boot so instead of using the available
pre-modified boot.img (from Edu) I used the directions
(from Edu and Ginn) to pull and modify my own boot.img from the ZTE US
official 1.1 update. Im not sure if Edu's boot.img didn't
work because it was from a different build (1.0 maybe?) or maybe a
different region but either way I had to roll my own.
I used Edu's directions to unpack/repack the boot.img and I used Ginn's
notes on what files to edit (Edu mentions some but
not all the files that Ginn does... although I believe Edu was the first
one to do this modification to the boot.img).
Note: the chmod modifications (#3) mentioned by Ginn NEED to be inserted
between the lines "mount yaffs2 mtd@system /system" and
"mount yaffs2 mtd@system /system ro remount" since the /system partition
is only mounted RW between there. Also Ginn talks about
loading CWM, I however have always stuck with the stock recovery and
flashed back to the official 1.1 sd card update if cases of
trouble... except the one time I thought I bricked my phone but really I
somehow flashed a doctered EU update which replaced my
stock US recovery with an EU recovery that wouldn't flash any of the US
official 1.1 updates (sig verification error).
I flashed an EU official 1.1 update once I figured out what happened and
manually flashed a US stock recovery I had backed up
earlier... thought I bricked it for good that time.
Note #2: there is a line by Edu that ends "cpio -" which gives an error,
I replaced "cpio -" with "cpio -i" which seemed
to work... that might not make sense now but read his directions and
you'll see it.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=965180#c9
http://pof.eslack.org/2013/07/05/zte-open-firefoxos-phone-root-and-first-impressions/#comment-1749
6. I place the modified boot.img in my /B2G/out/target/product/inari
directory, cd to the inari directory and run:
adb reboot bootloader
fastboot erase cache
fastboot erase system
fastboot erase userdata
fastboot flash cache ramdisk.img
fastboot flash system system.img
fastboot flash userdata userdata.img
fastboot flash boot boot.img
I only flash the boot.img if I've changed it or if i've flashed an
official update which replaces it with the unmodified boot.img
(I haven't changed/flashed the boot.img since I got it working). I'm not
sure you need to flash the ramdisk.img to cache all the
time either, erasing it is probably enough but I usually flash it.
7. cross my fingers and run: fastboot reboot
it usually takes a minute to reboot, you'll get a black, lit up screen
for a minute then logos, etc.
I hope thats pretty clear (although long) but thats what I ended up
doing to get my own builds on the Open.
You can use the same adb command mentioned to pull a copy of the
boot.img off you device to pull the stock recovery.img
off the device as well... I recommend doing that.
I'll try to think if there's anything I forgot but I think I got
everything. Modifying the boot.img is the worst part but that
should get you started.
-Foo
On 04/21/2014 06:19 PM, Roland Lindner wrote:
first of all, let me say thank you, this group is awesome!
i nuked my VM and started from scratch, checking and rechecking every step.
guess what, my machine is currently building v1.3 for inari.....
looks good, previously it failed pretty early in the process.
i still get a huge amount of warnings, but it seems there are no errors.
good so far.
i hope i can flash and use 1.3 on the ZTE Open now.
i also hope we (that is the ZTE Open owners) will be able to upgrade to 2.0
when it comes around, but from what i understood that will need some
involvement from ZTE to make this happen?
since modules can be built separately - does that mean one can build a
"Frankenstein" FXOS? (eg- i'd like to have a newer browser module for example)
that would be an ok interim solution if we cannot build newer versions if it
works...
thanks a bunch and i would love to see some commitment towards the ZTE Open
going forward.
cheers Roland
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