CyanogenMod 9 Working On the Nexus S

MrSeb writes with an article in Extreme Tech about progress toward getting an AOSP build working on the Nexus S. From the article: "Over the past week, ROM Manager extraordinaire Koush has been frantically working on making a working build of CyanogenMod 9 (Ice Cream Sandwich) for the Samsung Nexus S. The custom ROM, which is built purely from the Android Open Source Project, has now reached 'alpha 11.' All major features are present and no significant bugs remain. It's too early to say that the build is ready for prime time or mission-critical work — the final release of CM9 is due in the new year — but it's certainly stable enough for daily use. The most significant feature, if you can call it that, is that Koush's build of ICS is really very smooth — it's as nimble as Gingerbread, if not more so. Unlike the previous, non-CM build that was released last week, this alpha build of CM9 has every feature enabled, including Google Wallet, and setting a mobile data limit. As usual, the custom ROM is pre-rooted, has ROM Manager installed, and absolutely no bloatware. "

Comments

Re:Yay

[Kenja]

Done. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN4c61ETCWg Totally useless of course, but knock yourself out. Just hope you dont need to make calls on your "phone".

Re:Yay

[Kenja]

So you want a Nokia N900. Not too many people did, which is why it was dropped.

Re:Yay

[mjwx]

Then it hasn't met my standards, because it's no longer a phone. I want an open source program I can compile and install on my distro of choice that lets me use it as a phone.

Well, get coding. It's open source after all

Otherwise all this sounds like is Varuka Saltz stamping her feet and shouting "Daddy, I want it NAOOOOOOOOOOO".

As for me, I'm grateful to Cyanogen, Koush and the rest of the rather lengthy CM team for their hard work (yes I donate too). Most of us have to work with what we've got, thanks to Google we've got a great platform to work with (anyone complaining about Android never used WinMo) and thanks to people like Cyanogen, we've got an even better phone OS that is free and open.

What happened to qwerty devices?

[nightfire-unique]

I recently left the n900 world for an Android phone - my first - the Samsung Captivate Glide (SGH-I927).

I expected to root it easily; I hadn't realized how hostile manufacturers are becoming towards their customers. Indeed, as I write this, I still haven't succeeded. It actually feels like I may be the only person in the world who bought this device, which, to me, is utterly confounding.

What happened to qwerty phones? Why did they fall so far in popularity? I find it excruciating to surrender half my screen real estate to an on-screen keyboard.

This Nexus S looks great, and is easy to root and flash, which is nice. But, without a keyboard? To me.. useless. Come on Google! Put some weight behind a qwerty model of this!

And for the love of god, start playing hardball with manufacturers that lock their bootloaders and fail to provide a clean method of rooting! Simply deny them access to the Google utilities.

Re:What happened to qwerty devices?

[Microlith]

I hadn't realized how hostile manufacturers are becoming towards their customers.

But you aren't the customer. The customer, at least in the US, is the mobile carrier who wants to restrict you as much as possible. The fallout from this is that even in places where you can buy the device unlocked, the devices are still crippled (see Motorola.) The end result is that ~2 years on I am still using my N900.

Re:What happened to qwerty devices?

[phoenix_rizzen]

What's the point of having a big 4" screen if you constantly lose half of it to an on-screen keyboard? Especially in landscape when vertical pixels are at a premium? If I wanted to constantly have a 1" high screen, I'd buy an older model QWERTY phone, the landscape screen size would be the same as a 4" keyboardless phone.

Not everyone buys a phone just to watch videos or play games. some buy it to use as a phone (giant screens aren't that great to talk on), or to type a lot (QWERTY phones have more usable screen space even if the actual screen is smaller), or have issues with on-screen keyboards.

There's no such thing as "the one perfect phone for everyone", just as there's no "perfect keyboard" for everyone. Hardware keyboards aren't going anywhere. Here's hoping more manufacturers add them to their offerings.

Re:What happened to qwerty devices?

[forkazoo]

I recently left the n900 world for an Android phone - my first - the Samsung Captivate Glide (SGH-I927).

I expected to root it easily; I hadn't realized how hostile manufacturers are becoming towards their customers. Indeed, as I write this, I still haven't succeeded. It actually feels like I may be the only person in the world who bought this device, which, to me, is utterly confounding.

I still carry my n900, but I got an iPhone for work, and bought an Android tablet recently, and I have had the same rude awakening of just how user-friendly the n900 actually was. I have spent the last two years looking for something newer, faster, and *better* than my n900, and I just haven't found it. Given how awkwardly Maemo begat Meego which has stumbled into Tizen, I'm not even very optimistic that anything will come along in the forseeable future. I'd practically kill to have a whizzy new n900 with the latest CPU and screen, but nobody wants to sell it to me. Even the most open android thing kind of pales in comparison to the promise of a genuinely open platform.

I love the fact that I can write PyQt scripts while I am on the subway that work perfectly on my real computers when I get to the office/home. I can forward X11 apps to/from my phone just as I do with my normal computers. (Obviously, some aren't worth forwarding to a phone, but others work just fine on a touch screen.) The X11 forwarding over SSH with implausible complicated SSH tunnels between overly complicated networks is, AFAIK, impossible on Android, despite the fact that Android has VNC and ssh terminal emulator apps. In the context of working on a real big "Enterprisey" production network, having a "normal" ssh/X11 stack makes a huge difference.

I know the n900 never got Angry Birds, or whatever, but it has been an invaluable tool in a way that no other mobile device seems willing to be, not even the "very open, easy to do whatever you want" Android platform, which is disappointing.

Re:What happened to qwerty devices?

[assantisz]

Try using an ssh client like ConnectBot with a virtual keyboard. You are losing enormous amounts of screen real estate that you need to get work done. I am in nightfire's camp - a phone without slide-out keyboard is utterly useless. I do not want to schlep around another piece of equipment in form of a bluetooth keyboard or some such. There are some hardware solutions for the iPhone 4 (cases with built-in keyboards) but the accessory market in the Android world sucks donkey balls thanks to manufacturers pumping out a new phone every 7 days.

Re:What happened to qwerty devices?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Jesus, buy a netbook. £200-300 (half the price of the phone in your hand) and you get a keyboard with keys you can actually press (albeit not as well as a full size keyboard) and a much better screen to work on.

The thought of anyone trying to do actual work on a smartphone boggles my mind.

Re:Open source vs. community development

[Namarrgon]

Here's a big difference: Android is pretty much entirely funded and developed by Google. It's not a community project.

Their project, their copyright, their licence, their rules. Demanding that they give you the source to everything they develop is simply childish. Be grateful for the source you get, since it cost the wider community nothing, not even time.