CyanogenMod Drops ROM Manager In Favor of OTA Updates

sfcrazy writes "There's some great news for CyanogenMod fans. The CM team has decided to drop ROM manager, which was the de facto standard of getting CyanogenMod updates." Instead, the CM team is building its own updating method, explained (with screenshots) at Android Police.

Comments

jargon decoding

[Trepidity]

For those who were as confused as I was:

CyanogenMod is a community-maintained, enhanced version of Android, which you can replace the regular Android operating system on tablet and smartphones with, by flashing the ROM.

ROM Manager is an app for, well, managing Android ROMs. Until now, CyanogenMod has relied on it for installation and updates. However, it is 3rd party and not open-source.

OTA, contrary to the implication, is not a CyanogenMod-specific technology, but a general way of manufacturers pushing updates to their smartphone/tablet ROMs. See here.

CyanogenMod will now be using OTA updates to update its ROMs, so it should look to users more like a "regular" phone, which updates itself through the normal mechanism, instead of relying on this third-party ROM manager. (At least, that's my attempted decoding of this story; corrections welcome.)

Re:jargon decoding

[Calos]

The trouble with CM or any AOSP (Android Open-Source Project - the code that is released publically) based ROM is that they don't have access to the binary blobs they need to make all of the hardware work, unless the companies upstream play along. This is why cameras frequently struggle. I don't know how much of this comes down to the phone manufacturer or the manufacturer of the specific part.

If it's something you care about, you know that going in and choose accordingly. As far as I know HTC tries to play ball; Samsung doesn't do bad; Motorola tries to make everyone's life hell. That isn't only driver support (or lack thereof), but locking down the bootloader and that kind of thing to specifically try to stop third party installs. HTC last I knew even had a "developer" program - all you had to do was sign up, give them some serial numbers and they emailed you a key to unlock everything.

If you need to be sure - buy one of the Google-branded models, the Nexus series. Made to be easily modded, necessary code and everything released. As such, they usually have the best and longest-lasting support from developers.

Re:jargon decoding

[aaron552]

Samsung doesn't do bad

You've obviously never tried to write wrappers for exynos blobs. The exynos chipsets and/or binary blobs are a nightmare to work with, and the main reason why the GS2 (and probably S3) have so many problems with CM. When it's not a Samsung-designed SoC (eg. OMAP or Snapdragon), it's a lot nicer. Sure, it's fairly easy to get a custom OS running on an exynos chipset, but getting it running well is... well...

Re:jargon decoding

[arkhan_jg]

Pretty close at the jargon. Few extra points though.

Cyanongen mod is based upon the android open source project (AOSP) that google keeps up to date with the current android source code. They take that, add a few extra features - like themes, and notification widgets - and compile it for a number of different devices. They're obviously constrained for closed source binary blob drivers though, especially if they're based upon a newer version of android (with a newer kernel version) than officially released for the device. Cameras and nvidia chips tend to be especially bad.

ROM manager is based around recovery mode; i.e. your android phones built in underlying method for flashing official ROMs. As part of rooting the phone (gaining root is gaining full control), this is usually replaced with a custom recovery tool like clockwork mod, with more options - and also lets you flash unofficial, unsigned roms.

So previously with cyanogenmod to update, you'd go to the website, download the latest copy of the rom (on your pc, probably), copy it to the phone internal storage, run rom manager which would then reboot into recovery mode and flash the new rom; or you'd go into recovery mode manually and install the updated rom you'd downloaded. For nightlies, you'd be doing this daily! Which kinda sucks.

One of my devices (nexus 7) I've been running paranoid android, a hybrid tablet rom - it's based upon cyanogenmod, but does extra stuff such as putting in the full tablet interface if you want, and allowing direct res control of individual apps. Anyway, it includes OTA (over the air) updates via goo.im. Basically, it pops up a notifier that there's a new version. You select that, download the new rom as prompted direct to the device (or later, via the goo.im manager if you don't want to update now), then you select to update it via the recovery mode automatically; it goes in, flashes the rom, and off you go, you're updated.

The new cyanogenmod OTA updater looks like it will work much the same; you tell it what updates you want (nightlies, stable), how often to check. You then forgetz about it. When a new version comes up you'll get a notification, you pull the update down directly, do an optional backup and install the rom without having to manually copy it to your phone,

It doesn't sound like much, but it significantly streamlines installing updates to your ROM and saves a fair bit of time poking around in clockwork mod recovery mode. Cyanogenmod by its very nature does a lot of updates for fixes, especially in the early life part of a new rom, i.e. all the jelly bean roms at the moment while bugs, drivers, features etc are sorted out.

Re:Better Android

[s_p_oneil]

I don't know. I never had a working camera app with CM. It would take anywhere from 0 to 3 pictures before forcing me to reboot the phone, and when I tried to take video, the visual quality was so bad that you couldn't recognize the people in the videos. That kind of killed one of the major benefits of having a smartphone for me.

Maybe they've improved it since then, but the last thread I read on the subject (maybe 6-12 months back) was "Well, the camera still doesn't work, but..." Needless to say, when I upgraded my phone, I chose NOT to install CM.

Re:You Still Need Thr ROM Manager

[beano311]

That's not true at all. You need a custom recovery, like Clockwork Mod Recovery (same dev as ROM Manager, but not the same thing), Team Win Recovery Project, or 4EXT (etc.), but you don't need to have ROM Manager installed at all to use any of these (they can be flashed from the terminal or ADB). Also, you can revert to stock by placing an update.zip on the root of the SD card and booting into HBOOT on most phones, or by using Odin on Samsung phones as previously mentioned.

Re:Better Android

[puto]

Really, i am an escalation manager for ATT in a call center for ATT. My last few weeks since the Iphone 5 release has been about whiney bitches complaining that their phone does not have good battery life or connection to the network. God forbid Apple lied about a shoddy product. Yet I rarely get a call from a CM user bitching...

Re:A simpler method would be great

[busyqth]

As a non-supertechie Android user, I sure would welcome a more simplified way to root and install these files. I attempted it a month ago, following instructions laid out on Androidforums for my LG Virgin Mobile phone. Got it right up until the final step when it refused to accept the code that I know I was inputting exactly. Had to give up in frustration, glad it wasn't bricked, though. I'd love to have full control over permissions on my device, and to securely lock it down from any hack attempts. Thanks to /. for this heads up story.

Just disassemble the bootloader starting at breakpoint 0x10C08000 and look for the argument to CLD R0.
Once you've found that, you only have to patch the configuration file with the new value and reassemble the kernel userspace.
Then just flash the ROM with the resulting srecord file and you're good to go.
Anyone can do it.

Re:Better Android

[NemosomeN]

That's because stupid people don't put CM on their phones. Stupid people do, however, buy iPhones.

Re:Better Android

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that a nightly, alpha, beta or final? Did they list camera app not working in the release notes? If any of the answers is yes, than I have no sympathy for you.

CM does not necessary guarantee that everything will work. Also, depending on the popularity of any device among the developers, some of them do get left behind, while some are not picked up, and some devices are just awesome with CM.

>I chose NOT to install CM.

Congratulations: Now you know you have a choice.

Re:Better Android

[Calos]

That's not fair. I know plenty of smart people with iPhones, and a quick look at forums will show you many people in far over their head trying to root and install ROMs.

But it's very apparent that what you do rooting etc. is not officially supported, and more than clear that official lines of support are useless if you have issues. Now, if people were calling AT&T to complain about their jailbreaking gone wrong or something, that would be different.

Re:Better Android

[gmhowell]

That's because stupid people don't put CM on their phones. Stupid people do, however, buy iPhones.

They also know to lie to the CSR about what they did when there is a problem.

Re:Better Android

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've "flashed dozens of phones" than you're heads and tails above the average smartphone user. Sorry, not everyone is a geek. 99.99% of the people out there who own smartphones would have no clue to even understand where to begin to flash a phone. Hell, they probably don't even know what the term means.
 
As far as trolls? No, there are people who've heard of flashing from G4tv or some random podcast and think it's the thing to do. The number of geek wanna-bes is astounding. Real geeks are definitely outnumbered in this case. Why is it that anyone who is clueless about anything the majority of Slashdotters consider hip but who is interested is a troll?
 
Next you'll be telling us that anyone who's had a positive experience with Windows 8 is a shill. That kind of bullshit has played out. Move on.