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Ars Checks Out CyanogenMod's New Installer
Ars Technica runs through the pretty and simple (but Windows-only) installer that is one of the first big fruits of the newly commercialized CyanogenMod project, and finds it very worthwhile. However, and despite being far easier for ordinary mortals than the error-prone process of the old way to put on CyanogenMod, it's not perfect: reviewer Ron Amadeo ran into troubles using it on his Nexus 4, and cautions: "If CyanogenMod Inc. really wants to lower the barrier to entry, they next thing they need is a way for users to just as easily go back to the setup they had before installing CyanogenMod. Currently, the installer is a one-way street. If the user decides CyanogenMod isn't for them and wants to go back, they're stuck. Even worse, they could run into the situation I did, where CyanogenMod installs but everything is broken. I've done this enough that I know how to go back to stock, but for a novice, they would have been abandoned with a broken phone."
Slashdot has always been Thus.
It has always been a crows sourced link repository. It was never intended as a publisher of first record.
As for you seldom coming here, I see you posting every day on every story.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
So what happened to back up before upgrade. Can' t the installer backup, and then revert.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Has Netcraft confirmed it?
Unlocked phones are becoming more available, and more carriers offer "bring-your-own-device" plans. So this should be offered as something you get installed by small phone retailers or, for more volume, bulk importers of phones and tablets. It's useful for people who don't want to be tied to Google or Apple online services.
uh ... go ask your carrier for upgrade then .
waiting ..
waiting.
waiting.
uh ... go ask your carrier for upgrade then .
This is a fair point. CyanogenMod's strength is that it offers an upgrade path to a great many devices that have been abandoned by their manufacturers.The Samsung Galaxy Nexus, for instance hasn't seen an upgrade from my carrier in well over a year. CM also offers a clear way to de-googlify your phone, for those worried about Google's monitoring their activity. If you want the benefits of (say) Google maps and navigation, you have to consciously download and install the gapps.
> "If CyanogenMod Inc. really wants to lower the barrier to entry, they next thing they need is a way for users to just as easily go back to the setup they had before installing CyanogenMod
Reflash your phone back to stock if needed. Sometimes you have to search but typically the manufacturer provides a service tool that can be used. Or you can just take it back to the store you bought it from and make their techs do it.
As far as backing up your data, there are apps to do that.
I installed cm10.1 on a Samsung captivate today. Took it from its stock froyo build straight to ics in just 30 minutes. The instructions are more complicated than a one button upgrade but really the problem isn't that there is no way back. The problem is that people don't demand the same service for their purchase from the manufacturer.
I thought the target for Cyanogenmod was always those devices that have been abandoned by their manufacturers and giving them updates, be they security or functionality, in the case of the latter it usually means new APIs that newer programs take advantage of. Though with Google Play Services they are trying to eliminate this as being such a problem.
Nexus phones are supposed to be well-supported anyway - in fact aren't they the phone to get if you want updates? - so I'm not sure what the appeal of Cyanogenmod is for them unless you want to de-google it?
That really IS silly. I get so tired of greedy bastards who think that their "intellectual property" is worth quintillions of dollars. But - people DO need to eat, they need homes, some of them hope to raise kids, some like to have their own private transportation.
A company isn't evil just because it's "for profit". They may BECOME evil, in the pursuit of profits, but profits aren't evil.
Real life has a way of destroying idealist's dreams. Unless, of course, you are posting from some alternate dimension in which no one needs or wants profits. How does everyone eat over there? You should share your secrets with us!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
You should talk to Steve Jobs about that. I'm sure the NSA can hook you up with a direct line - they know everyone else's business.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Customs roms aren't really about escaping Google, they are about escaping the lockdown carriers tend to put on their phones.
Unless, of course, you are posting from some alternate dimension in which no one needs or wants profits. How does everyone eat over there? You should share your secrets with us!
Its easy. When Mom stomps twice on the floor above his basement lair, it means dinner is ready.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Sometimes it's not about installing, but about uninstalling. I've an old Samsung device that doesn't have a lot of RAM. They still release updates for it, each more bloated than the previous. I jumped ship last year to CM 7.2. It gives me the same OS version as the latest update from Samsung, but without Samsung's bloat. The cherry on top is being able to delete the Google Apps I don't want (gtalk, to name the worst one). On stock you can't delete them, you can't even stop them from running in the background. Now I got plenty of free RAM, phone's snappy, and I don't feel pressed to upgrade the hardware.
They are about not running Facebook. Battery life x5 on my Samsung Note (GT7000).
It has always been a crows sourced link repository.
Crow sourced. That does actually explain a lot...
CM also offers a clear way to de-googlify your phone, for those worried about Google's monitoring their activity.
this is why google will buy them.
they're the one to get if you want the latest released version quickiest after it has been released in conjunction with the corresponding nexus phone.
after that the updates can take time and after certain time stop completely.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Once upon a time CM bundled the common Google apps like Calendar, GMail, Market etc. Google came down hard on them, and CM were forced to put those apps into a separate package — they couldn't bundle them with the standard CM image anymore.
In short, CM is de-googlified by default because Google told them so.
I though the whole point of Nexus phones was to not be controlled by providers?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
"publicly traded"
That is unnecessary for some people. If your sole motive is profit, then maybe being publicly traded is a good thing. Small businesses, however, manage to keep on going, year after year, sometimes decade after decade, eking out a modest living for themselves, and their employees, and showing a modest profit. Such businesses often have no desire to compete on national or international markets.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Unless you have a Verizon or Sprint Nexus...
If you have one of those, you've been ripped off. Nexus aren't tied to carriers.
No sig today...
There is a difference between wages and profit.
Wages are necessary.
Breaking even is necessary.
Profit is a religious thing.
Oh, and you don't get to create artificial scarcity just to guarantee someone a viable business.
Could you give a less awful example than Canonical?
Red Hat and IBM are mentionable. IBM have been one of the evillest companies on earth, by hopefully unambiguous standards. Red Hat are awwww-right.
Intelligence down, productivity down, ineffective+gameable metrics up.
Have you even seen how schools and businesses measure people nowadays?
hey're the one to get if you want the latest released version quickiest after it has been released in conjunction with the corresponding nexus phone.
after that the updates can take time and after certain time stop completely.
The difference is that the manufacturer abandons the phone as soon as it's released; They take your money, they forget about you. CM update, from my experience with the Desire HD, for approx 18 months from release (Oct 2010 - May 2012) for consumer phones, including to Android versions which aren't fully supported by the device (4.0 on the Desire HD, 2.2 only when purchased). Dev phones, by their nature, are updated for longer and worked on more frequently.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
wubi installs Ubuntu in a way that reverting to Windows is trivial.
Unless you have a Verizon or Sprint Nexus...
If you have one of those, you've been ripped off. Nexus aren't tied to carriers.
Or the AC in question has never touched a Nexus and is just trolling.
Sorry, but that's just nonsense. Microsoft doesn't give you an entire functional open source OS while keeping back just a few proprietary apps.
Can you state exactly how AOSP is "crippled"? The version Google ships with their devices is exactly the same OS, only some of the apps are different proprietary versions. Like Linux or BSD or any open source OS it can run closed source apps.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Can I get the APK outside Google Play? I don't have a Google Account anymore. Funny note: cyanogenmod doesn't even come with Google Play. If you are looking for a store, I'd recommend 1mobile :http://www.1mobile.com/
Lots of crapware and fakes (search for minecraft), but there are official apps too and the store manage updates.
Be or ben't
If profit is not necessary, could you give me one reason why anyone would fund a startup? Could you explain how to build a factory if the bank won't give you a loan? How to expand internationally once you've invested all your personal wealth into your business? Why would someone risk being a business owner and not an employee? See, all these are things that are typically solved by equity investment, or (partly) giving up your ownership, and these investors, for the large risk they are taking, expect a return - profit. Interestingly, as an example, in Islamic finance it is okay to turn profit but it's forbidden to give loans and ask for interest which is understood as making money without taking a risk. Or, in other words - the business generates value for customers (otherwise they would not buy its products), for employees (who get wages), for loan providers (because you pay interest on your loans) and finally for owners who are running the largest risk - a risk that there won't be anything left to pay for their investment in the company. You would suggest to let them take losses but not have the option of getting profits... and I think it would not work :)
Congratulations, that's the most cynical thing I've read this year.
You're totally what's wrong with Linux. Tool.
For a lot of things, the threat of having the device bricked is overblown.
The only time that I've ever been worried about bricking was on the Motorola Atrix 2 when initially, there was no FXZ or other way to reflash back to a stock ROM. Eventually this was remedied, but for a whole, the modding community for that device was walking a tightrope without a safety net.
This doesn't say that one can't brick a device, as it is doable, especially if one misses some directions or skips steps, but it isn't as common as people think.
You're arguing that profit is one method of amassing the capital to start or expand a business under capitalism. This is not the same as arguing that profit is necessary.
To answer your question:
1) One might start up a business because they want a job and they want to be their own boss. That's why I did it;
2) To start up this business, I used savings from wages from working as a regular employee;
3) I've never needed a loan, 'cos I'm awesome, but if I did, I'd take it from my local credit union, which merely has to break even by setting interest rates to offset the cost of defaulters.
HTH!
> If you have one of those, you've been ripped off. Nexus aren't tied to carriers.
Unfortunately, the Verizon and Sprint Galaxy Nexi WERE tied to carriers. They were built with a Qualcomm chipset whose drivers were all basically closed and unique to Sprint/Verizon. Qualcomm won't even sneeze without the carriers' permission, so Google was hamstrung and couldn't release newer firmware for them. That's why Google walked away from supporting CDMA phones in disgust, and refused (at first) to license LTE radio modem firmware for the Nexus 4 -- it was the same problem, but in GSM-space. Qualcomm would only license LTE firmware for Nexus 4 phones that were carrier-locked to T-Mobile (because Qualcomm will only license radio modem firmware to carriers), and Google was in no mood to let anybody tie its hands again.
> Rule #1 of mobile phones: never buy one from a telco. It is always more expensive and they add crap.
Unfortunately, if you're American and stuck with Verizon or Sprint for reasons of coverage or some other factor, you really don't have any other choice. Sprint won't activate non-Sprint phones, and a non-Verizon phone without Verizon's radio modem firmware operating on Verizon can't authenticate to EVDO, so your data speeds will max out at ~150kbps 1xRTT.
In theory, AT&T and T-Mobile are GSM... but if you care about LTE, they're both almost as carrier-locked as CDMA now. I know of exactly ONE phone (HTC One) that's even theoretically capable of doing LTE on BOTH AT&T and T-Mobile, and that's because it was built with the Renesas LTE chipset (now owned by Broadcom, originally developed by Nokia as an alternative to Qualcomm's stranglehold and licensing clusterfuck). So, sure, you can go out and buy an unlocked GSM phone to use on AT&T or T-Mobile, but unless it's an unlocked HTC One, it's not going to do LTE on either network.
Google "LTE lock-in" for lots of sad examples of how American carriers, with the active cooperation of their best buddy Qualcomm, managed to infect and corrupt an officially open standard into one that's as carrier-locked and de-facto proprietary as Sprint/Verizon CDMA.
Or you could buy a unlocked Nexus 5 directly from Google which supports LTE on AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint.
If all you've ever owned are Nexus devices, you probably won't see the point. Try using an AT&T Galaxy S3 sometime, and you'll quickly understand why CM is such a big deal.
I understand where you're coming from but I suspect your point is philosophical (rather than financial) in nature; this distinguishing of income into wages (reasonable, morally acceptable) and profits (greed) strikes me as rather... pointless and pedantic.
There is a difference between wages and profit.
Wages are necessary.
Breaking even is necessary.
Profit is a religious thing.
Oh, and you don't get to create artificial scarcity just to guarantee someone a viable business.
That's correct. Not for profits can continue to run indefinitely without ever making a profit as long as what they are doing remains valuable to people who support their existence and non-profit-making.
Most companies, however, must make a profit to justify their tying up working capital that could be profitably engaged elsewhere.
A nonprofit startup can be funded by another nonprofit or a group of backers who form the nonprofit. Once established, they operate much like other companies except there is never any pretense that they will pay back their investors or share the cash they generate with them, as for-profit corporations pretend to do.
There is a difference between wages and profit.
Only on paper. What is the material difference between income paid as wages and income paid to investors?
As I read it, the complaint is that you can't revert to the old OS if you install a new OS.
Show me any OS installer that does that!
Well, as usual a bunch of people who have never flashed a rom to their phone and don't know fuck about shit are here to comment.
Let's talk about the Nexus 4 in particular. I own one and have been flashing it regularly (heh heh) for days now. This is not my first time around the block, but it is my first Nexus device. The Nexus 7 (also have) is basically the same, a little harder to get into the bootloader. If you flash cyanogenmod to the device via ROM Manager, which requires a compatible (TWRP or CWM) recovery to be flashed first (first you use adb to unlock the bootloader, then you use fastboot to flash a custom recovery) then it will offer to make a device backup before you install. The sdcard partition is maintained, so your backups persist. So do any application backups made with TitaniumBackup or similar. These backups can then be restored with the same recovery in which they were produced (last I looked, CWM and TWRP had slightly different backup formats) and they will restore the kernel, recovery, system, data, and even cache partitions.
In short, the normal, on-device installs of CyanogenMod do make a backup of the OS, and you can revert to the old OS. I can restore right back to 4.2.2 if I want; I also made a backup with the 4.3 factory image and with CM10.2, and have saved the backups aside (via adb) so that if I wanted, I could restore one of those backups and be off and running.
This fact makes the CyanogenMod installer's refusal to perform a backup during install not just inexplicable, but unacceptable. The functionality is already in the recovery that is flashed with CM! They don't even need to add a reboot! Just flash recovery, boot to recovery, make a backup, then install the CM ZIP! Done and done! That's what I do every time I install a ROM, unless I'm not that enamored of my current system. After all, I can always restore an older backup, restore any newer apps from TitaniumBackup, and then update any remaining packages from the Play Store — then back those packages up with TitaniumBackup.
Whinging from an idiot in my books.
And yet, your post is a tale told by an idiot.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If profit is not necessary, could you give me one reason why anyone would fund a startup?
Why don't you ask the investors of Amazon.
Not for profits can continue to run indefinitely without ever making a profit
Nonprofits that "run indefinitely" spend the majority of their revenues on fundraising and compensation, not on accomplishing their tasks. The ones that actually try to do something quickly discover that their revenues fluctuate wildly, making planning and retention virtually impossible. So they either morph into the fat and lazy kind of nonprofit or else they perish.
Most companies, however, must make a profit to justify their tying up working capital that could be profitably engaged elsewhere. [emphasis mine]
What is "profitably" if not "as evidenced by the ability to make a profit"? Through what mechanism do you propose that "working capital" be allocated more effectively? Also, are we taking about profit as the arbitrary but precise quantity of currency determined by the subjective process of accounting, or profit in an abstract sense as the surplus of capital between what was created and what was expended to create it?
Especially if you're self-employed, a freelancer etc; they're both the same thing, or at least coming out of the same pot. The difference usually comes down to how they're taxed.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And they don't have schools or businesses there?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
OMG! You mean I was *wrong*?
Holy shit, like that has *never* happened before. :P
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Meanwhile the other group fronted the capital to start the business and infused capital to keep the business running.
So wages paid to employees and profit paid to investors is really the same thing: reward for doing something to help the business.
I'm a programmer who paid $500 for a very expensive phone. For that price, I need it to be the perfect phone. In other words, to be able to make and receive calls and text messages without fail.
Then why did you buy a smart phone? That's what dumb phones are for. Why did you spend 10X the price on features you don't need?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You're entitled to be wrong, people are wrong all the time, including me.
What you're not allowed to do without comment is chip in on something you've never even touched like you had something insightful to say.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sorry, but that's just nonsense. Microsoft doesn't give you an entire functional open source OS while keeping back just a few proprietary apps.
While I agree that it is far from as closed as Microsoft it certainly is more than "just a few proprietary apps", pretty much all the stock apps are proprietary as is Google Play Services which provides APIs like GCM, SSO, multiplayer apis, cloud saves, location, maps, ads. Google Play Services is a great idea to combat the problems of phones not being able to update to the latest versions of the operating system by providing new OS features as APIs in a separate APK that users can install on older versions of the OS but why did they make it proprietary and closed? Programs that use any of these new features require the proprietary google platform atop stock Android so these programs become "Google Play Services" programs rather than "Android" programs, a very clever move if you want more control of the platform.
Remember the old days where you had your Phone for years and it just worked?. Yay for forced upgrades and greed, and of course ignorance on behalf of the consumer.
The old days? That's still the case now, nobody is forcing you to upgrade, if you don't want to upgrade then don't but don't justify it by pretending you are oppressed and powerless, perhaps you just like to feel that way. Even my original iPhone still works, it doesn't receive updates and new functionality but then again neither did my Nokia 3210.
But keep in mind that you're holding in your hand a very expensive *telephone*, not some hacker toy.
If all you wanted was a telephone then why did you spend $500 on a smartphone that is effectively a portable computer?
There are numerous examples of nonprofits that spend the majority of their revenues on activities other than fundraising. For example Oxfam and the American Heart Association. Oxfam raised 918M Euros and spent 77M on fundraising. AHA raised $674M in 2012 and spent $80M on fundraising.
By profit, I mean in a general sense an increase in the net value of an enterprise, accruing to the benefit of the owners of that enterprise.
This distinguishes a for-profit company from from a nonprofit, where there may be an increase in the net value of the enterprise, but this increase is not returnable to the owners (if any) of the enterprise. For example. Oxfam cannot be sold to pay its shareholders nor is any excess in revenue generated by operations and fundraising legally distributable to its owners as return on investment.
You can imagine a nonprofit doing almost anything, including manufacturing, distributing and selling goods to the public. If a nonprofit were to do so, any extra revenue generated from the sales of the computers would not be distributed to investors and stockholders. It would be working capital. In the United States and many other countries, such an organization might not be eligible for tax exemption because the laws governing tax exempt organizations are restrictive. If their sole purpose were to make and sell computers to the public, they would pay taxes like for-profit corporations do. If their purpose were to make and sell computers at cost to schools for the purpose of education, they could be tax exempt.
There are numerous examples of nonprofits that spend the majority of their revenues on activities other than fundraising. For example Oxfam and the American Heart Association. Oxfam raised 918M Euros and spent 77M on fundraising. AHA raised $674M in 2012 and spent $80M on fundraising.
A fair counterpoint, although Oxfam is not that old. Just because it works for some organizations does not mean it would work for all of them, though.
By profit, I mean in a general sense an increase in the net value of an enterprise, accruing to the benefit of the owners of that enterprise.
Fair enough, but the sentence I was asking about does not make any more sense given that definition.
You can imagine a nonprofit doing almost anything, including manufacturing, distributing and selling goods to the public.
Yes, I can imagine it. So, you want to run a nonprofit making computers and I want to run a for-profit making computers, we should both be allowed to do so. Your enterprise may be more successful, or mine may be. But if mine succeeds where yours fails, wouldn't that mean that your nonprofit was the entity "tying up working capital that could [have] be[en] profitably engaged elsewhere"?
In the United States and many other countries, such an organization might not be eligible for tax exemption because the laws governing tax exempt organizations are restrictive.
So... we should eliminate taxes so that everyone can run their nonprofit or other businesses in the manner of their choosing without interference?
'crowS sourced' you clod, one crow can't do much, whereas a flock of crows can shit on lots.
For a nonprofit, the tying up of working capital in unprofitable enterprises isn't a concern at all. It's not their goal. A for profit is established to financially benefit its owners so opportunity cost matters to the owners.
People tend to want profit, which is why there are so many more for-profit than nonprofit enterprises. But that doesn't mean that for-profit enterprises are the only way to work.
For a nonprofit, the tying up of working capital in unprofitable enterprises isn't a concern at all.
But it is a concern when we're talking about calling "profit a religious thing". There are opportunity costs whether people care about them or not and there are government-imposed restrictions that induce significant distortions in the functioning of the economy. The gist of this discussion has been that profit is unnecessary and therefore for-profit enterprises can be replaced with nonprofits at essentially no cost.
The people who know best how to exploit capital in a particular place and time (call them "entrepreneurs") and the people who have excess capital to be exploited (call them "investors") are rarely the same. But there are many potential entrepreneurs and many potential investors; the demands of the former for capital far exceed the supply of capital from the latter. Through what mechanism do you propose to allot the available capital to be most effectively exploited, if not the arrangements that individuals among the two groups decide for themselves to form?
Nonprofits may be a part of the picture, and I fully concede that they can and do exist for some purposes, and may be effective at achieving their goals. However, that does not provide in any way a sufficient argument for the restriction of for-profit enterprises, and certainly not for their elimination altogether.
... 2) To start up this business, I used savings from wages from working as a regular employee; ...
So, that savings from your wages that was above and beyond your living expenses, what would you call it? Sounds like profit to me.
It's a proportion of the value of my labour to the company.
You are a business and your time and effort is your product. The costs of living such as food, clothing, lodging, transportation, etc. are your expenses. Your wages minus your expenses is your profit.
The crap are you talking about? It's a measure of the ridiculousness of someone's worldview when they end up with absurdities like "a person is just a type of business".
To break your analogy immediately: profit is by definition something a business does NOT use for its own enjoyment- it is primarily the reward to the owners of its capital; whereas by your analogy, profit is something a human DOES use for its own enjoyment. The underlying factor here is that businesses are not humans.