CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway [LWN.net]

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 16:13 UTC (Fri) by kragil (guest, #34373) [Link] (19 responses)

Sadly CM9 is not available for my handset, but is it true that it lost the ability to remove permissions from apps?
If so I wouldn't be as sad, because I love that feature.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 16:46 UTC (Fri) by servilio-ap (subscriber, #56287) [Link] (18 responses)

> Sadly CM9 is not available for my handset

Not even in nightlies? I have been running nightlies in the HP Touch for months and it has been very stable (for the features that work, that is).

>, but is it true that it lost the ability to remove permissions from apps?

Yes, that is lost.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 16:55 UTC (Fri) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link] (17 responses)

Any idea or reference about the rationale for that change?

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 17:37 UTC (Fri) by servilio-ap (subscriber, #56287) [Link] (15 responses)

Haven't found much beyond the answer given here to a similar question:

http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/44589-combining-cyanog...

It is not clear if the decision was to take out the permission management altogether when the powers that be weighted in on the issue.

Also found a couple of G+ posts where people ask about this but haven't got any answer, e.g.:

https://plus.google.com/117962666888533781522/posts/LtbxP...

I wonder if something like is what transpired with WhisperCore:

http://www.whispersys.com/whispercore.html

It was developed by the same people behind RedPhone and TextSecure.

There are alternatives, like PDroid, but it would be most useful if at least permission management was included out of the box, putting control back in the hands of the user.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1589259

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 19:46 UTC (Fri) by sb (subscriber, #191) [Link] (14 responses)

Does anyone else dislike that much of the android community seems to revolve around web forums and zip files distributed on random download sites?

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 19:48 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (11 responses)

I don't see much of a difference between that and mailing lists and tarballs hosted on random ftp servers.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 21:03 UTC (Fri) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link] (7 responses)

There is a big difference between mailing lists and web forums. Most mailing lists are not moderated, whereas most web forums are. Most web forums are not archived, whereas most mailing lists are. Most mailing lists are plain text, whereas most web forums use some kind of markup language, usually an annoying one that's slightly different than all the other markup languages out there.

When you host something on an FTP server, it's usually because you have some relationship with the admins of that server. You can't get binaries up on ftp.kernel.org without talking to the kernel.org people. Whereas if you use megaupload or one of the thousand other file lockers, all it proves is that you know how to wait 15 seconds and click through some HTML forms.

I realize there are exceptions to these generalizations-- for example, the lwn.net web forum is one. Google+ seems to be another bright spot in the sea of mediocre web 2.0 walled gardens. But in general, there is a reason why mailing lists and ftp are preferred.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 22:58 UTC (Fri) by ldarby (guest, #41318) [Link] (6 responses)

The FTP protocol needs to die already, it's nearly 30 years old and has various problems with NAT and a terrible latency that HTTP simply does not have. On that point, those random filesharing sites that make you wait need to die as well!

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 23:43 UTC (Fri) by ldarby (guest, #41318) [Link] (5 responses)

Another thing that needs to die but won't is the use of the term ROM to refer what I would call "images".

ROM = Read Only Memory = Semiconductor hardware that stores information which cannot under any circumstances be modified.

Using "ROM" to refer to an operating system (or more generally, a set of software) that can be installed into re-writeable memory, is just bizarre...

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 13, 2012 18:26 UTC (Mon) by Nico57 (subscriber, #63763) [Link] (4 responses)

Still, system files are generally stored on read-only memory from the system's point of view, and the device needs to be switched to some special update mode to get write access to it.
So "ROM" is not all that wrong.

"Image" sounds even more confusing. :)
You could go for "system image", "system archive" or simply "system update", but ROM tends to be the most universally understood and less ambiguous term.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 13, 2012 19:46 UTC (Mon) by ldarby (guest, #41318) [Link] (3 responses)

I know "image" is a bit vague but it already has precedence as in "ISO image", and conceptually it's correct:

Image (ISO) => CDR(W)
Image (software) => Phone with EEPROM

How much sense does burning a CDROM to a CDRW make? The same amount as flashing a ROM to a phone.

"EEPROM Image" would be correct and I wouldn't be surprised if that's what it actually was, and then instantly got abbreviated to just ROM, because no one would want to say "ee-ee-prom image". Pretty much like almost no one wants to say "Guh-nooo-linux" - too many syllables.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 13, 2012 20:17 UTC (Mon) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]

Actually I'm fairly sure the "ROM" term comes from the modding community. At least for older consoles (NES/SNES/N64/etc.), the original memory images were extracted from literal ROM chips for modification or emulation; the term "ROM" thus identifies the source of the data. Modern consoles (and Android) use optical media or SDDs / hard drives rather than actual ROMs, but the term stuck.

Of course, Android is nominally open source, so it shouldn't be necessary to mess with binary-level modifications. However, the fact that one can't actually build the unabridged equivalent of the Android system image shipping on any real hardware from just the published source code means that we are still at least partly at the "mod" stage rather than "distributions". Android has quite a bit of maturing to do to catch up with Linux on that front.

s/EEPROM/Flash/

Posted Aug 14, 2012 8:02 UTC (Tue) by mastro (guest, #72665) [Link] (1 responses)

Not many people on this planet are rich enough to afford a phone with gigabytes of EEPROM. The system software on Android devices is simply written to Flash memory, not EEPROM.

s/EEPROM/Flash/

Posted Aug 14, 2012 17:37 UTC (Tue) by Jonno (subscriber, #49613) [Link]

Flash is technically just a collection of EEPROMs, hidden behind a nice abstraction layer. The individual EEPROMs in a flash device are just called "erase blocks" nowadays...

That said, calling an RFS-image a "ROM" is really just legacy terminology, carried over to a replacement technology. Much like the term "broadband" is used to denote all fast network connections, even those not utilizing a broad frequency band...

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 21:05 UTC (Fri) by faramir (subscriber, #2327) [Link]

It may just be me, but it seems to me that forums (and their seemingly infinite length threads) make it more difficult to find the information that I need. Mailing lists either via their archives (indexed by Google) or my email readers natural threading by subject line seem to work better.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 22:17 UTC (Fri) by job (guest, #670) [Link] (1 responses)

FTP servers are not chosen at random. They normally belong to (or at least affiliated with) the project or person distributing the software, whereas megarapiduploadz.com is not. Somehow I think you knew that already.

Also: if someone who is actually a real known person participating a discussion produces software I might consider looking at it or even installing it. If thed00d at hotmail does the same, then not so much.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 13, 2012 21:02 UTC (Mon) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

> whereas megarapiduploadz.com is not. Somehow I think you knew that already.

It's not much harder to purchase a random domain name and put a ftp server on some home cable TV connection. That is the sort of thing that was extremely common for years and years in Linux. It doesn't provide any sort of additional assurances or security beyond what a http link to 'megaupload.com' or whatever does.

> Also: if someone who is actually a real known person participating a discussion produces software I might consider looking at it or even installing it. If thed00d at hotmail does the same, then not so much.

Whatever. They are no more 'not anonymous' then 90% of 'old school' open source programmers out there.

fundamentally you are (and other people) complaining about here problem is the lack of maturity regarding the infrastructure that the new wave of developers are bringing in from experiences alien from your own. Whether you are aware of it or not, it doesn't matter. It is effectively a generation gap.

As projects mature so will the infrastructure they use.

If you wait around to get involved then it will just be that much more painful to try to convince these people to adopt practices that traditional OSS developers have developed over the past 20 or 30 years.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 21:42 UTC (Fri) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link]

Full agreement, especially regarding zip files. This is my biggest gripe with the 'modding' community. Random zip files hosted on file sharing sites.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 11, 2012 22:15 UTC (Sat) by mfuzzey (subscriber, #57966) [Link]

In general yes I agree this is a big problem. However Cyanogen is a bit of an exception, having a proper git repo.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 17:50 UTC (Fri) by servilio-ap (subscriber, #56287) [Link]

I found also TISSA:

http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wms-jiang-tissa/

But the researchers haven't released the source for it.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 17:10 UTC (Fri) by leoc (guest, #39773) [Link] (6 responses)

One very disappointing bit of news is that now even Cyanogen is dumping support for the Nexus One and other older handsets past 7.2. This is one area where Android differs significantly from most Linux distributions, which generally support computers older than two years pretty well.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 17:23 UTC (Fri) by faramir (subscriber, #2327) [Link] (3 responses)

I can think of three possible reasons to drop support for older devices:

1. Binary drivers - so can't upgrade to more recent kernel which ICS uses by default.
2. Hardware performance - not enough RAM/CPU power to run the code
3. Human bandwidth - not enough people on team to manage that many devices

In some sense #1 is actually a #3. Theoretically, people could reverse engineer the binary drivers/write wrappers/etc...

Can anyone speak to the possible explanations above?

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 17:37 UTC (Fri) by JoeF (guest, #4486) [Link] (2 responses)

The main issue probably is the lack of space on the N1.
You need to repartition the internal flash, because ICS requires more space. That can scare some people. And that may mean moving apps to the sdcard. I use S2E with an ext4 partition on the external micro-sd.
And the N1 doesn't have things like the near field sensor.
But once the internal flash is repartitioned, CM9 works just fine on the N1. The inofficial builds just don't have the official CyanogenMod blessings.
And there are also inofficial JB/CM10 ROMs, but they are still considered alpha.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 19:36 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Open source ftw.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 20:41 UTC (Fri) by yokem_55 (subscriber, #10498) [Link]

The main problem it seems is that the hacks necessary to make an enjoyable ICS experience on QSD8x50 devices don't pass the muster of the Android Compatibility Test Suite, which the Cyanogen devs puts a very high priority on. Also, hardware video recording and playback are still rather broken.

Now in my experience on my original Droid Incredible, ICS does work pretty well, and I haven't come across any explicit compatibility problems, but I suspect that withholding official CM9 support from that class of devices is warranted.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 17:31 UTC (Fri) by JoeF (guest, #4486) [Link]

There are at least two unofficial CM9 ROMs for the Nexus One.
I run one of them (SpazeDog, formerly BCM) just fine.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 13, 2012 6:11 UTC (Mon) by Seegras (guest, #20463) [Link]

It even kinda works on the LG GW620. However, it's so slow I immediately reverted to 7.x.

So yes, "not supported" can very much mean "works, but it's less than enjoyable".

For the wishlist: an upgrade tool

Posted Aug 10, 2012 17:17 UTC (Fri) by job (guest, #670) [Link] (3 responses)

A way to update CM is sorely needed. Backing up third party software and settings (and deciding which ones are relevant), wiping and reinstalling everything is a chore.

For the wishlist: an upgrade tool

Posted Aug 10, 2012 19:16 UTC (Fri) by ldarby (guest, #41318) [Link]

Eh? Before upgrading from 7.2 to a beta of 9.0, I made a backup for safety's sake, but haven't needed to wipe or restore anything... Well, there were a couple of issues like the new alarm app crashed trying to load my alarm config from 7.2, so I lost that, but nothing else. All the 3rd party apps continue to work fine...

For the wishlist: an upgrade tool

Posted Aug 11, 2012 4:02 UTC (Sat) by keeperofdakeys (guest, #82635) [Link] (1 responses)

At least for CM9 (nightlies, rc's and stables included), you can just install the image on top of a previous image (and yes, it is officially supported). When it boots up, wiping the dalvik-cache and other maintenance tasks are done automatically. The one issue with this is you still need to manually load the zip and flash it, which can be a chore for some users.

Besides allowing easy updating, an inbuilt update manager should allow you to download deltas of the system, so you don't have to download a new 100MB image everytime you update.

For the wishlist: an upgrade tool

Posted Aug 13, 2012 8:55 UTC (Mon) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

Thank you. I did not know that it was officially supported. Which reminds me how much I miss proper changelogs and upgrade notes as well.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 18:22 UTC (Fri) by jonabbey (guest, #2736) [Link]

I'm finally planning on doing a custom ROM install on my Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 with CM9 this weekend. Hope it goes well.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 20:12 UTC (Fri) by tonyblackwell (guest, #43641) [Link] (4 responses)

From a potential first-user: If CM has abandoned the ability to control app permissions, what other reason is there to use it at all? From the outside it seemed this was the major reason for it's existence...

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 21:06 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Many people feel that it's nice to have a 'unbranded' OS. I don't like all the custom software and settings that companies tend to ship on phones. I'd rather stick to having a open source OS as much as possible.

Besides having a 'default' Android experience you do end up with some special features and other things that Cyanogenmod enables.

Also as it's hinted to above, if you have a popular model that is well supported by Cyanogenmod then you can depend on them to produce updates for your OS so that you don't have to depend on your carrioer or phone manufacturer. Even if Cyanogenmod drops official support you can still get hacks and more independently minded variations to install on your phone.

If your in the USA, or other country with a like minded populace, and you choose to purchase a subsidized phone with carrier-branded OS then there is no question about the superiority of Cyanogenmod. No question at all.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 22:21 UTC (Fri) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link] (2 responses)

It is certainly *one* major reason. The other is freedom from carrier bloatware/spyware/unreasonable restrictions.

That said, I'm rather disappointed that they did not make some effort to return some control to the user: not only is the ability to edit app permissions lost, but once a google account is attached, it is impossible to add device-local contacts (i.e., only cloud contacts can be entered).

One must wonder whether Kondik getting a job at Samsung has altered his allegiances.. He did fight against providing anonymizing data in a patch submission for CM7 -- because it would "piss off" carriers/Google. Well isn't the point that the device should serve *us*? If such a move caused pushback, then it would certainly reveal how these companies actually regard us -- the buyers of their hardware, but to them mere slaves and acolytes.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 11, 2012 1:03 UTC (Sat) by rich0 (guest, #55509) [Link] (1 responses)

Support for permission revocation in CM has always been weak - it was there but tended to cause everything to force close, because of how it was implemented. LBE Privacy Guard just lies to applications so that they don't crash. I think that the design in CM was basically intended to fail, to essentially punish those who asked for it.

I don't think it is a conspiracy or anything, but I think you basically are hitting at the issue. Those with the strongest desires to contribute to android are also those most likely to seek employment in this area, and that means they don't want to tick off those who benefit from the revenue model.

The other issue is that the strongest contributors get quite a bit in the way of donations, which means they tend to have shiny new hardware, which means they tend not to spend as much time on older handsets as they used to.

I won't begrudge these people their day jobs - their work on Android is a donation of time and I can't really call them "traitors" for wanting employment. That said, forks that add in the features users like would be desirable. There is no reason somebody can't just maintain some patches and just parallel the CM releases. Then again, solutions like LBE Privacy Guard also work and are about as effective, but require less device-specific work to implement.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 13, 2012 9:29 UTC (Mon) by micka (subscriber, #38720) [Link]

> Then again, solutions like LBE Privacy Guard also work and are about as effective, but require less device-specific work to implement

I didn't find much information on it, as for most apps it has a market page, and the rest is in chinese, so : is it free software ?

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 10, 2012 20:15 UTC (Fri) by rknight (subscriber, #26792) [Link]

Thanks to CyanogenMod 9 I actually have a useful OS on my HP TouchPad! The camera isn't functional, but I don't miss it at all.

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 13, 2012 15:05 UTC (Mon) by kln (guest, #86231) [Link] (1 responses)

works with Galaxy W ? tks

CyanogenMod 9 is stable; 10 is underway

Posted Aug 13, 2012 22:53 UTC (Mon) by jordi (guest, #14325) [Link]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cyanogen+supported+devices