Week Ending: August 16, 2013
“This Week in CyanogenMod” is an ongoing feature that aims to serve as a one-stop shop for weekly updates. Topics discussed are culled from our social media accounts, gerrit, status updates and general thoughts.
“CM 10.2 ate my cat!”
As most people have noticed, we have initiated the nightlies for the 10.2 code branch. Incidentally, some of you didn’t notice, and flashed CM 10.2 directly onto your phones thinking it was just another 10.1 build. This is normally a non-issue, except that many of you did so while running incompatible third-party addons, kernels, and proprietary apps. For those that this applies to we’d like to calmly and kindly remind you that app force closures due to these incompatible items are not bugs – do not report anything 10.2 related to our bug tracker, we will close them. Bugs tickets are only accepted against M/RC and general releases.
“But 10.2 broke my phone!”
So, you ended up with an issue during your install and things are not quite working as they should, and want to know how to get back to ‘normal’? Forum moderator bassmadrigal was kind enough to write up a thread with a synopsis of best practices and troubleshooting for you, aptly titled “How do I update CyanogenMod?”, worth a read for those of you who are stuck.
Not to dwell on the topic too much longer, but we’d also like to remind you that ‘nightlies’ are unchecked, untested, automated builds created by our build machines. They are prone to bugs, regressions, breakages and other assorted oddities. If you cannot accept those possibilities, please stick to something tagged ‘M’, ‘RC’ or ‘general release’.
“My phone app is uninstalled?“
Don’t panic, we didn’t remove the phone from your…well, phone. It simply changed names in Android 4.3, rendering old shortcuts broken. If you need to know how to add it back, hit the link.
“Where did the setting for [insert feature] go in 10.2?”
As we mentioned last week, the final piece to releasing the 10.2 nightlies was a complete settings restructure. Items have been moved, new categories created and code has been cleaned. This also means that in some of the reorganization, features we removed to be cleaned, re-coded and eventually re-implemented. If your favorite feature appears to have vanished, fret not, its being worked on and is likely to make a reappearance in the future.
In the mean time, those of you running 10.2 should (hopefully) find that the settings menu is no longer a mass of features categorized as ‘System’, and instead more neatly organized into logical categories. Again, this is an active code branch, which means things may further shift, move, or rename until we feel it is perfect – and then likely mess with it some more.
“Why not [my device]? Why does CM prefer [insert OEM]?”
We don’t play games with favorite OEMs or devices. The order is fairly straight-forward: build for what each maintainer uses on a day to day basis, expand and leverage that work for similar devices/chipsets, and move on from there. Being a ‘Nexus’ has no bearing on first or last, nor does being a Samsung or an HTC or anything else.
“So where does my device stand?“
You can check the current roster on our Github repo for ‘Hudson’. To clarify how its read, we will use ‘mako’ as the example:
Designated as “cm_mako-userdebug cm-10.2″ this text means that on a nightly basis build the 10.2 “userdebug” (the one we release to you currently) build of mako aka the Nexus 4. Items with “10.1″ get the 10.1 branch, “jellybean” the 10.0 branch, and “ics” the 9.x branch. Devices with “W” after the branch receive one build a week.
In essence, our build machines read this list and designations, and build. When a device is ready for the next code branch, it’s maintainer issues a request to the repository to change the designation. If your device hasn’t been changed yet it means your maintainer, who by the way you trust to make good decisions on the behalf of your device, believes it is not yet ready.
New Devices
This week we merged in some brand new devices, including the HTC One X+ International (enrc2b), Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini (serranoltexx) and the Samsung Galaxy SII Epic Touch 4G D710 (d710) – which is a really long name.
A gift from Equiso
We got contacted by the folks from Equiso asking if we’d be interested in working on CM support for their Smart TV Android-on-a-stick device. With all the excitement and ideas Chromecast has drummed up, we thought it’d be a fun idea to see what we could come up with. At the least, this is a new form factor and challenge for us, and we like challenges.
Koush has his in hand and is aiming to go big – create an Open Chromecast stack, checkout his post to give him your thoughts!
AndysThreads Preorder Ends tonight!
The window for placing orders is between now and midnight EST tonight. As a reminder, everyone who participates is automatically entered into a pool to receive a free CM hoodie!
Got a suggestion for a topic you’d like to see in the next round-up? Let us know in the comments below. All device/port requests will be ignored.