PPCGeeks Unified ROM Project: Task 1 (PROJECT TEAM ONLY)
 

SINCE THIS IS AN OFFICIAL PROJECT "WORK" THREAD, PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND IF YOU ARE NOT A MEMBER OF THE UNIFIED ROM PROJECT TEAM. FEEL FREE TO START A NEW THREAD, OR PM ME IF YOU WANT TO COMMENT ON WORK DONE HERE.

Task 1 involves the selection of the base 3.5 ROM. During the planning phases, two ideas emerged for choosing a ROM: Selecting the "cleanest" ROM from all of those available, or starting with a brand new kitchen.

If an existing ROM is chosen, here is the likely process:

The team, led by the ROM Analysts, would begin looking at every existing 3.5 ROM. A list would be compiled of all known defects for each ROM. The best to way to this is to scour the boards, as well as discuss it with the author. Since many of the ROM authors are team members, it will be helpful if they "share their bugs" with the analysts. Once we have a good picture of all the ROMs in the wild, a choice can be made.

If we start with a brand new ROM, we'll still need to catalog the defects, but we would be in complete control of it's contents and can document every change along the way. This method will likely take longer than the other, but I believe it also ensures the best quality.

The choice is yours. Existing 3.5 ROM or brand new 3.5 ROM?

I will create Project Task 2 once a decision is made on how to proceed.

as we,re doing 3.5 and its kitchen based, I say its a clean one.

custim roms are, or should be all done in oems the kitchens modularity gives us ease to take the best and most tested..

and, anyway, I have a decent environment to reverse out and diff roms anyway.. indeed that's how I attacked the issues I have up to now. and most o my personal roms tweaks are from tweaks I stole from the custom makers as well.

to me this s/b an easy one. imcokeman and I bboth worked hard to keepthe kitchen bare no tweaks.

the kitchen also enables us to keep work seperated and structured.

I think the helmi_c/ImCokeMan 1.1 (now 1.2?) is the cleanest base rom we've got - it's what every other 3.5 custom rom is based on, so any bugs in it are in them (unless fixed by those developers already, and if so those fixes should be easy to roll into the base)

But as you say, it's up to them. I'll identify the issues in any rom they tell me to look at ;)

I say step even further back than 1.1. Let us start with the helmi 3.3 kitchen and completely re-create AKU 3.5, fully documenting every change made along the way. This way we have a complete "cookbook" (sorry) for how that kitchen was created, which folders are affected by which hacks/fixes, and a more standardized process for implementing said hacks/fixes.

For one (and I've said this before), I strongly suggest that nothing goes into/out of the OS and LOC folders unless it won't work as an OEM package. By doing this we make the changes much easier to manage for everyone and easier to keep track of (because they're in one place). If one of our fixes turns out to cause problems down the line it is easy to just remove that folder from OEM as opposed to having to hunt down individual files/modules inside OS or LOC and trying to replace them from an old kitchen. It just makes for a cleaner kitchen (sorry again).

There may very well be some fixes that must go in OS/LOC because they won't work properly in OEM or would take up much too much space otherwise. In those cases so long as we all agree that they're necessary for the base kitchen and are thoroughly tested they can go into OS/LOC.

Anyway those are just some thoughts. Call me an idealist (it's true), but even if it means a bit more work, I think we should truly start from the beginning and properly implement and document each and every change we make to get it to the proper 3.5 base kitchen. Then that info can go into the wiki for all to see.

When will be the deadline on this decision?
How much time do we have to voice our opinions?


Edit: had some spec info at home, but at work now that's why.

I think that 1.2 kitchen rom that IMCOKEMAN and Sfaure03 just completed is pretty much as vanilla and close to stock as it gets (other than the .net2 folder being in the OEM). IMCOKEMAN can confirm, but if I recall, when he went from 3.3 to 3.5 he didn't do that much modification. I'd vote for using this one as the base, unless for some reason IMCOKEMAN or Sfauer03 feel a need to start totally over again.

Well, idealist or not luv2chill you do have a good point. I did try to document most of the changes i did, but it wouldn't hurt to start from scratch again. I started with the helmi BA aku 3.5 R0 (guaranteed no module conflicts) in the beginning and i think i could help guide someone to most of the steps required to get us back to where we are now using the helmi 3.3 apache OEMs and the fixes that have been added by everyone. I hope someone (an advanced developer/analyst etc. preferably) that didn't do this before could work through it and write the instructions from "tips" or a rough guideline and then revise the notes as needed. This really shouldn't set us back very far if i did my notes properly :) although i can't walk through it to the point of flashing the rom myself at the moment. I have to at least wait til monday for the UTStarcom warranty support office to open before i even know if they'll look at it.

Finster,
I think the v1.2 should be the direction for the base essentially (hopefully fix a few more lurking issues though), but i agree with luv2chill that we should have a cookbook with step by steps to get the recipe right :wink:

I mostly agree with luv2chill, but with a slightly different perspective on some of the ideas here.

Nothing to comment on here.... Starting with the only package that's completely verifiable as not having had undue modifications from the beginning would probably give us the cleanest start. Besides of which, all of the fixes have happened recently enough that we probably remember what changes we would need to duplicate. :wink:

This, I don't know if I would agree with in quite this way. I feel that any modifications we make to files in the OS/LOC directories should stay in the OS/LOC directories, since that's where they came from in the first place. Case in point: I would think that any of the changes we're making to the GAC_* .NET CF .dlls should stay in exactly the same directory. Outside of that, I don't think we need to worry about this problem until we hit the customization phase, and the majority of that will happen in OEM anyways. I'll leave aside those customizations that will need to alter OS/LOC for the moment....

Wiki? Bah, wiki. :wink:

Honestly? All changes should probably go through a source control system (yes, I'm bringing that up now). That would ensure that we would have a good history, file by file or change by change, and everything would end up being documented in a sense. It would give us the ability to know exactly what happened, who did it, and why.

Re Source Control

How about http://unfuddle.com/home - free, on the web, secure. Sounds like a winner.

We'll leave this open as long as there is debate. If you have something add that you won't be able to get to until tonight, it will still be open for you.

Reviewed the Unfuddle site, and it looks like we would need the Micro package, which is $9/month. And that's if we can get buy with 250 MB of storage and figure out how to utilize the 3 included user accounts.

Take a look: http://unfuddle.com/page/tour_plans

Opinions?

Me, I was just intending on hosting a WebDAV Subversion repository on my own server, but I could investigate alternatives as needed. The other problem with Unfuddle would be the number of users - the general idea of source control is that you want to keep track of people too, and I doubt 3 users would be enough. :wink:

I can't offhand tell what defect tracking system they're using (it looks somewhat like SF's, but I'm not sure if that's the case). Regardless, are we interested in trying to have a full-blown defect tracking system? I'm aware of a few alternatives that I could probably set up as well....

Meh... didn't realize you had to pay... guess the free one is no good? - Yeah I see it is now - I was thinking the defect tracking would be handy, but 3 users and $9/mo isn't really gonna do it.

Bah. Sourceforge? http://sourceforge.net/ - naw guess we have to be 'open source' - I doubt we qualify :p

If Sogarth can host subversion, that would be more then enough I would think.

Not sure if this helps but there is a php based svn project that I could host....

I think defect tracking here is key. I had originally planned on just using forum threads because they have visibility and would make it easier to spot duplicates issues. I definitely think we should investigate off-the-shelf alternatives to mange this process, if they can be had at a reasonable expenditure.

I think a con-call for the development team might be in order on this subject, cause, well i feel some discord here... Might just be my tired eyes.

I propose either a real con-call, i guess i might be able to provide a bridge for a short duration, or we could use something like skype {i'm partial to it cause i use it at work, but other options could be considered.}

I dont think any of us are far off, but there appears to be some missunderstandings as to what we have, and what we need to do and where we need to go.

a voice call probably would go along ways to help.

I'm not sure whether it's full blown "discord" yet. :P

I suppose what I'm wondering is whether voice is necessary or not, or whether some form of chat would suffice. I suppose I don't have any particular feelings one way or the other, but I tend to think chat's easier....

I can see where voice might be good. Skype is free and i think all of us have an internet connection =). A chat session would be better than nothing though if we can get more of the developers involved that way i suppose

my fingers are tired.
they've typed.

createos
space
createrom
tools\HTC*
mousey mousy mousy here mousy.
cd flash
romupgrade
mousy mousy mousy
TwoFinger Pin Pricky Salute
Y
closey
waity
waity
waity
pointy
pointy
pointy
pointy
pointy
ointy
OH OH
do again


too many times.. lmao

We can do a con-call. Just name the time and I'll provide the phone number and tie-in.

It would also help if we had everyone's "real" first name!

lmao... well mine i'm not sharing with NOBODY..
snicker

........ whats it say down there?

Skype is a problem for me. Since I live in the sticks, I have satellite internet, and the latency wreaks havoc with any kind of internet calling, VPN, etc.

We could just do a chat. Maybe use the site's IRC?

I've no aversion to a true conference call, but I vote for a chat of some kind. The reason? It can be archived for reference easily without needing to be transcribed... and it doesn't require anything other than what a person already has (a mic is necessary for Skype and a phone necessary for a conf. call)--granted, not like those are difficult requirements, but just using IRC is easier, with the benefit of being able to save the chat log in case there's ever any question of what was discussed and decided upon.

Edit: And I've looked through the thread again and don't see any discord? I think primarily people have been in agreement here. I do think we need defect tracking of some kind--whether it be through a sophisticated source control package or just being diligent about documenting in a forum or wiki. I do think whatever form it takes it should be accessible to the public.

So, IRC it is??

Well i'm thinking we should use the 1.2 as the base (there might be a 1.3 or something of course, but you get the point) and instead of actually creating the cookbook that can be an exercise for the reader. It has been documented quite well up to this point. If someone has the ambition to recreate it i think they could. It would be nice to have another person compile all teh work to a n00b friendly list, but i have started to think this is something that is outside the scope of this project.

starting from the base 1.2 we can use some version tracking to keep on course though for the documentation purpose.

the site chat i guess would work, and up til now it's been quite private, but we'll see what happens if we actually say we will use it at a certain time hehe

edit: Yup it's still private :wink:

Cool! Name the day and time. Preferably, in the very, very near future!

i've been up for like 48 hrs now.. so.. it needs to be tomorrow sometime. I for one at least feel that we need to talk some. I have, or sense some serious reservations.. but to be honest a lot of that could just be how tired i am.

Nevertheless right now I think i may have a fix about ready for the rndis issue, leaving btdun as last "known" obstacle. That being said what i hear as the "plan of action" doesnt seem to be that productive to me, might be my read of the thread {grant my fatigue}, but it just doesnt feel rigth.

Chat is fine.

Get some sleep! :)

Let's try to setup a chat time for Sunday. I'm availale until Noon, Pacific, then after 9 PM.

What about the rest of you?

It looks like tomorrow evening is best for sfaure03 and I. The proposed time now is 8pm eastern/7pm central/5pm pacific. This is just for the developers and analysts to check direction we are going. we do not need other members of the team or the board at this time.

however if someone wants to record the simpsons for me as an avi i might be able to post a transcript lol

I won't be able to make it, as the wife is dragging me to an Oscar party. I'll have seashell11 fill in as the PM.

If you need me to put together an agenda, let me know what the contents will be and I'll have seashell steer it for you.

I think it will discuss the rom to use and the methods. A little about project scope clarification. Also maybe some developer focusing since there are different types of work and different skill sets. Overall I think just the interactive part of the chat will help us all get a better understanding of our perspectives on the project too.

Ok not sure that's really worthy of a guide, but it covers some of the things i was thinking about. Oh and yeah i guess a PM and build manager (didn't want to call you two BMs :wink:) might be good too, but it isn't really open for testers yet as it is about direction and can't get too big or nothing will be accomplished.

I'm planning on it at 5 pm eastern time. And oh, by the way, my names Shell or Shelwyn Becker if anyone was wondering.

Shell,
Just to clarify, it's 5 PM Pacific, 8 PM Eastern.

I hope that doesn't change your availablilty!

Wow, I missed about 2 days worth of thread here and that has been a lot of reading. I will be available tomorrow for 8pm. Is this going to be through chat or conference call? Setting my calendar right now. By the way the name is Wale (pronounced wali)

OK I got that wrong. Don't know what I was thinking. But I guess that puts me out to. I will be available from 2pm till 6:30pm EST and then not till any time after 11pm

ImCoKeMaN,
I prepared the agenda, but Seashell can't be there, either. Can you please make sure you get a transcript of the chat and forward it to me? I'll create the meeting minutes for the record.

Thanks!

I'll be available: 5:00pm Pacific (6:00 AZ time) Are we using the site's chat feature? That'll be a first for me.

Correct! We will be using PPCGeeks.com chat feature.

Alternatively, if you have a favourite IRC program, you can connect to irc.icq.com. If the default channel is kept, the channel will be #PPCGeeks.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it either, as there are some dinner plans that will be getting in the way. I'll leave a client connected, and who knows, I might have a chance to toss out something to say or two. :wink: