Orange San Francisco - Modaco Froyo (Android 2.2) ROM

[Hands0n]

Life with the little Orange San Francisco has been good. It is a delightfully well performing device that completely belies the price tag that accompanies it. If, a while ago, someone had said that I would be able to purchase a fully functioning Android handset for less than £100 I would probably have laughed in their face. But it is true.

Based on the ZTE Blade the Orange mobile network operator offers their branded version, the San Francisco (no, I don't know why either). It is probably the equivalent in terms of specification to the HTC Wildfire, but a whole lot cheaper.

The first thing I did when I got mine was to unlock and take away all of the Orange branding and crippling. This I did by way of the Modaco forum's custom ROM which is as good as any. Saying that I fully realise that there will be those who will cite "better" ROMs. But I wanted something quick, cheerful, that works and is not so Alpha that it barely works. And Modaco's Eclair 2.1 ROM was more than good enough.

Froyo
Ah, but having tasted Froyo on my Nexus One and Dell Streak I really did feel the need to do the San Fran a favour and see if there was a nice helping of Froyo for it. And there was, again the Modaco developers have come to the rescue.

1140
[Image courtesy of Modaco]



Currently the Modaco Froyo is an Alpha.3 release available here http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blade-blade-modaco-com/324786/oled-tft-07-dec-alpha3-alpha4-wip-modaco-custom-froyo-rom-download-online-kitchen-heavily-fixed-chinese-leak/

The thing to bear in mind with all Alpha versions is that they are likely to be a bit flaky, a bit experimental even. But the Modaco ROM certainly does not look, feel or behave like an Alpha. Reading through the status log it is plain to see that the developers have been very busy indeed. Even though they have Alpha.4 in the pipeline (for paid-up subscribers) the current "baked" version has more than enough working well to persuade me to make the jump.

Now bear in mind that the San Fran is by no means my primary phone - I got it more to experiment and do some little development on. But I have to say that, even as it is right now, I would not be at all disappointed in using it on a daily basis.

[hecatae]

to resolve the high cpu usage remove CKPD-daemon from /system/bin.

been using a zte blade since my birthday, present from the missus

it's my daily phone, battery lasts two days with average use.

[Hands0n]

Thanks, will check that out. I've been reading about that tonight but did not look for it on my handset. That might explain a very slight hesitation at times.

[hecatae]

CKPD is an AT command, because the Modaco Froyo rom is built on a prototype rom, it's expecting to be connected to a pc emulating the phone keypad, so the CKPD-daemon is repeatedly requesting the next command, causing the high usage

mine is rooted, so all I did is with a terminal emulator, su
then rm /system/bin/CKPD-daemon

rebooted, and cpu now sits around 20% - 35% usage

[Hands0n]

I got back to the San Francisco tonight, finally having some time to myself :)

Using adb shell I ran the top command to see what was being used and sure enough there was CKPD-daemon at the head of the list. I followed your advice and removed the daemon and killed the process which had an immediate effect.

I see that the developer knows about this and says that the problem is fixed in Alpha 4 (we're running Alpha 3). But this isn't a difficult fix anyway.

I must say that the quality of the Android code is superb. Not for an Alpha, it surpasses much of what I have seen from large scale industries such as Nokia and Microsoft in the past. This isn't Apha code, its Beta at the very least, and I would go as far as to say that it is completely Production code! Especially taking into consideration how modern [i.e. Agile] development methodologies release iterative updates that add functionality as well as fix bugs. We've seen a lot of this so far with the iOS and Android OS , and the trend will continue as it is a very rapid route to market.

No, the Modaco Froyo ROM is an accomplished piece of software engineering and I would recommend it to anyone who cannot get Froyo on their device any other way.

[hecatae]

24th December Blade with 2.2 official gets released in Japan, 28th December 2.2 Blade official release in China.

We should have a 2.2 release rom in the new year

[hecatae]

looks like the Coarse Location fix is in the framework

[Hands0n]

Seriously, even if they don't update the official ROM, or Modaco freeze the codebase, or no one ever delivers a Gingerbread ROM - this flipping Alpha is good enough and streets better than many manufacturer OS that I've had before! I'm specifically thinking of the likes of Motorola, Nokia, Sony Ericsson there ...

[hecatae]

I agree, 2 developers have started work on the Japanese Froyo romdump.

[hecatae]

http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blade-blade-modaco-com/327579/rom-froyo-japanese-jellyfish-rls1-2010-12-27-oled-tft/

running the above, sadly the /system was mounted read-only so had to remount it chmod 755, and the CKPD-daemon issue still exists as the new kernel has a different OFFSET, so the old kernel from the developer kernel was used.


One thing that is different is that all blade kernels has CONFIG_PHYS_OFFSET set to 0x02a00000 while the softbank kernel has it set to 0x02600000.

[hecatae]

this gets worse, ZTE left the CKPD-Daemon running on a retail rom for Softbank

[hecatae]

and if you remove CKPD-Daemon, bluetooth tethering no longer works, as it relies on CKPD +200 AT Command

[hecatae]

and if you remove CKPD-Daemon, bluetooth tethering no longer works, as it relies on CKPD +200 AT Command

hm only affects pdanet, a tethering app that you have to pay $29 for the full product.

bluetooth headsets unaffected

[Hands0n]

How weird! I don't use Bluetooth these days. The WiFi tether is bang on what I need. But I can imagine it will miff a load of people off not having it working in Froyo!

[Ben]

Trusted Reviews are showing the Orange San Francisco / ZTE Blade some love today. I've got to admit, it's compelling for the money, especially with the ease of unlock and upgrade to Android 2.2.

Shame the camera looks like a total non-starter but, hey, can't have it all can we.

[hecatae]

I'm now using kallt_kaffe's Japanese Jellyfish RLS9 since it's built with the released sources, custom kernel, 2.2 works fine, keypad lights work as well.

http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blade-roms-rom-customisation/327579/rom-froyo-japanese-jellyfish-rls9-2011-01-24-oled-tft/


RLS9 -2011-01-24
Compiled 2.2 versions of Contacts and ContactsProvider from AOSP source. Fixes join/split of contacts but you'll lose group support and the ZTE dialer codes. Use addon if you prefer the old versions.
Changed automatic brightness to go as dark as the Chinese 2.2 build.
Fixed charging LED to work like in 2.1 builds.
Added IPv6 privacy options to /system/bin/userinit.sh. Edit userinit.sh if you for some reason do not want this.
Added examples on how to set min and max frequency in userinit.sh (for advanced users).
Replaced Mms.apk and SpareParts.apk with versions I compiled from AOSP source. (propably no difference at all)
Fixed the original FM Radio problem in kernel and re-added the original ZTE FM Radio app (unmodified version).

RLS8 - 2011-01-18
Added VoiceSearch as it is not available in Market for some.
Added CIFS support to kernel.
Added a non-renamed Gingerbread keyboard (stolen from a Nexus AOSP build) so it's now called "AndroidKeyboard".
Signed everthing connected to framework-res.apk, Contacts.apk and Mms.apk with AOSP platform certs. This makes life eaiser for themers.
Enabled standard Dialer in Contacts.
Removed SmartDialer.apk.
Updated Mms.apk with the version from the now released Chinese V880 ROM (previously used Mms.apk from leaked V880 ROM).
Disabled AGPS by default. Not sure it makes a difference to turn it on and it seems to provoke some "Connection cannot be made" if enabled.
SmartDialer and RLS7 version of Contacts.apk (without dialer) as an addon.
Blue-ish Gingerbread keyboard as addon (using a selected part of modifications found here.
Updated RA recovery.img in "image" install (TPT) to Sebastian404s latest version.
Post RLS7 fixes (attached)
Facebook sync fixed

RLS7 - 2011-01-13
gps.conf back to pre-RLS6 version
resolv.conf removed (don't think it was used anyway and have only seen it in CM releases)
VPN menus enabled in Settings.
Automatic time setting enabled in Settings.
Signal indicators fixed (using same levels as in ZTE 2.1 ROMs)
Original Alarm clock back (has more options) but can be replaced with Desk Clock through addon if DeskClock is preferred.
Stock Filer app back as it can be good to have a simple file manager in place.
Removed lots of lib connected to the iwnnime (japanese IME) that was removed erlier. (Size of system is now below 120Mb)
Changed HH.MM time display to HH:MM in Danish, Norwegian and Finnish language files.
Added more PPP options in kernel (for VPN).
Circle battery indicator is no longer the default but can be added as an addon.
Added Sebastians RA recovery (with CM colors) to the "image" install as it supports EXT4 and also the addons needs a recovery image.
I'm sorry but it is NOT resigned with test keys as I promised it would be. I'm afraid resigning everything with testkeys can lead to problems when updates to "stock" apps like Gmail and Market arrives. This needs to be investigated further before testsigning the release.
Post RLS6 fixes (attached)
Fixed gps.conf
RIL libs for Saunalahti users to stop it from appearing to be roaming when it's not.

RLS6
Added Gmail back as it seems to missing in Market for some people.
Replaced AlarmClock.apk with DeskClock.apk.
Added resolv.conf with Googles public DNS-servers.
Added Googles SUPL host in gps.conf.
Disabled hardware GUI as eat seems to eat battery (enable with addon if you want it)
Changed wifi scan interval from 15 to 180 seconds (saves battery).
Updated apns-conf.xml with some changes found in CM 6.1.
Enabled EXT4 and PPP in kernel and changed kernel to use LZMA compressed initrd.
Removed the built in Japanese voicemail numbers.
Removed recovery.img from "image" install so that it doesn't overwrite any previously installed recovery images.
Removed the hacked "stock" FM Radio and updated Andorko's version to 0.5.

RLS5
No more bloating, only one super-slimmed version that fits on 128Mb system partition (more info and instructions will come later)
New kernel with overclocking support (Use SetCPU)
Added swap and compcache support.
Compiled and added tun.ko for the new kernel.
Re-added Google Search box.
Replaced MMS app with version from the chinese leaked ROM which supports adding multiple recipients.
Replaced libril-qc-1.so and libcm.so with versions from the Swedish Comviq ROM (previously used versions from the Finnish Saunlahti ROM).
(Saunalahti users should use the attached update so that it doens't look like it's roaming)[/url]

RLS4
Now also works without SIM cards (thanks to MDCFan)
No bootlogo, keeps Splash screen until bootanimation starts. Saves space in ramdisk and splash is rather easy to replace yourself compared to replacing the bootlogo.
Removed Nexus bootanimation and uses the default Android flashing logo.
Added ADW Launcher
Added Emulator ROMs
Added VM Heap tool (and changed VM Heap size back to the default 24Mb as you can now easily change it yourselves)
Turned off Stagefright. Stagefright are a new set of media decoders in 2.2 but they are broken in our release which is why it doubles the Quadrant Scores. It doesn't make the phone faster, just the benchmarks and it's just a illusion.
Changed default wallpaper.
Made a super-slim lite version that fits well within a 128Mb system partition (see "Partition layout change" thread and this post for more info.)
RLS3b
Removed libOmxAacDec.so and libOmxMp3Dec.so as suggested by Flibb to get rid of the random mp3 playing issues.
Put the new Settings.apk and SettingsProvider.apk into the right place so this time Tethering and Assisted GPS controls should be there.

RLS3
(native)Wifi Hotspot
USB tethering (mobile data or Wifi)
Enabled AGPS and the checkbox to control it.
Replaced Home Switcher with Froyo version
Included both working Radio apps (thanks to MDCFan and Andorko
Jellyfish got missing after a tragic misunderstanding at a sushi bar and have been replaced with green android and nexus bootanimation.
Updated Linpack to latest version.
IMPORTANT! The themes likely needs to be updated to support RLS3 or they will disable Wifi hotspot and usb tethering through wifi. Usb tethering over through mobile data should still work though.Frankish! The file that is chaned in framework-res.apk is res/values/arrays.xml. You can propably just get the whole resources.rsc from my framework-res.apk and put it into your framework-res.apk files. Just remeber to NOT use compression on the resources.rsc. Use WinRAR and choose "Store" when you add it.

RLS2
The USIM error on unlocked phones is now gone (thansk to MDCFan)
The Japanese extra call dialogue that some people experienced is gone.
Circle battery indicator
Removed APNDroid as it is obsolete with the new Power control widget.
Updated Titanium Backup
Removed the CKPD-daemon
Added Spare Parts

RLS1
Cleaned ROM from branding, custom contacts, bookmarks etc...
Added most of the extra stuff from Finnish Fillyjonk (Launcher Pro etc...)
Upgraded several Google apps and Market.
Unlocked all languages
Added Gingerbread Keyboard and made it the default IME.
Added Wifi tethering app as this kernel, as opposed to the 2.1 kernel, seems to have the needed netfilter stuff enabled.
Enabled hardware GUI accelleration, stagefright etc...

Known issues
Sometimes when an app request root permissions it just "hangs". Resolved by restarting phone or just kill all tasks with a Task killer.
Some phone companies "borrows" other companies networks and will show as roaming when it didn't with the stock ROM. In this case you need to replace libcm.so and libril-qc-1.so with the versions from your stock 2.1 ROM. Updates attached for Saunalahti and Yesss.