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The entire android rom development ecosystem feels that way to me. Lineage is a bit of an exception with fairly solid and well documented build system, but for

by subway 9y ago

The entire android rom development ecosystem feels that way to me. Lineage is a bit of an exception with fairly solid and well documented build system, but for by and large, XDA feels a lot like the 90s warez/cracking scene. Lots of really smart people shipping hand crafted blobs on forums.

Avamander 9y ago
The documentation or lack of it thereof doesn't help with that. I can't think of a single google query that got an answer when I was building LOS for my own device. Another thing that doesn't help is that it takes enormous amount of times to make a clean build and quite often some final touches to the installation file have to be made to make them compatible with TWRP etc. My point is that no volunteer has time to document stuff and because of that no volunteer has time to document stuff repeat ad infinitum.
- rrix2 9y ago
  I was in a similar position a few months back. Was trying to simply build Lineage with MicroG and Xposed baked in for personal use and was essentially shouted out of the LineageOS-dev IRC channel and told to write a backup script and to flash the ZIP files instead of compiling it. They seemed outright hostile to fixing this situation, or maybe I was shouted out of the channel by some randos.
  - Avamander 9y ago
    Yeah, LineageOS devs actively disapprove/hate/censor anything MicroG and Xposed related, don't EVER mention those things if you want any "official" help. I find it appalling, but too few care about it to backslash so that it had an effect.
kitsunesoba 9y ago
Yes, my admittedly limited exposure to Android has been negatively tinted due to this. Rooting and installing stock Android on a first gen Kindle Fire and later on, a Google Pixel C tablet are both sitting high in my list of most frustrating technical endeavors despite being a software dev and enthusiastically embracing technology for the past two decades of my life. I was shocked to find that the process was only moderately more straightforward on first party android devices. If I ever buy another android device I’m going to treat it like an iOS device and not even bother with the tinkering aspect. It’s too much of a mess to be enjoyable for me.
duncan_bayne 9y ago
Seconded. I don't wish to denigrate the participants - I've benefited from their binaries, code and support many times - but common practices in the community feel _really_ dated.

by subway 9y ago

Avamander 9y ago

The documentation or lack of it thereof doesn't help with that. I can't think of a single google query that got an answer when I was building LOS for my own device. Another thing that doesn't help is that it takes enormous amount of times to make a clean build and quite often some final touches to the installation file have to be made to make them compatible with TWRP etc. My point is that no volunteer has time to document stuff and because of that no volunteer has time to document stuff repeat ad infinitum.

rrix2 9y ago
I was in a similar position a few months back. Was trying to simply build Lineage with MicroG and Xposed baked in for personal use and was essentially shouted out of the LineageOS-dev IRC channel and told to write a backup script and to flash the ZIP files instead of compiling it. They seemed outright hostile to fixing this situation, or maybe I was shouted out of the channel by some randos.
- Avamander 9y ago
  Yeah, LineageOS devs actively disapprove/hate/censor anything MicroG and Xposed related, don't EVER mention those things if you want any "official" help. I find it appalling, but too few care about it to backslash so that it had an effect.

kitsunesoba 9y ago

Yes, my admittedly limited exposure to Android has been negatively tinted due to this. Rooting and installing stock Android on a first gen Kindle Fire and later on, a Google Pixel C tablet are both sitting high in my list of most frustrating technical endeavors despite being a software dev and enthusiastically embracing technology for the past two decades of my life. I was shocked to find that the process was only moderately more straightforward on first party android devices. If I ever buy another android device I’m going to treat it like an iOS device and not even bother with the tinkering aspect. It’s too much of a mess to be enjoyable for me.

duncan_bayne 9y ago

Seconded. I don't wish to denigrate the participants - I've benefited from their binaries, code and support many times - but common practices in the community feel _really_ dated.