
CyanogenMod Installer Release - CrazedGeek
http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/cyanogenmod-installer-release
======
nezza-_-
Is the installer actually open source? I searched a week ago for the beta
source and it wasn't available yet.

(I'm quite annoyed by the current developments in cyanogenmod: Less and less
is open source as it seems...)

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gcb0
they are incorporated now. Trust them as much as you trust Samsung or Google.
Or maybe less.

~~~
Karunamon
Incorporated != publicly owned. All a corporation exists as is a group of
people banding together to get tax and other benefits collectively. There's
none of the other folderol about profit motive or fiduciary duty or the other
pressures on megacorps to act unethically.

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sergiotapia
I _literally_ installed CM10 on my Samsung Galaxy S2 the hard way today,
spending nearly 8 hours getting the right tools, the android sdk, figuring out
why adb would not find my device and after a ton of cursing finally got it to
load.

And then I had to also install gapps by using the Clockwordmod recovery mode.

A gigantic pain in the ass! I wish I would have attempted this tomorrow, would
have saved me a ton of trouble!

~~~
jackgavigan
I went through exactly the same process about 15 months ago but I'm glad I
did. I understand Android specifically and phone operating systems in general
more now than I did before.

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sergiotapia
I agree, learned a ton in the process.

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DonGateley
Me too. Superfluous knowledge to me, however. Could I have traded that
learning time for something that was generally useful to me I'd have done so
in a heartbeat. Dumbing this process down is an excellent direction.

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tehwalrus
CyanogenMod dramatically improved the experience on my first droid (which was
a very cheap one, to see what all the fuss was about.) It couldn't solve the
hardware issues (crappy resistive touch screen) but it sure made the device
more responsive and usable, in spite of that.

I'm pleased to see them making the install process easier. I wasn't quite
heart-in-mouth since it was a £50 second hand and spare phone, but it was
still pretty long winded and there were too many opportunities to brick the
thing.

~~~
csmuk
I tried CM on a Galaxy Ace. No amount of turd polish could make that a good
handset. I think the installer for it though is a great idea.

~~~
tehwalrus
Mine was a ZTE Racer -
[http://www.gsmarena.com/zte_racer-3423.php](http://www.gsmarena.com/zte_racer-3423.php)

Because of the resistive touchscreen, I literally had to type using a pen[1]
to push the keys, as my fingers (in fact, thumbs since that's what we actually
type with on phones) would _always_ hit the wrong key. Once I used the corner
of a ruler as I didn't have the pen handy - scratched the screen really badly.

[1] retractable with the pen tip retracted.

~~~
csmuk
Similar with the galaxy ace. It sucked so badly that you couldn't type on it
at all and that had a capacitive screen.

My wife had some major surgery and was in recovery trying to text me and I
though they'd broken her - turned out to be the phone.

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pavanred
I saw a few negative reviews on Google Play arguing that a turn key solution
might let some people not read the detailed instructions, warnings and risks
thoroughly. Being a CM user, I must say I agree with this. Reminds me of a
thread in XDA where a post read - If you are asking the question what is root,
then you probably don't need it (paraphrasing).

Let alone the instructions/warnings/risks, I know many Android users who
barely go through the permissions they grant an app during installation.

A little off topic, but an instance that I thought impressed the gravity of
the risks and partly cracked me up was the warning on Alpharev [1] "Warning:
Make sure you have read all the warnings below before attempting to run this
utility!"

[1] [http://alpharev.nl/](http://alpharev.nl/)

~~~
thaumasiotes
> Let alone the instructions/warnings/risks, I know many Android users who
> barely go through the permissions they grant an app during installation.

There's a reason for this. I do go through the permissions that apps ask for,
which is why I end up never upgrading any apps.

The hugest problem is that the permissions are all ridiculously open-ended.
There are apps that ask for permissions there's no reason for them to have;
that's not what I'm complaining about here. I've installed apps where every
permission they ask for is something they obviously need in order to function
at all -- or, I should say, _includes_ something they obviously need in order
to function. The permissions are so inclusive that every app is allowed to do
terrible things if it's able to function at all. This isn't an improvement
over the windows XP model of "everything runs as administrator".

And so, if you're going to be installing apps, there is no reason to read the
permissions they request. Any permission you give is enough for the app to
screw you over 1000 different ways.

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jlgreco
_(I have installed CM in the past myself on my old phone, but have not done it
yet with this phone because last time it was a pain in the ass to install, and
was unstable to boot)_

It is linked from the blog entry, but I cannot find the windows side installer
linked from their homepage while the android side software is.

This sort of oversight is incredibly frustrating for me, and I consider myself
fairly technically capable... I can only imagine that this is even more
frustrating for more typical users.

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voltagex_
[http://beta.download.cyanogenmod.org/install](http://beta.download.cyanogenmod.org/install)

Ah, now I see what you mean. I'd say they're waiting to move it out of "beta".
The level of stupid questions they get already is reasonably high, so this may
be a way of reducing their support load.

~~~
jlgreco
I can understand waiting to move it out of beta, but their main page is
already linking to one half of the software (clicking 'get started' bumps you
over to the play store for the android half).

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cmac2992
Back when I used android, I would have loved this. Sense was total garbage,
and cyanogenmod setup wasn't the most streamlined process.

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dhruvmittal
Pleasantly surprised to learn that this supports locked at&t and verizon
bootloaders. Does anyone know if it does it with loki?

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mkesper
Wow, one more program installing just a stub then wanting to download from the
internet without even _thinking_ about proxies. :(

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untog
Well it installs different ROMs depending on device. There's no other way for
them to do this.

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devindotcom
Argh, no support for the HTC First! Please god make it so!

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voltagex_
>Disable any anti-virus software for the duration of the install.

How about no?

~~~
smtddr
This is a sorta common thing to do when installing complex software;
_especially_ hacks like this that could be detected as a rootkit. If during
the install, some anti-virus decidecs to quarantine a file and the updating of
hyper-sensitive data locations(firmware/bootloader/etc) fails at some random
block I/O .... that device is finished, unless you have the right JTAG unit,
have the stock(proprietary) binaries, have the chip-schematics for the pin-
outs...

~~~
voltagex_
I realise that, but it doesn't sound like the CyanogenMod installer is using
Android rootkits or anything like that so wouldn't it be better to test it
against a few AVs?

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smtddr
I think Cyanogenmod can be considered dangerous to your device. And to be
honest, I actually do think AVs should flag it. It's a good barrier to entry.

A user that doesn't trust the developers of Cyanogenmod enough to turn of
AV(or add to AV-ignore-list) during install, is a user that shouldn't be using
Cyanogenmod to begin with imho.

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voltagex_
I'll bite.

Where's the install step that asks the user to verify the origin and hash of
the installer binary? Why can't I see the source of the installer? Where are
the GPG keys?

It's not just some game you're downloading, it's a ROM for the device you're
(statistically) putting the details of your life into. Trust? Don't get me
started.

Edit: >beta.download.cyanogenmod.org uses an invalid security certificate.
>The certificate is only valid for the following names: > *.cyanogenmod.org ,
cyanogenmod.org

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Karunamon
Shouldn't beta.download.cyanogenmod.org be covered under the *.cyanogenmod.org
wildcard cert?

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pplante
wildcard certs only support 1 level of subdomains. they would need to purchase
a wildcard for *.download.cyanogenmod.org.

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samspenc
Does this support the Galaxy Nexus (Play Store edition)?

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yareally
Since Cyanogenmod has supported the Galaxy Nexus since its release and has
said they will support it for Android 4.4, I would assume yes.

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gcb0
like AOSP, support for older phones is always dropped.

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derleth
Does it still phone home by default?

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dhruvmittal
iirc, it asks you on first boot if you'd like it to phone home or not.

