I am still struggling to find an easy way to make a custom firmware for my new toy but thought until I have the time and knowloedge I give some tipps.
One thing first though: I do not have a fancy 4K TV or Dolby system, so all I can check and do is on a normal HD and Stereo basis.
When I started the box the first time I was pleasantly surprised how fast this thing is.
At least for the boot up and for using programs.
Slightly different story though for gaming, here the box is not really that far ahead compared to a S905(x) system.
The one thing that caught my attion right away was the added crapware.
The so called TV Store has some old games and then just semi legal stuff for streaming and live TV.
Youtube is bad too as the search results are nowhere near what I would get on the PC and the suggestions are like Android TV - always the same and never anything you really want to see.
The filebrowser looks nice if you like the look that is.
But despite seemingly made for this bonbon look and the device pre-rooted there is no root access possible.
So what is there that can be done on working system without messing it all up?
I suggest to have the latest firmware at hand - better safe then sorry...
If you have any personal stuff you don't want to loose then make a backup now.
Same for programs and their data - if in doubt make a backup.
Now for the fun part - rooting and a decent filebrowser.
With the latest firmware a full root is as easy as downloading and installing SuperSu from the playstore.
A lot of good filemanagers are out there, take you pick.
With the huge memory available there is no reason to install a filebrowser in the system partition, ut of course that is up to you.
Give the file browser full root access and enable to show hidden files and folders.
Getting rid of unwanted apps...
With root access we can now go into the system folder and from there into the app folder.
Of course you could now simply delete the folders of the apps you don't want anymore but that can backfire badly!
Instead I suggest to rename the file ending of the app in question, e.g.: from .apk to .apk.bak
But before you should try this it is best to do a forced stopp of the app through the app manager - if the app is active you can't rename it
While you are there also clear the cache and data for the app.
Do this one app at a time and when done make a reboot to check if deactivating the app this way caused any problems with other apps.
You can do all at once if you know what you are doing but if something does go wrong it makes troubleshooting much harder.
If all goes as planned and you are happy with the result you can now delete the app folders in /system/app/.
Youtube...
As said the preinstalled Youtube sucks IMHO.
I ried quite few custom apps as well as patches/fixes I could find but nothing really worked.
Either the was unahppy with my use of the remote or the video quality was like on a very old mobile phone.
The I gave OGYoutube a try and must say I like it.
Enouhg in fact to keep it as my default Youtube app for now.
The search results make sense, there is no ads and no useless crap.
If you want you can even download the video and of course select whatever screen resolution you like.
The last means you should be able to select what the connected TV supports.
I can only go to 1080P but it might be able to get it to play 4K on a compatible TV.
Kodi....
Although I won't go into the addons for good reasons I noticed the installed TV Media Center version has some bad hickups.
Even from my local media server the playback was often buggy to say it nice, not to mention live streams from the WWW.
So I tried two alternaives, Leia 64bit and the RKMC version from James Lin on Github.
Kodi 18 in 64bit is quite fast but even with the nighlies not always stable.
Like the original it crashes randomly or streams become unwatchable as the buffering simply stopps.
But this changes from nightly to nightly and if you don't mind restoring your Kodi addon backups quite often then you should give it try.
With promised support for retor gaming it could be quite intersting just for that.
On the other hand RKMC is still based on Jarvis so not everything you are used to works as expected.
In return you get something that is more optimised for the Rockchip SOC and even brings 3D support - again only useful if your TV supports it.
Video quality seems to me a bit better especially for HD content with fast moving scenes.
Just be aware that so far there is no perfectly working Kodi for this box that has no flaws at all.
The launcher...
Once you get used to it I think it is not that bad at all.
A long press lets you change the app for the shortcut and even the IR remote does a half decent job with it.
With an option to get more discrete colors it could be a winner.
Of course you can always install Apex, Nova or any other launcher replacement out there
The one thing I miss is re-arranging the layout but I guess we can't have it all...
Backup and restore....
Everyone has his own way of doing things, I prefer to pull a backup using ADB over Ethernet.
I think for someone less experienced the best option is a dedicated backup app, like Titanium or Helium.
The other option would to simply compress the content of your internal SD to an external using the filemanager or the ADB shell.
As I like to play around with my firmwares every now and then I include an APPS folder that contains all the apps and games I want.
With this either present on the external SD or through the backup of internal it is quite fast to restore what is needed.
First install the apps, then decompress the backup to the internal SD and all is like you left it.
Games supporting Google Play make it even easier as the restore directly from the cloud once you log in.
What comes next?
Have to move house and after that I will spend some more time with the Y8 and try to cook up some clean rom with all the apps and modfications I like.
Still learning so don't expcet too much here.
Will then also try some of the already available custom roms to get new ideas and check where differences are compared to the current firmware version.
One thing first though: I do not have a fancy 4K TV or Dolby system, so all I can check and do is on a normal HD and Stereo basis.
When I started the box the first time I was pleasantly surprised how fast this thing is.
At least for the boot up and for using programs.
Slightly different story though for gaming, here the box is not really that far ahead compared to a S905(x) system.
The one thing that caught my attion right away was the added crapware.
The so called TV Store has some old games and then just semi legal stuff for streaming and live TV.
Youtube is bad too as the search results are nowhere near what I would get on the PC and the suggestions are like Android TV - always the same and never anything you really want to see.
The filebrowser looks nice if you like the look that is.
But despite seemingly made for this bonbon look and the device pre-rooted there is no root access possible.
So what is there that can be done on working system without messing it all up?
I suggest to have the latest firmware at hand - better safe then sorry...
If you have any personal stuff you don't want to loose then make a backup now.
Same for programs and their data - if in doubt make a backup.
Now for the fun part - rooting and a decent filebrowser.
With the latest firmware a full root is as easy as downloading and installing SuperSu from the playstore.
A lot of good filemanagers are out there, take you pick.
With the huge memory available there is no reason to install a filebrowser in the system partition, ut of course that is up to you.
Give the file browser full root access and enable to show hidden files and folders.
Getting rid of unwanted apps...
With root access we can now go into the system folder and from there into the app folder.
Of course you could now simply delete the folders of the apps you don't want anymore but that can backfire badly!
Instead I suggest to rename the file ending of the app in question, e.g.: from .apk to .apk.bak
But before you should try this it is best to do a forced stopp of the app through the app manager - if the app is active you can't rename it
While you are there also clear the cache and data for the app.
Do this one app at a time and when done make a reboot to check if deactivating the app this way caused any problems with other apps.
You can do all at once if you know what you are doing but if something does go wrong it makes troubleshooting much harder.
If all goes as planned and you are happy with the result you can now delete the app folders in /system/app/.
Youtube...
As said the preinstalled Youtube sucks IMHO.
I ried quite few custom apps as well as patches/fixes I could find but nothing really worked.
Either the was unahppy with my use of the remote or the video quality was like on a very old mobile phone.
The I gave OGYoutube a try and must say I like it.
Enouhg in fact to keep it as my default Youtube app for now.
The search results make sense, there is no ads and no useless crap.
If you want you can even download the video and of course select whatever screen resolution you like.
The last means you should be able to select what the connected TV supports.
I can only go to 1080P but it might be able to get it to play 4K on a compatible TV.
Kodi....
Although I won't go into the addons for good reasons I noticed the installed TV Media Center version has some bad hickups.
Even from my local media server the playback was often buggy to say it nice, not to mention live streams from the WWW.
So I tried two alternaives, Leia 64bit and the RKMC version from James Lin on Github.
Kodi 18 in 64bit is quite fast but even with the nighlies not always stable.
Like the original it crashes randomly or streams become unwatchable as the buffering simply stopps.
But this changes from nightly to nightly and if you don't mind restoring your Kodi addon backups quite often then you should give it try.
With promised support for retor gaming it could be quite intersting just for that.
On the other hand RKMC is still based on Jarvis so not everything you are used to works as expected.
In return you get something that is more optimised for the Rockchip SOC and even brings 3D support - again only useful if your TV supports it.
Video quality seems to me a bit better especially for HD content with fast moving scenes.
Just be aware that so far there is no perfectly working Kodi for this box that has no flaws at all.
The launcher...
Once you get used to it I think it is not that bad at all.
A long press lets you change the app for the shortcut and even the IR remote does a half decent job with it.
With an option to get more discrete colors it could be a winner.
Of course you can always install Apex, Nova or any other launcher replacement out there
The one thing I miss is re-arranging the layout but I guess we can't have it all...
Backup and restore....
Everyone has his own way of doing things, I prefer to pull a backup using ADB over Ethernet.
I think for someone less experienced the best option is a dedicated backup app, like Titanium or Helium.
The other option would to simply compress the content of your internal SD to an external using the filemanager or the ADB shell.
As I like to play around with my firmwares every now and then I include an APPS folder that contains all the apps and games I want.
With this either present on the external SD or through the backup of internal it is quite fast to restore what is needed.
First install the apps, then decompress the backup to the internal SD and all is like you left it.
Games supporting Google Play make it even easier as the restore directly from the cloud once you log in.
What comes next?
Have to move house and after that I will spend some more time with the Y8 and try to cook up some clean rom with all the apps and modfications I like.
Still learning so don't expcet too much here.
Will then also try some of the already available custom roms to get new ideas and check where differences are compared to the current firmware version.
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