Jelly Bean on Next Premium 9, with root and Google Play.

[brokndodge]

There is a newer version of the rom here: http://crewrktablets.arctablet.com/?page_id=213

[JackTheBear]

You're definitely getting some different results than me.

I had thought that both the internel sd and the external sd are mounted. OMA mounts external on /sdcard as internal nand and mounts internal as emmc. I think int sd is mounted under data. Open terminal emulator (it's available in play store) type mount and you can see the mount points for both. or cat /etc/vold.fstab will show available mount points. I left them the was OMA set em. I don't see the harm and I like the idea of having the extra space for /sdcard. Just remember to always power the Next9P completely off before removing the ext sd.


The box this thing came in said it had 512mb of ddr3. Free only shows 256mb total with 8mb free. That's why every thing I try to run crashes. I created a swap partition on the external partition but have not yet determined if the newton kernel supports swap. Also, I'm struggling with figuring out what virtual device to use in vold.fstab. Under the hood it is still linux. As much as they have butchered the file system, they still had to symlink a lot of stuff back to where it's supposed to be. They even use the same init system Ubuntu uses.
I might have to build my own kernel to get swap. But it's that or this is a paper weight. Won't even run games for the kids.

On a side note, I think the battery meter is correct. I've been keeping an eye on it, but with the governor on the cpu and the ability to turn down the screen brightness, after 6 hours on battery, I've got 51% left. Previously I could only run 2 hours at the most.

I was going to trim your post for the quote, but really I'm not experiencing a lot of what you are on your whole post. Might be the serial # thing. I'm curious what the start of your serial # is. Maybe a different series had a slightly different build.

For mount points, without getting too technical, I lose about 1.1GB of my nand with this build. Oma posted some fixes (Format NAND, intSD to NAND and extSD to NAND) that let you get the 1.1GB back and tweak how it's set up. If you have your full 4GB accounted for, I agree wholeheartedly, leave it as is. On my tablet, the total storage adds up to about 2.8GB but it gives me an option to mount SD, but if I try to mount it, it says it's damaged. It's not. If I run the fix, I can then mount it fine. I also did the intSD to NAND fix. It worked, but for logistical reasons, it was a mistake. I thought maybe getting some system files off the sd card would free up some file handles and improve my sd card performance. It didn't, and now I've got Skydrive and other apps downloading everything onto a 1.1GB partition while I've got a 32 GB sd card available. So I'm going to try the extSD to NAND fix, or I see another flash in my future. So the lesson in this is, yeah, leave the mount points like Oma set them and only use the fixes for stuff that's broken.

The ram is disconcerting, I've got the same results, but I think it's normal. If you Google "Android showing less ram", you'll see this is a common observation/complaint. Android takes a good chunk of the ram to function, and you can't see it with any tool AFAIK. The fact that you can see as much as you can leads me to believe it's ok, but it would be nice to see the full 512MB on the screen. I don't think you can get that though.

I'm glad you're battery meter works without the akkufix. My doesn't at all. If I boot with 68%, it shows 68% until the tablet runs out of power and turns off. It still shows 68% if I charge it over night. If I then shut down and restart, it will read right, at the time of boot. But then it shows 100% until it shuts off due to the battery is dead.

The much improved governor does make it last much longer and still be responsive. That's good stuff.

And the swap file, I've been reading, and I think the jury is out on that. Android handles swap differently than Linux. It uses just about all the available memory just about all the time, and kills processes to release memory when needed. Killed processes write their state to something like a swap file so they can be quickly restarted. But A) there are apps for it, B) there are reports of much better responsiveness switching apps, and C) I could definitely see how it would help, so it's worth looking into more. I tried a couple "Swapper" apps. I couldn't get them to work using the swap file method, but I didn't mess with a swap partition yet. This looks promisiing: http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1951983. Please post what you do and how it goes.

[JackTheBear]

New version

There is a newer version of the rom here: http://crewrktablets.arctablet.com/?page_id=213

Is that the 1.2.3 Pimp My Rom edition? I tried the Pimp My Rom edition. I got similar performance using a lot less memory for sd card cache, but it was finicky if you tweaked it too much with other tools. I got about 2800 on Antutu with 128kb cache, thought I was going to hit 3000 easy by bumping it up, and ended up getting 2600 and I couldn't untweak it back to 2800 no matter what I did to undue my "improvements". And then the browser wasn't stable. It kept blowing up. It might have been fine if I just left it at 2800 using next to no cache. I don't know. I went back to 1.2.2a.

If that's not the one, what one are you looking at?

[brokndodge]

This looks promisiing: http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1951983. Please post what you do and how it goes.

That looks interesting. If the newton kernel supports swap it might work. I was thinking that zram might be in use eating up precious memory, but can't find any evidence. The tools I use are commandline. They can see exact hardware ram, total available, total used and total free. There is definitely 256mb missing. I'm pretty sure it's there in the stock rom. I'm going to flash to stock tomorrow in another attempt to get the stock kernel, so I'll check then.

I feel like, if I can get enough info from the stock kernel I can compile a home brew that will do what we need. Won't be my first kernel, just first on a tablet. I used to cook custom kernels on Debian Linux every time a new toy came out. I had em running pretty smooth, too. There is a lot of default built-in drivers that are purely legacy stuff. Also, a lot of different versions of the same drivers for similar hardware built in. Yanking all that bloat out can seriously improve performance.

Re: 1.1 gb of int sd - I'm not worried about 1.1 gb of storage. Once I determine this isn't a $129 paper weight, I'll stick a fast 32gb sd card in and be happy. The kids won't use it for storage and I've got 4 servers plus cloud storage to keep stuff on.

[JackTheBear]

Memory (RAM)

I tried a couple "Swapper" apps. Couldn't get them to work. Upon reboot, the tablet was dead. Couldn't get past the animation screen. I cleared the cache, no good, so I factory reset. Still no good. Time to reflash. I went back to the stock 4.0 rom, and I have some new thoughts.

The stock rom only shows about 230 MB RAM too. I can't check it with free though. It tells me /system/bin/sh: free: not found. I tried su. su worked, free still did not.

Looking at build.prop, dalvik.vm.heapsize=256m. I think that's where the ram went. Edit - I changed it to 128m and rebooted. Still shows only 230 MB RAM, but the tablet feels much more responsive. I have no idea what the ramifications are yet...Antutu down to 2437 - graphics scores were 200+ lower. Not good. But it feels great doing it. And it ran the tests really fast. Re-ran the tests using /sdcard instead of /mnt/external-sd. 2692. Much better. It's a class 10 card, and it performs. See below. The tablet got very laggy while downloading about 15 apps. Figured I'd give it the full install and see how it fared.

A couple other items of note in there:
touchcalibration=0 (maybe why touch is less than perfect. Not sure though, just a thought.)

webcore.adblock.enable=1 (maybe causes issues with apps like angry birds that pound you with ads. reaching here. I don't know. again, just a thought.)

ro.yifang.weather.city=New York (I can't get the weather app to change city. Maybe it can be adjusted here.)

ro.yifang.usbhost=0 (is this why you can't plug in a mouse or keyboard in the mini usb?)

Other thoughts after using a bunch of other roms:
The stock browser crashes a lot. Way more than the alternative roms.

Wifi is significantly more finicky. If I put the tablet on my lap, I loose bars and the icon goes from blue to grey. But I just got my highest speedtest scores on the tablet yet. 19Mb down, 11 up. Purely limited by the tablet. I get 70 down, 15 up on my pc 2 feet away.

I ran SD Tools to bench the sd card and the nand. I can get over 20MB write speeds and 15MB read speeds (which seems odd) on the stock 4.0 rom. I haven't come close, not even half of that performance, on any of the better roms. I think that would go a long way to getting it to 3000.

[brokndodge]

Sorry for disappearing, work has kept me busy. OMA say's the problem is the gpu in the rk2918. I don't have a link to her post about it and I'm not really interested in digging thru 400+ posts in her JB thread. But, the gist of it is the new versions of Angry Birds and a host of other apps won't run on rk2918s because of an incompatibility with the gpu drivers in the kernel. RK hasn't released new drivers for the gpu and we don't have sources to build it f they did.

The Newton kernel doesn't support swap. I'm betting the stock one doesn't either.

Oh, and my battery meter doesn't work. I'll try the akku fix again today.

[jc73]

No audio

After flashing this ROM I get no audio. Everything else works great except the battery thing. Any ideas?

[JackTheBear]

Audio not working

After flashing this ROM I get no audio. Everything else works great except the battery thing. Any ideas?

I've flashed and re-flashed this rom about a dozen times on my Next9p. I haven't had an issue with audio yet. Did you try flashing it again? Maybe it didn't take just right.

[jc73]

I've flashed it about 4 times. And now when I flash any other room the battery meter tells me it's dead and shuts down no matter how long I've charged it. I have even flashed the the stock rom package by finless. I get no audio and no battery no matter what I flash.

[Damo]

Re: Jelly Bean on Next Premium 9, with root and Google Play.

Are you erasing the idb when flashing?

Sent from my SK17i using Tapatalk 2

[jc73]

Are you erasing the idb when flashing?

Sent from my SK17i using Tapatalk 2

Yes I am. I think It could be a kernel problem. When I plug in my ear buds the sound comes out of my speaker. I think I need. Get the stock kernel.

[JackTheBear]

Audio problem

@JC73 - probably a stupid question, but you have a Nextbook Premium 9? Reason I ask is someone on the XDA thread mentioned an audio problem on the Nextbook 7SE, with a solution. Post 383 at http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...903745&page=39.

His solution won't work on a Nextbook Premium 9.

[jc73]

Re: Jelly Bean on Next Premium 9, with root and Google Play.

Yes I do have a premium 9. I've been looking around for a couple days now and haven't found much. I do like this tablet, I've tried several and this is one of the better built ones.


Sent from my HTC PH39100 using Tapatalk HD

[JamesCozzby]

My 2 cents

Over all, i do enjoy Jellybean better than the ICS, but there are still some of those same pesky problems with a few new ones

1. Browser crashing (much milder)

2. App issues such as video and sound routing (i.e. Skype)

3. Dummy features such as bluetooth options in the settings menu

4. Scrolling is still slightly rough on the launcher, but still way better than ICS, but again app scrolling is page by page
5. RAM is still down to half for some odd reason

6. Wifi is a bit slower, but seems more dependable (greater connection strength)

7. Still no Ad-Hoc Wifi capability (really trying to figure this out since i use my phones 4g most of the time since it normally gets 14mb/s and my home connection is 1.8mb/s)
8. The battery issue is somewhat annoying, but since i am using it at my college for my ebooks I normally use all the battery in one day and just charge it every night any way
9. The Sd card problem is quite annoying although. I have tried all the fixes, but none of them 'fully' fix it

There are others that i found, but cant currently remember,

But again tho, Overall i like the Jellybean better than any of the other roms that are out there.

JamesCozzby

[JackTheBear]

Great feedback, and a request for suggestions.

Great feedback James. I've been wondering where you've been. Thought you might have moved on to bigger and better. Some of these I have some workarounds for, some I have some feedback, and some I'm dying for any leads on how to fix:

1. Browser crashing - Disabling javascript helps a good deal, but I'm dying to find a real solution to this. It's happened on every rom I've tried, including the stock rom right out of the box. This is furiously annoying, and this is the #1 thing I want to fix. It seems like any page with either javascript or flash, or a lot of images may cause the browser (any browser) to just close straight to the desktop. App killer programs and background process limits don't seem to fix this. I pm'd Oma from XDA but got no response. ANY SUGGESTIONS, ANYONE? Please?

2. Video/sound routing - hadn't tried Skype yet. What happens?

3. At least some of the dummy features can be disabled by editing build.prop. Through the various roms I've installed on this tablet, I've seen options to enable/disable HDMI and Bluetooth. Disabling them (setting the value to 0) made the options go away in settings. The current rom I'm running doesn't have those properties at all and they don't show up as options in Settings, but it does list Ethernet as being available in addition to the standard WIFI... I'm running NEOCM10, a tweaked Oma JB rom with the CM10 bootanimation. I'm not convinced this rom is better than Oma JB v1.2.2a, but it does have the CM10 bootanimation which is very cool. It is not CM10.

4. Scrolling - ugh. This I can't stand. I don't know the name of this paginated scrolling 'feature', and it has completely eluded me in my searches. This is high on my list to fix, behind the browser crashing.

5. RAM - I wasn't convinced this was an issue. I am now. This is a problem. It's only showing 256MB installed. I think this has a decent chance of fixing the browser crashing too, if it's running out of memory. I think Android may be killing the browser when ram gets too low. Not sure where to start on this, but this is what I'm going to work on first. Any suggestions on how get android to see the full 512MB installed?

6 and 7. Wifi - My Wifi seems fine, and I can connect through my phone without any issues. I didn't do anything to fix this, it just works for me.

8. Battery - The Akkufix is hit or miss, but mostly miss. The first time I tried it, it worked and the battery meter worked right, but seemed to hurt performance a bit. Since then I've tried it a couple times and hosed a couple perfectly good installations. It seems like if it doesn't work, the tablet isn't going to boot anymore and will need to be reflashed. The tablet lasts almost all day, so this one is a lower priority, but will need to be addressed at some point.

9. Sd card - Using the available fixes (or none at all), I've had the SD Card show up as Internal, Nand, and as SD Card. I don't know which I prefer. The tablet seems to have disappointing data transfer speeds no matter what I try, and the stock rom and Finless's rom got better scores. Suggestions?