Adventures in Android ...

[bizcuit]

For the longest time had zero interest in mobile stuff. Only had a few cheapy android phones and have always tended to think why the hell bother trying to learn this new platform, with so much left to learn about good ole opensource on the more traditional ones.

Well ... just about then, a lil android snuck up on me and bit all hell outta ma azz. :)

So lately, as in the last couple wks I've spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to learn about this subject and have to say, got some serious potential. In fact, potential doesn't do it justice.

ITall began when biz decided ah screw it. Have a few extra bucks in my pocket for a change, time to buy a half decent smartphone. Gotta ahold of an unlocked LG K7 As330 on sale for $127 includ taxes and shipping from Bestbuy. Yay ! Or so I thought, turns out this phone hates me and I'm a dumbazz for not doing more research beforehand.

LG K7 as330 (carrier unlocked GSM) phone, 1.1ghz quadcore, 1.5Gbs RAM, 8gbs internal storage (expandable to 32Gbs)and Android v 5.1.1. But the stock firmware is extremely mod resistant, oem locked down bootloader, no apparent way to get to recovery, fastboot, bootloader or download mode on the damn thing (even with adb and fastboot). I'd just assumed, hey it's android. Shouldn't be any problem to root and mod the thing ... nope.

I may not be l33t and nothing like a developer but what I am is hard headed and stubborn to the bone. I refuse to get my arse kicked by a lil green robot guy and so it began. After dys of trying to find any of the more acceptable routes to root the phone, trying every approach I could think of, then some I couldn't think of but explored anyway. Nope wont work, nope catch 22, install or even temp boot a custom recovery and then it's easy to install xyz, make full backups etc etc ... but you have to unlock the bootloader to do that.

This phones bootloader is apparently crap and on top of that as do many Android phones with newer versions comes with SElinux running on top of it, in enforce mode. The story hasn't ended well but well enough. Finally broke down and used a root app on it to get su. Overall much happier with the thing, opens up whole new worlds when it comes to exploring and customizing android.

Before rooting it (and installing a couple optimization apps which require root priv's to really work, Purify and Greenify.) you could almost watch the battery level drain on the thing. Afterwards an amazing boost in battery life. Also of course seriously adjusted the default settings and device settings on the sucker too but before root, even with those settings tweaks applied, battery life was horrible.

So I've been exploring and learning about the Android filesystem, user and groups, how the OS functions ... this that, the other. Gotta say it's really f'ing cool. Installed a terminal emulator and looked over the default nix commands it supports. Apparently you can expand them considerably by installing busybox and applets onto the device too !

Anyway biz is somewhat happy, phone is rooted and atm looking for a viable full OS backup/restore technique-tools before really getting in there and customizing da hell out of things. That damn lil green robot hits harder than I expected and Chinese hackers may be using my phone more than I do now but just wanted to say. Think ANDROID IS REALLY FARKING COOL ! :)

If any of the grillerz feel like sharing your opinions, tweaks, good mods or apps related to Android please do.

[wuxmedia]

just run mine as a stock phone. haven't fiddled with it.

[franksinistra]

In my android phone, i only have 8 applications (that doesn't ship with standard AOSP). Termux, Telegram, DriveDroid, MuPDF, Firefox, ESFileExplorer, and Kiss Launcher.

Rooted this device using systemless root. Main reason i unlocked and rooted this shit is to completely remove Samsung bloats, and install trimmed-down AOSP.

To this date, i still hate android phones. They're overly complicated. The greenify stuff can be achieved via disabling services ( ex: Location Services, Backup Listener, Google PlayStore cloud printing service, etc).

[bizcuit]

^Agree ... at least in part. Just recently realized something that afflicts many Android users. I'm calling it appitis, a dreadful condition in which someone installs apps to do everything. Many of which could be done more effectively/efficiently by tweaking the OS instead.

I don't have many apps installed either. Do like the ones that are installed though, planning on minimizing apps, as long as I can find system tweaks or OS mods to better provide that functionality. Yep ... poss someone could do what Greenify does editing some system files. Setting a crontab to run a script or etc.

Though turning off those default services (which I've of course already done.)in the OS settings. Doesn't hibernate user apps conveniently. Sometimes I'll fire up an app, use it and then click on Greenify to put the suckers back to sleep, until needed again. Of course there are apps that will monitor and log wake locks too.

Dammit again ... nope one more edit. When on a rooted device Greenify can be set to automatically monitor for and shut down apps but something on my phone keeps disabling it. Probably Purify ... another app. So clearly sometimes they can conflict with each other. Yet another reason to avoid appitis.

Apps that misbehave and constantly keep firing up in the background or keeping a person's devices awake. Imo ... either need to be tweaked in their settings or uninstalled/replaced. Am sure there's a system log someone could check for this info or a way to enable such with a tweak or two.

Not very familiar with the Android filesystem atm. So atm ... don't know where I'd look in it for such logging. Probably /var summin, just like in Nix. Dammit, one more edit. It's a real pain trying to explore using the device itself. Much more convenient to hook it up to gnu/Nix pc via usb and do it with adb ( android debugging bridge). Now that I've got root, I can get a root shell in adb and have access to everything on the phone.

Btw: What the hell is that person in your avatar doing to that poor pug dog !?!?!?! :)

[bizcuit]

Dang it ... sorry missed your post Wux. No worries, wasn't interested in dorking with Android for a long time either. Nothing wrong with the it just works for me approach to mobile for sure.

MAXIMUM Android TWEAKAGE !!!! Seems to have some really cool potential to me though. Also no doubt will be full of plenty of pains in both the head and the tail regions of my person. Not to mention more than a tad of time dump involved. :P

[ivanovnegro]

just run mine as a stock phone. haven't fiddled with it.

Same here. Though Android sucks for me. It is just convenience and the need nowadays.

Biz, for some apps we have a thread somewhere but nevertheless I am intrigued by the possibilities to maybe tweak my phone one day so thanks for the thread.

[bizcuit]

You're more than welcome Ivan.

Got an ever growing list of android tweaks, info and web-pages I thought were interesting building up on the subject. Atm ... am at a stand still. Waiting until I find a good backup/restore solution before really going wild w the tweakage. Got the sucker rooted via a less than optimal means = a dang root app, called Kingroot that I downloaded from gawd knows who. Errrr at least the site said [OFFICIAL] in big letters in the URL.

With this model of phone, due to built in limitations with the stock firmware it was the only option I felt I had left to get root access. Lol ... after spending several dys looking for a better way to do it, with one of the several more approved methods. Nope, nope and nope, biz go feck yaself. The gd app rooted it in 2mins flat !!!! So far, haven't seen any odd behavior out of the phone that'd give me real cause for concern. Still though ... don't recommend using any such apps from unknown sources. If at all possible do it one of the better ways, the web is rife with info on how to install adb and fastboot (or other flashing tools). Plus mentioned it makes it sooooooo much less aggravating to explore Android when you plug into a usb and do it with adb.

Made copies of the su binary I found in /system/bin and /system/xbin on this phone. The su binary was most likely always there, I just couldn't get access to it w/o the dang phone being rooted. Atm ... also contemplating ways to set up the su binary in a nonstandard path on the phone's OS, then doing some other stuff to ensure I can access it and uninstalling the app, otherwise if/when I uninstall the thing I lose root access to the device. But so far I'm happy with it, have no complaints with it and at least it has an uninstall option. Plus if it's going to do anything malicious to the phone, it's already had every chance to do it. So uninstalling it isn't likely to matter much. Sighs anyway ...

Edit babble gripe: Dang it wish goog inc and oems would include an easy way to get root by default. Instead of making people scour the web for ways to get it done and quite poss voiding their warranty in the process.

Couple of somewhat interesting Android databits I've learned:

When comes to modding/tweaking android. Someone needs to enable developer options on their phone. Go to settings, then general section, then about phone section, find software info and find your devices build number. Start tapping on that sucker, takes like 7-10 taps and it'll tell you you're about to become a developer. Keep doing it until it congratulates you on being a developer.

Then go back out into the general section of settings and there'll be a new settings control section of it above the about phone one. Developer Options ... open the sucker. Up top there's a switch you can toggle to turn em off/on. Couple of things you're looking for in here. The one for Enable OEM unlock, enable it. You can also find something called Process stats here. If ya click on that sucker it'll give you a lot of info on services/apps running on your Android. Click each one and it'll show you more too. If you're going to connect your phone and dork with via usb cable and adb + fastboot, someone needs to check the box for turning on USB debugging too. I also check the box for Stay awake when dorking with the phone on usb. Keeps it from falling asleep on you while you're in the middle of exploring or whatever with adb.

Had it happen, just had to push the phones power button to wake it up. But shudder to think what might've resulted had I been flashing a ROM to the phone or whatever. There's another in this section too that I would disable if were planning on doing some modding, it's Verify apps over usb. I don't want SElinux or the OS "verifying" or interfering with apps I choose to install over usb.

Sheesh ... ok bonus babble about Dev Options section on Droid. There's 3 settings related to animation. By default they're set to x1. You can lower it or in my case can turn em off. It just reduces the time animations on the phone take to do their thing. Supposed to make the device more responsive. I'm hoping it shaves off some system overhead too.

Moving on ( you have to have a rooted devices to do the following) ... many newer versions (think it's after like v 4.4.4) of Android come with SElinux and have it set to enforce mode default. How to check, install a terminal emulator app from play store or wherever you get yours. Open, type su + enter to get root priv's, then type "getenforce" hit the Enter button. If it returns a value of 0 or says permissive, you're good to go, if it returns either a 1 or says enforce, then nope, SElinux's is in enforce mode and it will apparently screw with and prevent someone from modding their Android or making changes persistant perhaps.

Let's shut this bastid down ! In terminal emulator again, all someone has to do in a root terminal is type "setenforce 0", then check to see if it's changed by running the getenforce command again. Should return with 0 or tell you permissive. Ok but here's the problem, it only lasts for that session evidently. When I reboot the phone and checked again, nope sucker was back to enforce'ing stuff on my phone. Could likely get rid of changes in init.rc or wherever else I've made them.

Poss work-around ( if ya have this sucker on your phone)

Someone can apparently run cron jobs and crontabs on Android. Also init scripts too, so havent done or confirmed this yet but that's the current plan. Running a script or cron job when the device boots to keep SElinux in permissive mode indefintely. That's my working theory for now anyway. well there you have a few cool infobits. Hope helps some of the kickbutt nixers here in any Android adventures they may undertake.

PS, gotta say, just the battery savings alone, for me made it worth rooting the phone. It used to get maybe 2-2 1/2hrs of screen time before I'd have to charge the sucker. I don't like letting it get below 50% cause read it's better for battery life on lith-ion bats. After installing one of those optimization apps, like Purify with it having root priv's, thing gets 4x as much between needing to plug it in. Well at least until I find out the Chinese mafia has taken the phone over. :/

[bizcuit]

And one more, lol ... what can I say, I'm stoked about android atm. ;)

Another way of possibly getting rid of this pesky SElinux thing. Thinking about tracking down and chmod'ing it's damn files to read-only, lol. Or jettisoning the things packages altogether. Don't doubt there are plenty of ways to disable it though.

These are the apps, I've been dorking with. ( Mostly require root to really get the most out of them or make them useful at all.)

*DisableService does what it sounds like, let's you look at and disable/enable system services and stuff. ( might see what it has to say about SElinux. :) )
*ES File Explorer am using it as a root file explorer.
*Greenify, let's you hibernate apps, can be set to hibernate them automatically with root priv's and the paid let's you monitor and shut off some system apps too.
*Purify cleans junk up and kills apps you don't whitelist. Not real familiar with it yet.
*Terminal Emulator for Android, yep it's a terminal emulator for android. :)
*Titanium backup Backs up a buncha stuff, don't think it's suitable for a full OS backup or restore. Supposedly you can convert some system apps into regular user apps with it. Also haven't really learned to use it properly yet either.
*Watchdog Lite ... system monitoring app, including monitoring and logging wake locks. So you can zero in on apps that are getting out of line and deal with them.

Some I've found or heard about and think could be good-useful but haven't as yet tried them.

*Applock Let's you password protect apps on your phone. I don't want to leave a shortcut to terminal emulator that someone could get root in with a simple su.
*Setcpu an app for overclocking or hopefully underclocking a devices cpu(s)
*Autostarts ... startup manager that a person can disable apps from autostarting at bootup.

Mentioned above personally planning on not getting over reliant on apps. Think it's likely to be a bad habit to get into and hoping to learn better ways to optimize Android instead.

[Launfal]

I must be a Luddite. My adventure in Android lasted a week before I went back to my flip-phone. Hanging up three times trying to answer the damn thing was the final straw for me.

Fortunately, the kid needed a new phone anyway, so she got mine, and everybody's happy.

[franksinistra]

^^ Biz, if your phone has its source published on git repo somewhere you could always build your own clean ROM and start from there. A word of warning: Last time i did something like this was for android-tv on raspberry pi earlier this year, and it consumes more than 40 GB (yes you heard it right) of space and tens of hours to compile on a Xeon E3, for a barely usable firmware. Bonkers.

for user services (init.d) if your kernel supports it then you're good to go. I used to have this silly meizu (chinese made) phablet that doesn't support it oob.

[ivanovnegro]

I don't like letting it get below 50% cause read it's better for battery life on lith-ion bats.

I think that is really not necessary. It would only apply if you let it drain completely just like on laptops.

[bizcuit]

@Launfal lol ... Whatever works for each person eh. I really don't make enough calls to justify paying for an unlimited monthly plan for real and have some of the same issues you experienced too, swipe to answer can be a pita. But there's probably a round million ways to change that feature in android. With or w/o rooting the phone, everything from apps to adjusting system settings. Seen people with phones they have set up to answer with a voice command.

Not one to follow the consumer driven lemming's towards the consumer cliff usually but you have to admit, the above would be pretty pimp. Android answer (answers the phone), android decline (doesn't answer and sends em to voicemail), android tell caller their mama's so fat, she has her own zipcode. (phone sends to voicemail and tells caller things about their mama.) :D

The fricken possiblities are endless !!!! ie: Android telemarketer (phone sends to a voicemail custom answer, blares a fog horn sound in the callers ear for 5secs and hangs up, lol.)

In this case kinda think you gave up too soon but nothing wrong with a flipphone that does what it's supposed to do, make calls and txt.

@franksinistra: Yep read it's a real pita compiling android from source, do have the source code to a vanilla android OS downloaded, don't think I'm up to even trying it atm. Would rather tweak all hell out of the stock ROM on the phone, after finding a way to back it up. Know it has all the drivers for the phone onboard. Main problem I have with this device, is the built in limitations of it's firmware ( bootloader esp)

Worst case, should always be able to restore the stock ROM, getting me back to square 1 but have seen people discussing making scripts that can apply whatever customizations someone wants to a ROM. Just like with people who are mass deploying gnu/Nix installs on servers or whatever. They run a script to do it, instead of having to do them all by hand.

Planning to attempt that, if I screw up and bork the ROM, restore the stock, get root again and run the script to put me back to where I was with a tweaked ROM. This is as yet outside my droid abilities though. Another app for folks with a more mod friendly phone, ROM Manager, thing lets you multiboot a phone ! Supposedly can boot ROM's from it's SD, even OTA = over the air.

@Sir Ivan ... Just something I've read about maintaining lith-ion battery health. Things supposedly don't like deep charge/discharge, better I've read to plug them in through-out the day and not let them drain too much or have to charge too much and supposedly keeping it above 50% helps the battery to have a longer lifespan. Suckers have an avg lifespan, so many charge/discharge cycles and lose their ability to hold a full charge over time.

Though yeppers you're right. Lithion batteries will actually explode if they drain totally. Most of em have built in kill switches that will kick in and destroy the battery before that happens. Can't have people's phones blowing up while they're holding it to their heads making a call. LOL. :D

Seen a couple of them pop on youtube. Not a major explosion but would definitely get someones attention, esp if they were too close to it, much less holding it to their ear. Ouchie.

[bizcuit]

Yep you guessed it ... more android related babblings. :o

Interesting thought I'd like to share. Ok here's the deal, I know this phone's OS has a serious vunerability, cause the kingroot app rooted the thing in under 2mins flat ! Gee thanks SElinux ( way to enforce and protect me bud), this got me thinking. As with other platforms there are IT sec people who compile lists of known exploits, viruses etc etc and will make that info publicly available to whoever.

Well enter Kali linux into the picture. Apparently they've got tools to test android for exploits, apparently using the metasploit framework. Haven't pursued this one too far yet. Though could be a good way to root devices w/o having to download some potentially evil apk root app online.

Just saying likely entirely possible to make your own root apk and root your device(s), using more trusted tools from a more reputable source, than google search. Actually thought about this and should've done it, before I resorted to kingroot. Though by then, was so frustrated and pissed off I was in FECK IT mode. Either was going to root the damn phone or brick it, so wasn't using the best judgement eh.

PS, May not be an uber l33t hacker but believe sometimes biz can be a 1/2 decent script kiddie. :P

Babble ps2, talking about stuff like this.

It's relatively recent, using a not too outdated v of android 4.4 Kitkat. Would be better than relying on a possibly malicious apk/app of course. So if works as outlined someone would be able to root their device(s) easily enough ... This was just one of many SERP's results on the topic too.

May take some fiddling but trying to encourage people not to do something stupid ( like I did.) If there's a better way to root your stuff, rather than relying on unknown root apps, do yourself a favor and use them. Really preaching to the choir, nixers here know better anyway but imo this type of hack is interesting and a sound concept ... So worth sharing regardless.

[bizcuit]

* Log, star date 11-27-2016, 1230hrs. * :P

Really nothing new to report on this topic. Am going through a burn-out phase, can only take so much of dorking with one subject, before taking a break from it. Plus have been known to have the attention span of a fruit-fly at times.

Remain in a holding pattern, occasionally looking for a viable way to backup and restore the stock firmware/ROM on this sucker and kicking meself in the arse for not taking more time to get a root/Mod friendlier device. Found plenty though, atm exploring the dang phones filesystem looking for the important partitions/files, boot.img, recovery.img etc blahblah.

Thinking will eventually try to use the dd command to install a custom recovery to the phone and see where it winds up. Buddying up with adb and the shell commands to explore and whatever else to dork with the device. Android remains really interesting, yet still in so many ways elusive to biz. Arghhhh.

Hope the cool nixers here are doing well. Vll! :)

Nope, do have an interesting infobit on the subject.

Cyanogenmod team, one of the more popular custom ROM making groups out there, got a 9 million dollar infusion of cash. This was awhile ago too. Projects supposed to be aimed at standardizing the rooting and install procedure for people across a wide range of supported devices.

Only saying progress is being made I guess. Though I don't necessarily endorse, trust or etc this particular group. Wondering how they're getting access to hardware drivers, am sure some oems or sources are more cooperative regardless. Mentioned guessing someone could pull proprietary drivers or kernel blobs from a particular model phone. Not sure if re-distributing them or using them is legal though, shrugs. Depending on your countries laws etc blah, in the states, seriously doubt it's legal to do.

See the cbiz rule for what's illegal: Goes as follows, "it's only illegal if you get caught." :D

Still for me ... wanting to learn to mod all hell out of stock ROM's w a script or other means. Though nice to see any progress made by any open source project on mobile. Would really like to see pure gnu/Nix make headway into the field and there's apparently no shortage of efforts underway.

My opinion on that topic ( if anyone cares :P ), is it will be plagued by the same junk as it was on desktop. Oem's and major Corps stunting it with hardware support limitations and whatever else. Though from what we've all seen of Nix in desktop/personal computing, it's friggin awesome. So when those projects mature, don't doubt gnu/Nix on mobile will also be kickarse stuff too.

So may not be able to use cutting edge hardware, though what is available will be much better than the stuff people with cutting edge can do with their shiny new chit.


Babble addendum: Esp those poor saps who opt for anything Microsoft mobile. :D Though also see any type of mobile Nix perpetually sucking hind teat compared to Android. Including it's open source varieties. No doubt many open source development efforts will splinter off and get poured into Android, as long as google (oems) don't get too heavy handed, open source devs will happily keep making what android they have available better and google in a stroke of genius will/should keep right on letting them.

Free development ( at no cost to Goog Inc) and all the benefits of the open source development model vs the closed source type. Which according to much I've seen and read cannot hold a candle to opensources way to doing things. Then Goog and oems, will happily snatch up what they want from the offerings, wrap it up with closed source proprietary software/drivers and whatever config's suit them most.

Though again, guessing knowledgeable android users will still be able to tweak all hell out of stock android ROMs-etc.

[bizcuit]

Yep you guessed it, if you guessed more incoming Android babble that is.

Still in the process of learning how to tweak system services and apps. Plenty of tools to make that easier. Mentioned the Process stats in the OS settings, Developers options. Also of course there's apps to do this. Stuff like the DisableService app mentioned above.

Though atm, is still a headache too. With a bunch of the Google Apps seemingly tightly integrated into the Android OS, though they can be disabled to whatever extent, trying to untangle them to see which have adverse effects on the OS's performance can of course be a PITA.

So one of the things that came to mind. Nice and renice commands, may require busybox and the appropriate applet installed and will of course require a rooted device. Pretty much anything really interesting is going to require that anyway.

To me ... now consider any un-rooted Android device about the same as a personal Nix install on which I don't have root privileges. Nope ... unacceptable.

But the working idea here, is renicing the Goog'ey system apps and or processes which I don't want leaching system resources and boosting those on any I do. In the case of Goog's until I can understand how to best disentangle/disable or uninstall those I don't want and for others could boost performance for them, shrugs.

Stuff like this and this. By way of examples. Though don't personally know anything about nor endorse that old app mentioned on xda-dev forums. Just another potentially useful concept related to android tweakage.

Couple examples, just in case this stupe babble doesn't make things clear enough. ie: Raising the priority on your launcher, if you use a non-stock one or perhaps upping the preference given your browser of choice. Could poss make the sucker launch more quickly or be more responsive in terms of speed ? Buncha other uses perhaps.


Vll!

[wuxmedia]

^ just don't use the 'google now' launcher. :P

[bizcuit]

^Thank goodness Wux, you can see me ! IM ALIVE, ALIVEEEEEEE ! Was starting to think Machine deployed a babble filter and ghosted me. :/

Preparith YE's for android babble.

Yeah no kidding Wux, think this kinda thing has some valid goodness involved with it. Betting many of the defaults ( launcher, whatever-etc) are given higher priorities via this kind of thing. Which is good if you use them perhaps, not so good if you prefer something else instead.

So might be worth checking out. Dial down the priority given some and dial it up for the one's you use-prefer. For example personally had tried installing and testing out some alternative launchers and even though they were more minimal and thusly should've been faster and using less resources on Android, because of the default config's it was the reverse. Weren't overly responsive ( even laggy) and added overhead, where it should've reduced them.

Armed with the above renicing info. Planning on retesting the matter and seeing what results I get. One person on that xda-dev forum mentions they have a script setup to do this type of thing @boot. Back to appitis, basically that's what any particular one of the things (apps)is doing. May provide a more featured graphical way of setting/changing files or system settings of course.

Also of course why all the best and most powerful android apps require root privileges to do their thing. Though again, for me want to learn to do it a more direct way to tweak things, shrugs. Doing the same thing with a simple # echo >> /system/file-I-want/2dorkwith could imo be more pleasing. Apps take resources, can introduce compatibility issues and/or could be security/privacy concerns eh.

Greenify still keeps getting killed off to some extent and as yet, haven't isolated the reason why. Beginning to think it's something SElinux is doing to it. Cause it's white-listed in Purify.

Some other misc android babble ( as if anyone who cares to can't find this stuff themselves.)

Yet another way to tweak, people can and are installing android to VM's, even bare-metal. You can install/use android apps ( at least some of them) on a full gnu/nix OS by employing Chrome's development channel browser. Folks can also download and/or make apk's on a pc and transfer and install them onto another android device. See stuff like MicroG, though still assuming the phone will need an assoc google acct for play store apps to work. Could be a ghost acct or mock acct though. Of course have nothing against alternatives like F-droid apk's either.

Too lazy atm to post or pull up example links about this type of babble though. No shortage of info/resources about all such things online. Finally one more thought, for folks like Sir Ivan ... who may want to explore but for obvious reasons may not want to do so on a shiny new device they paid mucho for.

Am sure in your country there is ebay or sites like it. No shortage of carrier unlocked and mod/flash friendly used devices floating around. Yet something else kicking meself for. Probably could've bought a comparable but much more mod friendly device in good shape off the web, for less than I paid for a new phone.

Yet another gift ( which I'm grateful for) all the open source contribs of the world have bestowed. An intelligent nixer can get ahold of perfectly good hardware, dirt cheap and turn it into a dynamo. Which can often out perform ( and do more than) folks with new and cutting edge shiny chit.

Still as always with Nix, where there's a will, there's a way ( or 4,500 ways) to get something done. I have numerous options, even for getting around an inherently mod unfriendly device. Mostly focusing on scripts and exploring potential power of simple stuff like the dd cmd, renice etc etc blah.

Peace fellow nixers. :)

[bizcuit]

Yep, more Droid. These could be da droids you seek. :)

Downloading Android iso's from here. Buncha the suckers, am going to download a few of them. The 6.0 rc1, the 5.1 one (my device is v 5.1.1 so should help me out), the CM v13 sucker, mentioned Cyanogenmod is one of the better known custom ROM crafters and they (the site) have an iso for installing to pc too.

Though, have zero idea who this person is providing these, thus no friggin way I'm installing anything from them to bare-metal. VM ... totally different story. Perceive this as a good way to explore and break the hell out of things, with no blow-back in real and simple restore, start-over. Cause it's also a pain n the <censored>, even doing it via adb shell too. This could be an easy way to try out exploits obviously too.

Planning on checking out what stuffs been done to CM13 or is different which is supposed to make it better vs stock or vanilla Android, shrugs. Yet more misc Android junk. You know all this babble makes ya wanna mess with your phone. YOU KNOW IT DOES !!! :D