F900 Lite Rom

[Turbo4V]

This is still a work in progress, since I'm still trying to determine how to flash the F900 from the SD card. But, a bunch of people have been asking for a "lite" version of the F900 ROM with all of the ACER stuff stripped out.

Here's a link to a "lite" F900 ROM:
http://www.4shared.com/file/11515883...RBO4V_101.html

With this ROM, I had a total of 176.25MB free storage space, and 56.4MB free RAM after a clean boot.

After installing this, you'll probably want to install one or more of the ACER cabs to make the phone a bit more useable, you can get those here:

http://www.4shared.com/file/11516116...S_1002_EN.html

As soon as I get the flashing from the SD figured out, I'm going to remove the rest of the crap from the rom (Office mobile, the junk mms bitmaps and misc sample music and pictures that are installed).

Justin

[fbickley]

Kudos to Turbo for all the work!

What did you remove/leave on the rom you've created? And what are the quintesential cabs to put back on?

I'm going to try this later tonight, but It's probably too comprehensive to do while I'm using it at work.

Also, have you checked out all of the connections? Wifi, GPS, Blutooth, etc...? I had a problem with Wifi earlier, and I'm not sure what specifically caused it. But now that I have it working, I'm moving slow to make sure I keep it going.

Thanks again for all the hard work!

[Turbo4V]

In this "lite" rom, I've removed ALL of the installation cabs that are included in the Acer F900 Cab zip file, the only thing that I left was the F900 EQ file, which i believe is needed based on some other reading that I've done.

So here's the list of things that were removed:

AcerShell
AcerShell Launcher
Album
BizCard
Backup/Restore
Call History Filter
Camera
Comm Manager
Voice Commander
Dialer
Google Maps
Google Search
GPRS Wizard
GSensor Settings
Memory Optimizer
Notification Manager
Quick Backlight
Quick Launch
Quick Menu
EasyKeyboard
SIM Manager
Sound Progiles
Speed dial
Streaming Player
Task Manager
Today softkey
ZoomStatus


When you've completed installing the "lite" rom, just copy the CAB files over to your SD card, and install the ones that you need. Here's a list of ones that I recommend, though, you can use the phone without any of them!

Backup/Restore - Super handy utility
Camera - Obviously, most people will need this
Comm Manager - Required
Dialer - You could live with or without this one.
GSensor Settings - Allows you to configure the G Sensor
Quick Backlight - Allows you to set backlight settings
Quick Menu - I like this, makes a friendly program launcher.
EasyKeyboard - Nicer than the crappy windows kb
Sound Profiles - Lets you config the ring profiles.
Speed dial - Handy util for speed dialing
Task Manager - I like the Acer task manager, but the MS one works well too...
Today softkey - Handy, I put the QuickMenu on the right softkey to launch apps..
ZoomStatus - Really handy, this is the app that zooms the status icons in the upper right hand side of the screen.

It only takes a few minutes to install those apps, and the nice thing is, that they're no longer sitting dormant in the program storage memory if you install them from the SD card!

I have gone ahead and checked all of the interfaces (WIFI, cell radios, GPS), and also verified that the camera and G Sensor still work just fine. I'm not expecting that anything should be fixed (or broken) by this ROM, since all I've done is remove most of the add-on software.

Justin

[fbickley]

Sweet. I think we figured out part of the Wifi problem in another thread. So it shouldn't be affected by this. I just don't know how intensive some of the bloatware is with the usable feature of the phone. I just wanted to be sure. I'll go ahead and flash it shortly. I'll let you know if I have any trouble.

thanks again justin....

[fbickley]

Flashing the rom?

I believe I've seen it elsewhere, but please give a brief description about how to reset everything with the temp.dat file.

Thanks, I'm still a novice, so I want to be sure I know what I'm doing is correct.

Also, where do you get USBDLUpdate_Console.exe?

I noticed you were having issues in the other thread. Did Boz ever get back to you on the proper flash method?

[Turbo4V]

Till we get a procedure for flashing from the SD card, here's what I know works for the f900:


1) Download the Acer upgrade ROM from the acer ftp site (ftp://ftp.acer-euro.com/smartphone/f900/os_images/), get the appropriate language file (EN for english)
2) Run the upgrade program, but add the -a command line option. This will cause it to put the files on your local hard drive.
3) Find and replace the temp.dat file (in the TempFolder directory) with the new firmware file. (temp.dat)
4) Run the PDAUpdate.msi file (it's in the parent directory of the temp.dat file).
5) connect the F900, and select ActiveSync mode when prompted. (be sure to have activesync installed on your PC!)
6) Go back into the TempFolder directory, and run the EUU.exe file
7) Follow the instructions, and the phone should be updated.

I'm SURE there's a more simple way to do this, but it's the only one that I've found so far!

[fbickley]

Not quite sure how to run with the -a command line option.

I may just wait until we get the response back from boz on the SD card flashing method.

[stuza]

Originally Posted by Turbo4V

This is still a work in progress, since I'm still trying to determine how to flash the F900 from the SD card. But, a bunch of people have been asking for a "lite" version of the F900 ROM with all of the ACER stuff stripped out.

Here's a link to a "lite" F900 ROM:
http://www.4shared.com/file/11515883...RBO4V_101.html

With this ROM, I had a total of 176.25MB free storage space, and 56.4MB free RAM after a clean boot.

After installing this, you'll probably want to install one or more of the ACER cabs to make the phone a bit more useable, you can get those here:

http://www.4shared.com/file/11516116...S_1002_EN.html

As soon as I get the flashing from the SD figured out, I'm going to remove the rest of the crap from the rom (Office mobile, the junk mms bitmaps and misc sample music and pictures that are installed).

Justin

Good stuff, more chefs the better!


You might want to look at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=486943 this thread and maybe contact the guy that can alter the partition table? That way I believe you will be able to swap ROM for RAM (if you know what I mean).

There is also a faster file system that needs to be cooked in, that maybe worth looking at? Links already been posted in this forum on http://www.4winmobile.com/forums/e-t...-extendir.html (Extendir).


Good luck!

[Turbo4V]

Originally Posted by fbickley

Not quite sure how to run with the -a command line option.

I may just wait until we get the response back from boz on the SD card flashing method.

Just open a command window (Start->Run, type CMD). Then change to the directory where the ACER_F900_EN_00_1_002_96F40A19.exe program is, and run the program by typing

ACER_F900_EN_00_1_002_96F40A19 -a

When it's done, you'll have a directory created called TempFolder. In there you'll find the original acer temp.dat that needs to be replaced.

Justin

[Turbo4V]

Originally Posted by stuza

Good stuff, more chefs the better!


You might want to look at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=486943 this thread and maybe contact the guy that can alter the partition table? That way I believe you will be able to swap ROM for RAM (if you know what I mean).

There is also a faster file system that needs to be cooked in, that maybe worth looking at? Links already been posted in this forum on http://www.4winmobile.com/forums/e-t...-extendir.html (Extendir).


Good luck!

Stuza,
Definitely interesting ideas, and they look pretty simple to impliment. The only problem is that I need to get flashing from the SD working before diving in too much further. I'm getting to the point where I could brick the phone, and need to be able to flash without the OS running (incase it bricks!)

Justin