SlimRoms has always fascinated me. It is particularly, well, slim. Cutting things down to the bare-bones of what you really need, and then using alternate tool-chains to build a faster, more compact system. That is what SlimRoms is all about.
As a fan of SlimRoms, I looked and looked, and could not find a SlimRoms for my phone that was newer than 4.4.2, which is Kitkat. Not only is that less than secure, it does not use ART, but uses Davlik instead. Wishing to have something a little newer, I thought I’d try compiling it myself.
After downloading SlimRoms source, I pulled the device specific source from the following gits.
Device tree – https://github.com/SlimRoms/device_samsung_jfltetmo
Vendor blobs – https://github.com/TheMuppets/proprietary_vendor_samsung
There were a few hiccups along the way, several small items that I needed to iron out, but in the end, here was the result:
[CODE]
running: java -Xmx2048m -jar /home/alaskalinuxuser/Documents/projects/phones/compile/slimlp51/out/host/linux-x86/framework/signapk.jar -w build/target/product/security/testkey.x509.pem build/target/product/security/testkey.pk8 /tmp/tmpCSp0zg /home/alaskalinuxuser/Documents/projects/phones/compile/slimlp51/out/target/product/jfltetmo/slim_jfltetmo-ota-b340d7e285.zip
done.
Package Complete: /home/alaskalinuxuser/Documents/projects/phones/compile/slimlp51/out/target/product/jfltetmo/Slim-jfltetmo-5.1.1.beta.0.15-UNOFFICIAL-20160511-0642.zip
#### make completed successfully (11:03:48 (hh:mm:ss)) ####
[/CODE]
Yes, after 11 hours of compiling, God was gracious, and the build was finally successful. Ironically, that is 11 hours using ccache! I probably should get a newer computer to do this on. I’m currently using a HP Compaq 6715b laptop with a mechanical hard drive and only 4 GB of ram. I mention that because most compiler guides will tell you to have 8 GB of ram and a solid state hard drive. Those things are great, and I’m sure my build times would cut literally in half if I had those, but don’t be afraid to try compiling on a lesser machine. For me, it works just fine. I usually start a compilation and let it run over night. I guess you might say that I make my own “nightlies”!
As with any ROM, I began with my standard tests. It installed properly, booted, and worked! Actually, I haven’t found anything that fails to work on it yet, which is a blessing indeed!
In any event, since I could not find this ROM for my phone, and since it was successful and functional, I posted it on XDA’s website. Here is the link to it if you would like to see that:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s4-tmobile/development/rom-slimlp-jfltetmo-t3377731
Here is the direct download link, if you happen to have the same phone and would like to try it:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/baspvw621ram4ge/Slim-jfltetmo-5.1.1-AKLU-20160511.zip
Linux – Keep it simple.