As many of you know, I have been fairly hard at “work” getting ICS to run on the D3.  And a few days ago I mentioned on Twitter (@Hashcode0f) that it had finally booted up.

“BUT BUT that was DAYS ago!”

Since, then it’s been hell getting this into a workable looking video.

For one, the original boot was using stock software rendering which only wanted to come out in RGB-565 (w/o an alpha channel).. this meant big black squares over the screen where nifty graphics were supposed to be transposed.

Then I was booting up to a “Encryption failed” message which wouldn’t let me go to the lockscreen or anywhere else, and since I didn’t have buttons or touchscreen support.. I’m not sure how I would’ve gotten there anyway.

The CM Defy guys just put in a patch to get legacy touchscreen drivers running in ICS, and you better believe I was all over that.

Then came the turkey … er wait … that’s a different story.

So after 3 days of debugging hardware acceleration issues, a random IRC user named dr1337 tells me about a hack that HTC-Linux peeps did for getting around some unknown OpenGL extensions.

And that brings us to today:

I present to you a VERY alpha boot of ICS on the Droid 3.

Some things you’ll note in the video:

• Working capacitive buttons’
• The main LEDs work, but I can’t remember if you see any in the video.
• Charging indicator

Obvious “next step” type fixes:

• Tweaks to graphics engine all over.  There’s a “blink” effect anytime you stop an animation or perform an action.
• Lot’s of sensor fixes (no rotation as you can see in the video)
• I don’t have adb up and running yet which is why I haven’t gotten any screenshots.
• Netd is a critical service and it’ll be a hybrid of CM7 and ICS when it finally gets up and running.  Our kernal doesn’t support quota2 or the nat protocols which are present in the stock ICS service.
• Etc.. etc.

So, lot’s of work to do.. but trust me when I say, the device was snappy.  It was the popups bogging me down.

UPDATE: For those who like to live on the bleeding edge (or crashing in this case).. here’s the ROM from the video.  It’s only been tested in Safestrap on the D3:
http://goo.gl/7Zllr
md5sum: 08e5231d0808910d6b0477f79c43cd55

Enjoy,

So as you may have heard, Google pushed the ICS source to the AOSP repository!

It’s a great day for Android fanatics everywhere!  I know that I personally started a “repo sync” about 3pm (PST) and hopefully it’ll be done before December.

Over the last few hours, I’ve also received many questions regarding the hows, whys and whens of the D3 and ICS.  Perhaps a blog post would serve as the best answer:

Q: “Mr. Hashcode, I notice that you have a nice tie on today– OMFG ICS! WH3N KAN W3 HAV$ IC$ 0N D3!”

A: It’s complicated.  Yes, ICS source is out.  And I will most certainly be looking it over and getting familiar with the new landscape.

Motorola phones in general are in a rough spot regarding a decent ICS port.  We all seem to be stuck with a plethora of libraries and binaries that are pulled straight from the phone which means they’re set in stone at whatever version of the OS the phone was on when you pulled them.  All presenting challenges when we’re looking at moving to the next version of Android.

For D3, the largest of these is libaudio.so / alsa.omap4.so.  Motorola loves to use their proprietary AudioPostProcessor code in almost every phone they put out to raid the gain levels for incoming phone calls, etc.  You can read my rant about  it.  But suffice to say that issue will still be a problem for getting ICS on the D3.  And as far as I know, that code is not public in any fashion.  I’ve spent many hours scouring the internet looking for it in any form for any Moto phone.

So the short answer is: I wouldn’t hold your breath for a surprise CM9 release on the D3 in the next few days.

And, I’m 100% certain you will see “ICS for the _____ (fill in the blank random phone)!” popping up over the next few weeks.  I will wager 95% of them are complete crap that can’t be used as a real device.

Don’t let it bother you.  We happen to have a fantastic device which is getting better every day.  And, I’m working on it.

** INSERT STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I’m not responsible for any damage you do to your phone using my tools.  Always have a fastboot available for disaster recovery.  **

Droid 3 (v1.04) Download Here
md5sum: deecf850b00138faa9bb09f685fd9455

BETA Bionic (v1.04)  Download Here
md5sum: 37dc6c95f884b3cbccb11d4c61288582

Recent Changes:

• [v1.04 11/06] Fixed webtop restore causing fastboot fail message
• [v1.03 11/06] Fixed 4G while using Safe System and “Back button disabled” message w/ blank screen.

This release includes:

1. Many enhancements to Safestrap Recovery including:
• Caching of userdata between the safe and non-safe systems — This does take some time.  I know it’s not instant like it was before.  But many users were experiencing hung starts, etc.  And now you don’t need to constantly backup/restore between swaps.
• Full support for Internal / External SD cards (partitions).  Thanks Atrix dev team!
• By adding the Splashscreen and getting away from BP-Tools mode, you can now use the USB Mount features in the “mounts” area of recovery.
• When in Non-safe mode, backups include “/systemorig” which is the 1st system.  I chose not to back it up while in Safe mode, to save on backup size.
• Backups are marked as “safe-” or “nonsafe-” + the date for clarity.
• You can now flash non-Safestrap specific ROMs, and they will go to the Safe System area (note this feature does need some testing).
• Liberty ROMs currently have a folder in the flash .zip: /system/etc/rootfs that needs to be removed or it will hang at boot. [ UPDATE 11/03: Fixed for D3, but haven't checked Bionic. ]
• If you test a ROM and have issues booting it up, please let me know.
• Updated to Koush’s 5.0.2.7 CWRecovery sources
2. Entry to recovery via new Splashscreen on boot-up.  The screen stays up for around 8-10 seconds and if you hit the menu button, it takes you to Safestrap Recovery.  No more Power + M, volume business!  Although, for now I kept the BP-Tools entry method active as well.

[UPDATED 11/03 for Safestrap 1.02]:

• bug fixes
• a new option for including original system in backups made while Safe System is on
• a new “Quick Safe System Toggle (DANGEROUS)” for users who are using stock-based ROMs on both 1st and 2nd systems.  If you hang at the boot, then please wipe data/cache or try restoring data from a backup.  This option basically skips the backup/restore steps.

KNOWN ISSUES:

• I know the swap from Non-safe to Safe system is long.  It’s meant to put your system back to pristine (or close to) condition.
• I need to handle the default “Reboot Recovery” triggers that Koush’s Bootstrap handles.  ROMs like Liberty which have those options won’t work correctly till I add them.

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

• Koush who develops such a GREAT recovery system and the makes the source available for others to use.
• The Atrix dev team who I pulled the internal/external SD card support from
• The Defy dev team that originally developed the Bootmenu source which I stripped down and used for the Splashscreen.

As always, let me know what you think!