heaj-services-solutions / b2g-updates

Binaries used to supply automatic updates to devices running B2G

B2G OTA Updates from FXP

This repo hosts the update.xml files that our builds of B2G use to check for OTA updates. We also take advantage of GitHub releases to host the actual updates.

• Building the update for a particular device is scripted by full-build.sh.
• Building all devices and uploading to GitHub is scripted by release-all.sh.
• The actual upload is managed by github-release v0.6.2 which comes from github.com/aktau.

Be sure to grab the right manifest when cloning B2G: export GITREPO="git://github.com/AdFad666/b2g-manifest --reference /home/repo/"

After you've done an initial config.sh sync you should clone b2g-updates inside the B2G folder, then symlink release-all.sh and full-build.sh to the B2G folder.

After that it's enough to run release-all.sh, then grab a coffee as all of your releases are automatically built and uploaded.

(Just remember to have your GitHub access token defined as GITHUB_TOKEN=XXXXXXXXX in release-all.sh!)

How often will there be updates?

The current plan is to provide weekly Gecko/Gaia OTA updates, and full updates when necessary, probalby once a month (a full update includes kernel and blobs). These will be run at the weekend when Mozillians are not as active.

Why should I care about B2G?

Typically each new version of Android runs slower on the same hardware, so eventually a future version of Android will be too much for current devices.

B2G drops the java bloat entirely, and is actually much faster than Android on the same hardware because of this.

But Sony devices are supported in AOSP!

Yes, for now.

Android iterates very quickly, and older versions are quickly abandoned. The same is true for the actual devices. Your Android phone that is two years old is effectively guaranteed to be abandoned by the manufacturer, and riddled with security holes.

Custom Android ROMs aren't much help either. CyanogenMod also abandons older versions and routinely drops devices that are not considered good enough for the latest release.

If your device is not compatible with Android 4.4 KitKat or greater, good luck finding a custom ROM that has the latest security patches.

Why do this now? Just wait until the device is obsolete!

Do you want to work on an obsolete device?

Mozilla has shown a willingness to keep compatibility with older devices.

We're doing the hard work now, so that in the future we have a solution for when Android is too bloated. At that point in time we'll also be working on the latest and greatest devices. We won't have the time to start porting an old device to an entirely new OS.

We hope this work will extend the life of Xperia devices even further into the future.