Zombi-Pop Beta 3 for TF700

[Kevinthefixer]

I was fooling around with Zombi-Pop Beta 2 on my 700 and browsing the XDA forum thread:

[ROM]★[TF700 LP 5.1][ZOMBi-POP OMNI KA… | Asus Transformer TF700 | XDA Forums

Someone was having problems with the Setup Wizard and looked for a way to bypass it. Someone else said not if you want GAPPS; so I said, yes, please, let's have GAPPs as an option or as a separate .zip. A bit more discussion, and @sdbags made it optional in the Aroma installer--THE VERY NEXT DAY! Now, I know there is some coincidence involved here, but try getting that sort of response (at any price) from one of the big companies. Kudos and a big thank-you to all, especially @sdbags.

The main issue I was having with B2 was the borked wallpaper setter. This is fixed in B3 as far as I can tell; I have a large yellow gladiolus adorning my home screen.

It also seems faster & smoother. No stability issues in B2 or B3 for me, except that I had one instance of an app crashing on B2. I knocked the top processor speed back from 1800 to 1700 and that seems fixed too.

This ROM does not play nice with /data partition as ext4; it wants f2fs. I recommend f2fs whenever a kernel supports it (assuming we're dealing with flash memory of course), but Zombi-Pop demands it. Unfortunately the latest TWRP listed at Techerrata is still 2.8.5 which has a bug that will not allow it to change filesystems to f2fs. 2.8.6 is out somewhere but for now I'm sticking with 2.8.4; I've seen no problems reported. And had none myself.

FWIW my install has the _that/sdbags OC kernel, internal install, no GAPPS, fsync off, and of course /data to f2fs. DO NOT USE GAPPS TO /DATA, it doesn't work and @sdbags says he will remove the option next version.

He also says it's getting closer to RC1. For me, anyway, I don't see how you can get much closer. I ran it for about 3 hours yesterday (on half a battery!), experienced no bugs, was quite pleased with the responsiveness (that's an Elizabethan English word that I just made up), and overall I'm very happy with it. Lollipop is finally living up to its promise, it just took some serious tweaking from some of the top devs. Looks to me like it got it, and I for one am quite grateful. I recommend this ROM as is, and I don't see any reason to wait for a "stable" release, I think it already got there.

[droidbound]

Yes, beta 3 is probably the best rom ever on the TF700. It's the first time I find myself grabbing the TF700 rather than the TF701 when I want to get something done on the tablet.
One addition to Kevinthefixer's excellent description:
For a recovery I would highly recommend lj50036's kang version of TWRP 2.8.6
http://forum.xda-developers.com/tran...rea51-t3049395
It adds support for external partitions and the dock SD!
Meaning, if you are running data2sd or rom2sd with his recovery you can format/convert/backup/restore your external partitions the same way TWRP now works on internal partitions. You do not need to flash data2sd1.zip/rom2sd1.zip anymore. And you can backup/format/restore your dock SD from within TWRP. How cool is that?

I expect we will get a lot of basic questions now on how to go about converting data to f2fs, so I wrote a quick guide on that this morning on XDA. Find it here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/tran...p-2-8-t3073471
Remember though: If you convert /data to f2fs you pretty much commit to running a rom with a kernel that supports f2fs - and not many do. You can always reformat to ext4 but that is a much lengthier process than the other way around.

Edit: Ha! I knew it! Beta 4 is out with most of the bugs described in the OP fixed. AFAIK the Grimlock kernel is still not working - stick with _that or omni

[Kevinthefixer]

Edit: Ha! I knew it! Beta 4 is out with most of the bugs described in the OP fixed. AFAIK the Grimlock kernel is still not working - stick with _that or omni

What? Two days after 3? And you said @timduru was using a time machine on KatKiss!

Good to know about TWRP-kang, although I hardly ever use the dock. Someone surely will need it!

@DB, may i suggest you add that link to your f2fs guide to your rooting & ROMing guide? And @Gtanner00, yours also? Info is too valuable to be buried here.

[Gtanner00]

Interesting. 2.6? Why so old? Also u gear about Katkiss being built to automatically detect f2fs and inject the proper kernel for it. No other roms that say they are compatible do this as well?

I'll need to go into the tf300 xda development section again and provide some new rom links now that lollipop is getting stable.

[Kevinthefixer]

I'll need to go into the tf300 xda development section again and provide some new rom links now that lollipop is getting stable.

Reckon so. With my 300 and now my 700 both on 5.1 with /data to f2fs, both running better than they ever have, rock-stable and greased-lightning-fast, I'm a tech-pig in gear-oil mud!

[Gtanner00]

My phone rom dev, who has taken to being a "consulting developer" for other up and coming devs has discovered a build prop modification that changes the way app precompilation works for ART. It seems that there are different priority modes. You can set it to spend a little extra time optimizing each app and get an even better performance gain out of it.

My Nexus 4 feels better than a flagship right now. And to think 3 months ago I was really holding back an urge to upgrade. Like I've said before. We are in a Renaissance age for custom development. Let's just hope "big G" doesn't do something stupid to stopper it.

[droidbound]

Interesting. 2.6? Why so old?

Oops, missed a tiny little digit. It's 2.8.6

[Kevinthefixer]

Let's just hope "big G" doesn't do something stupid to stopper it.

Not quite yet, I don't think. I'm sure their devs are madly taking notes and incorporating the tweaks put out by these hot indie devs. They stand to profit as much as we do, maybe more. Perhaps in a year or two, but hopefully the indies will be ahead of them again by then.

[sbdags]

My phone rom dev, who has taken to being a "consulting developer" for other up and coming devs has discovered a build prop modification that changes the way app precompilation works for ART. It seems that there are different priority modes. You can set it to spend a little extra time optimizing each app and get an even better performance gain out of it.

My Nexus 4 feels better than a flagship right now. And to think 3 months ago I was really holding back an urge to upgrade. Like I've said before. We are in a Renaissance age for custom development. Let's just hope "big G" doesn't do something stupid to stopper it.

Any chance of a hint?

[Gtanner00]

Any chance of a hint?

Of course. I wondered if you might be interested

https://plus.google.com/+SykoPompos/posts/eDUgU11ZVxQ

You may already know this guy from a few things on Xda he's been around a very long time. He loves helping out other devs so you may want to stay in touch. If you are still grappling with any minor memory leaks in AOSP Syko's had most of them sorted out since the L previews and the rest soon after.

One of his projects you might be familiar with is building the layers RRO framework which allow generic theming on any AOSP ROM regardless of device as long as the commits are in place. I think this is available in Katkiss.