Getting GPS working again on the Vibrant w/ CM7 nightlies

I love CyanogenMod and I thank all of them for their hard work that they do for basically nothing except the “thrill”. I have been using that since the very first version on my HTC ADP1. Then I bought the Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant from T-Mobile and CM was not available for the device. I stuck with the “Stock” Samsung TouchWiz UI that I made some tweaks to here and there to get a better experience for myself. I did things like rooting the device, adding the CarDock, removing the crap software that I don’t ever use, removed the “WorldClock” and added the stock Alarm Clock and other things here and there.

The GPS on this device has always been a topic of discussion, as there were issues with it from launch. It would take up to 10 minutes or more, to get a lock, and once you got the lock, you would probably lose it. There were people much smarter then me that found ways to make the GPS usable on the Stock TouchWiz UI.

After some time, Team Whiskey released the Bionix ROM. This was/is a ROM still based off the TouchWiz version of Android at its core, but was a better experience as it included functionality that was not in stock TouchWiz, and it didn’t include the bloatware. The biggest thing that Team Whiskey brought to the Vibrant with Bionix was Voodoo. Now, I know they did not create Voodoo, and other ROMs had support too, but I am just babbling about what Bionix did for me. I ran this ROM for some time, and a mod that I created that brought the Gingerbread keyboard with working the hepatic feedback to FroYo ROM is even included in the distribution. But there was still something missing for me.

I believe, at least for me, that the Vanilla Android is a better user experience, and the CM modifications, is that experience, plus more for your “die-hard” android users. I would go to the CyanogenMod website often to see if there was any developments on getting a build of CM running on the Vibrant. Now, you may read this and say “It ran on the Vibrant for a while”, and that is true, but the steps needed to install it on the device was a pain in the ass, not to mention that there were a lot of things that were not working. These are the things that kept me on Bionix. Then the CM team that work on the Vibrant (and other Galaxy S devices too) got the install process to be a lot less of a pain. At that time, I decided to give it a try, and I knew that GPS, among some other bugs existed.

Then shortly after I started flashing these unofficial builds of CM, the nightlies started. At the time of this post, they have over 75 nightlies, but there are still some issues with it, including GPS. Which brings me to the actual title of this post. I found this thread over on XDA by stricklyrude27. He put together a set of scripts and files and steps that were created by other people (see thread for their credit) and placed them in to a single update.zip package.

I am running CM7.1-N76 with the GPSFix v1.4 and GPS works great. I get a lock in just a couple of seconds. If you are running CM7 on your Vibrant, head over to the thread and give it a try, at least until an official CM7 solution comes about.

Thank you to all that contribute to the CyanogenMod and especially to the SGS Team, also thanks to all that were involved in getting this fix working too. The android community is great and love that just about always, a solution to any issue is found.

CyanogenMod 7 on Galaxy S Vibrant

The nightly builds for CyanogenMod 7 for Samsung Galaxy S line of devices is now available via Rom Manager. It is now a “Single Update” install, 2 if you want to add gapps.

Here are some of the issues I had when doing the install, and how I worked around them.

• Follow the instructions Here and Read the FAQ here. This is just a “helper” for some of the issues I had, not a replacement or step by step.
• You will need to be able to get in to the Recovery via the 3 Button Method. If you cannot, then you will have problems.
• Before you start with ROM Manager, you need to download the gapps package and place it on the internal sdcard. You cannot use ROM Manager to install the gapps, it will not work.
• The easy part is installing CM7 from ROM Manager. Open up Rom Manager and download the CM ROM
• ROM Manager will now download the ROM. Once completed, it will prompt you to wipe data and cache and backup. You should do them ALL. Then Click OK.
• The device will reboot and it will install the CM package. Be patient, it can take a while.
• Once the device is rebooted you will want to turn the device off. DO NOT USE ROM Manager, or any other shiny thing, to get in to the recovery, it will not work correctly.
• Power the device back on using the 3 Button Recovery method. Hold down Vol+ & Vol- & Power. Once you see the “Vibrant” Screen release ONLY THE POWER button.
• Now that you are in Clockwork, select install package from sdcard and select the gapps package you downloaded before you started.
• Reboot your device and enjoy.
• Update: If your PC does not recognize your device any more, you need to install the Google USB Drivers.

I forgot how much I missed using AOSP + the things that the CM team adds to the party. Being stuck using TouchWiz for so long, it is like getting a new phone again. Even if you run ROMs like Trigger or Bionix, you are still stuck with the TouchWiz additions.

Thanks TeamHackSung, my Galaxy S is happy now.

Droid X Multi-touch Keyboard for Samsung Galaxy S

The Droid X has a good keyboard that supports multi-touch. If you try to just install it on the Samsung Galaxy S phones (I’ve only tested the Vibrant), the keys are barley readable. The font size is very small.

I have modified the original Droid X keyboard to specify a font size that can be seen on the Galaxy S phones.

While that was fine and worked great, I didn’t really like the light color of the keyboard. So I also created a version that is skinned to look like the stock Samsung Galaxy S Keyboard.

I’ve also added alternate character selections to the “QWERTY” row. The characters are the Numeric row of a standard keyboard.

Download from XDA Thread

The $1 Phone Dock

I was at the flea-market this weekend just looking for some deals on junk. I was skimming across a table and spotted this little gem.

This is a business card stand. my Samsung Galaxy S (Vibrant) fits perfectly both horizontally and vertically. The angle it sits is perfect for viewing video on the device.

There was only one on the table, I wanted at least 2 of them, so I could have one for work and at home. The best part, it was $1.

Stuck at Vibrant Screen after Update

I was stuck at the Vibrant screen after applying the official OTA update from T-Mobile the other day on my Samsung Vibrant. Most people were saying it was because of not running the Stock firmware, but I did not have any real “mods” to the OS, except for a GPS fix. I have also heard people that are running full, non-rooted, Stock firmware phones and still having the same issue.

I wanted to post the steps I took to fix my problem. Your results may vary, and I am in no way, shape or form, responsible for any problems that you may have because you read this and did what worked for me. I am just posting it because it worked for me, and others.

1. Download ODIN3 1.0
2. Download 512 PIT
3. Download JFD tar
   • Note that all 3 of those are from the same thread. It also wouldn't hurt for your to read that post too.
4. Open Odin, plug in your phone, then put it into download mode.
• To expand on this because a lot of people were asking "how to put in download mode". The easiest way I found to actually do it, if you can can connect via ADB is to do the following:
  
  # reboot download
  
  If you can't get that to work, try how i mention below (phone off, battery out, hold vol+ & vol-), or try searching these forums for "vibrant download mode" you will find other things that "work" for people
5. load the PIT file in appropriate area.
6. load the .tar file in the PDA area.
7. DO NOT check 're-partition'.
8. Click start, let it finish.
• At this point ODIN failed on me. and I got the "mobile-!-pc" image.
9. Now, pull your battery and unplug USB
10. I also took out the SIM and sdcard at this point.
11. bring the phone to download mode again
1. plug the USB back in (the phone should be off)
2. Hold down vol+ & vol-
3. Put battery back in
4. press power
12. re-run ODIN as mentioned above
    

Once ODIN completed successfully, it rebooted in to the Stock build. i let it do all that. then I shut it off, put the sdcard and SIM back in and booted in to recovery and restored from my Nandroid and I was back to the way it was right before I applied the update.