Thursday, August 20, 2009

Custom Kernels for the HTC Magic PVT32a!

Awesome news guys!

We (well.. TigerTael from XDA actually, but I helped a little! ;) have now successfully reverse-engineered the HTC Magic kernel source code for the 32A magics.
Why did we do this? Well HTC have been dragging their feet in giving us the kernel patches required to build a kernel for the HTC Magic 32A handset and it's been frustrating the hell out of a lot of us - so much so that we tried figuring out what needed fixing and where the changes needed to go. The end result is a fully booting, wifi-packing, kernel with the full memory of the 32A handset and everything working!

So.. what does this mean for the average joe? Well.. real tethering for a start.

Well if you're interested in getting a customised kernel with full tethering support, kernel optimisation, swap/compcache, apps2sd, tethering support (iptables/tun), etc - then this is awesome news for you 32A handset owners!

Now even if you're not interested in any of the above.. you may just want this massive kernel vulnerability fixed on your phone and not have to wait months for HTC to deliver it like they normally do ;)

Cyanogen (who already builds awesome optimised and cutting edge kernels for the HTC Dream and HTC Magic 32B) has stated in #android that he's interested in a completely 'universal' rom for all Dream and Magic owners (32B AND 32A variants) and will look at adding this to his future roms, while others have started compiling custom kernels already.
There's actually a version of his latest 4.0.1 rom out already with a custom kernel (incl. iptables and the kernel fix, but not with any major optimization as yet) if you're keen to get started.

I'm sure now that this is out in the wild that we'll see a huge step forward in roms for the HTC Magic in future! So keep your eyes out on XDA!!