Dealing with a crashy Android phone

Discussion in 'all things UNIX' started by Gullible Jones, Mar 4, 2015.

  1. Gullible Jones

    Gullible Jones Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 16, 2013
    Posts:
    1,466
    So, my Kyocera Rise is getting slow and crashy with long uptimes, or when running certain applications. (Chrome, the phone app, Mimecast...)

    I suspect memory management issues - the phone has 400 MB of available RAM, no swap space, and the kernel does not even support swap (or ZRAM). Also the Android version is old, no updates are available, etc.; it may be failing due to programs using hardware acceleration, and doing things it doesn't expect/support. Or something. I don't know. Point is, the thing's unreliability has become IMO unacceptable.

    CyanogenMod is out of the question. I don't know if there are any other Android distributions that might be usable? Maybe I could download the SDK and compile my own? Can I flash the firmware on a phone like this without rooting the preinstalled OS?

    I'm definitely not going to root the installed OS directly, due to the use of local exploits, binaries I don't trust at all... you know the deal.

    BTW, failing a better Android install: would it be possible to have this thing boot an ARM Linux/X11 stack from the SD card, using some embedded bootloader? I know some Nokia phones can do that, no idea about cheapo Kyocera models.
     
  2. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 15, 2005
    Posts:
    5,554
    Location:
    USA still the best. But barely.
    I'd rather root & have SU & Terminal.
     
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