[ROM] Karbonn Custom ST10 by fuser-invent

fuser

Senior Member
Developer
Nov 4, 2012
172
57
View attachment 10891
Karbonn Custom ST10 - v1.5 by fuser-invent
--- ROM Based on firmware DUMP of the Official Stock Firmware ---


WARNING: New Hardware in v2 of Karbonn Tabs!!!

It's been reported that there is a new version of the Karbonn ST8 and ST10; "on back left corner of tab it says 'ver2' after S/N."

People who have flashed TWRP to their tablets found that the touch screen does not work and they have been unable to flash the rooting zip package or custom ROM's. If you have version two of the tablet please do not attempt to flash anything. Anyone with a new and untouched version that can do a dump of the partions should post them here. We particularly need the boot.img and recovery.img but all the partitions would be helpful in the long run.

EDIT: There are multiple versions of these tablets now and the Custom and Stock Plus ROM's only work for Version 1. Flashing them to a Version 2 or newer tablet will brick the device. - To find out which version you have, download this app, go to the System tab and choose Mounting Points. If you have an EXT4 formatted tablet then you have a version 2, if you have a UBIFS formatted tablet then you have a version 1. There are no custom ROM's for version 2 and you can not root with the "crystal root" zip or flash any recovery that doesn't specifically say it is for a version 2 tablet.

What is this ROM?

This is a totally stripped down version of the Official Stock Firmware. It is the best port of my Ainol ROM Crystal Clear that I could do without having an official Stock Firmware Release.

Development of this ROM started when ankitdaruler asked me for help making some mods/tweaks on his device. At first I helped build the Karbonn Stock Plus ROM's for the ST8 & ST10, which were just slightly modified firmware from firmware DUMP's I had received. The idea was to help people who had "soft" bricked their device and it worked! From there I started on the Crystal Clear port, tweaking some parameters for the Karbonn devices and improving overall performance and responsiveness on the tablets. This ROM is essentially a repack/kang/hybrid or whatever you want to call it. The core of ROM is the official firmware but I have ported over a lot of fixes/tweaks/mods from my Ainol ROM's.

I am not a real developer, just an amateur who learns very quickly. I used to know C++ pretty well about 14 years ago when I was a teenager but have subsequently forgotten almost all of it and I haven't done much coding since with the exception of some website maintenance. With that in mind and the fact that the purpose of this ROM is to keep things light and smooth and mostly bug free, know that I'm not going to add a lot of things back in that I've taken out.

Thank You

Thanks to Soulflier, Christian Troy and Fards for all their hard work and getting me started. I wouldn't have been able to make my edits and changes without looking at their work or using their scripts to sign/unpack/re-pack/decompile/compile stuff.

Thanks to ankitdaruler for troubleshoot and beta testing.

Also thanks to everyone in the community who has found and posted fixes/mods/tweaks in the forums and have made a donation.

The current Karbonn Custom ROM team is:

If you'd like to join the team please send me a PM.


  • fuser-invent - Development & Beta Testing
  • ankitdaruler - ST10 Beta Testing

I hope you end up enjoying the speed, usability and versatility of this ROM. Please take a minute to leave a comment or hit the thank you button and let me know how you like it.

Before you flash...

Please read everything and don't ask questions that are already answered in these posts unless you are absolutely stuck. Every question that is asked that is already answered here just takes more time away from actual firmware development and improving this ROM.

All the usually warnings about not being responsible for what you do with your device and what my ROM might do to your device apply.

  1. Use the TWRP recovery made by ozadroid. Anything you flash must be flashed from TWRP. Just extract the recovery file from the zip and place it on your external SD card to boot into TWRP instead of the stock recovery.
  2. Flash the Karbonn Custom ROM package first.
  3. Flash the Additional Apps package if you want to.
  4. Flash the SD card switcher if you want to.
  5. Reboot - The first boot can take a minute or two so be patient.

Download Links

You can access the folder with all the ROM files directly here.

TWRP by ozadroid is located here. - For some reason it says "no mirrors" so you'll have to download it through that page instead of the above folder.

XDA Forums Karbonn page by ankitdaruler - Not so much a download page. This is where it all started.

Below are explanations of the zip files.

Karbonn Custom ST10 ROM

The ROM package now also contains a light version of the Google Apps package. The full version that works with CM10 will also work with this ROM.

SD Card Swap Zips

You can use your external card as your internal card or swap it back to normal. This replaces the vold.stab file that tells the tablet where to mount the sd cards. They are labeled as Crystal Clear zips but will work with your tablets.

Christian Troy's - Internal Memory Format Zip and Factory Reset Zip

The internal memory format zip will format your NAND, so use it at your own risk. The Factory Reset Zip acts like the stock wipe data / factory reset option. Since you have no official stock firmware release and no way of unbricking your device, I would only use these zips as an absolute last resort and only if you know the risks and know what you are doing. They are totally untested on your tablet.

Additional Apps Package

Installs to data/app for easy uninstall or market update. Some apps aren't on the market because they are modded or XDA editions. You can find the latest additional apps package in this folder.

karbonn_ST10_factoryreset.zip


If you did something wrong, like flash TWRP to your boot.img partition instead of your recovery partition or flashed a ROM that wasn't made for your tablet and now have a boot loop, then this zip might help. I replaces the boot / bootloader / recovery partitions with the official stock ones from the ROM dumps I was sent. You need to flash this zip from TWRP if you are going to use it.


Credit where credit is due

This ROM is rooted by SuperSU v1.25

Although this ROM does not actually contain any of the these packages, it does contain init.d scripting ideas from the following:




If If you install and enjoy this ROM, please consider a donation, even if it is small it will help!
I will use the donations to pay the monthly file hosting fees and other development costs.
 
Last edited:

fuser

Senior Member
Developer
Nov 4, 2012
172
57
Screen Shots

View attachment 10890View attachment 10889
View attachment 10888
View attachment 10887
View attachment 10886

Features and To-Do List

Karbonn Custom ROM

Edits to the build.prop


  • Gameloft Compatibility for most games
  • Screen Response and Sensitivity Tweaks
  • Performance Tweaks
  • Wifi Tweaks
  • Google Nexus 7 Fingerprint
  • Default United States, EST time zone and English
  • Hide Android Debug Icon and ADB enabled by default
  • Video & JPEG Quality Tweaks


Init.d Scripts


  • Performance2 Governor Tweaks
  • Battery Life Tweaks
  • Internal SD Card Speed Tweaks
  • Overall Performance Tweaks


Features


  • TWRP compatible
  • True Tablet UI
  • Rooted with SuperSU
  • Installed Light Google Apps Package
  • Removed Bloatware
  • Gameloft License Check Fix
  • Added In Terminal, Flash Player, YouTube, Skype and Netflix
  • Deodoxed Apps and Framework
  • Added init.d script support
  • Added data/app/ capability
  • Made typing on the keyboard not suck so bad
  • Improve scrolling and touch sensitivity
  • Set-up Wizard & Extended Language Packs
  • ZipAlign
  • InternalSD <-> microSD switch
  • Custom Boot Animation and Default Wallpaper
  • Mic Volume Mod/Fix
  • Improved picture and video quality
  • Battery Percentage Display
  • Extended Power Menu
 
Last edited:

fuser

Senior Member
Developer
Nov 4, 2012
172
57
Bug Reports

- Freezing/lag when in the apps section of system settings - Segmentation Fault. Use an app like titanium backup to move apps to SD for now.

User Submitted Mods/Tweaks/Zips

- Any cool user submitted content will be posted here.

Some 3G Dongles Kill WiFi
-Thanks to gybemark for figuring this out.

When you plug in the dongle, it adds a row to the 'secure' table in /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db with:
Code:
name='wifi_country_code'
value='gb'
If you use sqlite3 to delete this row (which isn't there at all by default in my stock ROM) the Wifi works again.

Getting unsupported 3G Dongles to work

A lot of people have reported success with the PPP Widget app.

Directory Bind for Internal -> External SD Card
- Thanks to tigger-gg for the suggestion

Go to the official page on the XDA forums for more info.

Tigger-gg suggests the DirectoryBind_0.2.0k.apk
 
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fuser

Senior Member
Developer
Nov 4, 2012
172
57
You're welcome! Report back on your thoughts.
 

Loser

Member
Feb 27, 2013
2
0
@Fuse-invent can you tell us about what you have planned for next version and please can you fix the wifi:confused:
 

fuser

Senior Member
Developer
Nov 4, 2012
172
57
The next update is actually uploading right now, so I'm going to wait a little bit an write up an official change log.
 

fuser

Senior Member
Developer
Nov 4, 2012
172
57
Karbonn Custom ST10 - v1.3 by fuser-invent
--- ROM Based on firmware DUMP of the Official Stock Firmware ---


Change Log

Karbonn Custom v1.3

  • Updated SuperSU Root Package.
  • Added Stock Launcher as Nova Launcher alternative.
  • Temporarily removed some init.d scripts until I have more time to test them on the Hero (similar tablet).
  • May or may not have fixed Wifi? Let me know since I don't have this tablet.
  • Fixed battery percentage mod on the SystemUI.apk
  • Minor build.prop changes

Also, I added the karbonn_batterymod_test.zip to the official MediaFire folder. It should work with all Stock ROM's but is now baked into the Custom ROM.

-----

The firmware takes a little while to upload, so if its not in the MediaFire folder yet, it will be soon enough, be patient and enjoy!
 

fuser

Senior Member
Developer
Nov 4, 2012
172
57
karbonn_ST10_factoryreset.zip

If you did something wrong, like flash TWRP to your boot.img partition instead of your recovery partition or flashed a ROM that wasn't made for your tablet and now have a boot loop, then this zip might help. I replaces the boot / bootloader / recovery partitions with the official stock ones from the ROM dumps I was sent. You need to flash this zip from TWRP if you are going to use it.
 

fuser

Senior Member
Developer
Nov 4, 2012
172
57
Karbonn Custom ST10 - v1.4 by fuser-invent
--- ROM Based on firmware DUMP of the Official Stock Firmware ---


Change Log

Karbonn Custom v1.4


  • Added Extended Power Menu
  • Possible VPN fix
  • Possible better Wifi
  • Defaulted back to 3G / Ethernet / Data enabled
  • Removed 3G / Ethernet / Data enabler zip
  • CPU wake/sleep scripts are back in system/etc/virtuous_oc
  • Updated Additional Apps package
  • Added new TWRP package


-----

As usual this is untested because I don't own the tablet, so have a TWRP backup ready or flash the older version if it doesn't work. Report back so I and others can know.


  • The "bootloader" option in the extended power menu just reboots the tablet since these tablets don't have the kind of bootloader you can boot into.
  • If you want to edit the wake/sleep min/max frequencies you can do so in the virtuous_oc folder. If you change the wake governor to something other than performance2 then you won't benifit from the the 02cpu script in the init.d folder. Be careful with frequencies because they can cause problems if you don't set them correctly. Also, don't try to overclock your device, it won't work and will cause problems.
  • The TWRP packages are flashable from TWRP and are the newest released by ozadroid. I've fixed them so that you can place the uImage_recovery file inside the zip on your external SD card and boot into TWRP that way. This does not overwrite the stock recovery but just allows you to use TWRP, if you delete the uImage_recovery file from the external SD card you will still have the stock recovery. If you want to be able to reboot into TWRP from the extended power menu then you need to flash TWRP. Just put the uImage_recovery file on your external SD card, boot into TWRP and then flash the TWRP zip. At ozadroid's request, please do not re-post the TWRP's anywhere, give him credit and link back to his XDA page.
  • The additional apps package now has two new apps. One is called Market Helper which is an app to temporarily change/fake your tablet to appear as if it was another device so that you can download non-compatible apps from the app market. The other app is called LMT Launcher and among other things, it has the cool PIE launcher that you may have seen in the new Paranoid Android ROM's. You do need to set it up manually though. If you like these apps, consider donating to the developers because they are useful and really cool.

All the ROM files and the TWRP recovery can be found in the main Karbonn Custom folder and the additional apps package can be downloaded directly from this link.
 
Last edited:
May 20, 2013
2
0
Can someone recommended me case cover, I am from Canada and bought this when I was in India - the official ones on ebay.co.in charge a lot for shipping. I ordered a universal one and that sucked, can someone kindly recommend a good one which acts like a stand too
 

fuser

Senior Member
Developer
Nov 4, 2012
172
57
I don't know about the case but there is a way to edit the key mapping file to use the home button as the power button. It's just a text edit so its not incredibly difficult. Search the XDA forums, that's where I saw it at some point.
 

fuser

Senior Member
Developer
Nov 4, 2012
172
57
Hey everyone. So the new versions of Karbonn Custom ST8 and ST10 v1.5 are in your tablets folder on my MediaFire. As usual these should be considered Beta until some people test them since I don't have the tablets to actually flash them myself. Make sure you have an older version of Karbonn Custom on your SD card in case they don't work so you can flash back and make a backup of your device with TWRP just to be safe. Chances are they will work just fine but you never know.

I'm not going to write up a fancy changelog because I'm super busy but there is a new bootanimation and default wallpaper. The power menu fix is now built into the ROM so you don't need that anymore. I fixed some things that were causing transfers of large files to fail between the device and the computer as well as the external and internal sd card. I tweaked a few things for better overall performance. I'm not sure if I posted this yet but there is a v1.6 of the additional apps zip file in this folder, it includes an app called LMT that has the PIE interface from PA3+ and CM10.1 which I personally like a lot. It also has a new app called Market Helper which allows you to temporarily spoof your tablet to appear to google play like it is another popular tablet or spoof your tablet to appear as if it from a different region so you can download apps that you normally can't download.

I also attempted to fix some of the module support. At the moment I can't compile my own modules specifically for your tablet so they may or may not work. You can use 'adb shell lsmod' to see which ones are loaded and if anyone checks it out please post the results here so I know which ones work and which don't. They are compiled for tablets with your device specs and modded for your kernel so I'm hopping they will load. So you might or might not get vpn, some game controller support and various other things. Please let me know if you test things and they work. Lastly, I have a feeling that the build in mouse fix isn't working properly, so if you do use a mouse with your tablet you will probably still have to flash the mouse fix zip but let me know if you find it does work without the mouse fix zip.

On another note, I understand from talking to some people that most the Karbonn owners live in India and don't have access to make donation by paypal but if any of you do, please consider a donation. My external hard drive went down and I lost a great deal of my firmware development stuff, among a lot of other backups. Luckily I had the most recent stuff on my laptops hard drive but I have very little space on here and I'm going to have to purchase a new drive soon. I also think the wifi chip on my 10" tablet died, I've spent a good 20 hours trying to find a work around to fix it with no luck and I was doing a good deal of actual development on that and then transferring it over to other devices.

So, providing this release work for all your guys and gals, this is going to be the last major update for a while. I think I've taken the stock ROM's pretty far into better performance and stability with my work and it's time to re-focus on learning to build from source and attempt to compile JB 4.2.2. I'm leaning towards a modified CM10.1 at the moment and have already set up a dev environment to start learning how to build it. It looks like I'll need to upgrade the primary solid state drive in my laptop though and possibly the secondary storage drive as well since it takes a good deal of space to get things done. Once I get the new hardware and start compiling I will attempt to bring CM10.1 to your tablet but I'm starting from zero knowledge and it may take a while. However, I only started developing custom firmware in December and am completely self taught, so I have faith that I will be able to learn this as well. I will drop by this thread from time to time to check in, especially in the next week or two to make sure the new version of Karbonn Custom are working correctly. I wish you all well and hope you enjoy your tablets!
 
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