MultiRom proof of concept from 2016 ... status ?

[aiamuzz]

Hi,

@topjohnwu ... while i was browsing randomly i saw your proof of concept of a Multirom Magisk Module ... I just wanted to know if its development has been dropped or abandoned altogether ?

thanks.

[aiamuzz]

@topjohnwu ... Is the idea of the multirom completely discarded(which i hope not) or ... its just that the schedule is too busy for development to start on it ?

[topjohnwu]

There is no plans for implementing multirom. Android has changed significantly since 2016, implementing multirom is no longer a trivial task.

[aiamuzz]

There is no plans for implementing multirom. Android has changed significantly since 2016, implementing multirom is no longer a trivial task.

@topjohnwu ... by no longer a trivial task ... do you mean its become difficult to implement(your Proof of Concept) given the significant changes Android as undergone since then ?

I actually loved the idea you've demonstrated in that POC ...

1. I loved the fact that the ROM was just a file and all one had to do was to use flashify to boot into a particular ROM ... this way nobody would know if a particular device was a multiboot device(the only multirom option currently available shows up the multiboot environment right at the start(grub kind of interface) which is not elegant).

2. Now a days we have devices with huge amount of ram(6GB, 8GB, 12 GB) and storage ... there could have never been a better time to develop a refined implementation(such as you've shown in your POC) of the ability to boot into multiple linux OSes and Android ROM's ... People would really use it a lot given such spruced up hardware that's available these days.

If only somebody could implement a Magisk Clean multirom boot system ... as your POC video !!!

[anoraktrend]

If not on modern android, can one use the poc on an older device with older android? IE 7.1.2?

[noidodroid]

I await to hear further words from topjohnwu on this POC. I really would like to see it implemented if at all possible for past OS's at least as there are still a lot of devices older with people dev'ing on them. Old school "hot rods" i guess one could call them.

EFIDROID i have taken a look at and also CloverEFI i think it was called. They both look promising too. Clover's i spoke with the dev and he said he was no longer working on the project. Hopefully someone will fork some of this and work on it.

[MLXProjects]

The reason for such old concepts becoming useless is that Android changes a lot between versions (under the hood).
In those golden old times, multibooting was just a matter of swapping boot image and partition's paths.
Nowadays, AFAIK Android partition mounting works in a very weird way, thus making useless the "partition path change" trick.
If I'm wrong and Android still works the same in that matter, let me know because it would be good news to me :P

[MLXProjects]

@pojavluncher2021 well, but AVB should be possible to spoof on the Java side by using either Magisk or even Xposed, not sure tho.
Anyway, IIRC most custom ROMs don't even have AVB so it would just make stock ROMs unsupported, but they may be supported if there is a Magisk module which shows a pre-android boot menu (after loading init)

[MLXProjects]

@pojavluncher2021 I'm trying to make any sense of what you said, but I simply can't. I don't see how iOS is related to anything discussed here, nor the recovery/bootloader thing.
Anyway, let's not get out of the issue's topic, I'll try some things and report back if I get any useful info