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I am absolutely noob in Android hacking, though I am quite good in doing techie stuff.

Now I have got my first mobile Karbonn A5+. It has 1GHz processor and 431 MB ROM+RAM. It runs Gingerbread. As usual it doesnt get updates.

I really want to taste JellyBean on it. So while googling for the same, I found this thread. It instructs to install clean nexus images from here. Can I able to install the same on my mobile following the same instructions?

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I can only wish for that ability @Mahesh(a999). The image has to be prepared for a specific hardware as it involves lot of drivers to be accounted for. The chances are pretty bright if the two device share same hardware, which in your case is not.

You can try Cyanogenmod ROMs or other custom ROM. Visit this XDA page, which is exlcusive for your device.

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  • ohkay thats good direction, but is there any robust way to bring back the device to factory restore if I mess up the things. Currently it seems that I have got whole lot of stuffs out there to explore in Android, I have never tried such things. So just asking if there is any sure way to bring things back to factory state. A link? Thoughts from ur experience please.
    – Mahesha999
    Commented Feb 25, 2013 at 8:26
  • There is always a small risk of making the device unusable - at least until you know how to bring it back. So, back up and be prepared for without phone and data for a while. You can make nandroid backup of your current ROM and preserve it. In case of something unpleasant, you can always restore the device to its stock ROM as you got it from shop.
    – Narayanan
    Commented Feb 25, 2013 at 8:31
  • hey sorry for my noobiness but can you provide more on last tow sentences. How can I backup? And how can I restore to stock ROM. Am ready for not having any cell for some time.
    – Mahesha999
    Commented Feb 25, 2013 at 8:54
  • It is quite difficult to to help through comments :) the steps for backup is to first root, then install ClockworkMod or TWRP recovery and perform a Nandroid backup. Take a look at the XDA page for rooting A7 and possibly it should be same for your A5. Once rooted install ROMManager from play store. If ROMManager could not find a recovery for your device, you can use "TWRP 90% ENGLISH" as listed in the XDA page and install it through ROMManager.
    – Narayanan
    Commented Feb 25, 2013 at 9:06
  • Well ohakay, but will 1GHz and 430 MB RAM+ROM enough, what is min requirement for JB. When I kill all apps, I can see that there is almost 260 MB RAM free
    – Mahesha999
    Commented Feb 25, 2013 at 9:11
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You can only use images specifically made for your own device. Unlike common Linux Live CD images, Android images usually comes only with the drivers for the particular device it was intended for to save space. It's highly unlikely you'll be able to run an image designed for another device well, unless the hardware on the device is extremely similar to the original device.

Many modders compiles from source code and spends a lot of time figuring out the compilation flags that excludes the drivers they don't need while making sure it includes the ones they need, and tweaking the settings to optimize it for the device; this may be difficult on some device if the manufacturers don't release all their source code or if they didn't publish the settings they used in their own images. Some modders swaps compiled modules from another device with similar hardware into a base image that is known to work on their device; this is essentially trial and error though because there's no guarantee it will work at all. In some extreme cases, there has been times where modders felt that the manufacturer has done an extremely poor job on certain driver and rewrite the entire driver from scratch.

In any of these methods, you need to be very familiar with both kernel and the hardware on the device. It's generally easier if the manufacturer released vanilla images and/or their compilation settings.

Unlike the compiled binaries, APKs are generally interchangeable though, because they are compiled in Dalvik instead of ARM. Often it's possible to get a sneak peak of later device's feature by side loading the right APKs. This is why it's often possible to install newer launchers and keyboards on previous versions of Android.

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