[WIP] App / Tweak: patchmanager a system-wide patching system + homescreen tweak
 

Patchmanager
patchmanager is the continuation of my work on system tweaks on SailfishOS. It allows managing patches in the whole system. Patching system files can allow UI tweaks, and a lot of other features. Only the imagination of developers is limiting here.

With the new update, Pandora enabled lipstick is no longer needed.

Don't install lipstick-pandora if you are running 1.0.7.16 or later version.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkYUFAFIAAA96vW.jpg

Warning: system file patches can break your system, or worse, malicious patches can cause privacy / security issues

Use with care, apply patches at your own risk.

Warning: patching homescreen QML files can brick or damage your device. Use with care.

Recovery is helpful to recover from bricking. There should always be a backup of lipstick code inside /opt/patchmanager/backups. Use the following code to recover broken lipstick files
Some patches

Video thanks to @fravaccaro

http://distilleryimage2.ak.instagram...c9e093e6_8.jpg


Gallery video patch

I have developed a small patch that provides a better UI for the video player in gallery. See this blog post for more information. (Note that the package in this blog post is not using patchmanager)

Unlimited multitasking

Want to have more than 9 multitasking windows ? Well, you can ! Applying unlimited-multitask patch from sailfishos-patches-advanced package, you will enjoy several pages of multitask windows.

This patch is still being developed, and there are known issues. However, it can be used right now. Don't forget to restart lipstick after applying the patch (there is an option in patchmanager).

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkKRJv8IEAAbXPO.jpg

Control center

Replacing the right ambience switcher panel, you can find the control center. It will (at some point), be extensible with widgets, but right now, you can find the switches from jolla-settings app.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkSBxfuIcAA4eRi.jpg

Vibrate when call established

A feature I wanted long time ago is to have a vibration when a phone call is established. A patch is now included in sailfishos-patches-base to perform this.

Get it

I will use OBS to build my packages, and use OpenRepos to distribute them. You can try OBS packages if you want, but I recommand OpenRepos. (Except for pandora enabled lipstick)

If you like my work, please also consider a donation :)

recommended builds

• patchmanager 0.4.5: OpenRepos
• patchmanager for Jolla settings: OpenRepos
• base patches 0.5.1: OpenRepos
• advanced patches (ex pandora) 0.3.3: OpenRepos

Not recommended ones

• patchmanager 0.4.5: OBS
• base patches 0.5.1: OBS
• advanced patches 0.3.4: OBS

Installation process

1. Install patchmanager from openrepos
2. Install patch collections from OpenRepos (base, advanced).
3. Apply patches, like unlimited-multitask
4. Relaunch services using the pulley menu. This applies patches

Note that before uninstallation, please unapply all patches.

Troubleshooting

If you brick your device in pandora mode, follow these steps.

1. Reboot in recovery, and chroot in SailfishOS
2. Copy the backup files (see below)
3. Reboot

Current issues

patchmanager

• Cannot fix patches
• Cannot cleanup patches

Patches

• Unlimited multitask: you can enter housekeeping mode only from the first page
• Control center: volume slider do not appear.
• Do not unapply patches when uninstalling
• Date on lockscreen seems to be broken, and breaks other patches
• Events view have a swipe feedback while it shouldn't
• Sort of feature: Vibration occurs from all successful calls connections, even from an incoming call

Patchmanager for developers

Patchmanager is hosted in the sailfishos-patches group on Github. Feel free to contribute, and bring more patches. All projects should have a decent README. If they don't, ask me here, on Twitter, or on IRC.

• patchutils source (use sailfishos branch)
• AUSMT source
• patchmanager source
• lipstick-pandora source (use patch branch)
• base patches
• advanced patches

Re: [WIP] App / Tweak: Introducing patchmanager, a system-wide patching system
 

Thank you, great idea!

Maybe you already did, but in case you did not, I would suggest looking into how webOS community did this:
http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/...ion_Technology

There are years of work behind their patch framework and given that webOS is pretty much all about patches, I'd call this infrastructure a state-of-art.

EDIT: Here is the code: https://github.com/webos-internals/ausmt

Re: [WIP] App / Tweak: Introducing patchmanager, a system-wide patching system
 

I didn't look about this, and this seems interesting. I need to take a look at it.

Re: [WIP] App / Tweak: Introducing patchmanager, a system-wide patching system
 

I had the same idea but mine was about patching the QML files embedded inside the binaries before they are handed over to the Qt declarative engine for parsing. I however never got to implementing it.

patching in memory might be a bit slower but it makes it possible to modify embedded QML files easily.

- applets in lipstick.
- you name it...

Re: [WIP] App / Tweak: Introducing patchmanager, a system-wide patching system
 

So if you do UI tweaks check my most wanted tweaks. :)
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=92920

Re: [WIP] App / Tweak: Introducing patchmanager, a system-wide patching system
 

I explored this before. However, QML files embedded in binaries are sometimes optimized so that they are not in plain text anymore. (use a qrc to compile several QML files in release mode and use strings)

EDIT: or do you want to do that in runtime ?

Re: [WIP] App / Tweak: Introducing patchmanager, a system-wide patching system
 

They are compressed AFAICT but not optimized but it's trivial to decompress them.

If we have an LD_PRELOAD that can get access to the actual QML data (I don't yet know how) then we can capture the data, modify it and return the modified data to the QML "compiler". It's not resource intensive. I have done something similar in a Qt4 app of mine (replace certain strings during runtime in the embedded QML files). Don't ask me why I did that ;)

EDIT: One advantage for patching during runtime is we can tie the patches to a certain OS release easily.

Re: [WIP] App / Tweak: Introducing patchmanager, a system-wide patching system
 

I have looked about the possibility to LD_PRELOAD on lipstick. And sadly, this only happens if you manually launch lipstick as privileged. lipstick have a setgid that prevents LD_PRELOAD when started by systemd.

This means that we are seriously limited in this side. Another way to do is to patch and override some system packages, like lipstick-qt5.

Re: [WIP] App / Tweak: Introducing patchmanager, a system-wide patching system
 

How about disabling lipstick.service and providing own customized lipstick service that makes systemd to start a wrapper which sets LD_PRELOAD and starts lipstick as privileged?

Re: [WIP] App / Tweak: Introducing patchmanager, a system-wide patching system
 

Tried this. Wasn't working that well. I found another solution that is even easier and more interesting, it is to patch lipstick-qt5. And this works much much better. Stay tuned ;)