CyanogenMod Guide

Cyanogen is an open source firmware alternative for android devices which allow people to do things with their cel-phones they otherwise could not do such as play with their clock frequency of their phone, or change their launcher and keep their phones perpetually rooted.

Cyanogen was actually available for Ouya for almost a year now but strangely there has not been a whole lot of conversation about it until recent where outside political forces have people curious as to alternatives in the event that Ouya staff have to jump into a Vault-Tec system and may not be able to keep their authentication servers operational.

Cyanogen also came to the forefront once again because of the decisions of Kodi version 15 where they are going to incorporate android 4.2 code. Since Ouya is sitting at Android 4.1 this means the latest bleeding edge version of Kodi is non-functional for Ouya users unless they change out their firmware. On stock Ouya firmware until further update or notice v14 will be the last version of Kodi you will be able to download.

Consideration - Do I even need CyanogenMod?
In an attempt to explain to a user if you may or may not be interested in CyanogenMod. Some examples are provided to consider if you wish to flash your OUYA to CyanogenMod or not.

You should consider Cyanogen if:


 * You love Google Play—for Netflix, HBO-Go, Googles YouTube Player, etc.—and you are sick and tired of re-uploading the .zip files for Google Play on your Stock OUYA Firmware every-time Google decides to change their layout configuration.
 * You love playing with bleeding edge software like KODI v15
 * You are really into side-loading as having an android 4.4 environment makes side-loaded games more compatible with your Ouya.
 * You wish to leave OUYA behind completely and simply have an android box.

You will not want Cyanogen if:


 * Everything you download on your OUYA comes from Discover.
 * You do not like side-loading or tinkering with your game console.
 * You feel perfectly comfortable with KODI v14 and will wait until OUYA releases a new firmware update to proceed to v15
 * You own an Anthracite model OUYA which is incompatible with Cyanogen as of the date of this article.

These are just basic examples of what to consider and more will be added in the future.

Disclaimers
Due to the nature of flashing you are responsible for any loss of data, damages, or injuries occurred when performing this mod. If you are not comfortable with this level of software hacking stop now.

Pre-requisites
You will need the following items in order to successfully mod your Ouya over to CyanogenMod 11:


 * USB A Male to USB micro B data cable (Required for ADB).
 * A USB Keyboard (Required during the ClockWorkMod Recovery Section of this guide).
 * A USB Mouse (Only required for logging into Cyanogen for the first time as bluetooth will be disabled until you get to the desktop. Also optional as you can use the keyboard for this)
 * A USB Hub (optional but recommended for other devices)

Data backup
This section requires more work.

Before even beginning to reload the firmware on your Ouya be sure to back up your data! There are some threads around ouyaforum on how to do this (feel free to post thread links on how to do this!). But data backup is important in the event you want to transfer your Ouya profile and save-games over to Cyanogen, or you wish to load the stock Ouya firmware and restore everything back to the way it was. Anyone who has used Kodi knows how much of a pain it is to re-download all of your plugins and menu settings.

Step 1 : Installing ADB and Rooting your Ouya
Installing ADB is the first step in this conversion, to do this you will need to download and setup the adb toolset. The OUYA documents give you a detailed walk-through on how to get ADB working on your computer, you can stop when you get to the eclipse section.

The KODI v15 documentation tells you to go to the XDA forums but it’s not just installing ADB. If you read down into the thread you may also have to Root your Ouya, it is not confirmed that rooting the OUYA is needed for the Cyanogen modification. All of these instructions do work just do not use the wireless ADB option as that will not work when we get to the later steps (i.e. Clockworkmod loading)

Download the files needed for ADB

Step 2: Installing ClockWorkMod
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2295645 Will give you two ways of loading the initial CWM program, by doing it all in ADB (which is useful in case you are isolated in a room with no network connection and you have everything on a USB stick. Or in the event of catastrophic network failure between Ouya servers and the users) or if you are already logged into your Ouya account there’s a OneClickCWM approach that also works just fine. Once CWM is installed you will also need to download http://milaq.net/downloads/ouya/misc/recovery-clockwork-6.0.4.8-ouya.zip and adb sideload that into your CWM. This step is critical! because if you do not update CWM loading the Cyanogen nightly loads will fail on you.

Download the files needed to get CWM on your OUYA

Step 3a: Replacing the Bootmenu
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2692836 It once again reminds you that you must update your clockwork to 6.0.4.8 as mentioned in step 2. And then gives you to file to download and install the new bootmenu. DO NOT REBOOT OR BACK OUT OF CWM AFTER ADB SIDELOAD ZIP INSTALLATION. Unlike the Ouya firmware the bootmenu is a partial installation file. They did this intentionally because nightly versions of Cyanogen are still being made and in progress where-as the boot-menu hardly changes at all.

Download the Bootmenu files needed for this step

Step 3b: Continuation of Bootmenu
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2692843 – This thread refers to step three stating that you must install the new bootmenu system prior to this step and even refer back to step 2 saying you can’t even load the bootmenu until you upgrade your clockwork mod to 6.0.4.8. In this thread you will be downloading three files:


 * 1) The nightly build of CM11
 * 2) The Google Play service.
 * 3) Joystick support KL files so your Ouya and other controllers will work in CM11.

You will be ADB sideloading each of these .zip files in place. By the time you are done you will not have a complete CM11 firmware load BUT DON’T REBOOT YET!!! The very last thing you must do is you must clear your cache, clear your data, go into advanced and wipe the dalvik cache. Failure to clear the cache or data off of your Ouya will result in CyanogenMod failing to load and getting just a blank screen. You can of course always go back to recovery mode and erase the data if you forget this step.

If you get the Cyanogen Logo and shortly afterwards asking to sign-in to your Google Account, you have successfully loaded CM11 Onto your Ouya! Huzzah!

Known issues with CyanogenMod 11
Everything in CM11 is bleeding edge. So expect a lot of bugs and issues to occur when using this firmware on your Ouya. Here are some of the major ones that I should point out to the users here.


 * 1) If you own an Anthracite Ouya, CM11 cannot load your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chipset drivers there-fore crippling your Ouya . CM11 still loads and use with a USB keyboard and mice perfectly fine. But it makes using CM11 not worth it. This is probably because the dev team working on CM11 do not have anthracite Ouyas. In time this may be corrected.


 * 1) Hard-lined Ethernet is not as elegant on CM11 as it is on Ouya. By default the Ethernet is disabled. Go into the shell program in the CM11 Trebuchet launcher OR ADB shell into your ouya, give yourself su access. And type in the following

From here on out your Ouya will now happily use your wired connection in CM11.

It has also been reported that users which left their ethernet plugged in during the flash and conversion did not have to run this command.


 * 1) adb shell screenrecord does not work! – I was kind of bummed out by this one! Android Kitkat 4.4 has the ability to record your screen so you do not need an expensive capture board to record what is going on. For some reason the nightly builds to not have this or the Cyanogen Mirror options working. This might once again by a time constraint issue.

CyanogenMod 11 Is horrible! I want to go back!
Fear not! You can always undo the firmware by simply downloading the latest Ouya firmware from https://ouyafw.skumler.net/ and going back into recovery mode and flashing that zip file with the help of adb sideload. Once complete you reboot your Ouya out of CWM and your back in the warm comfort of the glowing orange Ouya animation.

Ouya Anywhere on CyanogenMod 11
Ouya Anywhere is the name affectionately given by the community as the means to get the Ouya desktop onto devices other then the Ouya. It was released as a beta test to users to play Ouya games on tablets and phones with the Ouya Controller connected to it. This is different from Ouya Everywhere which is installed onto devices like the MadCats Mojo because Ouya Everywhere has access to a limited amount of software but all of it guaranteed to work versus Ouya Anywhere where you have access to all of the software but bugs and glitches may occur! You are welcome to try this part of the guide on CyanogenModed devices other then Ouya but there is no guarantee of success.

The instructions posted here – http://ouya.wikia.com/wiki/OUYA_Anywhere_Modification But there have been changes as time has gone by!

You do not need to download the .kl driver anymore. The controller.zip file in step 3b takes care of that.

Here's an alternative source for the OuyaApks.zip in case you encounter 404 errors.

You do not launch tv.ouya.oe.installer.apk or Ouya Anywhere because it will give you some garbage error message that "your system is not ready for Ouya Anywhere yet!" and close out. In fact, don’t even install this APK, it’s useless, continue installing the OOBE, Framework, and launcher installer. The Launcher is the APK we need to slam Cyanogen into Ouya but outside of the installation screen where it asks if you want to ‘open’ it. It does not generate a shortcut anywhere in Treubuchet.

to get the Ouya Launcher on the android desktop you need a program called QuickShortCutMaker from Google Play that will go into the apk and pull the Ouya Launcher app out of it to put a shortcut on the desktop. a more detailed tutorial will follow on this.

Known Issues and glitches with CM11 and Ouya Anywhere

 * 1) It’s really bizarre to look at Ouya's GUI at full 1080p . there's so many buttons in discover! I can take a picture of it if you want.


 * 1) Ouya games download normal but then install using the android installer instead of the ouya installer.


 * 1) DRM of games varies on aggressiveness. BombSquad for example will login with my Ouya account no problem but then kick me out after 5 seconds stating that i am playing on an incompatible system.


 * 1) Nightmare tower and Toto temple deluxe did acknowledge i purchased the game only after restarting the app after the first launch.


 * 1) Duck Game's DRM acknowledges you bought the game but doesn't transfer your ticket achievements over.


 * 1) The bug from Abominable snowman is back where the video starts the moment you look at the application description. I forgot how annoying that was.


 * 1) APK's from the MadKatz Mojo immediately error-ed out. So even though they are newer APK's they are no good for Ouya CM11


 * 1) Mapping of the Ouya home button still needs work as games which use the ouya button as the ‘start’ may not work properly. More troubleshooting is required to see if a proper .KL file can be generated for you.

But the benefit of launching this way is in a bizarre sense you're totally bypassing the Ouya Everywhere restriction where only certain consoles can launch this.

Videos and other recommedia for CM11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYwZ_l31-G8 - adjust your volume to low before launching. It's accurate and covers a lot of CM11 on Ouya.