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Note: I'm hoping this is the correct place for this thread, hopefully others with this same phone would benefit from it, as this sub-forum seems barren of any guides on what I am looking for
After Christmas, I decided to get my first smart phone, the D2G. I ordered it through Newegg and had it linked to a family account on Verizon.
So what I currently have now is Android 2.2, System Version 2.4.330.A956.Verizon.en.us, and tons of Verizon branded bloat.
My goal is that I would like to install a vanilla version of gingerbread. Being my first smartphone, and my first time on these forums, I'm greatly lacking in knowledge of these phones and how to get from where I am at to where I want to be. What I do have, however, is an understanding of operating system architecture, UNIX experience and good technical knowledge of PCs. I understand what rooting means, what apps are, what a bootstrap does, however I know nothing of how to get or use these things on this phone, nor any idea where to look for this information. Because this phone is on contract (and thus only paid $150 for it), I'm hoping to minimize the risk of bricking it, or otherwise costing me more money.
What I am looking for: any information/guides/links that will help me to get me from Android 2.2 to a vanilla version of gingerbread on the D2G. From what I have gathered from other threads is that I need to root it (by installing z4root I read), boot in recovery mode, then install ROMs. None of those things I know how to do right now. I suppose helping me learn how to do those would be a great start.
tl;dr I need a layman's guide to get gingerbread on D2G
Thanks in advance for any help
To begin you won't be able to get Gingerbread until Motorola releases an update. The Droid 2 (and D2 Global) have a locked bootloader which means the kernel can't be changed except by Motorola. Without a kernel upgrade Gingerbread will remain out of reach.
You can, however, grab some things that have been backported from Gingerbread like the keyboard and theme. As time goes by more and more external things from Gingerbread will become available for non-GB users, but certain things that rely on the GB kernel will be elusive.
Now as for FroYo, there currently isn't a completely working AOSP (Android Open Source Project) ROM yet. Fission and GummyJAR strip away as much Blur as possible and work towards AOSP. Unleashed, Ultimate Droid, and Tanzanite are all AOSP ROMs in development but are lacking full functionality at the moment. Basically you've got to pick your poison: AOSP-like that works or AOSP that's not quite done.
Given that you have a D2 Global I'd personally hold off on changing ROMs at the moment. The D2G SBF (System Boot File) hasn't been leaked yet so if anything were to go wrong while changing ROMs your phone would be bricked until the SBF is released. A SBF allows you to revert your phone back to its out-of-the-box state should anything go wrong; your phone can be in a boot loop but you can turn it on in a way that will allow you to get things back to square one at least. Without the SBF you're really taking a gamble.
Alright, so I take it I just got too new of a phone then ~_~
thanks
Don't be too upset that your phone is too new yet...
Just be very careful with what you try for now.
It is just over a year since I got my first Droid and while there were plenty of hacks and roms for that back then, few were really STABLE. It didn't take long before not only were stable roms available, they were far better and included features that were not supposed to be on the phone.
Including overclocking it to twice the stock speed.
The D2G is in a similar place right now but the whole "eFuse" thing makes hacking a lot trickier. Its much easier to brick a D2/DX than an original Droid.
BUt progress is being made and there is little doubt in my mind that all the devs out there will make this phone what it should be just like they did with the Droid.
Gingerbread will get to us eventually, but for now Fission rom has already improved my D2G 100% over stock.
rogerdugans said:
Gingerbread will get to us eventually, but for now Fission rom has already improved my D2G 100% over stock.
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Interested in Fission, but as I have previously stated, I'm quite clueless for the time being
Is this something that is safe?
Kenshin- said:
Interested in Fission, but as I have previously stated, I'm quite clueless for the time being
Is this something that is safe?
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If you want 100% safe- leave your phone exactly as you received it.
Seriously.
There is risk in doing this stuff, even when we are simply taking advantage of the very risky work done by devs to figure out HOW to modify our phones.
Generally speaking, the longer you wait the less risky it is, but the fact is that there is never ZERO danger to it. Even if all the mods and hacks you use are time tested and there has not been a single bug found by anyone- flashing a rom can go wrong and leave a device bricked.
Even flashing a manufacturer provided BIOS on a computer has risk.
All of that said, if you want to minimize risk, wait just a little while for the bugs to be worked out more thoroughly.
I just saw that there is now an SBF for the D2G last night- that helps provide a buffer for accidents (disaster recovery!) but I don't know how well tested it is. We should know fairly soon- quite a few folks with bricked phones have been waiting for it!
I would say that right now the D2G has risk in the "moderate" range- new phone, not that much dev time, etc.
The only other phone I have personal experience with is the original Droid- risk on that is "minimal." Hard to kill those things.
All that said, I have accepted the risk and did so before the sbf was out. I have had no problems at all so far.
IF you choose to do so, I highly recommend following instructions exactly and making sure you know what you are doing and why.
I don't mean to talk you or anyone else out of improving their smart phone, but I do believe that realistic risk assessment is a wise thing to do before starting.
I used the SBF to flash my phone 2 days ago, with no issues.
rogerdugans said:
Generally speaking, the longer you wait the less risky it is, but the fact is that there is never ZERO danger to it.
...
All of that said, if you want to minimize risk, wait just a little while for the bugs to be worked out more thoroughly.
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I have a D2 and I got it pretty new a few months ago it was my first Android phone but I watched the forums and learned as things became available how to do it all. I watched as the device everyone thought wasn't even going to get root access got it, then the ROMs came; it wasn't easy and they aren't like the ROMs that came for previous devices because of the locks Moto put on the phone. But, we were happy with it and I've been pleasantly surprised at what the devs have come up with and have been running custom ROMs so long I don't remember what stock was even like. I just know it wasn't as cool as the custom stuff I'm running.
So hang in there and read all you can about your device or similar devices (D2, DX, DPro) so that when something comes along that you want to try you know what to do to make it work and what to do if it doesn't go as planned.
Folks... double-edged sword here. The CEO of my company wants a phone with a big screen, and came to me for input. He's not interested in an iPhone (not sure why, but I didn't press the matter), and is open to Android. I've been using a Captivate for 9 months and have played around with tons of ROMs for that device, so I know the pitfalls with custom ROMs.
My question for you all is this: if you had to recommend a ROM for the Infuse, what would it be (including stock ATT&T)? He's pretty much the typical CEO, with the added bonus of being fairly approachable and willing to try new things. But I CANNOT piss him off. He's the CEO, after all.
Thanks!
I'd look for something by GTG, Entropy or LinuxBozo in the development section. They all look good to me. Go with something like stock but with additional features. Noone needs CM7 on their first android.
AdamOutler said:
I'd look for something by GTG, Entropy or LinuxBozo in the development section. They all look good to me. Go with something like stock but with additional features. Noone needs CM7 on their first android.
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Thanks for the quick response. Have you any personal experience with any of them?
I'd suggest one of the initial Infused ROMs like 1.5.3. I know that's only going to be Froyo, but I think that would be more usable and stable for his uses than trying to go with one of the current Gingerbread builds. I doubt he's going to want to keep up with updates unless he's surprisingly tech savvy.
I'd go with infused 1.5.0 and personally still use 1.5.0 (no loopy, no slightly weird haptic feedback stuff that my phone got in 1.5.3)
+1 on infused 1.5.0. 1.5.3 does have a weird thing going on with haptic feedback. but loopy smoothness makes a difference, so maybe that could be added.
I also think the stable release of infused v2 is good. but if he hopes to use the hdmi mhl adapter then its a no-go. v2 is rogers based and they didn't get hdmi capabilities in canada for some odd reason. also the att rom and modem get better speeds, even after the "fix" I don't get quite the transfer rates that the att firmware offered but gingerbread seems to have much improved browsing performance so its not a big deal to me. other than that I can't think of any issues with it.
I'd say Infused 1.x. If he REALLY wants Gingerbread, Infused 2.x, but that's still a work in progress. Infused 2.x is my "daily driver" but it has some known issues. (I just don't care about said issues as they don't affect me - I'm still trying to help fix them if I can. Data speeds I can't work on as I live in the boonies, we've only had 3G for two years!)
There are no ROMs from Bozo and I - we're kernel hackers. (Exception: LB is working on a CM7 port but it is NOWHERE near ready).
Actually, any of the Froyo ROMs are very solid. There's only one Gingerbread ROM out now.
The nice thing about the Infuse is that our devs coordinate with each other. As a result, in terms of ROMs and Kernels, currently it's "quality not quantity". We don't have any "hey look I can deodex too!" ROMs. (at least not yet)
I'm loving Infused v2 and use the Bluetooth pairing daily in my car. Its been as stable, if not moreso, than stock. The browser also doesn't checkerboard like stock did - which is a big win if you're looking forward to browsing the web on this huge screen.
Entropy512 said:
I'd say Infused 1.x. If he REALLY wants Gingerbread, Infused 2.x, but that's still a work in progress. Infused 2.x is my "daily driver" but it has some known issues. (I just don't care about said issues as they don't affect me - I'm still trying to help fix them if I can. Data speeds I can't work on as I live in the boonies, we've only had 3G for two years!)
There are no ROMs from Bozo and I - we're kernel hackers. (Exception: LB is working on a CM7 port but it is NOWHERE near ready).
Actually, any of the Froyo ROMs are very solid. There's only one Gingerbread ROM out now.
The nice thing about the Infuse is that our devs coordinate with each other. As a result, in terms of ROMs and Kernels, currently it's "quality not quantity". We don't have any "hey look I can deodex too!" ROMs. (at least not yet)
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well there is that one guy working on CM7 (but you have to compile it yourself)
hwaters said:
well there is that one guy working on CM7 (but you have to compile it yourself)
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You quoted me, but you clearly didn't read what you quoted...
I thought discussion of "best" rom was forbidden on xda?
Entropy512 said:
You quoted me, but you clearly didn't read what you quoted...
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probably only skimmed it and saw "one" and "gingerbread rom" and mixed things the wrong way.
whoops.
Thanks for your input folks!
I really appreciate the input from everyone. Methinks I'll try Infused based on what you all have said. Here goes nuttin....
I know my post count is low... but I am a senior level dude w/ 10 years at my current company and am speaking from personal experience here (albeit from the iOS side). Unless your CEO is capable of flashing ROMs and troubleshooting issues on his own, my advice is to leave it bone stock. Show him some cool apps on the Market, point him to XDA, answer questions that he may have, hell maybe even suggest checking out the dev section and looking into aftermarket ROMs. But once you modify his phone, it now becomes your responsibility and CEOs work 24x7x365...
I guess I'm just really surprised that I'm the only one here who thinks this might be a bad idea, and maybe I'm just an old fart but I just wanted to provide some experience from the flip side of the coin. I assume you've already flashed - so good luck man!
Entropy512 said:
Data speeds I can't work on as I live in the boonies, we've only had 3G for two years!)
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We just got 3g about 8 months ago...
Also, no development occurs in a one Rom per niche town. That's not a good thing that there are no can deodex too Roms.
bahumut075 said:
I know my post count is low... but I am a senior level dude w/ 10 years at my current company and am speaking from personal experience here (albeit from the iOS side). Unless your CEO is capable of flashing ROMs and troubleshooting issues on his own, my advice is to leave it bone stock. Show him some cool apps on the Market, point him to XDA, answer questions that he may have, hell maybe even suggest checking out the dev section and looking into aftermarket ROMs. But once you modify his phone, it now becomes your responsibility and CEOs work 24x7x365...
I guess I'm just really surprised that I'm the only one here who thinks this might be a bad idea, and maybe I'm just an old fart but I just wanted to provide some experience from the flip side of the coin. I assume you've already flashed - so good luck man!
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agree.
If you or your boss can handle any issue that may arise,say,boot loops
If you both are noobs then stick with stock.
bahumut075 said:
I know my post count is low... but I am a senior level dude w/ 10 years at my current company and am speaking from personal experience here (albeit from the iOS side). Unless your CEO is capable of flashing ROMs and troubleshooting issues on his own, my advice is to leave it bone stock. Show him some cool apps on the Market, point him to XDA, answer questions that he may have, hell maybe even suggest checking out the dev section and looking into aftermarket ROMs. But once you modify his phone, it now becomes your responsibility and CEOs work 24x7x365...
I guess I'm just really surprised that I'm the only one here who thinks this might be a bad idea, and maybe I'm just an old fart but I just wanted to provide some experience from the flip side of the coin. I assume you've already flashed - so good luck man!
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I could not agree more. I am a Senior IT Support Engineer and my CEO is a gadget guy who has to have to the newest toys. I would NEVER load a custom ROM on one of his devices EVER as this would put me in a very bad position especially if his device suddenly started acting flakey. Keep it stock and show him some apps and he will be perfectly happy using the phone and if you are like me get him to buy you an Infuse and you can play around with yours and when you find a good stable platform then upgrade his device to that. I always get an identical device to the CEO because he wants me to be able to assist him with issues. I know everyone isn't as lucky as me but it can sometimes be a serious PIA as he will call me constantly with stupid questions.
Blackberrynomore said:
I could not agree more. I am a Senior IT Support Engineer and my CEO is a gadget guy who has to have to the newest toys. I would NEVER load a custom ROM on one of his devices EVER as this would put me in a very bad position especially if his device suddenly started acting flakey. Keep it stock and show him some apps and he will be perfectly happy using the phone and if you are like me get him to buy you an Infuse and you can play around with yours and when you find a good stable platform then upgrade his device to that. I always get an identical device to the CEO because he wants me to be able to assist him with issues. I know everyone isn't as lucky as me but it can sometimes be a serious PIA as he will call me constantly with stupid questions.
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+1 to Stock.
Unless he and you want to be tinkering all the time with each other.
Go for refuse 1.7. Good first ROM
Agreed on staying stock
Believe it or not, I was seriously considering staying stock anyway (for all the stated reasons), but wanted to get an idea of what some of the 'better' (a highly subjective term, I know) ROMs were based on people's opinions, as a means of comparison. Fortunately for me, he got called out of town so I now have a week to live with the device for awhile and learn it's idiosyncrasies and whatnot.
So, unless stock proves to suck, (which I doubt), I'll keep it that way.
Thanks all for your input.
Bought this phone soon after release, the phone and data plan seemed like a worthwhile effort to swap the carriers. Previously I owned HD2 (android-stock sense) on T-mobile. While the phone wasn't the perfect one, I'd still prefer HD2 over Triumph if it wasn't for carrier lock. The first problem was the touch screen, it's unresponsiveness to be exact. I was busy during the time so the 30 days flew in a moment and when I found the time to deal with phone, it was too late to return it. To my relief, the development started to pick up and I was hoping for improved ROM i could flash. Around this time I started to notice other problems; GPS, slow unlock and terrible sound capabilities to name few. While the Roms were a great achievement and I give big thanks to all the devs who have the time and patience for development, most of the problems didn't go away. In addition major bug with video driver was found. This phone isn't the worst out of bunch, and it's not unusable at all, just looking at other phones, considering how much I paid initially leaves wishing for a better device without such apparent bugs.
P.S. Since I'm stuck with this device which Rom would be better, Latest CM gingerbread or modded stock firmware?
CM7 Reloaded for sure. Check it out here
http://androidforums.com/triumph-all-things-root/470282-rom-cm7-tg-reloaded-latest-01-14-a.html
Choosing which rom is best depends on what you use and like... If you use hdmi out regularly then I would suggest a stock based rom, if you use wifi and bluetooth at the same time a lot, then a stock based or cm7-tg-reloaded, if you like easy custimizability with lots of options then I would suggest Miui... What I would do is just flash different roms and maybe use them for a day or so each and see what you like best... Also you can find more help and faster on android forums for the MT. I think a lot more people are more active over there than on XDA...
So, after a few embarrasing posts and whatnot I discovered that rooting my GT-P6210 was rather easy after all. PANIC MODE OFF.
Now whilst I sit back and wait for the real clever people to bring out a decent ICS ROM I thought I'd get aquainted with Honeycomb ROMs... I am assuming that because the OS has been out for a while there should be some really good optimized ones out there..?
Is there a comparison of what is generally considered to be the best of the bunch?
What bunch? Hit the development section and you'll find the desert!
There are no 7+ roms.
No one wants to put an effort in before ICS hits.
Afterwards, we may still not have enough dev interest to do it.
Root's really the only thing that matters (that and Cyanogen if you're into that sort of thing)
I am interested once we have ICS (and hopefully source) for porting CM9, but with little exp. dont expect much.
Flash iOS 5.0.1 in Download Mode, its running smooth for me! rofl!
Hi all! I'm a noob to the site and a noob to smartphone modifications, so please forgive me for my questions and concerns. I've used forums for years on many topics and found the knowledge base to be incredible, so I hope you guys will help me out, too.
So, while my Skyrocket has generally worked very well for the past 2+ years, I have always felt it's not living up to its potential. I've read numerous threads on many forums to see what my fellow Rocketeers were doing. I think I've come to the conclusion that flashing a new ROM is the way to go, but I am a bit wary since I've never done this nor know anyone who has. My thinking goes along the same lines as my experience with computers... If you buy a Dell, HP, etc., you get the garbage that the manufacturer bundles in along with Windows. If you wipe the HD and install your own clean copy of Windows, you can usually get better performance without all that other stuff. Hence, the idea for a new ROM for the phone.
A few things have me wondering, though... There seem to be more ROMs available than flavors of Linux! I know choice will end up being a personal thing. My goal is really simple... I just want a clean OS that is stable, efficient, and runs the basic functions I am accustomed to. So, I am not looking to experiment or push the envelope. I want a phone that doesn't crash at the worst possible time, and one that can actually make phone calls! I assume that I will still be able to use the Google Play store to download apps (after installing the plugin thingy). My phone is from AT&T and is unlocked. Will it say unlocked after flashing a new ROM? Will Visual Voicemail still work? I occasionally use FoxFi to create a mobile hotspot. Will I still be able to use it? Or do other ROMs already have this feature unlocked (or bypassed)? I use apps on my phone mostly for email (Yahho/Gmail), calendar, FB, Instagram, YouTube, taking photos/video, viewing forums, and the like, besides making phone calls. In other words, what should I expect from a new ROM? How will things be different? I'm really trying to gauge if this is a worthwhile endeavor for me.
Sorry for the long post. I appreciate your opinions and experience.
It's always worthwhile.
The Skyrocket, to me, was always a case of OEM software that limited its potential. If you really sit down and tweak it, custom ROM, new governor, overclock, it's a beast of a phone that can still keep pace today. You'll have to balance performance with battery life--overclocking and switching to a more aggressive governor doesn't do you any favors there, and some ROMs are better about battery life than others. It's a great phone with a lot of life left, though, much more so than the vanilla S2 because the Rocket has LTE capability.
To hit your other questions, any app that is available on the Play Store will work. If a ROM needs a second gapps flash to get the Play Store (along with everything else Google ships) back, that will be made available and is a very easy install. I've never unlocked a phone, but I don't believe that a new ROM would lose that. Wait for someone else to reply, but I'd be shocked if it did. As far as what you want, there's a ROM to suit any desires. Most ROMs are pretty basic and look and feel like you'd expect a Skyrocket to. Some are designed to feel a little more like iOS, some are designed to be stripped-down (and faster as a result), and some are based on stock firmware and very closely replicate the original experience. It's up to you to read through the dev forum for the Rocket and pick the experience that's best for you.
As far as how difficult it is, spend a couple hours reading about flashing, how it works and why it works. Once you have that basic understanding of it and can follow a few simple instructions that are pretty universal across ROMs, you're set.
Well, I'm giving this a try tonight. Fingers crossed!
One piece of advice: when you pick a new rom from "Android development" read the WHOLE thread associated with that rom, with special attention the the first couple of pages. Make sure you understand the process and any potential pitfalls.
First rom I tried I spent probably six hours reading. It was worth it.
Success!!! I now have the latest CandyKat running! It ended up being not too bad at all. Now I need to figure out how things are different from the AT&T Jelly Bean this replaces.
Thanks for the advice and thanks to everyone who contributes to the site,
I have Kandykat. It seems to be a good solid rom. The Google Now launcher is buggy though. I changed to Nova launcher. Other than that it's been fine.
Thanks for the tips, Chris. I've been using Launcher3. What's the difference between these launchers? Everything seems to be running fine on my rocket now. Any tips on increasing battery life? Any tips on some nice customization?
Google Now launcher seems to have the annoying habit of forgetting the screen setup (app positioning) during reboot. Launcher 3 also exhibited the same problem. Launchers are a matter of taste, but Nova launcher seems solid and looks right to me. YMMV. It's easy to try a few.