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I'm curious to know why people actually spend the time on their phones and risk bricking and voiding the warranty on their phone to install the latest stable or beta ROM for their device. Is it because the stock ROM doesn't let you do your daily tasks? Or is it slow? Or is it buggy in some way?
For example, I have a HTC Desire. The reason why I installed custom roms was that I bought it second-hand with Oxygen (gingerbread 2.3.4) already pre-installed. It had some bugs as it was a beta version, but overall it was pretty good.
I then found Cyanogenmod 7.1, where I was able to get around the major issue of apps filling the tiny internal memory using scripts to put entire apps on the SD card. I was stoked, and it ran really well with no major issues. It felt like a new phone.
However, I just got my dad a HTC Desire HD, and it has the stock Sense 3.0 on there (Gingerbread 2.3.5). I was going to install Cyanogenmod, but now I'm wondering if it's truly worth the effort for a basic user.
So why do YOU install a custom ROM?
I install custom ROM's, Radios, Kernals, etc for one simple reason......
every Android phone that I have ever had the pleasure of tinkering with, works better when rooted and ROMmed. It truly gives you the customization that makes you feel like the phone belongs to and was built for YOU!!!
I have ics on all my phones
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium
Simply to remove all the bloatware and removing sense. I love the pure android ICS experience. Also my phone flys faster without sense
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA
johnnyb15613 said:
I install custom ROM's, Radios, Kernals, etc for one simple reason......
every Android phone that I have ever had the pleasure of tinkering with, works better when rooted and ROMmed. It truly gives you the customization that makes you feel like the phone belongs to and was built for YOU!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you know for sure? I'm the same, I just flash it without thinking, like I did with my new Samsung Galaxy S2 just a few days ago (ICS, woo!). I was just about the flash this HTC Desire HD and I thought hey... who knows, maybe stock ROMs are pretty good? Or are they generally rubbish?
Well, my D1 ran stock for two months before it got pimped, so I gave it a very thorough chance! My wifes Eris ran stock for four months until she was ready to throw it off a wall, so it got its fair chance too! Then she moved to a D2G, which ran exceptionally well out of the box, I was kind of upset that she didnt like her experience. It did however, run a lot smoother once root and Liberty was added! And now for our GNex's........I ran stock ICS for two weeks and I must truly say, this device doesn't need root or anything else to kick ass, it just does! However, the developer support is just too incredible, and when you add ICSourcery to a GNex, you'll know why it must be rooted and running that ROM!!!
To get rid of crap I didn't need.
$1 gets you a reply
well i have a GN, so bricking or wrecking it is low on the list, its so easy to root, unlock, flash. I love stock ICS, but I do like the extra features I get with CM9.
AOKP on my transformer prime? Dem features.
Sent from my tf9001 with XDA XD.
The main reason I rooted my phone and through a rom in there is to get the portable wifi for my tablet.
Reason: to learn more about Android phones, and to get rid of bloatware.
make my defy better than 2.1
make my defy fast and have the new software as moto wont do this for us!
still no full hwa but still better than stuck with 2.1
oh and get rid of 2.1 motoblur.... it was crap. the new one rocks but i cant put it on the defy.
BUT if i had an htc or just a sgs2 ics or other ultra super powered phone i would just root change launcher and stay stock!(unless cm9 it waay better like it is now)
in short i want minimalistic beautifull smooth android experience! most importantly fast!(iphone is smooth,not always, but sloooow)
defy running ics latest cm9
because roms are a whole world, it's not just performance or bugs, is the option to change to customize toggles, positions, color, overclock and every little part of you phone...
for example, the resurrection remix or any AOKP let you put calendar events on lockscreen, show wheather in a special panel in the statusbar, hide your battery icon and put a line to measure it, you can even put a navigation bar like nexus
... it's not just cool and waaaaaaay better than stock rom, it is although handy
To get rid of the bloat-ware on the stock firmware!
There is tons of reason to update to a custom ROM. The big deal for me was getting rid of the bloat, also having more features with CM7.
So I could have stock aosp OR sense 3.5. I like both, especially on the thunderbolt (similar to the HD) nothing seems to slow these phones down.
Sent from my ADR6400L
There are many reasons. For example, the phone looks, feels and works like i want.
And one more reason is, that the original software is not so perfect as the most users want.
Overflowing options. Change everything down to the boot image.And speed,and BATTERY TWEAKS!!!!
Sent from my $99 phone using Gingerbread 2.3.7 cause it's root
The reason why i'm using a custom rom is the phones OS feel more smooth and stable and all the bloatware from HTC,Samsung etc. were removed so the performance is much better
Please use the Q&A Forum for questions &
Read the Forum Rules Ref Posting
Moving to Q&A
Is the Shield Tablet even worth rooting. I mean, it is stock android with Nvidia stuff. And rooting it just takes away the Nvidia logo when turning it on, and its few apps that do more good than harm. Is there a mod out there that will beat out Lollypop? Only thing I can really think of is Carbon KitKat, and I'm not sure if the Tablet runs crappy because of the hardware or because of the software. I haven't been in the scene for a while (and when I was I wasn't there for long), but my swag snapback wearing friend put Cyanogen on his phone (yes, they're evolving) from the Cyanogen website. Has this in it's essence killed the development for systems since they made it easier to run the OS? Much of the ricing vocabulary is jargon for me, so please explain it instead of avoiding it, for example I don't know the difference between a root vs. recovery vs. rom vs. kernel and TWRP vs ClockworkMod, Unofficial mods vs official.
What do you guys run? What do you recommend visual appeal, and what do you recommend for performance? Can I possibly run Carbon Kitkat while keeping the nVidia apps?
Mehhh I only rooted for xposed modules... honestly stock lollipop with a ntfs SD card to get around the SD card issues and root really isn't a factor in performance. Just using like gravity box and an ad block. I think if you have a lte version it may be more useful so u can mess with radios but I can't vouch for that.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk
I only rooted for viper audio. Major improvement then without
I'd say its definitely worth it for the fact that you can move all your games off of the internal storage onto the SD card using virtualized directories (ie FolderMount) so the data appears on internal storage but actually resides on your SD (load times have been fine for me with a 64 GB class 10, HL2, Portal, TT Games, etc.)...although I'd probably root either way just for a few specific root apps and the fact I root every android device I ever get.
Side note: PLEASE don't use NTFS on flash storage (unless you absolutely have to)...it doesn't know how to cope with it and over time will have degraded performance. Use exFAT, it was pretty much made for this purpose. I've heard people having issues with exFAT on the shield (specifically 128 GB SDs it seems), but my 64 GB worked perfectly on KitKat and now on LolliPop
Since you're not familiar to the terminology, I'll give you the "concise" (I sometimes ramble...) summary of my understanding:
1. Rooting is giving yourself full administrative power over every single file and operation on your phone. Use this power responsibly, meaning think twice before executing a command and bear the consequences like an adult (or enjoy the benefits like a giddy goof!)
2. Recovery is a partition on your device's storage. Stock recovery usually only automatically performs the one task of factory reset/wipe of your device's data, but a custom recovery can allow you to flash (install) programs or even a customized version of the whole operating system (a custom ROM).
3. ROM technically stands for "Read-Only-Memory" but these days it refers to the actual operating system that's residing within that read-only-memory. You've heard of the Cyanogen ROM, which really means Cyanogen's customized operating system for your read-only-memory.
4. Kernel is basically a magical piece of software that tells your device's hardware how to function. So, if you use the wrong kernel, your device's hardware won't know how to function properly and you'll run into problems. But using a customized or optimized kernel will allow your hardware to function much more efficiently or unlock abilities that your hardware didn't know it could do (e.g. undervolting to save power, communicating with USB devices via USB on-the-go, etc.)
5. TWRP and ClockworkMod are both examples of very popular recovery partitions. Some people prefer one over the other. I personally like TWRP because it has an easier to use interface for me.
6. Unofficial vs official mods are best discussed using an example like a cyanogen ROM. An unofficial cyanogen mod means that it's not officially made by the Cyanogen team and is therefore not supported so you can't go crying to Cyanogen if you've messed up your device using an unofficial mod. Official mods are the stuff officially released by Cyanogen and will be fully supported by their team.
I hope the above helps with your understanding of some terminology. Below, I describe my opinions on whether rooting / custom ROMs are worth it.
I'm currently using the nVidia stock firmware, so I'm not using a custom ROM. The downside is that I miss out on the great customized features like clearing all recent apps from memory, or holding the Overlay button to switch to my last-used app, etc. The upside is that I get to use the nVidia-specific features, such as stylus-only mode (I use it a lot for annotating PDFs / research papers / drawings etc.) or the Console Mode for when I hook up the tablet to the big TV. I've tried a custom ROM and loved the somewhat increased smoothness and extra features, but I personally wanted the nVidia-specific features more than the custom features.
That said, I have rooted my stock nVidia firmware because I wanted to block ads without downloading or purchasing an additional app. I've used the root privileges to allow me to modify my hosts file to redirect ad URLs to 127.0.0.1, which gives those ads no data therefore effectively blocking them. That's all I use my root privileges for, and some of you might think "that's it?!?!" and to that I say "yyyyyyup".
Long post, but congrats for making it this far and thanks for reading!
amartolos said:
The downside is that I miss out on the great customized features like clearing all recent apps from memory, or holding the Overlay button to switch to my last-used app, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since you're rooted, check out the app "Recently" from Chainfire - it provides much better control over the stock 'recents' menu as well as the option to clear all.
Sent from my SGH-I337M using XDA Free mobile app
An Droid said:
Since you're rooted, check out the app "Recently" from Chainfire - it provides much better control over the stock 'recents' menu as well as the option to clear all.
Sent from my SGH-I337M using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
neat, i didn't know they made such an app! thanks =)
ben.nesheim said:
Mehhh I only rooted for xposed modules... honestly stock lollipop with a ntfs SD card to get around the SD card issues and root really isn't a factor in performance. Just using like gravity box and an ad block. I think if you have a lte version it may be more useful so u can mess with radios but I can't vouch for that.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same thing I do. I rarely flash a custom ROM if the device is stock or near stock android. Simply rooting, installing an adblocker and installing xposed framework is good enough for me.
Sent from my SM-N900V
Evolve
Rooting is Evolving
To me for buy the shield tablet is going beyond on your imagination, why don't try something new, come on is a piece of hardware, you just installing a software and why not with a such powerful device,you don't want more juice and control.
My ST LTE root and some utilty and tool apk got between 60000 and 62000 in antutu performance and stability, but careful in what you do.
I see many people doing modifications and having many issues and then spending a lot of time having to mess with their devices in order to get them back in order. If that's your thing great and I used to be one of you ...
... but these days I try and consider very carefully everything I do so everything works rather than spending hours basically being a mechanic if you want to use a car analogy. I want to drive my car not spend most of the time fixing it.
I see people with a lot of issues after they've done a lot of "do it because it can be done" modifications, their devices become unstable and then they don't know what caused it due to having five or ten major modifications.
One at a time:
1. Nandroid Backup.
2. Do 1 modification
3. Use your device for a day
4. If everything is working, go to 1, otherwise see 5.
5. If everything is not working restore backup from 1. and start at 2. again.
Now my opinions (as a half interested longtime Android user and a new Shield Tab user) are:
TheSkywayBridge said:
Is the Shield Tablet even worth rooting. I mean, it is stock android with Nvidia stuff. And rooting it just takes away the Nvidia logo when turning it on, and its few apps that do more good than harm.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depends - if there is some added functionality that you cannot have any other way then yes.
Rooting by itself actual does nothing to the ROM but it allows other applications that might change your boot logo. What will change your boot logo usually is using a custom ROM or kernel.
But you can absolutely make any firmware better by rooting your device for example by installing Viper4Android which will improve sound quality and a ton of other stuff.
TheSkywayBridge said:
What do you guys run? What do you recommend visual appeal, and what do you recommend for performance? Can I possibly run Carbon Kitkat while keeping the nVidia apps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After a few devices it's been my preference to use stock ROM's with custom kernels (sometimes) because I mainly use my phones and tablets to play games and with some rare exceptions the dev community doesn't get to the performance level when I benchmark them.
If I never played games then CM and other custom firmware is better.
Unless I'm mistaken there is no CM based ROM that allows Nvidia Shield Controller usage so for me personally it's even less appealing as a prospect on the Shield Tablet to not run stock.
Since I'm a new Shield Tablet user I've only used some LP version (which arrived with the tablet) then had an awful experience with Nvidia's OTA update when I attempted to update to MM after no mods :|
However I went back to LP v5.1.1 and it's an amazing tablet again which doesn't surprise me as it usually seems you need to stick 1 major version behind on Android if you want to customise it and run apps you like sometimes.
I'm now going to apply a custom kernel onto stock firmware as this has often been the "winning" combination if you want to evaluate ROMs using benchmarks.
Back when I had a Droid DNA, HTC One, NVIDIA Shield tablet, etc, those devices had modified twrp recoveries that allowed for dualbooting, which made it great for trying out two different roms (without having to wipe the other) or to take advantage of some features in stock while using a custom ROM as a daily driver. iirc There were no drawbacks to this besides the fact that you obviously had to wipe your phone.
I dunno, it seemed like such a great feature that goes unnoticed by any recent phone nowadays. I would love to be able to dualboot Havoc and OOS so I don't have to keep flashing and wiping my phone each time I want to go between the two.
I think the thing that makes me hesitant about it was the lack of data between the two. Having preferences set in one (configs and all), and then switching over to the other made it a little daunting and time consuming which I find fun but maybe everyone else doesnt.
Don't get me wrong, I think the idea is great - you install two ROMs and you take them both for a test run before committing. But if I'm not mistaken from my past experiences, I think data wasn't shared so things like text messaging wouldn't be continuous between the two, which would be a major downside.
Was curious what builds/ mods work best on these. Im Waiting on my unlock token but the only I need doordash and Uber to work and mostly wanted to get v4A back on a device and keep access to 5g. I've read over a lot but this is my first unlocked bootloader In a few years. If you have a favorite setup and are willing to share I'd love to hear,
Hey Ry4n,
Doubt this is what you are looking for, but so far I am sticking with stock OOS but with magisk installed and assorted modules such as the debloat module, busybox, and liboemcrypto. The reason for this is because so far this is not a very flashing-friendly device, without a real TWRP out for safety. I have tried EvolutionX which is really nice and I've loved it for a while, expecially on my older OnePlus devices, but it is not able to fully utilize the device's capabilities. Don't get me wrong, it is daily driver material and I do appreciate greatly the work that went into it and continually goes into it, but for my personal preferences unless there is a rom that is fully working with only minor issues (by my standards) I am not too keen on sticking with it; I love OOS cam and the quality with things like snapchat, and the speed of unlocking. Both seem small but because I interface with so many small things they become big things for me if that makes any sense. If you do try other roms though, I have found that it is not easy to get back to stock if you change your mind. EvoX, Havoc, Color OS, and maybe PA are your only options for daily driving for most people afaik so if you really wanna spend time with the device then you can try them out, in that order. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong though.
I dont know why you say its not a flash friendly device. I got the LE2110 Chinese model, and ive flashed every ROM available for this device, I had every problem possible happen(due to my choices) typing wrong codes or flashing wrong model software. EDL bootloop all kinds of ****.
This devices is amazing for flashing, just must follow directions exactly. Most roms you must flash copy-partitions first.
I would stock OOS with magisk runs the best for me as far gaming, cause I play PuBG Mobile heavy, but the latest rom available, HaVoC is ****ing sick. I would go with that one..
There's a lot of custom ROMs out there on Telegram for the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro but may someone direct me to where I can find all these ROMs? It used to be so easy finding ROMs and kernels on XDA but now devs moved away from it. Everything is buried under various chat groups on Telegram and it's honestly a pain trying to find them. So far, I know the following custom ROMs exist somewhere on the Internet:
CrDroid
LineageOS
SparkOS
HentaiOS
StatixOS
SuperiorOS
Most have moved to using Telegram for announcing. Google Pixel 7/7 Pro Updates, is the channel where you will find the d/l links. GL!
Yeah I stopped trusting custom ROMs since the HTC days. When they finally get everything working and all the kinks out im onto the next phone.
schmeggy929 said:
Yeah I stopped trusting custom ROMs since the HTC days. When they finally get everything working and all the kinks out im onto the next phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battling the bugs That's half of the fun
Beggars can't be choosers. But my biggest issue with custom ROM's is that the devs never finish anything.
As soon as the next version of Android comes out, they move to that one instead of fixing the remaining issues with the previous Android version custom ROM.
I'd much rather have a ROM that just "works" without any weird random glitches.
CZ Eddie said:
Beggars can't be choosers. But my biggest issue with custom ROM's is that the devs never finish anything.
As soon as the next version of Android comes out, they move to that one instead of fixing the remaining issues with the previous Android version custom ROM.
I'd much rather have a ROM that just "works" without any weird random glitches.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because the majority of 'devs' today are simply kangers who cherry pick a handful commits and call it a day. True devs are very few and far between.
Also, changes to the Android architecture and other security improvements have generally made the custom rom scene much less appealing with fairly significant downsides.
I miss the 2010-2012 days of Android.
I used custom ROMS for years, particularly on the old Galaxy phones with Cyanogenmod to get rid of Touchwiz.
However, given the vanilla nature of Pixel phones, I don't really see the point of them on these devices unless you really want to avoid Google's framework. It's all personal choice though, but speaking personally I'm more than happy with stock, albeit rooted.
skymera said:
I miss the 2010-2012 days of Android.
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Click to collapse
Fact!! Me too, when I was very active in the Dev scene, here and on the old SDX-Developers site but really, those ROM's focused mostly on customizing and removing bloatware. Custom Boot screens, fonts, colors, embedded logos, etc and other than the guys who were developing kernels - which don't require custom ROMs - and the early development of ARM and EXT4, customizing can be done with stand-alone apps now, and with Pixel phones, there is no real bloatware.
The only thing I really wish for is Recovery. I'm still blown away that the TWRP Project more or less abandoned the project over the last few years.
Can't speak for the pixel 7 pro, but I used custom roms basically the whole time I had a smartphone.
The last years it was for Xiaomi phones and on those I wanted them badly to get rid of muiu and/or the stock installation.
On my last phone (mi 9t) the roms / TWRP got so annoying that I bought the 7pro. Honestly the mist was fine for me. I wanted a better camera, but everything else was fine by me. The roms though weren't bearable anymore.
I switched to pixel to avoid those ... Stock it is. I didn't even root it, as lately I only used root for blocking adds and for that there are other ways ...
HipKat said:
Fact!! Me too, when I was very active in the Dev scene, here and on the old SDX-Developers site but really, those ROM's focused mostly on customizing and removing bloatware. Custom Boot screens, fonts, colors, embedded logos, etc and other than the guys who were developing kernels - which don't require custom ROMs - and the early development of ARM and EXT4, customizing can be done with stand-alone apps now, and with Pixel phones, there is no real bloatware.
The only thing I really wish for is Recovery. I'm still blown away that the TWRP Project more or less abandoned the project over the last few years.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CWM and TWRP are a god send in the custom ROM world. I think part of the reason the project got abandoned is due to Google locking down Android. I can't even remove system apps now.
geokilla said:
CWM and TWRP are a god send in the custom ROM world. I think part of the reason the project got abandoned is due to Google locking down Android. I can't even remove system apps now.
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Click to collapse
Yeah, true. The best option is to freeze them, and then find a mod to hide them. Another funny thing is that if you ran AOSP, it was like being a computer user that uses Linux instead of windows. Like me lol!
@Poerger the funny thing is the last custom ROMS I ran were on the Nexus 6, and I was part of a development team that was porting over MIUI. Lol. That was my preferred set up on several phones.