Database Info

[Q] Sequence to installing rom?

Hi guys, i am brandspanking new at android as i have only had my phone (lg p500) for 2 weeks. i have however quickly picked up on roms,kernels,basebands etc.. I would really appreciate it if one of you TopDogs would explain to me which i should do first? My question is what sequence must items be installed in ie Rom the gapps then kernel then baseband? or is it baseband first then kernel then rom then gapps?? i really do appologise if this sounds stupid but i will need direction in this regard to be confident enough to go through with flashing a rom which im actually lank amped to do.
Anyways, thanks in advance and keep up the awesome work boys.

Okay..
In regards to baseband, kernel, rom type info, I believe most kernels are packaged with the roms themselves, and if there's any other information about a special installation it would be included on the rom page.
First thing you wanna do is research a bit about your phone and what roms are available to see if you even want to risk bricking your phone for the additional features. You can search for your phone at the top right hand side of the XDA forums. From there you can see what forms of development are available. Most popular forms are NAND and SD based roms. Research a bit on each to see which fits your needs more. NAND will completely replace the stock system but also presents more opportunity for things to go wrong and potentially damage your phone. SD doesn't replace your system, but runs off of your SD card. In any case, selecting the method that works for you is the first step. There will be indications on the rom download pages as to what type of rom it is (NAND or SD).
Second step is prepping your device for the right system. I have and HTC HD2, and it was required for me to install HSPL and update the device radio. These are very important steps and must be done properly or everything following will likely not work.
Next you want to install your boot loader (if one is required). For my device, cLK and Magloader are the popular onese, however yours will likely be different if you need one at all.
Next you will install ClockworkMod(CWM) Recovery on your device, which is the core system that allows the flashing of roms, storage management, and a few other things. Make note of the partition information of the rom you select, because when you flash CWM you will need to partition the boot/system/cache. If you don't do this properly you will likely encounter a boot loop or total failures to boot.
Once you've got CWM on your device, you can download the rom you've selected on your pc and transfer it to your SD card on your phone (which is done by enabling mass storage through CWM). After you've got the rom on your sd card you do the following:
In CWM, select "flash zip from sd" >> "choose zip" >> select your rom zip file >> approve the flash
Sometimes the developers of these roms allow for some selection or customization in the flashing process, so be sure to pay attention to what's going on. You may also need to write down error codes if something goes wrong and you need help.
That's really all there is to it, though it can be more or less complicated than I explained depending on your device and which roms you pick.j
Hope this helps, good luck!

Enter Recovery,
Full Wipe/ Factory Reset
Wipe Cache
Wipe System
Wipe Dalvik Cache
Wipe Battery Stats
Select Zip, Flash ROM
Reboot

Krystov said:
Okay..
In regards to baseband, kernel, rom type info, I believe most kernels are packaged with the roms themselves, and if there's any other information about a special installation it would be included on the rom page.
First thing you wanna do is research a bit about your phone and what roms are available to see if you even want to risk bricking your phone for the additional features. You can search for your phone at the top right hand side of the XDA forums. From there you can see what forms of development are available. Most popular forms are NAND and SD based roms. Research a bit on each to see which fits your needs more. NAND will completely replace the stock system but also presents more opportunity for things to go wrong and potentially damage your phone. SD doesn't replace your system, but runs off of your SD card. In any case, selecting the method that works for you is the first step. There will be indications on the rom download pages as to what type of rom it is (NAND or SD).
Second step is prepping your device for the right system. I have and HTC HD2, and it was required for me to install HSPL and update the device radio. These are very important steps and must be done properly or everything following will likely not work.
Next you want to install your boot loader (if one is required). For my device, cLK and Magloader are the popular onese, however yours will likely be different if you need one at all.
Next you will install ClockworkMod(CWM) Recovery on your device, which is the core system that allows the flashing of roms, storage management, and a few other things. Make note of the partition information of the rom you select, because when you flash CWM you will need to partition the boot/system/cache. If you don't do this properly you will likely encounter a boot loop or total failures to boot.
Once you've got CWM on your device, you can download the rom you've selected on your pc and transfer it to your SD card on your phone (which is done by enabling mass storage through CWM). After you've got the rom on your sd card you do the following:
In CWM, select "flash zip from sd" >> "choose zip" >> select your rom zip file >> approve the flash
Sometimes the developers of these roms allow for some selection or customization in the flashing process, so be sure to pay attention to what's going on. You may also need to write down error codes if something goes wrong and you need help.
That's really all there is to it, though it can be more or less complicated than I explained depending on your device and which roms you pick.j
Hope this helps, good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Krystov, thank you very much for the awesome reply, you are the man.
Sent from my LG-P500 using XDA

I have flashed most of the ROMS on HTC 32A magic ..
The Below process i have followed always and achieved expected results
1. Must Have custom recovery Image which supports your Phone Borad
2.Download and keep the custom ROM ready
3.Copy the Rom to root of SD card
Reboot phone into Recovery
Enter Recovery,
Full Wipe/ Factory Reset
Wipe Cache
Wipe System
Wipe Dalvik Cache
Wipe Battery Stats(Optional)
Select Zip file which you would like to Flash ROM
After Successful flashing
Reboot
Phone will start with New custom ROM
Cheers
Happy Flashing
Thanks
HTC MAGIC 32A
HTX MIUI 0.23 HINTAY MOD
NR 6.35.x.x.

Yeah I forgot that part. you do want to clear your data, cache, and system files while in CWM, otherwise you'll be writing over your old system. A lot of roms are custom teaked and packed in way different than the stock rom and it can just get screwy if you don't. Make it a good habit of doing that before you flash! You can also back up your roms through CWM so if you don't like the changes you've made after a flash you can always revert back like nothing ever happened. Just don't wipe your SD card or you'll lose your backups! Only do that if you're okay with losing the data on your SD.

As mentioned above...
Full Wipe/ Factory Reset
Wipe Cache
Wipe System
Wipe Dalvik Cache
Wipe Battery Stats
Flash ROM
Flash Kernel
Flash gapps
Reboot
This should work out, if you do the kernel flash before the ROM, it will be replaced with whatever kernel that was packaged with the ROM. If you are trying to flash an ICS based ROM, you may need to flash the ROM a couple times (if it installs too quickly, as in 5 to 10 seconds). This is a known issue.

[ROM] Maniacs Arrival

Maniacs Arrival based off of .26 ota Firmware
I am not responsible for any bricks, crashes, or warrenty replacements. However, if the Joker takes your city hostage, please let me know so I can use my Batman Halloween costume and fight evil.
Realize that there many be bugs with this build, although minimal as this is basically stock but i will get around to fixing them. thats a promise
Based off of System Dump of .26 Firmware
Deodexed, Zipaligned, and rooted with provided superuser.zip
Debloated of many Asus apps, more to come in future updates
Awesomeness put in, find out for yourself
Requirements:
1. Rooted TF700
2. Unlocked bootloader provided by Asus Unlock apk
3. TWRP installed (easiest way is to flash through goomanager)
4. A general idea of what you are getting into
Procedure:
1. Download Rom provided at end of post
2. Download superuser.zip provided at end of post
3. Copy both Rom and superuser.zip to the root of your MicroSD/Internal Storage (personally prefer MicroSD)
4. Boot into TWRP recovery
5. Make a full backup in TWRP
6. Factory reset in wipe options
6.5. If wiling wipe both cache and dalvik cache, as it provides a possible cleaner install
7. Flash Maniacs Arrival ROM
8. Flash superuser.zip to ensure proper root access
9. Reboot. Please be patient as the initial boot could take up to 5 minutes, this is not the fault of the ROM
10. Profit!
Credits go out to the following for their support and help:
1. eoh7678 for his updater-script which caused me multiple problems and his permission to use certain files
2. zeus34 for his support as we have been working days trying to make this all happen for you guys
3. KilerG for his look ins and his general support (plus his willingness to actually "learn something new")
4. Google for the continued ability to let us do as we want with our Android Devices
5. Asus for giving us the Unlock apk to flash custom roms and make the device how we truely want it
I have no issues with anyone who wants to use this ROM as a base for their themes or own custom roms, as long as credit is given where credit is due
Downloads:
ROM: http://www.4shared.com/zip/V_PIuSLS/Maniacs_Arrival.html MD5: fcc91b4e9b6e7429ee47d4719de60e26
Superuser: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/43420190/Superuser-3.1.3-arm-signed.zip

CHANGELOG:
1.0: Initial Release

mein mein mein!

just what i was waiting on!

Nice!
Yes, it's true. I have a weakness for learning about technology. And I certainly did learn a bit.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using xda app-developers app

Just downloaded! Where's the MD5 checksum? I see the file was deleted? I will hold off until MD5 checksum is posted.

rsbuffalo said:
Just downloaded! Where's the MD5 checksum? I see the file was deleted? I will hold off until MD5 checksum is posted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Might want to re download, had to fix a bug not allowing us to update certain apps. But the md5 is fcc91b4e9b6e7429ee47d4719de60e26
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

Congratulations! I did successfully install your ROM and rebuilt about 400 installed apps with TB. Everything worked great!
Issues were in TWRP:
1.) Used SanDisk 64GB Mobile Ultra MicroSDXC Class 10 UHS-1 - works with 26 firmware in Android ICS OS.
2.) TWRP will not mount this MicroSD in Recovery - I did Factory Reset and wiped caches now TWRP can't find zips on the MicroSD. (TWRP worked this weekend with a 16GB MicroSDHC Restoring Backups and seeing ROM zips).
3.) Did a TWRP Restore (worked) - Moved ROM & SU zips to internal storage.
4.) Found zips internal storage and flashed successfully with SU in apps. About Tablet shows "Maniacs Arrival".
5.) I did not see busybox after ROM installed?
6.) Only 1-app in TB backup did NOT restore - "Unlock Device Tool 7.0" just uncheck in Restore missing apps with data. Otherwise, TB will hang.
7.) Still unlocked so probably don't need the "Unlock Device Tool 7.0" app installed any more (have a TWRP backup though).
8.) I backedup Nova launcher and restored that successfully as well.
Hope this testing helps!
I will run this ROM for now and report if I find any issues. Not much different from what I had before flashing. However, a good start.
Good Job!

That's exactly what it is. A start. Appreciate the feedback and there will be more to come in the future
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

Thanks
Great job.

still waiting on tf700, but thanks for the rom!

Language
Hi,
does this ROM support German language?
Thanks

My lock button doesn't lock the tab or pop up the shutdown menu.

Alphaform said:
Hi,
does this ROM support German language?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did not take out any language support, so if it was in stock it should be in here.
jbdub1771 said:
My lock button doesn't lock the tab or pop up the shutdown menu.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry, but what do you mean by lock button? Do you mean the power off button?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

Was this based off the WW or the US OTA? (and with that.. does it even matter if we're running US version on our WW version? Any differences?). I'll give it a try later on once I've get my new microSD today (apparently it's not wise to let my cat chew it and spit it out again .. seriously /fail).

rsbuffalo said:
Congratulations! I did successfully install your ROM and rebuilt about 400 installed apps with TB. Everything worked great!
Issues were in TWRP:
1.) Used SanDisk 64GB Mobile Ultra MicroSDXC Class 10 UHS-1 - works with 26 firmware in Android ICS OS.
2.) TWRP will not mount this MicroSD in Recovery - I did Factory Reset and wiped caches now TWRP can't find zips on the MicroSD. (TWRP worked this weekend with a 16GB MicroSDHC Restoring Backups and seeing ROM zips).
3.) Did a TWRP Restore (worked) - Moved ROM & SU zips to internal storage.
4.) Found zips internal storage and flashed successfully with SU in apps. About Tablet shows "Maniacs Arrival".
5.) I did not see busybox after ROM installed?
6.) Only 1-app in TB backup did NOT restore - "Unlock Device Tool 7.0" just uncheck in Restore missing apps with data. Otherwise, TB will hang.
7.) Still unlocked so probably don't need the "Unlock Device Tool 7.0" app installed any more (have a TWRP backup though).
8.) I backedup Nova launcher and restored that successfully as well.
Hope this testing helps!
I will run this ROM for now and report if I find any issues. Not much different from what I had before flashing. However, a good start.
Good Job!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Many 64GB sdcards are formatted as exFAT instead of regular FAT. If you reformat the card to regular FAT then it should work in TWRP.

Dees_Troy:
Reformatted 64gb card using GParted to FAT32 still no go in TWRP with this card. Android ICS finds all formats in MicroSD slot with firmware 26.

Seems the thread has died a biy, maybe time to update things a bit?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

ftmaniac948 said:
Seems the thread has died a biy, maybe time to update things a bit?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a base ROM...not going to be a ton of excitement about it.

Hey guys, I got the Transformer Infinity yesterday and I am just in love with it. I was on the fence about rooting and unlocking it because it just seemed so great already but I am a flashoholic for I have an Inspire 4g that I mess around with a lot, so I had to do it. BUT ANYWAYS, I was wondering, does this rom remove any of the preinstalled apps? I really got accustomed to the widgets and app backup. I had flashed the ROM Zeus_TF700T_series_v4.0 but it had removed most everything that was preinstalled and I missed it. Does this ROM remove anything or even does it add anything?? ALSO, when the Jelly Bean Update comes out, would I be able to update from this ROM? Any feedback would be much appreciated, and sorry for writing a whole novel, I just have a lot of questions.

[Rooting & ROM Flashing VZW GS3] Noob Questions

I apologize in advance for asking the following noob questions. I have been an iPhone user for 3 years and wanted to take advantage of the GS3, which I am loving even without it being rooted. I am fairly tech-savy and believe I'll have no problem rooting my phone. There are just a few things I want to thoroughly understand. I've been sold on the fact that I want to root my phone to gain control of it, remove the bloatware, and extend it's battery life, etc. If there is a thread or posting or website somewhere that explains what I need to know very well, please direct me!!
I was looking for some major tips on the best way to achieve my goal of rooting and flashing to a new ROM...If someone could, PLEASE answer EVERY question. I'd like to fully understand how to get to my goal of rooting and flashing to a desired ROM without bricking it. If this gets desires attention, it could be a great sticky posts for other newbies!
1. First and foremost...What is a kernal? I see things about CM9/CM10 kernals. Is it something like a ROM? How is it related/different?
2. What is the CMW, what is a Touch Wiz?
3. What is the overall best way for a newbie to root their phone and install a desired ROM? Odin or???
4. As I understand thus far, there is rooting, then there is ROM flashing, and then there is something to do with unlocking the bootloader... I'd like to fully understand all of these.
Here's my goal and what I'm seeking help on... I think I want to use the Synergy ROM. What is the first step I must do? Do I somehow root my phone and then use Odin to flash to the Synergy ROM? Or is the first step simply opening Odin, connecting phone, and flashing to Synergy ROM? Do I not even use Odin to flash to Synergy? I'm confused here based on the install info in Synergys FAQ - do I use Odin at all??? Do I need to back anything up? Do I need to download or use some app to block Verizon OTA updates permanently??
In the Q&A of the Synergy ROM thread, it states:
You should have an unlocked bootloader if you wish to take full advantage of this ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Must I unlock the bootloader seperately via this thread here, or do ROMs or other kernals (or whatever) have the unlocked bootloader built-in?? Do I install the bootloader before I root or after I root? What's the best way to unlock the bootloader(mmmeff's EZ-Unlock App, Terminal Emulator, or Adam Outler's Casual for Rooting/Cwm/Unlocking Bootloader)? Also, how do I keep the bootloader from being updated OTA, to keep from having problems????
I think that answers most/all of my questions. I'd hugely appreciate a response and answers to clarify all this, or links to some post or site I'm missing that explain all this to me. My goal to to root my phone, likely install a ROM, and do all this without bricking it, and hopefully without voiding any warranties (though not a big deal).
Thanks a bunch in advance!!

All the answers you seek can be found in droidstyle's guide. It's a sticky in the development section.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

Introduction to Rooting:
This is meant as a very basic disccussion for people completely new to rooting and Android. As a result, it will omit many details and simplify others. If there is a blatant mistake, please let me know and I'll correct it, but if there's something that's just not QUITE right, chances are it's simplified on purpose. Also, it's not meant to be a rooting guide (as there are excellent ones out there already) so much as an explanation of concepts most of us take for granted, but noobies don't.
DISCLAIMER: I, nor anyone else referenced (or not) in this thread, am not responsible for what you do with your phone. Rooting and otherwise altering your phone has the potential to brick your device, void your warranty, and many other horrible horrible things. Perform these actions at your own risk.
What is root/rooting?
In Unix-style operating systems, "root" is the name of the user who has all permissions and is therefore able to run/modify/change/delete just about anything. If you're familiar with Windows, this account is called Administrator. The default account (that's you!) on an Android phone does NOT have these privileges. Rooting is the process of obtaining them (i.e. obtaining root access). Once you root, you can "flash" new software onto your phone without restriction. This is great because you now have control over what programs are on your phone, what your UI looks like, how your phone handles resources, what kernels you run, and more!
Once your phone is rooted, you don't always wield all of that power. You control your access to all these new abilities with a program called SuperUser (available on the market and baked into ROMS). This program can grant these special rights to any other program that requests them. So let's say a program wants to write data to a place it's not allowed. It will ask SuperUser to up its privileges and then BAM! it can write where it wants to. You yourself can gain SuperUser privileges in a shell by typing su. Then YOU can read, write, and execute to your hearts desire.
Before you root:
Before rooting, there are some basic things you should know. A lot of people rush into it without bothering to learn everything they should. Sometimes it goes well, and sometimes it doesn't.
Phone partitions: Your phone has a number of partitions. The important ones to know at first are:
1. System - this partition is essentially what you think of when you think of the operating system, the Android UI, and preinstalled
apps. When people talk about flashing ROMs (e.g. CyanogenMod, Synergy, etc), they are talking about flashing a new system
partition.
2. Boot - this is the kernel and ramdisk. The kernel is responsible for managing the interactions between the phones software (including the ROM) and the
hardware. Altering the kernel can increase/decrease performance, battery life, and more because it manages applications and system resources. When
you flash a new kernel, it flashes to the boot partition. You may not notice a big difference like you do when changing ROMS, but behind the scenes, your
phone's performance can be drastically altered. A *LOOSE* analogy is that the ROM is like the body and interior of your car (including exterior color, AC,
stereo, heated seats, TV in headrests, etc.) and the kernel is like the engine. You may not see it, but you'll know it's there if it's awesome or it sucks.
3. Aboot - this was largely unimportant for newbies until the bootloader lock/unlock situation. The short story is that aboot contains functions which
authenticate the boot partition (that's the kernel, remember?). It checks to see if your boot partition is Verizon legal and if not, it aborts the boot process
and politely tells you to contact Verizon. This authentication is what is referred to as a "locked" bootloader. It prevents you from completely booting the
phone with a custom kernel. The bootloader is "unlocked" by replacing the stock aboot partition with one that does NOT check up on the boot partition.
This is important because it allows us to run whatever kernel we want.
4. Data - this contains user installed apps, settings, contacts, bookmarks, etc, etc, etc. You can wipe this partition (as opposed to the above partitions) and
still boot into the operating system. You will have just lost all your setting and apps. This is called a factory/data reset.
5. Cache - this is stuff that you frequently use so it's kept available for better performance. You can wipe it without much consequence.
6. Recovery - this partition contains a separate operating system that allows you to recover from a corrupted/absent/otherwise jacked up operating system. It
has other functions as well. The big ones are to backup your device and restore said backups, to wipe certain partitions, and to flash things to your
phone (i.e. install new ROMs, recoveries, or other programs). The stock recovery is limited so you will definitely want a custom recovery, created by the
fine devs in the community, on your device.
What is a ROM and what is a kernel? I touched on this above. A ROM is what goes on the system partition. It contains what you think of as the Android OS including the UI and preinstalled apps. It controls how programs interact with you, the user. A kernel controls how those programs interact with the phones hardware. You need both a ROM and a kernel to have a functional phone.
How do I get started rooting and flashing?
There is an excellent guide stickied in the development thread here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1762709. However, many of us
forget what it's like to be a COMPLETE newbie and to someone who has no idea about anything, even fantastic guides like that can be a little intimidating.
You can follow the steps, but may not understand what you're doing. The steps to take to start out with are:
1. Make sure you understand what I've written above. Make sure you are comfortable with the possibility of bricking your phone.
2. Root your device. As I said above, this is simply gaining root/Admin/whatever you want to call it access on your phone. In and of itself, it does NOT alter
the ROM or kernel or much of anything else. However, there are many different ways to obtain root and some of them DO alter these things. The easiest
and safest way to root (IMO) is to use Noxious Ninjas excellent tool. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1792342. If you like it, I
encourage you to donate or at least "Thanks" him. It works by taking advantage of debugfs permissions to get su (remember this from above??) onto
your phone with permissions set so you can run it. It therefore doesn't change ROMs or anything else. You won't lose data, apps, or anything else. It just
sneaks su right onto your current setup.
3. Install a custom recovery. This will allow you to do all the fun stuff I talked about above. I recommend installing EZ-recovery from the market and flashing
CWM 6.0.1.0.
1. Install EZ-recovery
2. Under the "Recovery" heading, click the Recovery radio button and select CWM 6.0.1.0 next to it.
3. Click flash
4. Backup everything as if your life depended on it. This means backing up your IMEI as shown here
http://rootzwiki.com/topic/32397-tutorial-imeibackup-nv-with-qpst-us-variants/ and making a nandroid. A nandroid is an image of your phone
including your ROM, your data, and your kernel(depending on what phone you have). You can restore a nandroid backup and you'll be right back where
you were before flashing or changing things around. The steps to making a nandroid are:
1. Turn off your phone.
2. Hold down volume up, home, and power until recovery appears.
3. Use the volume rocker to go to "backup and restore" and hit the power button
4. Select backup and then select the external (default) or internal (labeled "internal") SD card
You can restore a nandroid in a similar fashion (although you should wipe data/cache first - see below).
5. Unlock the bootloader. You must do this seperately from flashing ROMs and kernels. Refer to this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1839791 and give appropriate thanks! A warning...if you mess up your aboot partition, there's really nothing (that I know of) you can do to revive your phone besides send it to someone with JTAG or back to Verizon.
You're now ready to start flashing ROMs.
As a precursor, there are ROMS that are based on TouchWiz modified Android from Verizon/Samsung and there are ROMS based on AOSP (e.g. CyanogenMod). TW roms need a TW kernel and AOSP roms need an AOSP kernel. Until you get comfortable with everything, I would stick with TW. Also, some roms come with kernels and will flash the kernel to your boot partition as well as the ROM to your system partition. Some ROMs don't come with kernels. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS read the OP of a rom you want to flash to find out kernel information as well as how to install the rom and anything else you may need to know. The general steps to flashing a ROM are (remember to read the OP for specifics):
1. Backup apps, data, call log, contacts, messages, etc. My program of choice for much of this is Titanium Backup available on the market. Buy it as you'll
use it a billion times.
2. Download the ROM you want and check the MD5
3. Place the ROM on the root of your SD card. Do NOT unzip it.
4. Reboot into recovery and make a nandroid backup
5. Wipe data/factory reset and wipe cache. Wipe it more than once if paranoid.
6. Go to "install zip from sdcard" and select the ROM you want
7. If you want/need to flash a kernel, install that zip from the sdcard too with the same command
8. Reboot and restore all that you backed up
Remember:
- ALWAYS backup before doing anything
- verify MD5
- wipe data and cache (unless told not to by the ROM dev)
- NEVER accept an OTA (having a custom recovery should block OTAs anyway)
PS. The techniques, tools, roms, etc in this post are not mine and arte the products of hours of hard work by multiple devs. Please thank them accordingly.

Bleelas said:
Introduction to Rooting:
This is meant as a very basic disccussion for people completely new to rooting and Android. As a result, it will omit many details and simplify others. If there is a blatant mistake, please let me know and I'll correct it, but if there's something that's just not QUITE right, chances are it's simplified on purpose. Also, it's not meant to be a rooting guide (as there are excellent ones out there already) so much as an explanation of concepts most of us take for granted, but noobies don't.
DISCLAIMER: I, nor anyone else referenced (or not) in this thread, am not responsible for what you do with your phone. Rooting and otherwise altering your phone has the potential to brick your device, void your warranty, and many other horrible horrible things. Perform these actions at your own risk.
What is root/rooting?
In Unix-style operating systems, "root" is the name of the user who has all permissions and is therefore able to run/modify/change/delete just about anything. If you're familiar with Windows, this account is called Administrator. The default account (that's you!) on an Android phone does NOT have these privileges. Rooting is the process of obtaining them (i.e. obtaining root access). Once you root, you can "flash" new software onto your phone without restriction. This is great because you now have control over what programs are on your phone, what your UI looks like, how your phone handles resources, what kernels you run, and more!
Once your phone is rooted, you don't always wield all of that power. You control your access to all these new abilities with a program called SuperUser (available on the market and baked into ROMS). This program can grant these special rights to any other program that requests them. So let's say a program wants to write data to a place it's not allowed. It will ask SuperUser to up its privileges and then BAM! it can write where it wants to. You yourself can gain SuperUser privileges in a shell by typing su. Then YOU can read, write, and execute to your hearts desire.
Before you root:
Before rooting, there are some basic things you should know. A lot of people rush into it without bothering to learn everything they should. Sometimes it goes well, and sometimes it doesn't.
Phone partitions: Your phone has a number of partitions. The important ones to know at first are:
1. System - this partition is essentially what you think of when you think of the operating system, the Android UI, and preinstalled
apps. When people talk about flashing ROMs (e.g. CyanogenMod, Synergy, etc), they are talking about flashing a new system
partition.
2. Boot - this is the kernel and ramdisk. The kernel is responsible for managing the interactions between the phones software (including the ROM) and the
hardware. Altering the kernel can increase/decrease performance, battery life, and more because it manages applications and system resources. When
you flash a new kernel, it flashes to the boot partition. You may not notice a big difference like you do when changing ROMS, but behind the scenes, your
phone's performance can be drastically altered. A *LOOSE* analogy is that the ROM is like the body and interior of your car (including exterior color, AC,
stereo, heated seats, TV in headrests, etc.) and the kernel is like the engine. You may not see it, but you'll know it's there if it's awesome or it sucks.
3. Aboot - this was largely unimportant for newbies until the bootloader lock/unlock situation. The short story is that aboot contains functions which
authenticate the boot partition (that's the kernel, remember?). It checks to see if your boot partition is Verizon legal and if not, it aborts the boot process
and politely tells you to contact Verizon. This authentication is what is referred to as a "locked" bootloader. It prevents you from completely booting the
phone with a custom kernel. The bootloader is "unlocked" by replacing the stock aboot partition with one that does NOT check up on the boot partition.
This is important because it allows us to run whatever kernel we want.
4. Data - this contains user installed apps, settings, contacts, bookmarks, etc, etc, etc. You can wipe this partition (as opposed to the above partitions) and
still boot into the operating system. You will have just lost all your setting and apps. This is called a factory/data reset.
5. Cache - this is stuff that you frequently use so it's kept available for better performance. You can wipe it without much consequence.
6. Recovery - this partition contains a separate operating system that allows you to recover from a corrupted/absent/otherwise jacked up operating system. It
has other functions as well. The big ones are to backup your device and restore said backups, to wipe certain partitions, and to flash things to your
phone (i.e. install new ROMs, recoveries, or other programs). The stock recovery is limited so you will definitely want a custom recovery, created by the
fine devs in the community, on your device.
What is a ROM and what is a kernel? I touched on this above. A ROM is what goes on the system partition. It contains what you think of as the Android OS including the UI and preinstalled apps. It controls how programs interact with you, the user. A kernel controls how those programs interact with the phones hardware. You need both a ROM and a kernel to have a functional phone.
How do I get started rooting and flashing?
There is an excellent guide stickied in the development thread here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1762709. However, many of us
forget what it's like to be a COMPLETE newbie and to someone who has no idea about anything, even fantastic guides like that can be a little intimidating.
You can follow the steps, but may not understand what you're doing. The steps to take to start out with are:
1. Make sure you understand what I've written above. Make sure you are comfortable with the possibility of bricking your phone.
2. Root your device. As I said above, this is simply gaining root/Admin/whatever you want to call it access on your phone. In and of itself, it does NOT alter
the ROM or kernel or much of anything else. However, there are many different ways to obtain root and some of them DO alter these things. The easiest
and safest way to root (IMO) is to use Noxious Ninjas excellent tool. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1792342. If you like it, I
encourage you to donate or at least "Thanks" him. It works by taking advantage of debugfs permissions to get su (remember this from above??) onto
your phone with permissions set so you can run it. It therefore doesn't change ROMs or anything else. You won't lose data, apps, or anything else. It just
sneaks su right onto your current setup.
3. Install a custom recovery. This will allow you to do all the fun stuff I talked about above. I recommend installing EZ-recovery from the market and flashing
CWM 6.0.1.0.
1. Install EZ-recovery
2. Under the "Recovery" heading, click the Recovery radio button and select CWM 6.0.1.0 next to it.
3. Click flash
4. Backup everything as if your life depended on it. This means backing up your IMEI as shown here
http://rootzwiki.com/topic/32397-tutorial-imeibackup-nv-with-qpst-us-variants/ and making a nandroid. A nandroid is an image of your phone
including your ROM, your data, and your kernel(depending on what phone you have). You can restore a nandroid backup and you'll be right back where
you were before flashing or changing things around. The steps to making a nandroid are:
1. Turn off your phone.
2. Hold down volume up, home, and power until recovery appears.
3. Use the volume rocker to go to "backup and restore" and hit the power button
4. Select backup and then select the external (default) or internal (labeled "internal") SD card
You can restore a nandroid in a similar fashion (although you should wipe data/cache first - see below).
5. Unlock the bootloader. You must do this seperately from flashing ROMs and kernels. Refer to this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1839791 and give appropriate thanks! A warning...if you mess up your aboot partition, there's really nothing (that I know of) you can do to revive your phone besides send it to someone with JTAG or back to Verizon.
You're now ready to start flashing ROMs.
As a precursor, there are ROMS that are based on TouchWiz modified Android from Verizon/Samsung and there are ROMS based on AOSP (e.g. CyanogenMod). TW roms need a TW kernel and AOSP roms need an AOSP kernel. Until you get comfortable with everything, I would stick with TW. Also, some roms come with kernels and will flash the kernel to your boot partition as well as the ROM to your system partition. Some ROMs don't come with kernels. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS read the OP of a rom you want to flash to find out kernel information as well as how to install the rom and anything else you may need to know. The general steps to flashing a ROM are (remember to read the OP for specifics):
1. Backup apps, data, call log, contacts, messages, etc. My program of choice for much of this is Titanium Backup available on the market. Buy it as you'll
use it a billion times.
2. Download the ROM you want and check the MD5
3. Place the ROM on the root of your SD card. Do NOT unzip it.
4. Reboot into recovery and make a nandroid backup
5. Wipe data/factory reset and wipe cache. Wipe it more than once if paranoid.
6. Go to "install zip from sdcard" and select the ROM you want
7. If you want/need to flash a kernel, install that zip from the sdcard too with the same command
8. Reboot and restore all that you backed up
Remember:
- ALWAYS backup before doing anything
- verify MD5
- wipe data and cache (unless told not to by the ROM dev)
- NEVER accept an OTA (having a custom recovery should block OTAs anyway)
PS. The techniques, tools, roms, etc in this post are not mine and arte the products of hours of hard work by multiple devs. Please thank them accordingly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
THANK YOU!!!!! Very helpful! I had no idea I needed EZ-Recovery to flash CWM as the primary recovery tool - that saved me big time as I was about to unlock the bootloader later today.
After posting this last night, and awaiting responses, I was browsing and trying to take in as much as I could. I finally realized that each section in the linked guide is a different way to either root or install a ROM. After I figured this out, and read about Odin being best for newbies, I decided to take the risk and wing it, even though I wasn't 110% sure.
So, now I'm rooted and have ROM manager/CWM installed, TiBu, and ES File Explorer installed. Now I'm just trying to figure out what I can/cannot remove as far as bloatware. A few items I'm sure I'd like to keep (working), so I don't want to mess with anything that might be used in another app/widget....Which brings me to my next question...
What's the best way to remove bloatware? I found an excel spreadsheet online that shows what's safe/unsafe to remove but I'm confused as to what I should do to get rid of items I NEVER want, and how to turn off items I MAY want in the future. If I freeze these items, do they stay frozen upon reboot, and until I unfreeze, or otherwise? What's the difference between a .APK package and a single process, etc?
Thanks in advance! I feel like I entered Android Elementary last night and already graduated to Android Junior High!
P.S. The captchas on this site to post ARE THE WORST CAPTAS IVE SEEN IN MY ENTIRE FRIGGIN LIFE, MY GOD!!!! I must refresh it 20x til something is RELATIVELY clear. Seriously????

ike034 said:
1...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me too..... But the post are suppose to me helpful and or contribute in some way....
But at least we can thank all over the place......

Weioo said:
THANK YOU!!!!! Very helpful! I had no idea I needed EZ-Recovery to flash CWM as the primary recovery tool - that saved me big time as I was about to unlock the bootloader later today.
After posting this last night, and awaiting responses, I was browsing and trying to take in as much as I could. I finally realized that each section in the linked guide is a different way to either root or install a ROM. After I figured this out, and read about Odin being best for newbies, I decided to take the risk and wing it, even though I wasn't 110% sure.
So, now I'm rooted and have ROM manager/CWM installed, TiBu, and ES File Explorer installed. Now I'm just trying to figure out what I can/cannot remove as far as bloatware. A few items I'm sure I'd like to keep (working), so I don't want to mess with anything that might be used in another app/widget....Which brings me to my next question...
What's the best way to remove bloatware? I found an excel spreadsheet online that shows what's safe/unsafe to remove but I'm confused as to what I should do to get rid of items I NEVER want, and how to turn off items I MAY want in the future. If I freeze these items, do they stay frozen upon reboot, and until I unfreeze, or otherwise? What's the difference between a .APK package and a single process, etc?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad to hear you're rooted and learning a lot! Now you're opening another HUGE can of worms, namely how Android organizes the application framework, what are services, processes, activities, tasks etc. You may have already found the information you're looking for, but a montrously dumbed down version is that the APK is a package containing the compiled program and all the extraneous files it needs to run while a process is an actively running application. In order to debloat, you can either freeze an application with another program like TiBu, or you can manually freeze it by changing the app extension, or you can delete the APK, or you can remove it from the rom you want BEFORE you even flash it. What you choose depends on your goals...why you want to debloat.

Weioo said:
THANK YOU!!!!! Very helpful! I had no idea I needed EZ-Recovery to flash CWM as the primary recovery tool - that saved me big time as I was about to unlock the bootloader later today.
After posting this last night, and awaiting responses, I was browsing and trying to take in as much as I could. I finally realized that each section in the linked guide is a different way to either root or install a ROM. After I figured this out, and read about Odin being best for newbies, I decided to take the risk and wing it, even though I wasn't 110% sure.
So, now I'm rooted and have ROM manager/CWM installed, TiBu, and ES File Explorer installed. Now I'm just trying to figure out what I can/cannot remove as far as bloatware. A few items I'm sure I'd like to keep (working), so I don't want to mess with anything that might be used in another app/widget....Which brings me to my next question...
What's the best way to remove bloatware? I found an excel spreadsheet online that shows what's safe/unsafe to remove but I'm confused as to what I should do to get rid of items I NEVER want, and how to turn off items I MAY want in the future. If I freeze these items, do they stay frozen upon reboot, and until I unfreeze, or otherwise? What's the difference between a .APK package and a single process, etc?
Thanks in advance! I feel like I entered Android Elementary last night and already graduated to Android Junior High!
P.S. The captchas on this site to post ARE THE WORST CAPTAS IVE SEEN IN MY ENTIRE FRIGGIN LIFE, MY GOD!!!! I must refresh it 20x til something is RELATIVELY clear. Seriously????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you decided on a ROM you want to use yet? Personally I think that takes a lot of the decisions about de-bloating out of the equation. Pick a ROM, flash it, and see what you got? I first did the de-bloated root method and didn't have the stock e-mail app! While it is easy to download an e-mail app from the play store I was still shocked that it was considered bloat by the builder of the particular de-bloated version I chose.
Currently I am on Synergy 1.7 r23 with Darkhorse theme. I also like the Color in HD theme but can't decided between the two.

Bleelas said:
Glad to hear you're rooted and learning a lot! Now you're opening another HUGE can of worms, namely how Android organizes the application framework, what are services, processes, activities, tasks etc. You may have already found the information you're looking for, but a montrously dumbed down version is that the APK is a package containing the compiled program and all the extraneous files it needs to run while a process is an actively running application. In order to debloat, you can either freeze an application with another program like TiBu, or you can manually freeze it by changing the app extension, or you can delete the APK, or you can remove it from the rom you want BEFORE you even flash it. What you choose depends on your goals...why you want to debloat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome, the explanation of what a .APK is helped a TON! Thank you!
dan_joegibbsfan said:
Have you decided on a ROM you want to use yet? Personally I think that takes a lot of the decisions about de-bloating out of the equation. Pick a ROM, flash it, and see what you got? I first did the de-bloated root method and didn't have the stock e-mail app! While it is easy to download an e-mail app from the play store I was still shocked that it was considered bloat by the builder of the particular de-bloated version I chose.
Currently I am on Synergy 1.7 r23 with Darkhorse theme. I also like the Color in HD theme but can't decided between the two.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know you've been helping me in my other thread. Thanks again for everything! I believe you know now, I am on Synergy r46, running quite stable so far but I haven't done much to the phone since flashing.

I've got a noob question... is there any way to back up your IMEI and install the samsung drivers from a Mac besides running Parallels or VMware? I rooted using Adam Outler's Casual and would like to start flashing ROM's but don't want to risk it without backing up my IMEI first.

See the note in this thread that backing up IMEI is obsolete. Nowadays you use the method linked from that thread, which does not involve making a backup first.

Weioo, I'd like to thank you for your intelligent questions, willingness to read, and attitude in this forum. It's good to see someone posting in the correct place, educating theirself, and not coming into the forum saying something like "plz help my phone wont boot and i didnt read enouf". So, respect. :good:
Anyway, to add something to this thread. What version of Clockwork Recovery are you using? If you're using version 6+, let me say a little how to manage your backups. The new CWR stores its backups in /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup/, which will only be about 20mb in size - this is normal. The backup file is just sort of an index, and the other couple hundred megabytes meat of the backup is stored as a ton of tiny files in /sdcard/clockworkmod/blobs/. If you ever need to clean up space on your phone's storage, always delete the backup file and do not touch the blobs directory. When you make your next backup, CWR will clean up the space freed from deleting that backup file.
What's actually going on is that instead of making one big file as a copy of a phone's complete image (as CWR did in previous versions), it saves space by backing up each file individually. If you have two backups with the exact same file (having the same hash), CWR deduplicates that by only backing it up once. The blobs folder has each fine, with the hash as its filename, and the backup file includes which hashes (filenames) it needs to function. When very few things change in between backups, the new backup only has to add new blobs for the things that changed (and thus have a different hash). You don't delete the blobs directly because it's not obvious which ones are used and which aren't. When CWR cleans up space, it reads the backup files and deletes blobs that aren't associated with any existing backups.

rednukleus said:
See the note in this thread that backing up IMEI is obsolete. Nowadays you use the method linked from that thread, which does not involve making a backup first.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay thanks, but if I do flash something and lose my IMEI, to do that process I'd need to be running Parallels or VMware on my Mac. Basically I'm trying to figure out if there is another way to do this using a mac or would I need to buy one of those programs if I lose my IMEI?

Great beginner post
lazarus2405 said:
Weioo, I'd like to thank you for your intelligent questions, willingness to read, and attitude in this forum. It's good to see someone posting in the correct place, educating theirself, and not coming into the forum saying something like "plz help my phone wont boot and i didnt read enouf". So, respect. :good:
Anyway, to add something to this thread. What version of Clockwork Recovery are you using? If you're using version 6+, let me say a little how to manage your backups. The new CWR stores its backups in /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup/, which will only be about 20mb in size - this is normal. The backup file is just sort of an index, and the other couple hundred megabytes meat of the backup is stored as a ton of tiny files in /sdcard/clockworkmod/blobs/. If you ever need to clean up space on your phone's storage, always delete the backup file and do not touch the blobs directory. When you make your next backup, CWR will clean up the space freed from deleting that backup file.
What's actually going on is that instead of making one big file as a copy of a phone's complete image (as CWR did in previous versions), it saves space by backing up each file individually. If you have two backups with the exact same file (having the same hash), CWR deduplicates that by only backing it up once. The blobs folder has each fine, with the hash as its filename, and the backup file includes which hashes (filenames) it needs to function. When very few things change in between backups, the new backup only has to add new blobs for the things that changed (and thus have a different hash). You don't delete the blobs directly because it's not obvious which ones are used and which aren't. When CWR cleans up space, it reads the backup files and deletes blobs that aren't associated with any existing backups.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This should be stickied!!

My apologies for the newb questions, but last night I modded my phone to Eclipse 2.1 version 10-20-12 with the latest GAPPS 10-21-12 ( http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1934572 ). This latest GAPPS seems to be missing a bunch of applications including GMAIL registration (to access the Play store successfully) as well Google Now and many other Google based apps (Google Maps, Google Voice, etc etc). I don't believe the ROM was installed incorrectly - I went through the prerequisite Wipe Cache/Wipe Partition/Wipe Dvalik Cache and even Fix Permissions. Also the Voice Search application is missing, but maybe that's tied in with the Google suite of apps not running correctly.
Being that I'm a newb on this site I can't post the question over on the Eclipse page (not allowed access with less then 10 posts) but I find it impossible to properly register/access Google Play as well as using any of the Google Apps. I went ahead and downloaded Google Now separately and installed the APKs but this just resulted in the program crashing when the GPS is enabled (keeping it disabled keeps Google Now at the "Initializing" screen).
Thanks for any support that can be provided.

ResolveD
Disregard the previous post - used GAPPS from 10-12-12 (w/o Dvalik cache wipe) and Google Now, Voice Search, G-mail register, Google Play all work fine now. The only issue I see is presently with the Google Now browser not scrolling through links, but you can always use the magnifying glass (which shows you previews of the webpages it finds).
Anyways HIGHLY RECOMMENDED ROM!!! Eclipse 10-20 build (4.1.2) w/10-12 GAPPS. Easily the best ROM out there so far :laugh:

Deleting System apps
Now that I have finally rooted my VZW GS3, and installed Titanium Backup Pro, am I able to delete system apps from there without damaging anything? I have not installed a custom ROM, all I have done is root, unlock bootloader and install CWM. I want to get rid of bloatware (e.g. Polaris Viewer) can I use TI BU Pro?

levilib said:
Now that I have finally rooted my VZW GS3, and installed Titanium Backup Pro, am I able to delete system apps from there without damaging anything? I have not installed a custom ROM, all I have done is root, unlock bootloader and install CWM. I want to get rid of bloatware (e.g. Polaris Viewer) can I use TI BU Pro?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

levilib said:
Now that I have finally rooted my VZW GS3, and installed Titanium Backup Pro, am I able to delete system apps from there without damaging anything? I have not installed a custom ROM, all I have done is root, unlock bootloader and install CWM. I want to get rid of bloatware (e.g. Polaris Viewer) can I use TI BU Pro?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just wanted to add that it may be better to just freeze the apps, or at least run a nandroid backup so you can revert to stock. Without all system apps intact an OTA update would fail.

apacseven said:
Just wanted to add that it may be better to just freeze the apps, or at least run a nandroid backup so you can revert to stock. Without all system apps intact an OTA update would fail.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not worried about an OTA update, and I made a nandroid, I just want to make sure I'm not going to delete anything important. are there any apps you can think of that I would want to delete but it would cause problems?

[Q] Paranoid newbie questions re replacement ROM

I have a Galaxy Gio GT-S5660V (Australia) with a 16GB SD card, having (currently) a 500MB ext2fs partition in addition to the FAT32 partition. I've rooted the phone with universal_gb_root_v20.zip and moved everything that can be moved to the SD card.
But I have installed some 42 additional apps (on top of those that came built-in), and despite uninstalling some built-in apps (using Titanium Backup Root Pro), am forever running out of storage. To the extent that I now can't update some storage-intensive apps (like Google Maps).
I know this is a developers' forum, and I'm not a developer. But it looks like the best place to come for the advice I need. I'm a raw beginner (this is my first and, so far, only smartphone), and am fearful of doing something to the phone that would reduce its usefulness or (worse) stop it working completely. So because the solution to my problem probably involves replacing the stock ROM code with a 'special' ROM, and those ROMs are so poorly documented, I have heaps of questions before I'm confident to proceed.
I've read the 'Big thread For New Users (Rooting, Flashing, Firmwares, Mods, Tips, Tricks)'. I've installed Odin 4.42, and think I understand how to download a new ROM to the phone (but of course haven't tried it yet!!). I looked for a GT-S5660V specific forum, but couldn't find one.
1. If I install a custom ROM, what happens to all the built-in apps that came with the phone? [Some of these are vital to me!] Obviously the basic phone/SMS/data, Bluetooth and WiFi functions must continue to operate correctly.
2. What happens to all the additional apps I've bought and installed?
3. I don't especially want to change the 'look and feel' of my phone. I just want to free up internal storage by using the SD card as an 'extension' to internal storage, so I can continue adding and updating apps without running out. So which ROM is likely to achieve this on the GT-S5660V (I'd particularly like to hear from any Australians who have ROMmed their GT-S5660V with this feature, since I've read warnings about ROM versions that are for the GT-S5660 but NOT the GT-S5660V)?
4. In case the custom ROM doesn't work for me, how do I backup my current ROM so I can reinstall it?
Sorry for the long (and paranoid!) post, and I hope someone here can help me. Many thanks.
PS: I enjoyed the 'Noob Video' - very professionally made!
Daniel
(Gerroa, Australia)

DanielFFF said:
1. If I install a custom ROM, what happens to all the built-in apps that came with the phone? [Some of these are vital to me!] Obviously the basic phone/SMS/data, Bluetooth and WiFi functions must continue to operate correctly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only thing you'll have are what comes with the ROM you flash. That, of course, includes phone/SMS/data, Bluetooth and Wifi. If you run Astro (the free version is enough) you can save an apk file of any app you absolutely need, just to be sure it's available after you flash a ROM. (Then install Apk Installer, and it can install the apk file in the new ROM.)
2. What happens to all the additional apps I've bought and installed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See #1. You should have the apk files for all the apps you need (free, paid and original) saved to your laptop/desktop or somewhere.
3. I don't especially want to change the 'look and feel' of my phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The look and feel is the apps. The "desktop" is the launcher. You may find some that you actually like better than the stock one.
I just want to free up internal storage by using the SD card as an 'extension' to internal storage, so I can continue adding and updating apps without running out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With CM you can use up to 1GB on the SD card as internal storage. (Making the partition larger than 1GB in CM seems to cause problems. There's at least one ROM that can take a larger partition, but there's no version for your phone.)
So which ROM is likely to achieve this on the GT-S5660V (I'd particularly like to hear from any Australians who have ROMmed their GT-S5660V with this feature, since I've read warnings about ROM versions that are for the GT-S5660 but NOT the GT-S5660V)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NEVER flash a ROM that's not for your specific phone. At best it won't work. At worst you won't be able to recover the phone and you'll have to buy another one.
4. In case the custom ROM doesn't work for me, how do I backup my current ROM so I can reinstall it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use Nandroid backup in the recovery boot. (And save the backup to your computer - the SD card will get wiped.)

Re: Paranoid newbie questions re replacement ROM
Many thanks, Rukbat, you reply has been very helpful. But as with any learning process, your answers have raised new questions!...
Rukbat said:
The only thing you'll have are what comes with the ROM you flash. That, of course, includes phone/SMS/data, Bluetooth and Wifi. If you run Astro (the free version is enough) you can save an apk file of any app you absolutely need, just to be sure it's available after you flash a ROM. (Then install Apk Installer, and it can install the apk file in the new ROM.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had Astro File Manager before, but uninstalled it when I started running short of storage, as I didn't think it offered anything that I couldn't do with ES File Explorer and Titanium Backup Pro. Do I really need to reinstall it, or will the backups from Titanium Backup do?
Rukbat said:
See #1. You should have the apk files for all the apps you need (free, paid and original) saved to your laptop/desktop or somewhere.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe Titanium Backup Pro backs up user apps and data, so once I reinstall Titanium with the new ROM, I should be able to recover my previous apps, yes?
Rukbat said:
With CM you can use up to 1GB on the SD card as internal storage. (Making the partition larger than 1GB in CM seems to cause problems. There's at least one ROM that can take a larger partition, but there's no version for your phone.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm guessing that 'CM' is CyanogenMod? I'm still looking for a version specifically for the GT-S5660V. It worries me (I really am paranoid! ) that so many versions are 'unofficial', and so poorly documented.
Rukbat said:
NEVER flash a ROM that's not for your specific phone. At best it won't work. At worst you won't be able to recover the phone and you'll have to buy another one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is what worries me most, as there are very few ROMs and such specifically made for the GT-S5660V – quite a few for the 'generic' Gio (GT-S5660), but few for the 'V' specifically. I read somewhere that the main difference is probably in the 3G frequencies used in Australia, and that some people had tried a 'generic' Gio ROM and lost some of their telephone functionality. Some mention of flashing the Modem code separately, but that just confuses me more!
Rukbat said:
Use Nandroid backup in the recovery boot. (And save the backup to your computer - the SD card will get wiped.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I looked up Nandroid backup, and it seems to get this I need to install ClockworkMod Recovery. ROM Manager is also recommended as an adjunct, so I've already installed v5.0.2.0 of that. Just need to find a GT-S5660V version of ClockworkMod Recovery now! I guess since it doesn't affect telephone functionality, a version for the generic Gio should be OK, such as http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1421650
It's so confusing for a beginner like me, with so many different versions around!
But I really appreciate your help so far, and hope you can continue to enlighten me.

[GUIDE] From stock GB to Custom JB (Noob-friendly)

STOCK GB ALL THE WAY TO JB CUSTOM ROM
If you run Gingerbread, start from A directly
If you run un-rooted Jellybean, start from B
If you run rooted Jellybean with a custom kernel, start from C.
If you run rooted Jelly Bean without a custom kernel, start from B, but skip number 1 and 6.
You might want to read this before starting, it is optional though, but will give you a better idea of what you're doing.
GUIDE
This guide shall guide you through turning your suckish GB i9070 (not i9070p) to Custom ROM JB Awesomeness.
Unless your phone shipped from Russia, it probably has Gingerbread preinstalled... so, let's first Jellybeanize it.
A) JELLYBEANIZATION:
Download Odin3 from here. http://forum.xda-developers.com/atta...1&d=1341114315. Extract it into a folder.
Download Stock JB firmware from here. http://hotfile.com/dl/222710569/1f2...m-GT-I9070-TSR-I9070XXLQE-1365486223.zip.html . Extract it into a separate folder, you will get a .tar.md5 file.
Make sure you have Kies installed, but not running.
Turn your phone off, and boot into Download mode, this can be done by holding the Vol.Down+Home+Power buttons together at the same time, till it boots.
Press Volume up to continue. Plug in your phone (make sure it's at least 60% charged) . Wait till Odin recognizes (It should say something like COMORT... to the left).
Click on PDA and choose the firmware (.tar.md5) that you extracted in step 2. Click start.
Right now, a virus which will fry your phone's internals is being installed... Calm down, joke.
When your phone boots into JB, and Odin says "PASS". Unplug.
NOTE: There is a chance that you will get a bootloop ( i.e. Android won't boot ). No, no, no... your phone isn't broken! Simply reboot to stock recovery by powering off, then pressing Vol.Up+Home+Power buttons together and wipe data/factory reset. It'll boot nicely
Now, you are currently on a stock Samsung Jellybean firmware, which is not rooted. This basically means that you do not have access to modifying the system files in your ROM, which means that you cannot install any custom kernel, custom recovery or a custom ROM... In section B, you will learn how to gain root access, install a custom kernel with a custom recovery.
B) ROOTING, KERNEL & TWRP/CWM:
Download Shaan's root from here http://d-h.st/ook
Download Temporary cwm from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1987313
Download CoCore + TWRP (TWRP is one of the two recoveries available, we will use it in this guide because it looks less intimidating, and it's touch-enabled ) from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/atta...8&d=1363518705
Place all 3(or 2 if you're rooted) zip files in your external SD card
Power off. Boot into recovery by holding Vol.Up+Home+Power.
By navigating via volume buttons, choose install zip from external sd card, and install root.zip... shouldn't take long.
In the same way install update.zip. Now in a few seconds, you will get a different screen, this is Clockworkmod recovery, albeit a temporary one..
In this recovery, go to install zip, then install zip from external sd, and choose CoCore+TWRP. After installation, keep going back until the main cwm screen, and hit reboot.
NOW, Everytime you boot into recovery (which is the way to backing up and installing custom ROMs) you will get TWRP.
Now, you are rooted, with a custom kernel, and TWRP ( a custom recovery). You can either stay on stock Samsung firmware, or continue through section C, and get yourself a custom ROM.
C) INSTALLING A CUSTOM ROM:
Download any custom ROM (Recommendations at the end of the thread) zip and place it in the root of your external (or internal, but i prefer ext.) sd.
Boot into recovery.
Navigate by touch, press backup, and slide as instructed to make a backup.
Go back to the main screen and choose install. If the zip has been placed in ext. sd. then press on external sd and choose the appropriate zip and slide to install. If placed in internal sd, then choose internal sd from the top and go to /emmc folder, and choose zip and install.
When finished, navigate to the recovery home, and press reboot sytem.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q- Which of the above will increase my binary counter?
A- None! Let me clarify how the binary counter is tipped. The only way the binary counter can be increased is if you flash anything that is non-official Samsung signed, via Odin.
Q- How do I unroot?
A- You can unroot simply by following the steps in section A and not continuing with the rest of the guide.
Q- I encountered a problem, what now?
A- If the problem is related to this guide and the steps followed in this guide, then post it here, I'll try to help when possible. If you encountered a general problem not related to this guide, please post a thread in the Q&A/Troubleshooting section.
ROM Recommendations
If you want a fully stable ROM, with everything working, Cyanogenmod or Cyanogenmod based ROMs currently do not fit the cirteria, as they some bugs still remain in these. So, you may try one of the stock based ROMs.
[AOSP Themed] - JellyMod - by martin_carpio17 Link here
[S4 Themed] - Light JB - by petraru1 Link here
[AOSP Themed] - Pure Vanilla - by ikaster17 Link here
[Xperia UI Themed] Galaxperia - by Achyut Link here
However, if you'd still like to go for most change, and don't mind the small bugs, then you may try Cyanogenmod or the Cyanogenmod based ROMs below.
Cyanogenmod 10 - by diego-ch and other contributing developers Link here
MIUI v4 - by fedevd Link here
Paranoid Android Port - by nlygamz Link here
Cyanilla - by ikaster17 Link here
This is basically it for this tutorial! Finally eh? But really now, all the above is very very easy once you get used to it, I mean, all the sections in the guide, A, B and C can all be done in 5 minutes, but I've simplified everything as to suite everyone's experience.
Hopefully this guide was useful for you...

If I made any mistakes with this, please correct me

Odp: [GUIDE] From stock GB to Custom JB (Noob-friendly)
That would be very usefull
If only tons of familiar topics wasn't already created ...
tapatalked

rajman said:
That would be very usefull
If only tons of familiar topics wasn't already created ...
tapatalked
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Excuse me for trying to contribute.

panda00 said:
Excuse me for trying to contribute.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have done a good job. Remember, haters gonna hate
Sent from my GT-I9070 using xda premium

Plus, I provided this for newbies who have little to no idea about rooting and the works...

Odp: [GUIDE] From stock GB to Custom JB (Noob-friendly)
Brainiac.shri said:
You have done a good job. Remember, haters gonna hate
Sent from my GT-I9070 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, thanks button is to mainstream.
Hating is way more vintage
tapatalked

Added and corrected some things... Thanks R_a_z_v_a_n for the corrections.

Your welcome!

there is anyway to add brazilian portuguese language?

fromanbr said:
there is anyway to add brazilian portuguese language?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think so... until a official JB firmware with the language is released.

Up.. since people are still asking how to root and etc.

Up

A million thanks for the guide .. I've installed Jetmod 4.0 and it's running fine. My only concern is that I created a backup of my previous ROM in the internal storage and now just 33MB space is available for installation of apps. Can you please tell me how to 1. Remove the backup, or 2. Move it to the external storage ?
Thanks !

Go to "my files" - internal (sdcard0 I suppose) select what file u want to move an move to external memory (sdcardExt).

R_a_z_v_a_n said:
Go to "my files" - internal (sdcard0 I suppose) select what file u want to move an move to external memory (sdcardExt).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have already tried that, but I am not able to identify the backup. I had used to TWRP to backup and then flash JellyMod. I had looked up on some threads that the backup will be in SD -> TWRP -> Backups (or something similar to this), but there is no such folder in my phone.
:crying:

ttrublu said:
I have already tried that, but I am not able to identify the backup. I had used to TWRP to backup and then flash JellyMod. I had looked up on some threads that the backup will be in SD -> TWRP -> Backups (or something similar to this), but there is no such folder in my phone.
:crying:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look for it using Root Explorer (download the app from the play store).

ttrublu said:
I have already tried that, but I am not able to identify the backup. I had used to TWRP to backup and then flash JellyMod. I had looked up on some threads that the backup will be in SD -> TWRP -> Backups (or something similar to this), but there is no such folder in my phone.
:crying:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
in your file manager browse to ext_sd. from within ext_sd you should have a folder labeled nandroid..
also, by default, the backups should be labeled/dated accordingly..
you could also get details on each file from within file manager that will give you more specific info. date created, etc..
hope this helps..

Thanks guys, but I think I didn't make myself clear. The backup is present in the 2GB memory reserved for installing apps. How do I access that storage and remove the backup? I'm an android beginner, so pls have patience with me.

ttrublu said:
Thanks guys, but I think I didn't make myself clear. The backup is present in the 2GB memory reserved for installing apps. How do I access that storage and remove the backup? I'm an android beginner, so pls have patience with me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
in the "My Files" folder on your phone..
you will see All Files.. select it and youll see extSdCard and sdcard..
go to sdcard to navigate to your back up files after that move them to your memory card extsdcard..
voila.. free space..