I've rooted several Samsung phones now, and one way which seems to work fine for me is
1) Go to samsung-updates.com and download a stock rom from there (having to deal with some crappy file downloading site like rapidgator or terafile)
2) Find the xda forum thread on how to root the device in question, and download a rooted rom from there (again having to deal with one of these slow ad-filled downloading sites)
3) Come back several hours later when everything has eventually downloaded, and use e.g. odin to flash the rom and finish the job.
I've done this a few times now (rooting and unrooting), and am beginning to wonder several things:
First, where are these stock roms coming from? A non-rooted Samsung phone straight out the box has a non-rooted stock rom on it -- but is there no easy way to dump the stock rom onto a computer (thus saving me the bother of having to download a stock rom when I already have a stock rom)?
Second, how are those rooted roms actually being built? Typically all I want is a stock rom with the superSU app or whatever. One thing I'm particularly confused by is that there are usually loads and loads of stock roms available for a given phone model, depending on which country and provider you want. And yet there is often only one rooted rom. How come the rooted rom doesn't care which country I'm in and which provider I have, whereas stock roms seem to care?
Google supply the android source code for free, right? Can I compile this code myself to make a stock rom somehow? Or a rooted rom? Is this what people are doing?
Third, why do I have to deal with all these crappy free download sites? If someone started some kickstarter to get funds to run a site which kept a copy of all these roms then so many people's lives would be much better, right? Why has this not happened?
Y
yannick.12 said:
I've rooted several Samsung phones now, and one way which seems to work fine for me is
1) Go to samsung-updates.com and download a stock rom from there (having to deal with some crappy file downloading site like rapidgator or terafile)
2) Find the xda forum thread on how to root the device in question, and download a rooted rom from there (again having to deal with one of these slow ad-filled downloading sites)
3) Come back several hours later when everything has eventually downloaded, and use e.g. odin to flash the rom and finish the job.
I've done this a few times now (rooting and unrooting), and am beginning to wonder several things:
First, where are these stock roms coming from? A non-rooted Samsung phone straight out the box has a non-rooted stock rom on it -- but is there no easy way to dump the stock rom onto a computer (thus saving me the bother of having to download a stock rom when I already have a stock rom)?
Second, how are those rooted roms actually being built? Typically all I want is a stock rom with the superSU app or whatever. One thing I'm particularly confused by is that there are usually loads and loads of stock roms available for a given phone model, depending on which country and provider you want. And yet there is often only one rooted rom. How come the rooted rom doesn't care which country I'm in and which provider I have, whereas stock roms seem to care?
Google supply the android source code for free, right? Can I compile this code myself to make a stock rom somehow? Or a rooted rom? Is this what people are doing?
Third, why do I have to deal with all these crappy free download sites? If someone started some kickstarter to get funds to run a site which kept a copy of all these roms then so many people's lives would be much better, right? Why has this not happened?
Y
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, first of all the answers to these questions are easy to find on the forums and the web.
However I will answer them as well.
Stock ROM's come from various locations, usually the ones like the ROMs on SAM-Mobile come from OTA updates or Kies updates which have been extracted/edited to work via Odin. Other stock ROMs come from software "dumped" (extracted) from the phone.
Rooted ROMs don't care as they are usually un-necesary and only for conveniance due to most stock ROMs being able to be rooted easily. Stock ROMs however come in varierties from carriers to countries as they include other features or specific boot languages that would link the phone to its packaging and service provider
Yes you can dump the ROM from your phone to your PC, guides to do this can be found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1771347
Yes you could compile your own code from the Google AOSP however this would be time consuming and could potentially brick your device, most devs of ROMs include drivers created by the actual makers of the device which again is time consuming and requires testing multiple times with risk of bricking and is only for the experianced
Finally, these "Crappy" download sites provide a means of payment for people. Although your opinion on them is that they should use a kickstarter fund many would not pay into it therefore they would loose money. Some may disagree since stock ROMs technicly aren't their work but thats another discussion.
yannick.12 said:
I've rooted several Samsung phones now, and one way which seems to work fine for me is
1) Go to samsung-updates.com and download a stock rom from there (having to deal with some crappy file downloading site like rapidgator or terafile)
2) Find the xda forum thread on how to root the device in question, and download a rooted rom from there (again having to deal with one of these slow ad-filled downloading sites)
3) Come back several hours later when everything has eventually downloaded, and use e.g. odin to flash the rom and finish the job.
I've done this a few times now (rooting and unrooting), and am beginning to wonder several things:
First, where are these stock roms coming from? A non-rooted Samsung phone straight out the box has a non-rooted stock rom on it -- but is there no easy way to dump the stock rom onto a computer (thus saving me the bother of having to download a stock rom when I already have a stock rom)?
Second, how are those rooted roms actually being built? Typically all I want is a stock rom with the superSU app or whatever. One thing I'm particularly confused by is that there are usually loads and loads of stock roms available for a given phone model, depending on which country and provider you want. And yet there is often only one rooted rom. How come the rooted rom doesn't care which country I'm in and which provider I have, whereas stock roms seem to care?
Google supply the android source code for free, right? Can I compile this code myself to make a stock rom somehow? Or a rooted rom? Is this what people are doing?
Third, why do I have to deal with all these crappy free download sites? If someone started some kickstarter to get funds to run a site which kept a copy of all these roms then so many people's lives would be much better, right? Why has this not happened?
Y
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. stock roms are released by the manufacturer, or leaked to us by someone who works there. generally speaking, no you cant dump the phone then use that to re-flash stock.
2. not sure why you would flash a rooted rom instead of just rooting by itself if that's all you want.
there are many stock roms because they are region and carrier specific.
you need to get a more popular device, then you will have more custom roms to choose from.
custom roms don't contain all the partitions like a stock one does, that's why they can be used on multiple regions. what i mean is, custom roms don't contain things like the modem/radios (and other files) that are specific to your region and will cause your phone to not work or not work properly if you change them.
yes you can compile and build your own roms, but it is very much not easy, that's why everyone isnt doing it.
3. be grateful you can get a hold of the files at all when you need them, because they are not available for all phones. also, only some of the sites used suk, just depends on where the person decides to put them, and i agree, i dont understand why they use this crappy sites when better ones are available.
the reason there hasnt been a site made to store all of these files (actually there are a rare few but only for some devices) is because most people now a days wont pony up the money to support it. we are in the "entitlement" era of android. what i mean by that is, it is becoming more common that users think and act like that community owes them these files, roms, mods, etc and all the hard work it takes to make them. they have little respect for all this work and time put forth. they wont even take a half a second to click the thanks button, that should tell you something right there.
so they sure a s**t arent going to donate to keep a file repository running. yes some would but most wont, and this sort of site would use a ton of bandwidth, which would be very expensive just to host. not to mention the time and effort it would take to keep it up and running with the most current files.
Thanks both of you for the comments and responses. Below is some background which doesn't have any more questions, but is an attempt to explain why I was asking (i.e. moaning!) in the first place.
Rooting -- what I've realised is that I feel really uneasy about the whole process. It seems to rely heavily on trust, for example. Let me explain what I'm comparing it with. 15 years ago (before I had kids) I was a unix hacker and I would download linux source code from a reputable place and compile it myself on various PCs. These sites (containing the linux source code) would be reasonable professional sites with no ads and probably things like md5sums to check your download and so on, the source code would be plainly visible so you could look through it yourself, and the forums associated with them would be professionally run and contributors would clearly be educated people. I've only recently moved into the rooting roms business, basically spurred on by my kids (aged 14 and 12) who are becoming interested in how much they can get out of their android devices, and basically I'm quite surprised about how in comparison it seems like much more of an "amateur set-up". A lot of it is based on "here is a file, download it, trust me, it's fine, but you can't check this". This is fine for my kids, who just use their phones as game tools, but far less fine for me, because I use my phone to manage my finances, my work emails, my childcare, and a lot of other stuff where it's really important that nothing goes wrong [and this is why my main phone is not rooted.] There seems to be far less documentation, and what there is is spread around widely, there are plenty of threads which are dead/out of date and contains links to wildly out-of-date versions of things and so on. xda is absolutely great, once you find the great bits, but it also contains a huge sprawling mess of noise. TechMinerUK suggests (and I'm sure they are right) that one can find all the answers to the questions I'm asking on the forums and on the web. But in a well-organized scenario there would be some clean "front page" which contains a well-signposted FAQ about rooting, a FAQ about roms etc etc, rather than having to google around for everything. Of course I did google for information before I posted the questions above -- I had several more questions in fact, and google answered some of them and I posted the rest. Perhaps the key difference is the following -- 15 years ago a generic college student was only just beginning to hear about the internet and probably had no access to it in their own home, and the people setting up websites were professionals, who probably worked in computer science departments at universities. Nowadays the people rooting their phones might well be college kids with no salaries (yet), or maybe even schoolkids, so everything is perhaps being run on a more "hobby" basis. bweN diorD suggests that people aren't going to pay a little for convenient access to stuff like roms and perhaps this hits the nail on the head -- my demographic (middle-aged waged people) wouldn't think twice about donating a little to support a cause they want to see succeed -- but on the other hand I couldn't see my kids donating to support anything, because they have no income themselves. Perhaps basically the reason all these files end up on these dubious file-sharing websites is that the average wage of the contributor to this game is far less than the average wage of the people writing the linux source code 15 years ago.
That's just some background as to where the questions came from. Thanks again for the answers, and I will keep googling, if that's the way that it's supposed to work now,
Y
yannick.12 said:
That's just some background as to where the questions came from. Thanks again for the answers, and I will keep googling, if that's the way that it's supposed to work now,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well, the people who have at least some respect for the forum and people who help here try searching first.
you can always come and ask questions, but in my opinion, you are viewed differently if you at least put some effort into finding the answers first.
but i know the information is spread all over creation and some times difficult to find or know what is safe. that's why im here, to lend some guidance where i can, from experience.
one thing you don't want to do is, hesitate to ask a question and do something you don't understand. this frequently leads to jacked up devices.
Related
Hi,
I just recieved my Touch Pro 2 and brought it into US Cellular the other day.
Im interested in putting a faster and smoother, less memory using rom on the phone but will all my settings or programing US Cellular stay on the phone, if i change the roms?
Qeustion2. What are the radios? are they already in the rom or do i have to download new radios somewhere else?
Im pretty new to the smartphones, where this is my first one
Thanks.
Welcome Abroad! I too am a USCC dude. The TP2 is a great little phone. One of the problems that exist at this moment is many people are having major problems "Unlocking" the phone, which allows you to the "flash" the various custom roms, which replace the one that USCC put on the phone. The problems appear to be sporadic, and have to do with the fact that the unlocker program has issues, and is NOT very well supported. Never the less, if you can get the unlocker to work, the CDMA custom roms are plentiful and you should be able to try several of them out to find one you like more than the stock one. Begin by reading the unlocker thread, SEVERAL times to really grasp it (many users run into problems simply because they do not read!!) and you can find several YOUTUBE postings about how to flash a custom rom. Take a week or two to do this, ask questions about anything you don't understand, and somebody will help as best they can.
gjbnh said:
Welcome Abroad! I too am a USCC dude. The TP2 is a great little phone. One of the problems that exist at this moment is many people are having major problems "Unlocking" the phone, which allows you to the "flash" the various custom roms, which replace the one that USCC put on the phone. The problems appear to be sporadic, and have to do with the fact that the unlocker program has issues, and is NOT very well supported. Never the less, if you can get the unlocker to work, the CDMA custom roms are plentiful and you should be able to try several of them out to find one you like more than the stock one. Begin by reading the unlocker thread, SEVERAL times to really grasp it (many users run into problems simply because they do not read!!) and you can find several YOUTUBE postings about how to flash a custom rom. Take a week or two to do this, ask questions about anything you don't understand, and somebody will help as best they can.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So i need to unlock the phone before i am able to load a new rom?
thanks!
Note: I'm hoping this is the correct place for this thread, hopefully others with this same phone would benefit from it, as this sub-forum seems barren of any guides on what I am looking for
After Christmas, I decided to get my first smart phone, the D2G. I ordered it through Newegg and had it linked to a family account on Verizon.
So what I currently have now is Android 2.2, System Version 2.4.330.A956.Verizon.en.us, and tons of Verizon branded bloat.
My goal is that I would like to install a vanilla version of gingerbread. Being my first smartphone, and my first time on these forums, I'm greatly lacking in knowledge of these phones and how to get from where I am at to where I want to be. What I do have, however, is an understanding of operating system architecture, UNIX experience and good technical knowledge of PCs. I understand what rooting means, what apps are, what a bootstrap does, however I know nothing of how to get or use these things on this phone, nor any idea where to look for this information. Because this phone is on contract (and thus only paid $150 for it), I'm hoping to minimize the risk of bricking it, or otherwise costing me more money.
What I am looking for: any information/guides/links that will help me to get me from Android 2.2 to a vanilla version of gingerbread on the D2G. From what I have gathered from other threads is that I need to root it (by installing z4root I read), boot in recovery mode, then install ROMs. None of those things I know how to do right now. I suppose helping me learn how to do those would be a great start.
tl;dr I need a layman's guide to get gingerbread on D2G
Thanks in advance for any help
To begin you won't be able to get Gingerbread until Motorola releases an update. The Droid 2 (and D2 Global) have a locked bootloader which means the kernel can't be changed except by Motorola. Without a kernel upgrade Gingerbread will remain out of reach.
You can, however, grab some things that have been backported from Gingerbread like the keyboard and theme. As time goes by more and more external things from Gingerbread will become available for non-GB users, but certain things that rely on the GB kernel will be elusive.
Now as for FroYo, there currently isn't a completely working AOSP (Android Open Source Project) ROM yet. Fission and GummyJAR strip away as much Blur as possible and work towards AOSP. Unleashed, Ultimate Droid, and Tanzanite are all AOSP ROMs in development but are lacking full functionality at the moment. Basically you've got to pick your poison: AOSP-like that works or AOSP that's not quite done.
Given that you have a D2 Global I'd personally hold off on changing ROMs at the moment. The D2G SBF (System Boot File) hasn't been leaked yet so if anything were to go wrong while changing ROMs your phone would be bricked until the SBF is released. A SBF allows you to revert your phone back to its out-of-the-box state should anything go wrong; your phone can be in a boot loop but you can turn it on in a way that will allow you to get things back to square one at least. Without the SBF you're really taking a gamble.
Alright, so I take it I just got too new of a phone then ~_~
thanks
Don't be too upset that your phone is too new yet...
Just be very careful with what you try for now.
It is just over a year since I got my first Droid and while there were plenty of hacks and roms for that back then, few were really STABLE. It didn't take long before not only were stable roms available, they were far better and included features that were not supposed to be on the phone.
Including overclocking it to twice the stock speed.
The D2G is in a similar place right now but the whole "eFuse" thing makes hacking a lot trickier. Its much easier to brick a D2/DX than an original Droid.
BUt progress is being made and there is little doubt in my mind that all the devs out there will make this phone what it should be just like they did with the Droid.
Gingerbread will get to us eventually, but for now Fission rom has already improved my D2G 100% over stock.
rogerdugans said:
Gingerbread will get to us eventually, but for now Fission rom has already improved my D2G 100% over stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interested in Fission, but as I have previously stated, I'm quite clueless for the time being
Is this something that is safe?
Kenshin- said:
Interested in Fission, but as I have previously stated, I'm quite clueless for the time being
Is this something that is safe?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want 100% safe- leave your phone exactly as you received it.
Seriously.
There is risk in doing this stuff, even when we are simply taking advantage of the very risky work done by devs to figure out HOW to modify our phones.
Generally speaking, the longer you wait the less risky it is, but the fact is that there is never ZERO danger to it. Even if all the mods and hacks you use are time tested and there has not been a single bug found by anyone- flashing a rom can go wrong and leave a device bricked.
Even flashing a manufacturer provided BIOS on a computer has risk.
All of that said, if you want to minimize risk, wait just a little while for the bugs to be worked out more thoroughly.
I just saw that there is now an SBF for the D2G last night- that helps provide a buffer for accidents (disaster recovery!) but I don't know how well tested it is. We should know fairly soon- quite a few folks with bricked phones have been waiting for it!
I would say that right now the D2G has risk in the "moderate" range- new phone, not that much dev time, etc.
The only other phone I have personal experience with is the original Droid- risk on that is "minimal." Hard to kill those things.
All that said, I have accepted the risk and did so before the sbf was out. I have had no problems at all so far.
IF you choose to do so, I highly recommend following instructions exactly and making sure you know what you are doing and why.
I don't mean to talk you or anyone else out of improving their smart phone, but I do believe that realistic risk assessment is a wise thing to do before starting.
I used the SBF to flash my phone 2 days ago, with no issues.
rogerdugans said:
Generally speaking, the longer you wait the less risky it is, but the fact is that there is never ZERO danger to it.
...
All of that said, if you want to minimize risk, wait just a little while for the bugs to be worked out more thoroughly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a D2 and I got it pretty new a few months ago it was my first Android phone but I watched the forums and learned as things became available how to do it all. I watched as the device everyone thought wasn't even going to get root access got it, then the ROMs came; it wasn't easy and they aren't like the ROMs that came for previous devices because of the locks Moto put on the phone. But, we were happy with it and I've been pleasantly surprised at what the devs have come up with and have been running custom ROMs so long I don't remember what stock was even like. I just know it wasn't as cool as the custom stuff I'm running.
So hang in there and read all you can about your device or similar devices (D2, DX, DPro) so that when something comes along that you want to try you know what to do to make it work and what to do if it doesn't go as planned.
Can anyone tell the important and practical advantages of rooting and installing Infused ROM? I Am just looking for a useful reason to waste my time
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App
Read the change logs in the very first post, if nothing there appeals to you than don't bother, if nothing makes SENSE to you, read more like I did before diving in lol.
Short answer is, because its fun, addicting, customizing, unlocks features, removes bloatware.....makes it YOUR PHONE, not AT&T's (assuming you don't have Rogers.) Things like Wi-Fi tethering and GPS lock on times are fixed or improved. Stuff like that, plus the whole process can be somewhat addicting. Lol
Infused
Hehe..... So, no usefulness in rooting I guess.... Can you post the link by the way...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App
Not sure how, on my phone. Lol, but if you go to the infuse developers section, you CANT miss it. Big huge title says something along the lines of, [Infused, V2.#.# (gingerbread) blah blah blah] haha.
But ATM the download portion is down because the Canadian release doesn't use 4g, so he's fixing a little quirk with it right now, than it'll be back up I'm sure, gtg is pretty quick.
Also, rooting is different than flashing a Tom, rooting gives you complete control over your phone, gets rid of market branding (I think), and allows 3rd party apps (be carefully)
Flashing a ROM is replacing the current operating system with the SAME one but streamlined and bareboned, or a better one that's streamlined and bareboned. (Or at least that's how I think of it.) Usually involving better apps, updates, and unlocked features.
So yes there is a benifit I guess lol.
Infused
So, what is infused ROM? I suppose it is custom ROM... Right?... So, what the hell is CWM then?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App
All of this info is readily available, when I first got my android I was a little confused to, hell, I still am =P
But here is the skinny,
Root simply means you are granting the phone or yourself super user access. What does that mean you ask... well, it pretty much gives you ultimate admin rights. From here, you can theme, mod, install roms, alter/move/delete system files etc.
Roms are the creations of enhanced versions of the stock os all ready available, and sometimes not available ie gtg's gingerbread rom. The benefits to these"aftermarket" roms vary from rom to rom. You will need to research each one specifically to see what fits your desires.
Although your question seems simple, it its infact a big question that is far to vague, simply put, custom roms made by experienced developers will 99.9% always be superior to stock, but for different reasons. So please research and you will see that there are varying types of directions... Unless you want gb on infuse, kinds only one direction for that at the moment.
Infused with gingerbread **** thanks GTG465X
Thanks, you articulated my thoughts better lol.
CWM is ClockWorkMod, used commonly for its rom manager feature, it helps make flashing the rom's easier, and can install a clockwork recovery mode that replaces the stock 3e recovery the phone comes with, and is far more useful.
Infused
You need root. Normally I'd suggest going with a ROM, but right now the only ROM actively being developed is Infused. However, this is the first ROM where I have gotten very bad response from those who develop the ROM, as well as backlash for the community when I bring up bugs on the releases. Any other phone has developer communities that are helpful and very nice, and receptive to constructive criticism, but it's like Apple sent their goons over for Infused, and both the developers and the fanboys of the developers act like it's some gift from god. Everything released from the Infused team has had some fairly significant bugs, right now the bug is poor data speeds (kinda silly since we bought the phone for it's "4G" being the primary function), but as always, enter at your own risk.
Seriously bella? the only issues I have seen with this community has been antagonized by you. Hell, out of curiosity I check done of your post history... Surprise surprise, most of the post are you complaining. This thread case in point, seriously had to drag your bull **** to another thread, grow the hell up.
just get your sg2 already and take your negativity to another forum. All you ever do is ***** like a whiny baby. Good luck and good riddance, we won't miss you.
Infused with gingerbread **** thanks GTG465X
Krant, don't let Bella's bs confuse you, this phone has to notch devs, with fantastic roms and kernels. Apparently if the devs can't part the seas and build a rom that get 100 hours of staight heavy use batt life then they don't deserve to give us free development
Infused with gingerbread **** thanks GTG465X
Krant, welcome to the forums.
I disagree with Bella - we have an excellent community here, the only problem is that we have an unusual number of people who post in the ROM threads in development when it is clear they have not even read the first post of the thread. We also have people who complain about a ROM without any evidence to back up their complaint, and get hostile when a dev asks them to run a specific test.
On the positive side, the level of coordination we have between developers is FAR better than most other devices. That's why right now you don't really see any junky "hey look I can deodex too!" ROMs.
So far you're off to a good start, you didn't post in the dev forum and you're making an effort to learn. I suggest you take some time to do some research and Googling.
Another thing adding to the confusion here is that with Android, there are two portions of the system that can be separately customized. The kernel is the base operating system, with hardware drivers and such. The ROM is actually what us kernel hackers call "userland" - the stuff layered on top of a kernel to produce a nice usable system.
Most ROMs include a custom kernel, but in many cases you can flash other kernels over it.
Never flash a ROM/kernel intended for another device. (An exception to this rule may eventually come for userland ROMs, but for now that's the rule.)
CWM is a low-level "recovery" tool that allows new files to be flashed to your device that often can't be flashed to a running system. It's most often used for flashing new ROMs, but can sometimes be used for flashing tweaks to a ROM.
And things like that will only scare people away from these forums, i sincerely feel like there are an alarming number of negative, rude people on XDA, and those who AREN'T, are usually Dev's or working with them, Hence my post from like, a month ago in an ENTIRELY different subject lol. And also why i try so hard to be informative, even with what little knowledge i have. please dont go because of a few bad apples, ive seen it ruin peoples experience with there phones.
Hellion_zk said:
Ive cruised these forums for about 8 months now, and i have to say, out of all the forus ive ever been apart of, (PC, Truck, Motorcycle, you name it) this is filled with the worst ratio of rude, abrasive people ive ever seen on a forum, and am surprised that the mods make no attempt to instill respectful comments to one another.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And it got Thanked,... twice... and it wasnt even by the people getting chewed out, (Although for a valid reason. DONT post nonsense in a Dev thread....oh my GOD they take that seriously here lol)
theraffman said:
All of this info is readily available, when I first got my android I was a little confused to, hell, I still am =P
But here is the skinny,
Root simply means you are granting the phone or yourself super user access. What does that mean you ask... well, it pretty much gives you ultimate admin rights. From here, you can theme, mod, install roms, alter/move/delete system files etc.
Roms are the creations of enhanced versions of the stock os all ready available, and sometimes not available ie gtg's gingerbread rom. The benefits to these"aftermarket" roms vary from rom to rom. You will need to research each one specifically to see what fits your desires.
Although your question seems simple, it its infact a big question that is far to vague, simply put, custom roms made by experienced developers will 99.9% always be superior to stock, but for different reasons. So please research and you will see that there are varying types of directions... Unless you want gb on infuse, kinds only one direction for that at the moment.
Infused with gingerbread **** thanks GTG465X
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the raffman explained root acces well indeed. I heard another explain it as gaining root access to your phone is the same as logging in to your computer with admin rights; you can make all sorts of changes. However, not having root access to your phone is like logging in to your computer as guest; you can change very little.
I rooted my phone a few days out of the box. Don't get me wrong; I was impressed with its performance. Since then I've flashed roms, kernels, bricked my phone, brought it back to life with odin3 many times. It is exciting and wicked fun to push this phone to its limits. Props to all the devs that enable my habit. Root and flash and I am sure you will never look back.
Root and flash and I am sure you will never look back.[/QUOTE said:
And make sure you do tons of research on how to unbrick it, and know what NOT to do.
Infused
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Entropy512 said:
Another thing adding to the confusion here is that with Android, there are two portions of the system that can be separately customized. The kernel is the base operating system, with hardware drivers and such. The ROM is actually what us kernel hackers call "userland" - the stuff layered on top of a kernel to produce a nice usable system.
Most ROMs include a custom kernel, but in many cases you can flash other kernels over it.
Never flash a ROM/kernel intended for another device. (An exception to this rule may eventually come for userland ROMs, but for now that's the rule.)
CWM is a low-level "recovery" tool that allows new files to be flashed to your device that often can't be flashed to a running system. It's most often used for flashing new ROMs, but can sometimes be used for flashing tweaks to a ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Entrophy512,
I've had my superInfuse for over a month now, I have it rooted, flashed Infused 1.53, 2.0Beta1,2,3,stable2.00, 2.01, 2.02 and used CWM, SGS Kernal Flasher, etc. I thought I understood this all pretty well but you summed it up excellently!!! Thanks so much for that!
Hi guys sorry for the several topics in my subject line but there are several questions that I have.
So I just signed up because I'm a bit confused and I'm quite new to the scene. I actually posted this on another forum which I'm already a member of, but I felt it would be better posting here since this is obviously more specialised.
After reading the rules, I've realised that it's quite hard to do a search for existing topics with my questions. I've already tried to do individual searches on each topic though, with varying success.
I've just rooted my Nexus S (i9023, AUS version) for the first time simply because I wanted to be able to use DroidWall (to only allow certain apps to use data).
1) If I manually update to ICS, will I lose root?
2) Does installing a custom ROM cause you to lose all your data? - I've done some searching on this and it seems to depend. Some do and some don't. I don't quite get it though.
3) Kernels - seem to control battery life and how the operating system runs. This slightly confuses me because it makes me think, what affects battery life more: the kernel or the ROM?
4) Most people like to overclock their phones in the interest of power. Would it be reasonable to underclock it in the interest of battery life? Sometimes I don't think I really need 1GHz.
5) It seems like the OTA for ICS for i9023 has not been released yet but has been for i9020?
I'm trying to find the best 2.3.6 Custom ROM from here but none of these are 2.3.6 based! All of them are 2.3.4 or older. I'm hesitant upgrading to ICS for three reasons:
1) Hasn't been released OTA officially
2) Worried of app compatibility
3) Worried of shorter battery life
For these reasons, I'm looking for a 2.3.6 based custom ROM otherwise I'd be happy to look at ICS custom ROMs.
None of the ICS ROMs seem to have any distinctive features about them, especially after watching the video reviews. It's all pretty much "it's a great ROM that doesn't lag when browsing the web and it's fast". Nothing really distinguishes one from another.
Sorry for the mildly long post, but I'd rather ask as many questions as I can at a time rather than making a couple of threads for each. Hope I can get some help =)
Thanks in advance!
I bought 9023 in hk. Upgraded to ics by ota.
If you want, you may do it manually. Flash the rom by yourself. Ota is no longer available. Check it out at nexusshack.com
I don't have battery problem. But don't know why.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
xdaillum said:
Hi guys sorry for the several topics in my subject line but there are several questions that I have.
So I just signed up because I'm a bit confused and I'm quite new to the scene. I actually posted this on another forum which I'm already a member of, but I felt it would be better posting here since this is obviously more specialised.
After reading the rules, I've realised that it's quite hard to do a search for existing topics with my questions. I've already tried to do individual searches on each topic though, with varying success.
I've just rooted my Nexus S (i9023, AUS version) for the first time simply because I wanted to be able to use DroidWall (to only allow certain apps to use data).
1) If I manually update to ICS, will I lose root?
If it is the update you probably will (not 100% sure), if it is the full OTA you certainly will. But it is not a major issue either way, and i would actually recommend backing up with TB (AND a Nandroid), wiping everything and then installing the Full OTA ROM and just root again, then restore your backup.
2) Does installing a custom ROM cause you to lose all your data? - I've done some searching on this and it seems to depend. Some do and some don't. I don't quite get it though.
They will generally lose any system data, apps, modifications, etc. Titanium Backup will copy over most of it anyway, particularly apps and their settings/data. Keep in mind that you should always have a CWM backup (Nandroid) ready in case something goes wrong.
3) Kernels - seem to control battery life and how the operating system runs. This slightly confuses me because it makes me think, what affects battery life more: the kernel or the ROM?
Both. ROMs can do more or different functions which can cause battery drain. Kernels allow you to change your own settings (most of the time) to actually balance performance and drain. I would say at the moment with ICS, the kernel and the settings you give it is the biggest contributor.
4) Most people like to overclock their phones in the interest of power. Would it be reasonable to underclock it in the interest of battery life? Sometimes I don't think I really need 1GHz.
That is correct. Many people can get the same speed with a lower voltage, lowering battery drain. Others also use something called "LiveOC" and increase the clocks by 10% (or more), changing the bus speed and giving similar speeds to 1000mhz at only 880mhz, again saving power. Just remember every CPU batch has different variations - some can undervolt and overclock like crazy, whereas some struggle with a 5% increase.
5) It seems like the OTA for ICS for i9023 has not been released yet but has been for i9020?
The i9023 and i9020T has been released. The i9020A has not, and the same with the Nexus S 4G (D720 i believe). It sometimes doesnt show up though. Either try a manual command which i can't remember in the dialpad or just update manually (manually is best ).
I'm trying to find the best 2.3.6 Custom ROM from here but none of these are 2.3.6 based! All of them are 2.3.4 or older. I'm hesitant upgrading to ICS for three reasons:
1) Hasn't been released OTA officially
2) Worried of app compatibility
3) Worried of shorter battery life
For these reasons, I'm looking for a 2.3.6 based custom ROM otherwise I'd be happy to look at ICS custom ROMs.
None of the ICS ROMs seem to have any distinctive features about them, especially after watching the video reviews. It's all pretty much "it's a great ROM that doesn't lag when browsing the web and it's fast". Nothing really distinguishes one from another.
Sorry for the mildly long post, but I'd rather ask as many questions as I can at a time rather than making a couple of threads for each. Hope I can get some help =)
Thanks in advance!
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Click to collapse
Lots of words, i'm getting a little confused up there. Anyway, if you are rooted (and i assume your bootloader is unlocked), there is nothing to worry about as long as you backup. I personally love ICS and have no issue with it, as do many others. A minority of people however tend to have some problems, whether its battery or force closes. My experience so far has been that a proper wipe fixes most of these anyway.
ICS is still new. Once Cyanogenmod 9 is officially released i'm sure we'll see much more variety than the same look and feel, as alot is based off their code. And also, practically no phones have ICS yet. I've not found app compatibility a problem though, i think the main gripe is viber (which should work soon).
I hope this can help you, just let us know if there is anything else you're after. Also, there is a TON of information around the site (and Nexus S forums in particular). A good amount of reading and going through a couple of pages of some of these threads can go a long way. That is why you came here after all, isn't it?
I got the OTA for ICS back around 20th Dec 2011, but I chose not to update it because I was going to be away from a computer for a few days and had no backup phone. When I wanted to update it a few days later, the update had disappeared from my phone so I looked it up online. Apparently the OTA disappeared for Nexus S's due to some bugs or incompatibility issues. I've never seen the update come up on my phone since. Even when I go to Settings->About phone->System update, it says "your system is up to date". So I've always been under the impression that ICS for Nexus S (at least for my variant, i9023) has never been re-released to us OTA.
Harbb, thanks for your answers. The only one I'm not so sure about is the underclocking one. It seems a little beyond me in terms of technicality. I am definitely interested in doing it though. Would you be able to tell me if adjusting clock speed requires an app?
I am rooted and bootloader is unlocked (I thought you could only root if bootloader was unlocked?).
So does that mean all these custom ROMs around at the moment are mostly based around Cyanogenmod, which is why they're very similar? As I was saying, I was looking at getting a custom ROM installed and noticed most of them are ICS custom ROMs, and the video reviews all say "this ROM is fast and does not lag when web browsing. It's a great ROM and it's fast and smooth."
The custom ROMs just don't seem to be "promoted" too well because I can't see what makes one better than the other, or what features of one custom ROM are intended to be the standout ones.
I notice you (Harbb) are using Stock ICS 4.0.3 (according to your sig) - so you are not using a custom ROM? Am I able to install a custom ICS ROM without first installing ICS? I am still running 2.3.6 at this point.
Viber does not work at the moment? That's not too bad. I can live with that.
I've done quite a bit of reading so far. It has certainly helped, but still a long way to go, but thanks for giving me a great start!
I will start backing up my apps using TB and CWM (Nandroid)!
xdaillum said:
I will start backing up my apps using TB and CWM (Nandroid)!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Best line i've read in days
I have tried several custom ROMs once they started surfacing but i didn't feel like they gave me anything special enough to switch to right now and Stock is setup and running very nicely. Stock ICS colours are fine and other apps now can provide Notifications Widgets. I havn't noticed any particular differences in speed either.
Brainmasters ICS tweaks, custom kernel and Flavours of ICS runs beautifully. The OTA varies with where it shows up. To force a check, type this in dialer: *#*#checkin#*#* [AKA, *#*#2432546#*#* ]
If you are rooted it won't work anyway. Just update manually. There is no need to currently on ICS to flash custom ICS ROMs. I would advise that when going from GB to ICS though (and often between some custom ROMs) that you go into CWM and do a factory/data wipe and format /system. After backing up of course.
At the moment most are not based on CM9, however several do use bits and pieces of code (ie. notification power widgets) from it. Not sure why most ROM descriptions are the same
First thing i'd consider is getting a custom kernel, and then the NSTools app (market). Lots of stuff to mess around with and full control of the CPU (governors, IO, overclocking, undervolting, etc).
Harbb said:
Best line i've read in days
I have tried several custom ROMs once they started surfacing but i didn't feel like they gave me anything special enough to switch to right now and Stock is setup and running very nicely.
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Click to collapse
agree with u. for 4.0.3, stock is my favorite, sad to say that.
for 4.0.4, while stock for NS not available, IMM26 ROM ported from NS4G seems good, if you like the stock rom feel.
Hmm I bricked my phone.
I've done the Nandroid and Titanium Backup and have it sitting on my computer ready once I recover this damn thing. Following the backups, I attempted to manually update to ICS with the zip file on this page: http://www.androidcentral.com/how-manually-update-your-gsm-nexus-s-ice-cream-sandwich
Now I'm following these two threads to try and recover the phone:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1397393
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1396056
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=20382688&postcount=16
Hopefully I will get this back up and working. I'm still confused as to why it got bricked though. Updated via clockworkmod "update from sdcard" and then rebooted system. After that, it just bricked. Can't get any lights to come up on the device whatsoever. Plugging it in to computer, wall charger, pressing all the buttons, taking the battery out and putting it back in.
Odd. Best of luck getting it working, i'm sure the resurrector will work for you so don't stress too much. That's the right file so i'll probably just put the issue on a bad flash or bad download (wise to hash check before flashing). At this point i'd say it's wise when you get it working again, just flash the Full OTA file, and do a wipe of /data, /cache, /system and /boot beforehand.
Sad to hear about your troubles buddy.
So it looks like everything worked out for me. I managed to restore my phone with the help of the threads above. I have to admit though, the guides given on this forum aren't too "complete" - there's always a step or two missing from the guide that the reader has to figure out themselves. And not all the files are provided in the topics either! I'm also kind of concerned why it seems so many people ended up bricking their phone like that. Quite concerning.
In the end, I managed to reflash the stock ICS ROM for i9023 Nexus S which I found in this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1445635
So I scrapped the one that I downloaded initially from Android Central. The difference in size was surprisingly roughly 30MB (160MB instead of the 130MB Android Central one).
I'm just using stock ICS, but rooted. Downloaded a few apps which require root, but haven't tried adding any mods or kernels. I might look into that later. But it seems like with 4.0.4 coming out, there might be some interesting new additions!
Thanks for all your help!!
Did you flash this ics from stock recovery?
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
Congratulations on resurrecting it! Are you guys saying that there is a risk of bricking a phone, while installing official update? I did a manual update, 3 weeks ago, unrooted, and ICS has been nothing but amazing for me.
I have a question. In case, I ever brick my I9023 (hope not).
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=20382688&postcount=16
This post states that I must be running Ubuntu on my PC. Does that mean I can't use Windows? And if I must use Linux, can I just do it with Wubi, or with Online Server?
I've been using the site for sometime and just wanted to put an idea if someone smarter than myself wanted to come up with technical details to make this work or it may already be in development but I'm not aware of it.
Getting the latest android update on phone with hardware capable of using it keeps coming up in a lot of articles that I read and it feels that the masses will probably never come to xda forums to get the updates they may want or need due to their lack of understanding of how to go abouts updating a rom.
The roms for most phones are being done by the community quicker and more reliable than the manufacturer in some cases. Here is what I think would work for masses to get the updates without the knowhow:
Create a process to get these custom roms quickly and easily loaded on to anyone's phone without them thinking about how to reboot in recovery mode. Similar to the Samsung devices getting updates from heimdall app found on this site. However it needs to be dumbed down and should be automatic when the user plugs in the phone.
This could be done by having a windows/mac application which when your phone is plugged in or connected wireless to your local network it would recognise what device you have and any additional information such as boot loader information it needs to search for official roms automatically from the manufacturer. If there is no updates then give the user the option to search for a market like store for unofficial roms which come with a warning to run at your own risk. These would be from the xda forums however they will need to meet a certain requirement as flashing from pc/mac may require a unique process from adb which is the key part to this idea working and I'm not too familiar with it to know if it's possible for some phones or all android phones. This store will contain different roms with user ratings of which is the most reliable rom. Essentially creating a market for roms. The user then clicks install and first thing the software does is to backup everything to save the state on the users hard drive in case you need to revert back to original.
This market should be controlled like the app store by the creators incase people abuse it. This means the requirement for any roms listed would be to include the default google experience and maybe a section for non pure google experiences as an option. It would be better if google created this app/process but let the roms be user/manufacturer driven.
Then through word of mouth/twitter/blogs this windows/mac app and within short time many people will be on ICS without much effort on google.
The android market is crying out from something like this to funnel all custom roms into a place accessible for the masses(knowing the risks of doing so). This separates the hardware binding to one specific software made for it, the user should be able to choose from selection off software which suits best for the hardware he/she purchased.
Obviously this is just an idea but hoping you clever people can come up with something similar. XDA Android Updater maybe
Isn't this exactly what ROM Manager does?
TeeRom said:
Isn't this exactly what ROM Manager does?
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Nah he wants a better implementation that's dumbed down and on windows etc...
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA
Do you mean that custom ROM's are more reliable than stock ROM? Are you kidding, there are tons of issues with most custom ROM's, just read around here at XDA. But often those issues are not a big problem for a XDA enthusiast, since he chooses a ROM that suits him and also know how to work around those issues. But custom ROM is not something I would recommend my sister or my parents or any non-techie friend.
There are many roms which have become very mature and to a stage with minimal issues. I installed a ICS for my brothers desire, there may be some issues out there but many he won't come across such as migration apps from titanium backup. However he still gets to experience e latest functionality that the OS brings and he seems much happier with as the experience has become more smoother and quicker. I agree that there will be some which will be very much beta most of its lifetime and the market should reflect the known issues such as we have on the forums here.