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Help choosing a ROM.

There's so many Roms here it's hard to choose a place to start. Can I get some suggestions of a good stable ROM that brings improvements over stock as well as everything working like cellular stuff.I just feel like a lot of the Roms seem like they are very similar and I'm not sure what to try. Thanks.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

It's all a matter of personal preference.
But, personally, I would suggest BeerGang. It's still technically in the Alpha stage, but I've been running it for the past day and have been completely satisfied. No random reboots, no random FCs, and it has a good deal of features without having too many -- I'm not a fan of ROMs like BeanStalk, CM, etc because there are so many different options to tinker with, and many of them affect the stability and speed of the ROM. The dev (benjamin.j.goodwin) is consistently providing support for it, and I only seeing it getting better.
After BeerGang I'd recommend Purity. I was a long time fan of Purity for all of the same reasons I like BeerGang. Purity is also past the Alpha stage, and offers a little more in features than BeerGang does as of now. It comes built with BusyBox installed (if you're into script optimization,) and is a solid experience for me during my short time using it.

soltheman said:
It's all a matter of personal preference.
But, personally, I would suggest BeerGang. It's still technically in the Alpha stage, but I've been running it for the past day and have been completely satisfied. No random reboots, no random FCs, and it has a good deal of features without having too many -- I'm not a fan of ROMs like BeanStalk, CM, etc because there are so many different options to tinker with, and many of them affect the stability and speed of the ROM. The dev (benjamin.j.goodwin) is consistently providing support for it, and I only seeing it getting better.
After BeerGang I'd recommend Purity. I was a long time fan of Purity for all of the same reasons I like BeerGang. Purity is also past the Alpha stage, and offers a little more in features than BeerGang does as of now. It comes built with BusyBox installed (if you're into script optimization,) and is a solid experience for me during my short time using it.
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OK thanks a lot I'll check those out. I know everyone says it's up to preference and I agree but with the nexus 5 there are way too many roms to just try them all out lol so it'd be nice to have somewhere to start. So do either of those have the themer app like from cm? Either way I'm gonna try it but just curious. I think I'll try purity first and see if I like it.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

Try this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=46344624

this will be closed in 3-2-1

I do like the looks of beergang it is on my list to try. If you want aosp style the big one is CM. There are a lot of ROMs that use cm as a base. I like paranoid personally or pacman. If you want something newer try omni it is well written runs almost flawless and has a write up here on xda. It has some unique features as well like double window.
Also in before close.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Cataclysm with Franco Kernel runs great.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Cataclysm with Bricked kernel and stock kernel ran well.
Currently I'm running Beanstalk and bricked.

Thanks guys I know threads asking for the best ROM aren't allowed but I was just asking for suggestions so I can know what to start trying because there are too many similar ones. I didn't mean to make an unallowed thread. Sorry about that.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

Stability along with WiFi Direct & OTG Support?
abdel12345 said:
There's so many Roms here it's hard to choose a place to start. Can I get some suggestions of a good stable ROM that brings improvements over stock as well as everything working like cellular stuff.I just feel like a lot of the Roms seem like they are very similar and I'm not sure what to try. Thanks.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Coming from a Samsung Galaxy S3 on T-Mobile and running Wicked ROM to the Nexus 5. Overall, it's a nice phone, but a few little things I miss are:
WiFi Direct - it's in there on KitKat, but no way to share anything unless you use/purchase separate apps that are incompatible with each other? What gives?
OTG support - I know they want to push "the cloud" on everybody and I knew going in that this phone didn't have microSD support, but planned on using an OTG cable to swap out pics/videos, etc but again this is not usable unless you purchase another app?
I was hoping that for once with a Nexus phone, that I'd be able to avoid the root/Custom ROM/update/repeat cycle, but these missing features are a big disappointment for me.
Anyone know which Custom ROM(s) include the features I mention above, along with good support and stability? Or is this the curse of living on "the bleeding edge?"
I look forward to your suggestions!
DownloadBob

P.Mobile said:
this will be closed in 3-2-1
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zero
Thread closed

Why root a Nexus 5?

Hi guys,
Just got a Nexus 5, had previously had a Samsung Galaxy S3.
My S3 was rooted, mainly to get rid of carrier bloatware and later because I wanted the Android 4.2 camera with Photosphere (my carrier was stuck on 4.1 until a few months ago).
As time wore on my device had numerous problems ultimately I felt related to rooting, I could never find ROM's with at least one major glitch. I ended up on a stock ROM for most the time with the only root change was flashing the 4.2 camera for Photosphere. Rooting in general I found caused more headaches than it was worth.
Anyways, I just got the Nexus 5 and have no real intention to root it. Since it's devoid of carrier bloatware and it runs super fast and responsive, just wondering what the real credible benefits to rooting it are? (and voiding warranty in the process)??
I don't see a lot of bloatware on the device, it's going to get constant updates from Google (as opposed to devices depandant on a carrier), I don't really need to overclock or mess with kernals on an already fast device.
Am I missing something here?

Sianspheric said:
Hi guys,
Just got a Nexus 5, had previously had a Samsung Galaxy S3.
My S3 was rooted, mainly to get rid of carrier bloatware and later because I wanted the Android 4.2 camera with Photosphere (my carrier was stuck on 4.1 until a few months ago).
As time wore on my device had numerous problems ultimately I felt related to rooting, I could never find ROM's with at least one major glitch. I ended up on a stock ROM for most the time with the only root change was flashing the 4.2 camera for Photosphere. Rooting in general I found caused more headaches than it was worth.
Anyways, I just got the Nexus 5 and have no real intention to root it. Since it's devoid of carrier bloatware and it runs super fast and responsive, just wondering what the real credible benefits to rooting it are? (and voiding warranty in the process)??
I don't see a lot of bloatware on the device, it's going to get constant updates from Google (as opposed to devices depandant on a carrier), I don't really need to overclock or mess with kernals on an already fast device.
Am I missing something here?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some people prefer different launchers or ROMs or to have access to certain functions (e.g. full backup) that require root. I've had my N5 for a month and haven't felt the need for it, so I'm still stock, locked, unrooted.

Xposed for me.
Most of the mods from Custom ROMs with the OTA updates from Google
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium HD app

Xposed framework, Adaway, Lmt launcher, AppOps, AutomateIt Pro... Basicly everything to take control over your device.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

So.....ad blocking apps, minor tweaks, custom ROM's.
eh, not really compelling reasons for me I guess.

Sianspheric said:
So.....ad blocking apps, minor tweaks, custom ROM's.
eh, not really compelling reasons for me I guess.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wouldn't call them minor tweaks at all. There is an extremely wide variety of things that require your phone to be rooted. Often times an app will have limited functionality without root.
Please note that rooting your phone has nothing to do with using a custom rom. (You can in fact have a custom rom that is not rooted) Your problems with your prior phone were not in any way as a result of rooting the phone. If you had problems with the rom (sometimes custom roms have broken components) that has nothing to do with having root access.
At this point, I'd be willing to bet the most common usage of the phone at this point (amongst users of this site) are those who are rooted, but still using the stock rom. More and more users are migrating to the custom roms, but this is because rom development takes a bit of time with major releases.

AdAway is the main reason for me - I HATE adverts with a passion!
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

Sianspheric said:
So.....ad blocking apps, minor tweaks, custom ROM's.
eh, not really compelling reasons for me I guess.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what you consider "minor tweaks", might be a big deal for someone else. Tastes differ.
i root because of 1 main reason, i paid for the device and i believe i should be able to have full control over it.
Another thing is, whatever i do with my phone, i always know what i'm doing and why i'm doing it, so the odds of screwing something up are very little. In case i do need to claim warranty, i know how to set everything back.

Sianspheric said:
So.....ad blocking apps, minor tweaks, custom ROM's.
eh, not really compelling reasons for me I guess.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ehm...why did you buy a nexus? Actually i don't even know what you are doing on xda. No offense but... Sound more like an iPhone kind a guy...
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

It's up to you whether to root or not. Whatever problems you had with your previous device, it wasn't due to rooting persay, but rather what you did with root access. Rooting doesn't change anything, it just gives you administrative access to the operating system. Running un-rooted is analogous to accessing your desktop PC through a guest account. Rooting your Android device gives you full access like you have on your desktop as as an administrator.

He just wants to know the benefits. No need to harp on him for not wanting to root. If anything Nexus 5 has less reasons to be rooted then OEM phones.

bblzd said:
He just wants to know the benefits. No need to harp on him for not wanting to root. If anything Nexus 5 has less reasons to be rooted then OEM phones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe someday he'll want to tether.

AT LEAST UNLOCK THE BOOTLOADER
Fastboot OEM Unlock
That easy, it'll erase EVERYTHING. So if you do it now you won't lose much. Do it later when you want to root (like my mother and myself) you'll have to unlock and lose everything.
If you ever need you return it just lock it again it's easy. And you won't lose ANYTHING for relocking it.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Two words....
Franco kernel
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Titanium back up because I'm too lazy to reinstall all of my apps on my previous device.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Not much reason to if your main use is as a "daily driver".
Mine is rooted mainly due to needing to use it for development work related to my job, but ad blocking and several xposed modules would require root anyways. That and I just can't help but mess with stuff like CPU frequency/voltage settings, etc.

Ben36 said:
Two words....
Franco kernel
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
I second this.

I was previously on Galaxy S2 rooted. I'd tested some custom roms like chamaleon, cm, but at last, what i realized that I needed wasn't a lot of new features i only wanted a good battery performance and a fc and random reboots free phone.
So I returned to stock roms with the more stock-like rooted kernel with Xposed and some additions. At last I got a good battery performance to keep the phone full day without charging.
Now that my N5 is with me for about 6 or 7 weeks I don't need rooting, modding ... nothing. The performance for my daily use is about 30 hours between charges with almost 3 hours with screen on.
That is all I need!
And for backups (i've payed for titanium backup app for my S2) now I use ADB from command line and it's enought for me
Also, the Nexus in this conditions hasn't hanged yet.
It spent more than 350 hours until I decided to change to Dart and I had to restart the phone. this is much better than my old S2 that needed two or three weekly reboots even with stock rom.
So, i'm very happy with my non-rooted N5 but if I need to root it in the near future it will be not a problem to me doing it.

I use it for Titanium Backup myself, whose backups I periodically have uploaded to Box.com. Obviously it's there for when I want to change phone and want to restore app data, especially for game saves, but you also never know if your phone is going to malfunction and you have to wipe or get lost/stolen. I think it's pretty useful to have an app that automatically takes care of backing up your data for you.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

http://lifehacker.com/top-10-reasons-to-root-your-android-phone-1079161983
Sent from my Nexus 5

Why Root Nexus 5?

Hey guys, I have been rooting pretty much all of my phones in the past. Started with the first Nexus, had all of the variations as well as HTC One, S3/S4.
I ended up rooting my Nexus 5, ran custom roms for about a month now. Today, ended up returning to stock because I was having some odd issues with service, which ended up being T-Mobile. I am more of a person who loves stock Android and many added features that we get with having Root, I have no need for.
What amazes me, is for some reason I find unrooted Nexus 5 with ART to be snappier than with many roms and kernels I have tried, and battery life seems to be on par if not a little better. Am I crazy, or have others experienced same results?

ART is snappier than dalvik. If you are running art unrooted but not rooted then its a pointless comparison
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Xposed framework
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

There's no phone that can't be improved and it starts with getting access to change files in /system ala root access. Everything to control over things that help with battery life, adjusting the color of the screen, performance mods like RAM management, themes, Xposed mods that do everything from hacking Pandora to modifying your status bar/lockscreen/settings/etc, and the list goes on and on. I've never heard of anyone that has ever had a smartphone that didn't want to change SOMETHING about it. Whether or not they felt it was worth their time and effort, is another story.

air2k57 said:
Hey guys, I have been rooting pretty much all of my phones in the past. Started with the first Nexus, had all of the variations as well as HTC One, S3/S4.
I ended up rooting my Nexus 5, ran custom roms for about a month now. Today, ended up returning to stock because I was having some odd issues with service, which ended up being T-Mobile. I am more of a person who loves stock Android and many added features that we get with having Root, I have no need for.
What amazes me, is for some reason I find unrooted Nexus 5 with ART to be snappier than with many roms and kernels I have tried, and battery life seems to be on par if not a little better. Am I crazy, or have others experienced same results?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why not root a Nexus 5? Would you use your desktop PC as a guest user? You're not crazy, many custom firmwares will perform inferiorly compared to stock, but that's the trade-off of using custom ROMs and kernels. They're developed my members of the Android community like you and I, not by the engineers at Google so they're not going to be as clean-cut as stock firmware. Whatever issues you ran into were the result of whatever custom firmware you were running, they weren't because of rooting.

i have typically always rooted my prior android phones. This N5 is a rare exception. There were only two instances where I felt I needed root but fortunately there are other ways to accomplish it - tether and triband for sprint. The first 100 times flashing roms was cool. Then I ran into rom fatigue. Certainly if you have the time and the inclination it is a nice thing to have though. I will admit it would be nice to have root so I can run the modded apk for email so that damn exchange client doesn't force me to use a pin with a short timeout. It is however a compromise well worth it to me.

Because I always own my phones...and I mean really own it.

because it's a nexus device and we have some FANTASTIC devs cooking up very useful and highly optimized goodies, just for us

rootSU said:
ART is snappier than dalvik. If you are running art unrooted but not rooted then its a pointless comparison
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I am comparing ART to ART and Dalvik to Dalvik.

If not for just one app, and one app only....Ad Away. I absolutely despise ads being thrown in my face on my phone or on any web browser.

I root my nexus 5 within 24 hrs of unwrapping it from its box..
Sent from my Nexus 5 via XDA Premium HD

AdFree, Greenify and XPosed Framework.
Bio: I was born and I haven't died yet.

Adaway, Titanium Backup, Xposed Framework. Also to lower DPI.
Sent from my TouchPad using xda app-developers app

Working App Ops require root.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.findsdk.apppermission
I'm surprised so many apps can send sms/mms.

I just root for Adfree, gravitybox, Jishnu's Camera, and greenify.
I set up multiboot, but I'll always have a stock odex rooted ROM.
Multiboot is for whenever I feel like trying something new, like Omni, or Ubuntu Touch when it comes out for the n5.
For now though, sticking with stock rooted.

For me at the moment , there is no custom ROM/kernels as smooth as stock are.
Envoyé de mon Nexus 5

air2k57 said:
I am comparing ART to ART and Dalvik to Dalvik.
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Then you must have done something wrong to make your custom version slower. Don't think I could do that if I tried
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AndrasLOHF said:
If not for just one app, and one app only....Ad Away. I absolutely despise ads being thrown in my face on my phone or on any web browser.
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Click to collapse
Adaway doesn't work properly on nexus 5 for me!. stock rooted.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium HD app

DvWatt said:
For me at the moment , there is no custom ROM/kernels as smooth as stock are.
Envoyé de mon Nexus 5
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Sounds like someone flashed the wrong rom or has some bad luck. There are very few times I have flashed a rom that I didn't feel was smooth and generally it was my fault from playing with stuff like kernel settings.

air2k57 said:
I am comparing ART to ART and Dalvik to Dalvik.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stock kernel has very good performance. Custom kernels don't necessarily have to improve performance, many of them aim to improve battery life.

Good bye Galaxy S4 and HELLOOO Nexus 5

I just took a gamble and canceled my Verizon account and switched to AT&T just to get the Nexus 5. I must say I do not miss the S4 one bit. Google made it so easy to root and unlock the bootloader. The phone is incredibly fast! I like how its simple to use. An example is the camera. You open it and shoot pictures. Samsung camera had so many different features that just wanted needed and probably bogged down the phone.
Now that I have my phone setup I just wanted to see if theres anything you guys recommend. I am rooted with the bootloader unlocked but I kept the stock rom. With the stock rom I got Gravity box to let me customize the rom to my liking. I also got greenify(donate version).
Is there anything in particular you guys recommend?
Heres a list of apps Im using.
Weather:1Weather
Launcher:Nova Launcher
File Browser:Solid Explorer
Backup:Titanium Backup
Power Toggles
Do you guys recommend anything else useful or cool? Am I wrong for not wanting to do roms? I just want the most stable I can get. Ive noticed in the past that once you start romming that things become unstable.

ponzi314 said:
I just took a gamble and canceled my Verizon account and switched to AT&T just to get the Nexus 5. I must say I do not miss the S4 one bit. Google made it so easy to root and unlock the bootloader. The phone is incredibly fast! I like how its simple to use. An example is the camera. You open it and shoot pictures. Samsung camera had so many different features that just wanted needed and probably bogged down the phone.
Now that I have my phone setup I just wanted to see if theres anything you guys recommend. I am rooted with the bootloader unlocked but I kept the stock rom. With the stock rom I got Gravity box to let me customize the rom to my liking. I also got greenify(donate version).
Is there anything in particular you guys recommend?
Heres a list of apps Im using.
Weather:1Weather
Launcher:Nova Launcher
File Browser:Solid Explorer
Backup:Titanium Backup
Power Toggles
Do you guys recommend anything else useful or cool? Am I wrong for not wanting to do roms? I just want the most stable I can get. Ive noticed in the past that once you start romming that things become unstable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's nothing wrong with flashing a ROM. Makes the phone far more customizable and in most cases, improves performance. If you don't like it just revert back.
A root app I would recommend is 'Greenify'. Some people believe it is useless, however on my old single core phone, it was quite dramatic. So you might as well use it.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

james1196 said:
There's nothing wrong with flashing a ROM. Makes the phone far more customizable and in most cases, improves performance. If you don't like it just revert back.
A root app I would recommend is 'Greenify'. Some people believe it is useless, however on my old single core phone, it was quite dramatic. So you might as well use it.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea i got the donate version of that. Mainly because one night i charged phone to 100% and unplugged it. In the morning it was at 75% I was shocked. I put greenify on there and did the same thing. What a difference. Work up with 97% battery.

Congrats I did the same but went with tmo about 9 months ago. So happy!
Check out xposed and the module gravity box. It's all I run. It's all you need to run (imo).... Root required but I use stock Google rom with stock kernel. No need for custom kernels or roms (imo)
Fwiw I don't use anything else. No need to greenify anything (again imo)
Nexus5

Question about cataclysm / ROMs in general

Hey all. I had the n5 a while back and at the time cataclysm was running great. I moved into a note 3 and within a month or so I really started missing my n5. So now I'm back. I see theres ALOT more ROMs and the cataclysm thread was locked. I flashed beanstalk and it's AWESOME but final fantasy dimensions and ff5 aren't working. PLUS, other games make the device hot enough to Fry an egg. So my question is kinda twofold: 1) will cataclysm (last updated in DEC of 2013 still work, and 2) what ROM out there has a great amount of customization but still runs games well?
Thanks so much.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

1. Yes
2. Try them and find out what you like
Sent from my GT-N7105 using xda app-developers app

Cataclysm got closed because it was just people continually posting about where the dev was. It's still fine. The download link is still the latest version 4.4.2 so if you wanna use it, do
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

pathtologos said:
Hey all. I had the n5 a while back and at the time cataclysm was running great. I moved into a note 3 and within a month or so I really started missing my n5. So now I'm back. I see theres ALOT more ROMs and the cataclysm thread was locked. I flashed beanstalk and it's AWESOME but final fantasy dimensions and ff5 aren't working. PLUS, other games make the device hot enough to Fry an egg. So my question is kinda twofold: 1) will cataclysm (last updated in DEC of 2013 still work, and 2) what ROM out there has a great amount of customization but still runs games well?
Thanks so much.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Cataclysm has and will always work. The customization based in Cataclysm ROM are essentially those that you can't get with apps. So things like LED notification, you will have to find a 3rd party app. However, there are other useful customization implemented like a fifth number row on AOSP keyboard (the 5th row of numbers can also be resized). Sometimes customization can be a bit of a hassle but once you finish it, you won't go to another ROM. Some features just grow on you I haven't switched ROMs in ages (or rather I went to try other ROMs but i went back after trying it for 5 minutes).
2. I believe Final Fantasy is just a layout issue and more of an app problem maybe? But at any rate, the Nexus 5 and its Snapdragon 800 has pretty much current generation hardware. It can run anything fine (so long as the app is coded properly and not poorly like Gameloft apps are).