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Custom ROMs... Are they still worth it?

I have been a flashaholic for some time, probably the Eclair days, but I really question if it's worth it now days.
Most Lollipop and newer ROMs, except for Nexus devices, seem to have some kind of issues... If not immediately, then over time. While at the same time factory ROMs get better, partially because the base code is better and because many manufacturers are getting better at it.
And now, some features are being blocked just by unlocking of bootloader, even if you're otherwise stock, like Android Pay and others like Pok�©mon Go.
I find all I really do now on custom roms is some interface tweaks... Change the battery icon, add a clear all button to recents, and add arrows to the navigation bar, all minor stuff. Otherwise things like Nova Launcher, SwiftKey, and GSAM largely don't even require root anymore much less a custom ROM. Part of it used to be for battery life, but now, at least on modern Moto devices, most custom roms struggle just to match the battery life of stock.
I've tried every rom for this device I can find, here and other places, and they all seem to have a variety of things that fail, from minor annoyances to major services broken like GPS, or they fail over time.
My question for discussion is it still worth it, and why do you ROM or even root anymore?

I used to run a variety CM ROM's on Samsung Galaxy & Note devices. Starting with the Galaxy S2 Skyrocket and then every decent device Samsung released until the bootloaders stopped getting cracked.
There was always something that just didn't work right and I'd have random crashes.
But for me it was semi-worth it. I like to tinker and customize a lot.
Fast forward to the last thirteen months with my first non-Samsung since. A Motorola Moto X Pure.
Best damn phone I've ever had.
And there is CM available, but I quickly discovered AOSP ROM's like Dirty Unicorn and Broken OS.
Both these ROM's are FULL of customization not found in Xposed modules, and both ROM's have been 100% reliable.
I may have had one lockup in the last 13 months. And everything from GPS to Bluetooth, etc. have all worked perfectly.
So for me, yes... custom ROM's are more than worth it once you find the right ROM. My phone is heavily customized to my needs and super reliable.
The only thing lacking with MotoX was kernel development. Which I guess is where you start losing some reliability.
But it's also where I'm hoping the Pixel will get some good development and I'm looking forward to it. :good:

Non-rooted stock MM has been going great for me lately. Lots of great built in features like Moto actions, etc. I play Pokemon while walking on my breaks at work, and the last few updates forced my hand to go back to stock. I was (am) also a flashoholic, and it was mainly to have custom features and better performance on outdated and mfg abandoned phones. It was also a must for my Kindle Fire. I really don't see myself going away from stock MM (soon to be Nougat) on my MXPE at this point. I still flash ROMs on my G2 and Note 3 though, but barely use them outside the house.

CZ Eddie said:
I used to run a variety CM ROM's on Samsung Galaxy & Note devices. Starting with the Galaxy S2 Skyrocket and then every decent device Samsung released until the bootloaders stopped getting cracked.
There was always something that just didn't work right and I'd have random crashes.
But for me it was semi-worth it. I like to tinker and customize a lot.
Fast forward to the last thirteen months with my first non-Samsung since. A Motorola Moto X Pure.
Best damn phone I've ever had.
And there is CM available, but I quickly discovered AOSP ROM's like Dirty Unicorn and Broken OS.
Both these ROM's are FULL of customization not found in Xposed modules, and both ROM's have been 100% reliable.
I may have had one lockup in the last 13 months. And everything from GPS to Bluetooth, etc. have all worked perfectly.
So for me, yes... custom ROM's are more than worth it once you find the right ROM. My phone is heavily customized to my needs and super reliable.
The only thing lacking with MotoX was kernel development. Which I guess is where you start losing some reliability.
But it's also where I'm hoping the Pixel will get some good development and I'm looking forward to it. :good:
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Hmm... I have been on that "rom that shan't be named on XDA" for a while now. After a month started suffering SoD randomly and Play Services has stopped issues. DU 10.6 couldn't maintain GPS lock, but 10.5 was fine, seemed to effect only a handful of devices, lucky me.
Anyway, thanks for your input.

acejavelin said:
Hmm... I have been on that "rom that shan't be named on XDA" for a while now. After a month started suffering SoD randomly and Play Services has stopped issues. DU 10.6 couldn't maintain GPS lock, but 10.5 was fine, seemed to effect only a handful of devices, lucky me.
Anyway, thanks for your input.
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I also have been a avid user of the "rom that shan't be named on XDA" for many months now with no real issues. By chance have you tried a fresh install again. The latest release was back in late August a 4.9.1 version that made corrections to some issues on the 4.9 release.

Jimi Mack said:
I also have been a avid user of the "rom that shan't be named on XDA" for many months now with no real issues. By chance have you tried a fresh install again. The latest release was back in late August a 4.9.1 version that made corrections to some issues on the 4.9 release.
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Not yet... I have been on 4.9.1 already, and have been working with the devs a bit on it but seems mostly isolated to my device.

acejavelin said:
Not yet... I have been on 4.9.1 already, and have been working with the devs a bit on it but seems mostly isolated to my device.
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If anything try a fresh install and see if your issues were only from maybe a bad original install. If they show up again then I would say they are isolated to your device.

Jimi Mack said:
If anything try a fresh install and see if your issues were only from maybe a bad original install. If they show up again then I would say they are isolated to your device.
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I'm out of town for the weekend, in a rather rural area, so maybe will try tomorrow evening.

LMT pie, adaway, naptime, and general tweaking are the only reasons I root on a phone this close to stock android.
I didn't run custom ROMs on this phone until about August of this year. That was when battery life on aicp started to get comparable with stock for me. I can get most of the features I want from gravitybox, but I prefer them baked into the ROM. Xposed always seems a little problematic even when you don't install janky modules. I really like the notification led; missed that when I got this phone. I know we're supposed to use moto display, but I think that makes more sense on amoled than a great big LCD. Never had good luck with lightflow or the led enabler apps, but the custom roms work great. I really like slim recents too. I haven't found any modules that work to put KitKat like recents on M ROMs.

TruPureXMM + GravityBox
Loved my MXP so much I bought one for my mom who was hating her iPhone5. Kept it stock (for obvious reasons), so I have a good baseline to compare to my MXP running TruPureXMM + GravityBox. I've tried a bunch of ROMS for this phone but I always come back to TruPureXMM + GravityBox. Oh, and Tasker.
There is no way in hell I would go back to stock.

I used Cyanogenmod on my HTC Incredible and Verizon Galaxy Nexus. Didn't root or ROM for a while due to using the stock ROM on the 2nd generation Verizon Moto X 2014 and stock Android on the Nexus 5X and 6P. But, I had the itch to unlock the bootloader on my Moto X Pure, due to curiousity, and because it's likely that we will only see one more Nougat update. I tried CM13, but I was getting UI freeze ups and slowdowns on multiple builds, so I tried Dirty Unicorns 10.6, and that has been working fine. I may return to the stock ROM after the Nougat update, but in the meantime, I'm happy experimenting with different ROMs on the Pure.

I'd be cool with stock- as long as I could debloat it.
And it was updated fairly quickly.

Stock for this phone is great. Better than most. Only issue really is Moto is so far behind on security updates. They are on what, May I believe? CM13 is Oct.
Sent from my XT1575 using XDA-Developers mobile app

Stock here, never a issue. With Nougat in the horizon, a custom ROM is a big NO for me.
Enviado desde mi XT1575 mediante Tapatalk

I would say TruPureX with a few mods is a very solid and stable way to go. I myself am on TurboROM which has ceased current development, but have ZERO issues. AICP's MM build is the most feature filled and works flawlessly aside from one issue I don't have on other ROMs, where my bank app only shows black when using the camera to deposit checks, making AICP unusable for me, but highly recommended for others to try as that's the absolute only issue I could find after a week full of testing (Kind of what I do as a hobby is push ROMs to their limits to find the issues.)
So in short: TruPureXMM, TurboROM, AICP - are all great choices without the negatives associated with many custom ROMs.

Pretty sure we are all here to push the ROMs to he limits lol?
Sent from my XT1575 using XDA-Developers mobile app

Speaking of custom ROMs, I just searched android file host for Clark and there are new 7.0 builds of zephyros, pure nexus, aosp, and cos.
I'm in a limited data area so I haven't downloaded or tried them out yet.

jason2678 said:
Speaking of custom ROMs, I just searched android file host for Clark and there are new 7.0 builds of zephyros, pure nexus, aosp, and cos.
I'm in a limited data area so I haven't downloaded or tried them out yet.
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Running the latest Zephyr after trying AICP and CM14. Uses substratum and SuperSU. Camera recording isn't working with snapdragon camera (FC), google camera (records but doesn't save). Had an android.phone FC but replaced with google phone/contacts and no problems so far. Still need to test speakerphone and bluetooth, but assuming those work as well as 6.0.1 I'm pretty impressed by Birdman.

Any roms that anyone can recommend? CM13 and OrionOS both have very bad stuttering after some time of use. Has anyone tried Pure Nexus or Slim6? Just need a good daily driver that can handle games without heating up so hot, and handle most social apps great...

jason2678 said:
Speaking of custom ROMs, I just searched android file host for Clark and there are new 7.0 builds of zephyros, pure nexus, aosp, and cos.
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Click to collapse
Seriously? We've got like one and a half here.

Interest check: LineageOS 13.0 nightlies for Mi 4c

Hi all,
Over the past few months I have been building CyanogenMod (now LineageOS) 13.0 for my personal use. It's based off Kumajaya's sources and was roughly parallel to emfox's builds. I'm doing this because I'm dissatisfied with the stability and reliability of existing ROMs. (I can't claim that mine is any better, however it does put me in a position to debug the issues.)
This is an interest check. I am considering publishing my nightlies for people to download. I know that everyone will give a blanket "yes" to the question "should I publish my nightlies for people to download?". So instead I would like to ask:
Given the other excellent Mi 4c ROMs, including @Hikari no Tenshi's LineageOS 14.1 builds, Resurrection Remix N and Team Superluminal CM13.0, what reason would people have to use Yet Another ROM?
(Long time reader, first time poster!)

This will sound kind of cliche but , the more options , the better . Maybe some of us will find your ROM more suited to their daily use or something .
So yeah definitely share it man

philipnzw said:
This will sound kind of cliche but , the more options , the better . Maybe some of us will find your ROM more suited to their daily use or something .
So yeah definitely share it man
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second this! More roms/more activity keeps this device alive longer too

1. Your development wil keep this device alive longer.
2.(maybe) attract other dev/team to build rom for this device.
3.it will make your rom better,by sharing and let many people using it, will helps you find problem faster and improve it.
so yes!

Always useful to have more I have an Aqua (mi4s) and the rom scene is very poor :/ a few Libra roms do support it but in recent months even the SD card support has gone making for quite a sad outlook for the device. If there were someone building nightlies, it would be ace as from time to time you might be able to dip into the aqua stuff too and we'd all appreciate that
Whatever you decide, it's a nice thing to even consider doing for the community. You have my thanks

honestly i think Marshmallow is waste of time, most of the people are interested only in newest Android and i don't see much interest since we have official nougat ROMs from Mokee, AICP and Resurrection remix
if you want to do something different there is Nougat AOSP ROM missing, blobs from Xiaomi are already available, Nexus 5X as well, so...

more roms, more options. i want my mi4c looks better than Nexus 5X

terence.tan said:
Given the other excellent Mi 4c ROMs, including @Hikari no Tenshi's LineageOS 14.1 builds, Resurrection Remix N and Team Superluminal CM13.0, what reason would people have to use Yet Another ROM?
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Click to collapse
It really depends on what you would have to offer. The available CM13 (or are we calling them LO13 now?) ROMs are TeamSuperluminal's and Emfox's builds which are really not actively maintained anymore, although they are pretty damn stable. Except of course the few bugs that seem to go unfixed -- the touchscreen bug, which appears to be really complicated to fix without newer Xiaomi's kernel sources, the 2% battery bug which is present in TeamSuperluminal's builds and isn't a gamebreaker, and the way the SoC uses its cores in most of the ROMs based on Kumajaya's kernel sources (always active big cores) which results in lower battery life.
If you solved some of these problems, expect users to flock to your ROM. If not, I wouldn't bother, since you'll just be flooded with requests for fixing stuff that isn't broken in the first place. In fact, expect the second even if you deliver on the first.
I don't maintain any ROMs so I'm not one to give advice, but it seems to me it's a lot of work, and that you're paid with criticism and demands for more of your time. Get in contact with a ROM author and ask them for advice on this

Thanks for the thoughts.
As far as I can figure, there are 3 things people want:
Features/being on the cutting edge
Performance
Stability/reliability
We want all 3 but unfortunately it is a trade-off. In particular it takes special effort to achieve stability when combined with the other 2.
The CM14.1 builds satisfy the people who want to live on the cutting edge. The Xceed ROM is built for speed for those who think that Snapdragon 808 should perform like the top-tier chipset that it is
But out of all the ROMs I've tried (haven't tried the CM14.1 builds yet but have tried most of the others) I've had the following stability problems:
Screen freezes, requiring reboot
Sleeps of death
Random reboots in the middle of the night (waking up at 3 a.m. to find my phone clicking at me on the "decrypt your device" screen)
Stuttering or hangups
OpenGL-based games crashing
And that's not including the well-publicised touchscreen and battery problems.
So my personal strategy is:
Marshmallow build. Sorry for those who want Nougat, but I don't consider it stable enough (yet). Plus, all the proprietary MIUI vendor blobs from Xiaomi are targeted at Android L, and getting them working on Android M is hard enough already...
For the kernel, track CAF closely. Probably take their Android N release on the assumption that it's stable
Use as few proprietary blobs as possible; build from CAF source where available. This is what most developers are doing already
Use the most recent proprietary MIUI vendor blobs from Xiaomi, on the assumption that they've been buillding this version of MIUI on Android L for such a long time that it's stable
Avoid importing proprietary blobs from other devices (Nexus 5X, Moto X Pure etc.) where possible for licensing reasons. I don't intend to try and make this an offical LineageOS build, but this might be important for whoever attempts in future...
All this is difficult and @ketut.kumajaya and friends put in some impressive hacks to get it to work in the first place. I can't promise that I can build on this! But if I ever get to a stage where it's fit for consumption, I'll publish something...

in my opinion this will be great for development on Libra devices, i think Nougat rom with clean source will be great for user like me sir. For now iam using RR Nougat and for me its stable for daily use, if we can make Libra official for Lineage it can open other rom change to get official build too. Best luck for you sir and cant wait for your contribution

Did anyone just stick with the stock Cyanogen OS?

I realise this is probably a bit of a controversial question to ask on XDA, however has anyone else just stuck with the stock Cyanogen OS on their OnePlus One?
I was thinking today when reading about Lineage OS I have pretty much kept my OnePlus One stock since i got it in July 2014, out the box Cyanogen OS had everything i'd otherwise flash a custom rom for. I did try some early Marshmallow roms around February last year, however due to various bugs I went back to stock and waited for the Marshmallow OTA.
These days i'd certainly take stability over having the latest and greatest version of Android. Of course I don't intend that as any disrespect to the developers on here, more than anything I think I just got tired of tinkering with my phone and have enjoyed just using it.
However I do plan on flashing Lineage OS in the future, which seems quite strange after not flashing a custom rom for almost a year.
It's great to see XDA is still going strong, even more so that the OnePlus currently has the most users of unofficial installs of Lineage OS :good:

My father does have the official builds hahahah we both have the opo but he's okay if it works, so keeping it simple is the best way for him.

As far as Cyanogen OS goes
It's bad and bloated
I tried to stay on it, and did for a bit when security updates were being applied
But had a bunch of reboots and overheating issues. Had to dump it.

Was on stock COS till today since i couldnt find a rom that suited my needs and passed safetynet. Today i flashed lineage OS official, everything is smooth and it passes safety net (i can now use my banking app while running nougat). So yeah today is the day i left COS and marshmallow

I don't even know why I'm still on official CyanOS. The screen time is dreadful. I think I'll give LOS a chance in the near future. It can't be any worse than 3-4 hours of screen time, what I'm getting now with official COS.

Cyanogen may be sold in the future and they can push harmful updates to your device, so I'd say updating is a very good choice.

I am keeping it. I would love that someone could recommend me a 6.0 rom alternative though, because can't switch to Nougat. MM has xposed and i need youtube background playback.

I do sometimes think maybe I should have stayed stock but then I think of all the fun I've had
Now I need my phone to work for calls and alarms as a minimum so take less risks now
I'm still on marsh 2.0 from way back last august

i would but cyanogen 13.1 has a problem with the mobile network.........

Luck Patcher
Fatsodonkey said:
I am keeping it. I would love that someone could recommend me a 6.0 rom alternative though, because can't switch to Nougat. MM has xposed and i need youtube background playback.
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You can try Lucky Patcher. They have a custom patch for YouTube background playback. Works on Nougat. Hope this helps

For anyone who wants the best stable experience, I'd suggest sultanxda's CM13 ROM. May it be for girlfriends, dad's, whoever. That ROM will never fall behind.
Cheers.

Well I am still sticking with rooted cyanogen os. I have color camera, viper4android, Sony Media Apps like Walkman and xposed.
Can anyone enlighten me whether noughat build supports viper4android and a good camera mod like color os or cameranext mod? If so I don't mind installing it immediately..

I'm still on stock ROM, because I'm using NFC payments on the tube. Battery life with screen on is dreadful. I would upgrade in a heartbeat should there be any ROM that's signed by Google. Is there any hope to get that ?

My story sounds a lot like the OP. I got my OPO as soon as the invites started going out (I had signed up long before release) and I just couldn't wait to get it and start rooting and TWRPing and ROMing. I tried just about every ROM that was out there including OOS. But, as is often the case with enthusiast ROMS, there always seemed to be some little something somewhere that didn't quite work right. I also had terrible problems with the radios on almost all ROMs including the stock ROM. That got corrected during the second or third update though.
I have a lot of smartphones, so eventually, I moved onto other phones and other tinkering. Then one day, not too long ago, I wondered what it would be like to restore my OPO back to factory stock - no root; reset the tamper bit - and update to the latest official update - so I did.
I have to say that the OPO has never been as stable and reliable as it is in that condition. Best radio reception since I got the phone, silky smooth Android experience (even on two year old hardware), and rarely any crashes or FCs. Truly a STABLE phone.
But even as good as it is running now, I still worry about not getting any future updates and in particular security patches, so I will be looking to flash a good stable build of Lineage OS after reading up on other users' experiences.
Still have to say though that through all of my phones (Galaxy's, Lumias, iPhones, and everything in between), I'd still put my OPO up there with my trusted iPhone 6S for reliability and the "It Just Works" factor.

Hi! I'm running COS, the latest update i received via OTA. I'll wait for a stable build for Nougat, also, there are some xposed modules I cannot live without so i guess i wait for a little bit.

Fatsodonkey said:
I am keeping it. I would love that someone could recommend me a 6.0 rom alternative though, because can't switch to Nougat. MM has xposed and i need youtube background playback.
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Which Xposed module let's you do that? please let me know. I know I can search but can't get one that works.

Fatsodonkey said:
I am keeping it. I would love that someone could recommend me a 6.0 rom alternative though, because can't switch to Nougat. MM has xposed and i need youtube background playback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's an unofficial Lineage OS 13 for our bacon, here in XDA. Stable no issues and xposed compatible

LineageOS?

I've been using this phone for some time now and I really like its features, big battery and stuff, but I would really love to install LineageOS on the phone, that's what I've always used.
How long do you think it will take before we will see a version of LineageOS for this phone and will we get 15 oder 16? Version 16 would be better. LineageOS 15 with Android 8.1 is kind of obsolete and not worth working on and installing if there's a newer version of Android, is it!?
Thanks.

I have already flashed Lineages OS 15 few days ago but I switched to Pixel Experience. Auto brightness is not working. Notch doesn't fit good but I have fixed this through Xposed. Google "GSI List" and you will find many roms you can flash including Android Pie. P.S: I'd say 50% of roms on the list can boot.

richterscale said:
I've been using this phone for some time now and I really like its features, big battery and stuff, but I would really love to install LineageOS on the phone, that's what I've always used.
How long do you think it will take before we will see a version of LineageOS for this phone and will we get 15 oder 16? Version 16 would be better. LineageOS 15 with Android 8.1 is kind of obsolete and not worth working on and installing if there's a newer version of Android, is it!?
Thanks.
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I'm waiting for the official lineage os too!

still thinking whether to buy rn6pro or rn5pro. hmm. maybe i wait a bit.

Which rom for less-technical family member?

I'm moving on from my Moto G3 Osprey, which still has the stock ROM, and giving it to a family member who's been stuck on an aging Android Jelly Bean phone. Before I hand it over, since I'm wiping the device anyways, I've been considering flashing another ROM.
I and the other family member are both on T-mobile. The speculated Band 12 support was one reason I originally got the G3, and so when Moto dropped B12 rather than update for VoLTE support I was disappointed; not getting a Nougat update was a further downer. If I can fix that before handing it over, it'll really help make the phone more useful for them. But I don't need the latest and greatest and still-debugging-what-doesn't-work-iest. I'd flash this once and hand it over, and this family member is not very technically oriented. It needs to be usable and stable. What should I grab?
Someone asked a similar question a year ago and the answers were split between "stick with stock" and "get official lineage 14.1." But it sounds like since then the official maintainer stopped and people have focused a lot of effort on 15.x roms. Is one of those (e.g. althafvly's?) a safe bet? Or is it better to use official 14.1 despite its less-maintained status, or even to forgo volte and just give them a stock phone?

BTW I'll also mention that Bluetooth and the flashlight have been on the fritz and I've wondered whether flashing the ROM might alleviate those problems. Maybe that's a battery issue; I've replaced the screen before and replacing the battery doesn't seem that much more involved so I might do that before handing it over.

I would suggest you go with AOSPExtended v5.8 it'll has all the latest security patches, but it isn't maintained now because the dev is working on Pie now. It's a stable ROM with quite a lot of features. I get about 2:30 to 3 hours of SoT with moderate to heavy usage on a bad battery(I intend to replace it) from it. Other options you can look at are Lineage 14 the last official build or AOSPExtended Nougat, both solid Nougat ROMs but you'll miss out on the security patches. I moved through both of these to AOSPEx v5.8.
However there are other ROMs you might look at, I haven't used them though
Pixel Experience Oreo
Resurrection Remix Oreo

Lineage 14.1 is the best suited for your needs. It is stable and will be updated (once or twice in a month) so you will be getting latest patches.It it most close-to-stock Rom