Why use custom roms? [relatively] new to Droid - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello!!
I have just purchased a Galaxy 2 and it should arrive Friday or Monday.
I have been using the N900 for around 18 months and absolutely love the FREEDOM of a full Linux stack (Maemo).
Got too old and slow.
Upgrade time. SGS2 time!
Now. Rooting looks relatively easy, but why do you guys install custom roms?
Also, if anyone here can help with a small side question, the N900 has a FULL xterm with all available commands (/bin).
How do I go about getting such commands under android?
On Maemo it was as easy as "apt-get install //missing-command//"
I installed bash on my NItdroid (android on n900) but there are a few commands not available. Nothing special, just things like "history" and Possibly "nano" etc.
I had virtually zero commands on my old Xperia X10 (rooted), which is why I went back to N900. I'm a terminal geek!
Im used to having full Linux repo's.
I can build custom kernels for N900 and other Omap 3 and Omap 4 devices, but they are u-boot kernels, so I have to start learning again!!
Also, is there a terminal program which is green text on black background?? I can only find white on blue! YUCK! not nearly nerdy enough!

More often than not custom ROM's offer much better battery life and are faster and have many many added features which stock ROM's do not have, also most custom ROM's will not have Samsung bloatware in them which again will save you much battery,you can if you wish apply some themes on custom ROM's,the list is endless.

kingoddball said:
Hello!!
I have just purchased a Galaxy 2 and it should arrive Friday or Monday.
I have been using the N900 for around 18 months and absolutely love the FREEDOM of a full Linux stack (Maemo).
Got too old and slow.
Upgrade time. SGS2 time!
Now. Rooting looks relatively easy, but why do you guys install custom roms?
Also, if anyone here can help with a small side question, the N900 has a FULL xterm with all available commands (/bin).
How do I go about getting such commands under android?
On Maemo it was as easy as "apt-get install //missing-command//"
I installed bash on my NItdroid (android on n900) but there are a few commands not available. Nothing special, just things like "history" and Possibly "nano" etc.
I had virtually zero commands on my old Xperia X10 (rooted), which is why I went back to N900. I'm a terminal geek!
Im used to having full Linux repo's.
I can build custom kernels for N900 and other Omap 3 and Omap 4 devices, but they are u-boot kernels, so I have to start learning again!!
Also, is there a terminal program which is green text on black background?? I can only find white on blue! YUCK! not nearly nerdy enough!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How's it going? I was on the N900 as well (still use it as my music player) and have recently moved on to the SGS2. speed wise it is miles apart! even thouse the Maemo repos have excellent apps, you do notice the lack of commercial apps for Maemo when using Android
i'm not sure if i have all the answers you require... a simple way to compare custom and regular ROMs:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1219612
Rooting your SGS2 isnt as easy as typing "root" on the N900... you'll have to use CF Root with CWM (i think):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1103399
and a list of useful Root/ROM links at Android Forums:
http://androidforums.com/galaxy-s2-...guide-updated-12-00-pm-bst-jul-03-2011-a.html
i hope this helps

Thank you both. I'm not really a commercial app/program person.
I'm an active open source user. I love to modify and help with programs. I don't really like apple style control over programs.
I'm going to check those links. Thanks!
I hope I can try bring some of the work I made for Maemo over to android.
Most (90%) is terminal based, seems like droid users love the GUI stuff. Hehehe!

Well I will differ from Post 2. A custom ROM will bring more juice from battery? I don't believe it. It can definitely fix some bugs what the Stock one has, but nothing more than that. Also keep in mind there will be some glitch here and there in a Custom ROM.
I, personally, will never use a Custom ROM.
Regards.

kingoddball said:
Also, if anyone here can help with a small side question, the N900 has a FULL xterm with all available commands (/bin).
How do I go about getting such commands under android?
On Maemo it was as easy as "apt-get install //missing-command//"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nope, in general this doesn't exist. you have a linux kernel with busybox (assuming you install this along with su), but afaik, that is the limit of what you might expect from a distro. All the apps are running in the android environment, unless you wanted to chroot into something like ubuntu. Whilst I suspect there are some distros that are close to running on an android phone (or netbook, like the ac100) you're no longer running android then.

Try
SL4A (Scripting Layer for Android) as a terminal emulator (shell python etc) and it is fully open source.

ithehappy said:
Well I will differ from Post 2. A custom ROM will bring more juice from battery? I don't believe it. It can definitely fix some bugs what the Stock one has, but nothing more than that. Also keep in mind there will be some glitch here and there in a Custom ROM.
I, personally, will never use a Custom ROM.
Regards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so then you, personally, will never know the difference between custom and stock. and yes, you can get better battery life with a custom rom. even a customized stock rom. with my infuse on infused 1.5 i got about 10-15% better battery life over stock.

boondoc said:
so then you, personally, will never know the difference between custom and stock. and yes, you can get better battery life with a custom rom. even a customized stock rom. with my infuse on infused 1.5 i got about 10-15% better battery life over stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You answered by yourself.
That's what I meant anyway.
Regards.

there wasn't a question at hand to be answered...

Bit like why do people buy different cars .
Custom rom may add something or remove something from the phone is the basics .
jje

I found from flashing HTC Desire, that the cries of better battery life and performance on custom ROM's were generally over exaggeration or complete nonsense, as I tried loads of custom roms and the battery and performance remained the same throughout.
For this phone, my battery life is awesome anyway, and performance is awesome also. I also seem to be pretty much bug free, also
As for the technical questions and what not in this thread it's also gone over my head lol!

I for one will vouch for better battery and performance for custom roms. It only takes one disabled service/application to improve both categories.
Custom ROM's also add features you won't find in stock ROM's and arguably enhance existing features.
For example there is no reboot function on a stock ROM, but this is just one example. CM7 has a plethora of enhancements that simply rock, on the flip side there is still a few kinks it needs to work out, but with Cyanogen joining the samsung team it wont be long until a production phone comes out with CMx running on it.

You can just install 'Advanced Power Menu' for Reboot feature on a Stock ROM.

Altimas said:
I for one will vouch for better battery and performance for custom roms. It only takes one disabled service/application to improve both categories.
Custom ROM's also add features you won't find in stock ROM's and arguably enhance existing features.
For example there is no reboot function on a stock ROM, but this is just one example. CM7 has a plethora of enhancements that simply rock, on the flip side there is still a few kinks it needs to work out, but with Cyanogen joining the samsung team it wont be long until a production phone comes out with CMx running on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am interested in all of the benefits of using a custom ROM (especially theming) but what about the drawbacks? Don't you lose the optimizations that take advantage of the CPU/GPU?
What else would I be missing out on? I've been trying to find a thread dealing with this topic but am still searching.

.Arkham said:
I am interested in all of the benefits of using a custom ROM (especially theming) but what about the drawbacks? Don't you lose the optimizations that take advantage of the CPU/GPU?
What else would I be missing out on? I've been trying to find a thread dealing with this topic but am still searching.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Their is no thread as their is no custom rom but many custom roms all with different features .
Why would you lose optimizations unless the custom rom developer decided to remove them and that would not really make sense .
The benefits of using a custom rom are that you can choose one with the features you required .
jje

JJEgan said:
Their is no thread as their is no custom rom but many custom roms all with different features .
Why would you lose optimizations unless the custom rom developer decided to remove them and that would not really make sense .
The benefits of using a custom rom are that you can choose one with the features you required .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know there's no single thread, what I meant was that it was hard to get the info about what the tradeoffs are of using various ROMs.
E.g. some do not have hardware acceleration (browser, video), and others don't let you use the stock app, etc... I've seen that some of the ROMs have made headway and do have hardware acceleration, but that seems to be the exception to the rule.

The only real alternative ROM is Cyanogenmod anyway. Any other rom is just some settings changed with notepad and some icons changed with photoshop.

.Arkham said:
I know there's no single thread, what I meant was that it was hard to get the info about what the tradeoffs are of using various ROMs.
E.g. some do not have hardware acceleration (browser, video), and others don't let you use the stock app, etc... I've seen that some of the ROMs have made headway and do have hardware acceleration, but that seems to be the exception to the rule.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah you wont lose a thing, just gives you a chance to add more try leomars revolution rom, it got its own kitchen apo in market so you can install tweaks and themes from the app !
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

You use custom roms if you think your cellphone isn't amazingly fast enough or if you think four buttons at the lower panel is to iPhone-ish. I personally love Samsung bloatware...

Related

[Q] Anyone working on AOKP ICS for our phone?

I just bought this phone the other day, after having an HTC Inspire for over a year. I really enjoyed the benefits of it being a sister phone of the Desire HD, such as really phenomenal ROM development.
I know that there aren't any sources released for this phone, but after using LordClockan's Ice Cold Sandwich, I just can't get used to this TouchWiz.
If anyone has started a project, I can help out with anything that I can.
If not, would anyone here like to try & help out?
My ROM building knowledge is non existent, but I'm dedicated to get this going.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
I sure hope so! I loved existz work on the Inspire!
one7dchevy said:
I sure hope so! I loved existz work on the Inspire!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Him, TwistedUmbrella, and LordClockan's teamwork is a testament to the wonderful community her at XDA!
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
I hope it's comming!
Have you tried the ICS roms that we DO have? They're not AOKP; but they run the AOSP stock apps and they've been themed well enough to be pretty damn close -- all while maintaining full s-pen capability, which is something even the CM9 folks can't claim yet (they don't have button functionality)...
Need kernel source first!!
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
paleh0rse said:
Have you tried the ICS roms that we DO have? They're not AOKP; but they run the AOSP stock apps and they've been themed well enough to be pretty damn close -- all while maintaining full s-pen capability, which is something even the CM9 folks can't claim yet (they don't have button functionality)...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hate to disagree but they arent even close (no offense to current devs, this isnt their fault).
S-pen functionality needs either the source from Samsung or a new driver has to be written from scratch, which isnt worth the time or effort considering that Samsung likely will soon be releasing source for ICS (usually a few weeks after the OS is officially released).And, if he rumors are true, ICS should be official soon (however, to be clear, I dont believe ICS is coming any time soon).
The reason these other roms have S-Pen support is, surprise surprise, they COPIED large sections of code from the stock leaked release, where, conveniently, everything ALREADY WORKS!!
Stock apps will almost always work on ANY rom with little to no modification required, regardless of whether they are from an AOSP rom.
The current roms are heavily based on the leaked ICS rom with only small tweaks universal between nearly all roms, things like themes, lockscreens, sounds, animations, etc. are all pretty simple if you know what you are doing (something admittedly, I have not personally built a rom but Im very familiar with the process).
When Cyanogen (or possibly AOKP, Im not familiar with their roms and how they are developed) is released, we will begin to see true rom development begin to happen. Until there is source code from Samsung, we will continue to see roms with Touchwiz all over them.
To show you how easy this is, here is a link to have a bot build a rom for you for any of the Galaxy 1 or 2 phones.
http://romkitchen.org/
Click your phone choice (Galaxy 1 or 2 currently, the Note is NOT supported yet).
Click Generator in the upper right hand corner.
Use the six tabs across the top of the page to choose your Modem, Kernel, Theme, stock apps, etc.
Of course, this only gives you a base to work with, from there, its pretty easy to swap in or out what you want.
Think about it like this, I can give you a copy of Windows already pre-configured for your PC and them or customize it just by changing some registry entries and including the data files (wallpapers for example). The included drivers would be pre-built meaning that 'I' didnt actually write them, nor did I change much in Windows, all I did was provide the files containing the data and changed a few settings to link to the files.
Dsmforlife92 said:
Need kernel source first!!
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not entirely true. I know some ICS roms that have been hacked to death to get at least partial functionality.
I'm thankful that some devs have taken their time to do what they have done, but what I am looking for hasn't been done.
AOKP is like AOSP, but more tweaks are added.
[edit] As for myself, I could care less about S Pen support. I haven't even used it, nor do I think I ever will. I got this phone for the monster sized screen.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
littlewierdo said:
I hate to disagree but they arent even close (no offense to current devs, this isnt their fault).
S-pen functionality needs either the source from Samsung or a new driver has to be written from scratch, which isnt worth the time or effort considering that Samsung likely will soon be releasing source for ICS (usually a few weeks after the OS is officially released).And, if he rumors are true, ICS should be official soon (however, to be clear, I dont believe ICS is coming any time soon).
The reason these other roms have S-Pen support is, surprise surprise, they COPIED large sections of code from the stock leaked release, where, conveniently, everything ALREADY WORKS!!
Stock apps will almost always work on ANY rom with little to no modification required, regardless of whether they are from an AOSP rom.
The current roms are heavily based on the leaked ICS rom with only small tweaks universal between nearly all roms, things like themes, lockscreens, sounds, animations, etc. are all pretty simple if you know what you are doing (something admittedly, I have not personally built a rom but Im very familiar with the process).
When Cyanogen (or possibly AOKP, Im not familiar with their roms and how they are developed) is released, we will begin to see true rom development begin to happen. Until there is source code from Samsung, we will continue to see roms with Touchwiz all over them.
To show you how easy this is, here is a link to have a bot build a rom for you for any of the Galaxy 1 or 2 phones.
http://romkitchen.org/
Click your phone choice (Galaxy 1 or 2 currently, the Note is NOT supported yet).
Click Generator in the upper right hand corner.
Use the six tabs across the top of the page to choose your Modem, Kernel, Theme, stock apps, etc.
Of course, this only gives you a base to work with, from there, its pretty easy to swap in or out what you want.
Think about it like this, I can give you a copy of Windows already pre-configured for your PC and them or customize it just by changing some registry entries and including the data files (wallpapers for example). The included drivers would be pre-built meaning that 'I' didnt actually write them, nor did I change much in Windows, all I did was provide the files containing the data and changed a few settings to link to the files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I appreciate the explanation, but you're not telling me anything I don't already know. I was just saying that our current roms have been themed/tweaked well enough to look like AOSP, so they're not that bad; and, you don't really have to deal with touchwiz annoyances anymore if you don't want to -- trebuchet, apex, and nova all work well.
CM9 or AOKP they're not, but they're exceptional given the single source-less leak we have right now... and they certainly blow away stock touchwiz GB! lol
littlewierdo said:
I hate to disagree but they arent even close (no offense to current devs, this isnt their fault).
S-pen functionality needs either the source from Samsung or a new driver has to be written from scratch, which isnt worth the time or effort considering that Samsung likely will soon be releasing source for ICS (usually a few weeks after the OS is officially released).And, if he rumors are true, ICS should be official soon (however, to be clear, I dont believe ICS is coming any time soon).
The reason these other roms have S-Pen support is, surprise surprise, they COPIED large sections of code from the stock leaked release, where, conveniently, everything ALREADY WORKS!!
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pen apparently works in the CM9 build for the international note. Haven't looked at the source myself yet, but it is probably just the standard wacom driver.
zonyl said:
Pen apparently works in the CM9 build for the international note. Haven't looked at the source myself yet, but it is probably just the standard wacom driver.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AFAIK, they haven't gotten the button to work yet, but it's promising.
Its going to take a lot kf time and effort and prob a group effort to get aosp or aokp roms for our phone. I believe the reason skyrocket and 989 have it is because they have had a lot of devs working together for long time on it. I can get a booted aosp rom hut no sound no camera no data. So theres a lot of work needed to be done
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium

[Q] Why root?

My question is plain and simple. I mean, I do know the benefits of rooting like backing up apps, removing bloatware, over/underclocking and so on. But in my own experience rooting the device and putting a custom rom in it automatically made the device less stable and more battery hungry (for some weird reason) plus added many many bugs which made me question why did I do it in the first place. So I'm asking do you feel any improvement whatsoever while using any custom rom? Or do you use custom rom just because you can?
It has thousans of reasons.. For simple example while every unrooted users rumor "when will come jely bean? I'm tired of waiting!!" Etc.. i run 4.1.1 jely bean on my SGS3 for 3 months.. its enough.
If you like always research for better and better mobile experience, you have to root your phone. Or simply just say yes for your brand's supply.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
lolkoz said:
My question is plain and simple. I mean, I do know the benefits of rooting like backing up apps, removing bloatware, over/underclocking and so on. But in my own experience rooting the device and putting a custom rom in it automatically made the device less stable and more battery hungry (for some weird reason) plus added many many bugs which made me question why did I do it in the first place. So I'm asking do you feel any improvement whatsoever while using any custom rom? Or do you use custom rom just because you can?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
since everbody is aware that customization can happen better with a custom rom over and above the stock one.
and regarding improvement, well it all depends on what sort of customization u need and accordingly the Custom rom and kernel u choose. which do vary from person to person.
and nobody use custom rom because they can but because they need the same to customize the phone accordingly to there need.
lolkoz said:
My question is plain and simple. I mean, I do know the benefits of rooting like backing up apps, removing bloatware, over/underclocking and so on. But in my own experience rooting the device and putting a custom rom in it automatically made the device less stable and more battery hungry (for some weird reason) plus added many many bugs which made me question why did I do it in the first place. So I'm asking do you feel any improvement whatsoever while using any custom rom? Or do you use custom rom just because you can?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From my experience with my HTC Desire on which I tried a lot of different ROMs you can either:
1) Flash a stable ROM, benefit is that most of the time its faster than stock & includes additional features and is 99% stable. In addition ROMs are improved all the time and new features added that you might not get on your stock ROM or only very late
2) Flash a ROM that is currently under development and not stable, e.g. earlier ICS ROMs for the HTC Desire had features missing and were not very stable
In my case I started with stable ROMs as I need my phone as daily driver, after I got more experienced I switched to (2) and tried the not so stable ROMs as I always like to try new things etc. and you will get all those new features and improvements (sometimes on the cost of stability and or speed).
Basically up to you what you want to do.
For my Galaxy S III I will also start with a rooted stock ROM as currently I do not see that much benefits in the custom ROMs yet (please correct me if I am wrong).
The answer is also plain and simple. Rooting is to unlock your phone for more customisation and some extra features.
Why we need more customisation and extra features? Because we get bored easily and because we can.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
There is a really good article you can read here.
You just get so much more with root. Without root i would have been stock with stock rom on my htc desire and my xoom. The brilliant roms that are on here have provided me with so much more and given me an amazing experience with android.

Help me educate myself on the differences between ROMs.

Good morning or evening to all,
this is my first post on the forum, so please by patient. I am new to the world of custom ROMs and I tried to educate myself by reading the noob guides. However, my questions become more and more widespread, and I am not sure where to try to find the answers.
To be clear: I am NOT asking about 'what ROM is best' and such. I would like to know more about the following:
1) There are CM7 ROMs (Netrino for example), CM9 and CM10 ROMs. As I understand it, because there have been stock files from MOTO, CM& ROMs can have stable kernels, hardware acceleration etc etc. However, if there is no hardware acceleration, how can CM9 ROMs be smoother?
2) In the same vain, how can CM9 and 10 ROMs have kernels? Where they written from scratch? And how can they be faster than stock?
3) Due to my SOD problems, I flashed several ROMs and currently have a CM9 one, which is stable so far. If I go back to a CM7 one, such as Netrino 2.9, what differences would I see? Will the latter be faster or more efficient? Smoother? Or should I just leave it alone, since it works?
4) And to reverse the question, how can a CM10 ROM be smoother, if it does not have hardware acceleration and drivers?
I am sorry about the bombardment. I do not want to waste anybody's time, but some pointers would be helpful. Thanks in advance!
to give you a shorter answer for better understanding:the stock roms are mostly based on android 2.3.6 which is the newest firmware.the roms only differ from the regions and mostly have battery tweaks or connection tweaks etc...
lets go to cm 9 and 10.cm9 is basically android4.0 and cm10 android 4.1.these are faster because they do not have many unnecessary apps like stock roms do.
i hope this explains a bit...
peddarson said:
to give you a shorter answer for better understanding:the stock roms are mostly based on android 2.3.6 which is the newest firmware.the roms only differ from the regions and mostly have battery tweaks or connection tweaks etc...
lets go to cm 9 and 10.cm9 is basically android4.0 and cm10 android 4.1.these are faster because they do not have many unnecessary apps like stock roms do.
i hope this explains a bit...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the answer, peddarson.
Can it be that the only difference between roms is the absence of apps? Then, netrino should be the fastest of them all. And where does the absence of hardware acceleration and drivers factor in?
A few of your questions could be easily answered just by flashing the roms and seeing for yourself. Or Googling.
For example, you keep asking about hardware acceleration without knowing what it does or what it means. If you did, you'd know it plays a much bigger role with how apps function than the UI. The "smoothness" described in CM10 is with the UI and not the apps themselves (hint), while certain programs like the camera app, Chrome, etc. have a tendency to be unstable (hint.) You might be able to piece together that the UI isn't as ha-dependent as you thought. Maybe the visual experience has more to do with the actual software than hardware.
The answer to a few other of your questions is that these ROMs play off an original source and then tweaked to be optimized to the author's liking. Kernels can be overclocked, memory management can be altered, etc. If you want to know specifics, look into what each specific ROM does. It's right there in black and white.
nh777 said:
A few of your questions could be easily answered just by flashing the roms and seeing for yourself. Or Googling.
For example, you keep asking about hardware acceleration without knowing what it does or what it means. If you did, you'd know it plays a much bigger role with how apps function than the UI. The "smoothness" described in CM10 is with the UI and not the apps themselves (hint), while certain programs like the camera app, Chrome, etc. have a tendency to be unstable (hint.) You might be able to piece together that the UI isn't as ha-dependent as you thought. Maybe the visual experience has more to do with the actual software than hardware.
The answer to a few other of your questions is that these ROMs play off an original source and then tweaked to be optimized to the author's liking. Kernels can be overclocked, memory management can be altered, etc. If you want to know specifics, look into what each specific ROM does. It's right there in black and white.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The thing is that, as I said, I do not want to flash the ROMs (again) and see. I am not interested in learning the specific merits or disadvantages of each. I just want some pointers on what hardware acceleration does, how it synergizes with the UI, how different ROMs come about with or withoit drivers etc. And because I don't know, I ask (hint). Your post, for example, clarified some of these things, sarcasm aside. It would clarify even more if you could provide some links for me to pursue.
Haha. Welcome to XDA. People are quite unforgiving and harsh with noobs, I appologize on their behalf. I am still pretty new myself but for the past 4 months, I have read and learned quite a lot and have flashed many roms.
My first love was actually neutrino. I always seem to crawl back to neutrino rom because it is ridiculously smooth and stable for me. I've seen many people have issues here and there but I really have no complaints about neutrino. I have tried CNA, which is a port by Bill based off of CM10. I was quite impressed with how nicely it ran. The battery life wasn't as good as I'd like and I require a camera so I flashed back to neutrino.
There are two new cm7 based roms that have surfaced recently, Atrix MRom and TopSmarts. I tried MRom and it is quite a nice rom. I wasn't a fan of the Holo Launcher that it uses so now I'm on TopSmarts. This rom has been great for me. Like I said, I always end up back with neutrino but this is quite the contender. It's pretty new and only the first version so it will most likely be updated often.
I'd give a couple cm7 roms a go, if I were you. Just make sure you make a Nandroid backup of your current rom so you can always restore. I feel that Cm7 roms have much better battery life and tend to be more stable. The only issue I have with cm7 is there's no webtop option. Other than that, I couldn't be happier with TopSmarts or Neutrino. Both of the devs are also really friendly and quite helpful.
Hope this helps. If you have any questions, you're welcome to PM me.
Sent from my MB860 using xda app-developers app
ProudGrognard said:
The thing is that, as I said, I do not want to flash the ROMs (again) and see. I am not interested in learning the specific merits or disadvantages of each. I just want some pointers on what hardware acceleration does, how it synergizes with the UI, how different ROMs come about with or withoit drivers etc. And because I don't know, I ask (hint). Your post, for example, clarified some of these things, sarcasm aside. It would clarify even more if you could provide some links for me to pursue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wait, what? Then what's this?
"If I go back to a CM7 one, such as Netrino 2.9, what differences would I see? Will the latter be faster or more efficient? Smoother?"
Come on, guy.
Google hardware acceleration and you might find out that, like I suggested with my previous post, it doesn't necessarily have to do with the UI. Sorry, but I'm not spoon-feeding you links that you could have found in less time than making this post.
I've already explained the different ROMs are based on current software and then ported/tweaked. If you looked at the bugs with each ROM, you'd figure out the holes that drivers would fix.
nw21st (Alphabet district, amirite?) had a great suggestion which was that cm7 roms were easily the most stable. Why? Atrix has drivers up to 2.3.6 so nothing's missing. If you're wondering what differences you'll see in cm7 vs cm9 then you aren't using your phone enough, eg, camcorder. That's fine. Loads of people are on cm9/10 and accept the bugs and limitations. But hands down, cm7 ROMs will remain the most stable.
ProudGrognard said:
Good morning or evening to all,
this is my first post on the forum, so please by patient. I am new to the world of custom ROMs and I tried to educate myself by reading the noob guides. However, my questions become more and more widespread, and I am not sure where to try to find the answers.
To be clear: I am NOT asking about 'what ROM is best' and such. I would like to know more about the following:
1) There are CM7 ROMs (Netrino for example), CM9 and CM10 ROMs. As I understand it, because there have been stock files from MOTO, CM& ROMs can have stable kernels, hardware acceleration etc etc. However, if there is no hardware acceleration, how can CM9 ROMs be smoother?
2) In the same vain, how can CM9 and 10 ROMs have kernels? Where they written from scratch? And how can they be faster than stock?
3) Due to my SOD problems, I flashed several ROMs and currently have a CM9 one, which is stable so far. If I go back to a CM7 one, such as Netrino 2.9, what differences would I see? Will the latter be faster or more efficient? Smoother? Or should I just leave it alone, since it works?
4) And to reverse the question, how can a CM10 ROM be smoother, if it does not have hardware acceleration and drivers?
I am sorry about the bombardment. I do not want to waste anybody's time, but some pointers would be helpful. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) Optimization, mainly
2) Motorola released the sources of each Atrix kernel (International, EMEA, ATT etc...). Devs can use it to make tweaked, optimized versions
3) By flashing a CM7, you will go back on Gingerbread (GB). CM9 = ICS and CM10 = Jelly Bean (JB). The main differences you can see are the different interfaces (GB looks ugly to me now...) and some apps like Chrome are missing on GB. Also CM7 is super stable, if you want a stable and customizable ROM then you should try it.
4) CM10 had a lot of optimizations all based around apps preloading/compiling (To be verified), also the animations were changed to make it look smoother. Stuffs like scrolling, animations are smoother on ICS/JB than GB because of optimizations too. If you flash CM7 you'd have the same kind of "smooth feeling" because of a high framerate but the apps won't load as fast as with CM9/10.
Personally I use CM10 even if it's not well supported (Not as well as GB) but ICS/JB is coming soon so I'm trying to get used to it for when it officially comes. I consider GB as a legacy OS, there won't be anything really new/innovative on it since Google doesn't develop any new app on it.

[Q] Looking to start developing for the DNA

Hi guys,
I'm looking to finally make the plunge and start some basic development for the DNA. I have been with Android since the first Droid, and I have been rooting and ROM'ing since then as well. I would be greatly appreciative if someone would be kind enough to point me in the right direction of where to begin and any advice from the pro's would be highly welcomed. I was thinking about starting off by using dsixda's Android Kitchen, and I was wondering if anyone had any experience using that to build/modify ROM's.
Main questions:
==============
1. What areas would you recommend I focus on to start ROM'ing?
2. Do you prefer to develop using Windows or Linux?
3. What sort of development is really wanted by the DNA community (maybe give me a goal to shoot for)?
Kindest regards,
Steve
1. There are a few directions you can go with romming
a. Retain sense and allow more customization. This is the UKB route of sorts.
b. Remove sense as much as possible to make a lightweight ROM. Genome approach.
c. Port over (or attempt to port) a mainstream ROM such as CM10 or MIUI.
To be honest, I think there is plenty of room for option 'b'. It is more simple than option 'c' and has a few less headaches. Option 'a' already has UKB which will be difficult to beat.
2. Linux is going to be much easier to start developing on since most all the tools can be found in your package manager of choice. I do believe that the linaro toolchain relies off of it as well. Windows is always an option if you really want to.
3. If I were you, I would shoot for a ROM that was similar to the old Liberty ROM's on the D2 and DX of old. The concept of that was to have a very light base as near to stock as possible and allow users to add in core stock functionality. For example MediaLink will never be used by most people, and I think it doesn't really need to be there, but give the user the ability to turn it on.
If you want to monetize your rom a bit too, you can go the Liberty route of having an optional companion configuration app. This is a new processor and I think a lot of current toolbox apps don't properly support that functionality.
It's a new device, the doors are really wide open. I would love to assist where I can. I do not have much programming experience, but I do love to tinker.
th3raid0r said:
1. There are a few directions you can go with romming
a. Retain sense and allow more customization. This is the UKB route of sorts.
b. Remove sense as much as possible to make a lightweight ROM. Genome approach.
c. Port over (or attempt to port) a mainstream ROM such as CM10 or MIUI.
To be honest, I think there is plenty of room for option 'b'. It is more simple than option 'c' and has a few less headaches. Option 'a' already has UKB which will be difficult to beat.
2. Linux is going to be much easier to start developing on since most all the tools can be found in your package manager of choice. I do believe that the linaro toolchain relies off of it as well. Windows is always an option if you really want to.
3. If I were you, I would shoot for a ROM that was similar to the old Liberty ROM's on the D2 and DX of old. The concept of that was to have a very light base as near to stock as possible and allow users to add in core stock functionality. For example MediaLink will never be used by most people, and I think it doesn't really need to be there, but give the user the ability to turn it on.
If you want to monetize your rom a bit too, you can go the Liberty route of having an optional companion configuration app. This is a new processor and I think a lot of current toolbox apps don't properly support that functionality.
It's a new device, the doors are really wide open. I would love to assist where I can. I do not have much programming experience, but I do love to tinker.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah yes, I had a DX and I remember the Liberty ROM's. I think that might be my first goal - to make a super minimal stockish ROM. The only thing I'm worried about at this point is bricking my DNA for a stupid mistake or something. Well, hopefully I can figure this stuff out and have something to share within the next few weeks.
Thanks,
stevedub40 said:
Ah yes, I had a DX and I remember the Liberty ROM's. I think that might be my first goal - to make a super minimal stockish ROM. The only thing I'm worried about at this point is bricking my DNA for a stupid mistake or something. Well, hopefully I can figure this stuff out and have something to share within the next few weeks.
Thanks,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You shouldn't run into any bricking problems if you aren't messing with kernel level things. When it comes down to it, basic ROMs are all about adding/removing themes and apps and customizing existing functionality. It is very difficult to actually brick this phone unless you screw up on the bootloader exploit so you can unlock. You can also brick if you are messing around with hboot and other base level things, which you shouldn't be unless you are willing to take the risks or are really experienced.
Well, since I assume that you'll use your own ROM, why not start with what you wish another ROM had. Alternatively, you could ask what skills you want to learn/improve and use that to guide you.
crpalmer said:
Well, since I assume that you'll use your own ROM, why not start with what you wish another ROM had. Alternatively, you could ask what skills you want to learn/improve and use that to guide you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For starters I took MicroMod777's stock ROM to work with, which I would like to thank and give the appropriate credit to. I think my main objective for my first ROM is to basically debloat this thing to the bare minimum, which may take some trial and error due to how the HTC apk's tie into each other. I would like to theme the notification bar (transparent) and throw in a battery mod, possibly one of my own design. It looks like the SystemUI.apk is what holds most of this information from what I can tell. If this all goes well then I will try to just go deeper and deeper. I would eventually like to work on a CM10 build, but this looks to be pretty advanced stuff.
Thank you for all the comments guys. Again, any advice or tips are always warmly welcomed and appreciated.

Most stock ROM for D800?

Not really liking the features list on most of the custom ROMs and my phone is coming in a couple days. I see a lot of useless features added that appear to be the personal preference of the ROM creator.
Looking at reviews of the phone I'd much rather keep this phone close to stock than my crap Note II.
Is my best option to root stock, or are there some very slightly modified stock-based ROMs?
You mean aosp? Stock generally refers to the phone as it was shipped. So why not CM, it isn't far from aosp.
I don't know if the terminology here is different or what but on other devices stock modified is when someone takes the stock ROM and either modifies it at a basic level to improve performance and battery life, or takes it and makes a new ROM based off of it which is pretty different.
TheNetwork said:
I don't know if the terminology here is different or what but on other devices stock modified is when someone takes the stock ROM and either modifies it at a basic level to improve performance and battery life, or takes it and makes a new ROM based off of it which is pretty different.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your looking for something like cleanrom, but that guy jumped ship a while ago. XE 2.0 seems to be your only hope, until kitkat comes out then hope for a new ROM Dev.
Root and debloat.
Sent from my LG-D800
TheNetwork said:
I don't know if the terminology here is different or what but on other devices stock modified is when someone takes the stock ROM and either modifies it at a basic level to improve performance and battery life, or takes it and makes a new ROM based off of it which is pretty different.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
D800 here also. Can't say I have seen any stock rom worth bothering with. I was hoping for a deodexed stock rom, but I don't recall seeing any. I adjust my stock phone to my liking with xposed framework, G2 module and a couple other such as advanced power menu.
TheNetwork said:
Not really liking the features list on most of the custom ROMs and my phone is coming in a couple days. I see a lot of useless features added that appear to be the personal preference of the ROM creator.
Looking at reviews of the phone I'd much rather keep this phone close to stock than my crap Note II.
Is my best option to root stock, or are there some very slightly modified stock-based ROMs?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OP we are not going there....you see a lot of "useless" features in the ROMs, from the Dev's because it is their ROM they are providing freely to the Community. Now I know you did not mean that, in being ungrateful, but statements like this bring unneeded attention.
But there is nothing wrong with Stock with root....so if that is what you need or desire then so be it.
And to keep the trolling/unneeded posting, Thread Closed.
Merry Christmas.

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