How do you decide which ROM?

[mach330]

To be honest, I've tried all the roms. from 2.01 to the latest ese 2.1 roms. i keep trying until i find what the most stable/fastest for me. it really depends on your phone. for me 2.01 roms behaved different than 2.1 roms (at least with the developer). i was using bb on 2.0.1 and was glitch free. going to 2.1 rom, i find chevy's best for my phone.

[hookbill]

IMHO ROM's are like cars. You've got to do a test drive to see which one you like best. Now if you're like me I can test drive a car just once and decide I like it. Others have to try different models.

A chart of the differences really would be a chart of someone's opinion, and may not be actual fact. The main words I hear when people talk to me about their ROMS is how "smooth" they are and how "fast" they are. Also there is a lot of talk about looks. What looks great to one person may be an eye soar to another.

[Royal2000H]

When I initially put SholesMod on my phone using SM Updater. Everything went fine.
When I put DM with DM Updater, I had to rework my homescreen (and again when I changed the clock on the notification bar to white), re-set up my Google account on the phone, set sync, set Facebook account and contact syncing, and change which calendars the phone pulls from Google Calendar.

So do you guys really do all that work daily every time you change a rom?

Also you say to do a wipe...
What do you lose when you wipe? Contacts are on the server. So you lose text messages and all your apps?

[mitchb2]

So I want to get this straight.
I go to
DroidMod > Support > DroidMod Support > Loading DroidMod Roms with DMupdater, Reflashing to Older Sholes/DroidMod Roms

And just follow the directions. Right?
Is there anything I'll lose?
Any apps that won't run?

[Jim 777]

So I want to get this straight.
I go to
DroidMod > Support > DroidMod Support > Loading DroidMod Roms with DMupdater, Reflashing to Older Sholes/DroidMod Roms

And just follow the directions. Right?
Is there anything I'll lose?
Any apps that won't run?

Shouldn't be an issue, wasn't for me.

[mitchb2]

So DroidMod is not considered 2.1, right?
I see apps that say "For phones running 2.1"
This doesn't apply to DroidMod?

[agent42o]

I think what he's driving at (and I'm curious too) is... what exactly is the difference between one vs. the other? Why would someone choose BB over Cyanogen, or Cyanogen over DM? I gather that some "work better than others" depending on the phone, but why / how?

Well, a lot of people are fans of BB, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Pete updates frequently and for some reason people love to flash their phone as often as possible. I think a lot of people went with Sholes/DM in the beginning because of their app, it was available on the market and basically rooted your phone for you. All three and great, there's little features built into each that you often don't realize, such as SSH for DroidMod.

I think it would be fantastic if someone could do a comparison between all of the major ROMs to give the noobs an idea of where to start. I know in my case, all I really care about is overclocking for a tad more speed, and maybe the black notification bar / skinning abilities. I don't care about tethering, I don't care about tinkering with the functionality of the OS, and I want everything to work properly (I bought the smart phone to BE a smart phone, not a toy ).

The thing is, you get similiar features with all the Roms.

Cyanogen, you get Launcher 2 (though I believe you can download this launcher from the market) built into the rom, online updates and a rom downloader. It's a 2.1 ERE25, the early build. It has some different features, like wired tethering and hints at support for Apps2sd soon. It has Live Wallpapers, but the regular home doesn't interact with them, though his Launcher2 replacement does. Also, it has a built in OC Kernel to 1GHZ.

DroidMod is based on 2.01, you get live wallpapers but the home screen doesn't interact with them. They have an updater on their home page that you can download and run on your phone to root, install SPrecovery, and update your phone. 5 Home screens, support for wifi tethering, and all the regular goodies are included.

Bugless is pretty much the standard as far as I can tell. Pete tends to listen to what people want and updates based on those. He uses the ESE25 build which is what Verizon is giving out for the official update. It's stable, and works well. Once again, all the usual goodies, he doesn't have his own OC Kernel but there's others available that will do the trick. He updates very frequently. Has live wallpapers with interaction from the regular home screen, the Kernels by Chevy or AdamZ support wireless tethering.

Personally, I ran DM for the longest time, but the auto-rotating of the home screen was an issue for me, so I checked out Bugless, ran it but all the OC kernels didn't seem to like my phone, ran fine until I applied an of the kernels then I would get random softboots. After that, I found Cyanogen, and I am staying here, I hate flashing my phone all the time, it's stable, doesn't crash and works.

There's a ton of others that I haven't tried, but that's what I have and what I see is that difference between all 3. I don't believe any include a theme, but I know Pete and Cyanogen have modified themes available and DroidMod uses Metamorph.

I recommend doing a backup of your system in it's current state then trying out a few different roms until you find something that's stable on your phone and has all the features you are looking for.

[korp]

The best rom is the one that never force closes or very rarely. With the exception of that and the colors, most are pretty similar.

Bugless Beast has withstood the test of time still and I am running v0.8 ... 0.9 (2.1 rom) is going to be out soon.

[mitchb2]

Okay, I didn't realize that DroidMod was not a 2.1 ROM, but instead a 2.0.1 ROM with some 2.1 apps. I'd rather get the full 2.1 treatment.

Can I still use DroidMod's "one stop shop" to root the phone, and then simply choose a different ROM such as Bugless Beast?

Or do you think I should just wait for the official 2.1 to come out and let DroidMod do their thing to it?

[agent42o]

Okay, I didn't realize that DroidMod was not a 2.1 ROM, but instead a 2.0.1 ROM with some 2.1 apps. I'd rather get the full 2.1 treatment.

Can I still use DroidMod's "one stop shop" to root the phone, and then simply choose a different ROM such as Bugless Beast?

Or do you think I should just wait for the official 2.1 to come out and let DroidMod do their thing to it?

Yeah, you can root and install sprecovery from within droid mods updater without having to install their ROM. I wouldn't wait for the official 2.1, you get more freedom and functionality with a rooted 2.1 rom.