How to find the rom that is right for me

[grimloktt]

Sim cards are for the Global version, these roms arent for global. I didnt really see a differance between the 2 for speed.

Roger that. As I read more, I'm realizing I was cruising the wrong section. This thread is a great idea though!

[pc747]

I know I have not been on here updating for awhile but their was a reason. I wanted to actually use each of the roms in an every day atmosphere and I wanted to improve my knowledge about the development community. Now that I have had the opportunity to do both I must again thank the developers for the work each of you do. Many of you spend a lot of time working on these roms and we again thank you.

Now for an updated response to "what rom is right for me". You need to ask yourself "what do I want my phone to do". Personally I had a droid 1 and went to the droid 2. Though I like some of blur I found alternates for the blur widgets and apps I use via the market. For example, I love the blur messaging widget, social widget, contact widget, and notepad, but I do not like the lag I get from blur. Instead I will run a blurless rom and use launcherpro premium for my contact widget, jorte for my calendar widget, either launcher pro premium or handcent widget for my messaging widget, tweetdeck for social apps, and some type of notepad app. The difference is they do not run in the background and run smoother. The trade off is they do not look as good as blur.
Now if you are in the middle where you are not ready to get rid of blur, or you want to just take it easy being it is your first rom. I suggest a rom that allow you to choose your blur. Squidlymandingo's rom is a nice rom that sit perfectly in the middle for those who want to use roms but want to keep parts of blu.
If you want to keep all of blur then a rom like Apex may be for you.

So basically you need to decide what you want to do with your device. The best way to do that is to just use your device as is and decide what you want to do. If you like blur then look for roms that is built off of blur. If you not quite sure yet then maybe play with squidly's rom and use that as a judge for you. And if you are like me and just hate blur all together, or prefer performance over look then look to a blurless rom. It is your device and what is great for me may not be your cup of tea. This thread is meant as a guide and remember before installing any rom make sure you make a nandroid backup and ensure you have rsdlite set up just in case. And to take it a step further, backup your entire sdcard on to your computer just in case.
Hopefully this thread helps you decide on a rom that will work best for you. Enjoy the work of these good developers and make sure to follow the instructions posted by the developers.

[Xplorer4x4]

I am debating on if I want to stick to a blur rom or not. I really enjoy blur for the most part. It causes me absolutely no lag on this phone compared to my Moto Backflip. I am not a big social networker, having never ever posted a status update or tweet(etc), and never posting on walls when I can message the person..It seems Go Contacts MIGHT be bale to fill that void, but when trying Go Contacts on the backflip, the contact list worked fine, but when viewing a contacts details it went from Go Conacts to the Motoblur details page. Has any one tried Go Contacts on a blurless rom to see how it well it compares to blur in regards to showing status updates and such on the details page?

Otherwise if I stick to a blur rom, I cant seem to decide Squidlymandingo or the ApeX rom. Maybe some one could outline the differences a little bit so I can decide which one to atleast try first. I suspect it may come down to trying the roms for myself. The backflip this never posed much a problem as the rom selection was so thin, but an outline would be nice none the less.

[droid doctor]

SQUIDLY MANDINGO FTW !

sent from my squidroid 2

[northeastern]

can somebody give me a good 1st rom to try out? i just rooted my phone yesterday and am new to the whole thing and just dont know where to start...

[Xplorer4x4]

can somebody give me a good 1st rom to try out? i just rooted my phone yesterday and am new to the whole thing and just dont know where to start...

It really depends on what you are looking for. Did you read the second post of the thread? Are you looking to stick with a blur based rom(rom with motoblur)? Then Apex or Squidlymandingoare the only options. If you want something with lots of ability to customize, it looks like liberty is your best choice. Personally I am attempting to get either Apex or Squidly to work on my D2G with romer. So far it has been a big fail.

[droid doctor]

What phone do you have?

sent from my squidroid 2

[lostmonster]

alright, so I've had my D2 for a couple months now (well, moreso about a year) and it's about friggin' time I installed a custom ROM.

HOWEVER, all of the ROMs that I've seen are available for the D2 don't look like they're something I'm interested in.

I have two questions:
1.) If I install a custom ROM, is it easy to restore my phone back to its original, out-of-box, preinstalled verizon moto****blur ROM, just in case I want to start from scratch and try out a different ROM?

2.) Right now my phone is backing up via bootstrap. It has that MSDos looking screen. I want a ROM that looks like that, as much as possible. Obviously I don't want to use my phone through that system, but are there any ROMs (or themes) that resemble this at all? Linux themed, DOS prompt themed, etc.
2a.) essentially, which ROM allows the most and easiest customization if I don't like their default layout?

[andyc]

alright, so I've had my D2 for a couple months now (well, moreso about a year) and it's about friggin' time I installed a custom ROM.

HOWEVER, all of the ROMs that I've seen are available for the D2 don't look like they're something I'm interested in.

I have two questions:
1.) If I install a custom ROM, is it easy to restore my phone back to its original, out-of-box, preinstalled verizon moto****blur ROM, just in case I want to start from scratch and try out a different ROM?

2.) Right now my phone is backing up via bootstrap. It has that MSDos looking screen. I want a ROM that looks like that, as much as possible. Obviously I don't want to use my phone through that system, but are there any ROMs (or themes) that resemble this at all? Linux themed, DOS prompt themed, etc.
2a.) essentially, which ROM allows the most and easiest customization if I don't like their default layout?

1) yes. easily. make a backup of froyo before you install any rom and you can (except for GB builds) revert back to your original froyo backup in a matter of minutes through clockwork. You'll still be rooted (which is obviously necessary to move on to another custom ROM), so it's not completely out-of-the-box, but it's close. You'll likely want to stay rooted once you are, so this will be your best bet. You would only want to unroot if you're sending your phone in for replacement, etc.

You can also, at any time, go into setting > privacy > reset to factory, although if I recall that doesn't unroot either; I believe it will just return your phone to whatever rom you have installed as it was immediately after installation (resets all settings, homescreens, etc). Last time I used this method, it returned me to squidly as it was after a fresh install - it didnt remove squidly and return me to stock froyo 2.2, just removed all my settings, installed apps, preferences etc.

You can unroot with z4 if I recall correctly, or you can SBF using RSDlite which takes a little longer, but will unroot and return you to completely out-of-the-box, unactivated, unrooted froyo, with all default, factory settings. But this *should only be necessary if you're boot-looping and unable to get into clockwork, or you're going back and forth between gingerbread and froyo builds.

2) If you want to use a command prompt, use squidlymandigo. Using gscripts and terminal emulator you can customize to your heart's content using code instead of those pesky, convenient buttons

Otherwise, Liberty comes with a "toolbox" that allows you to effortlessly change settings and customize many aspects of your phone. There are also apps like absolute root tools or metamorph that give you further customizing options - fonts, lcd density, custom boot animations/logos, various themes, icon packs, etc. Apps like those only require root and a compatible rom.

Just remember to (almost) always wipe data and cache, and mount your system (and sometimes data) between installations or restorations. This isn't necessary from, say Liberty 1.5 to 2.0, but would be necessary from Liberty to Fission, or Squidly to Gummyjar, etc.

[jlhaehl]

I went with contapps for dialer and contacts it runs really good on my D2G