I need clarification on a few things

[bishoy]

so I came from the Droid2, where I could SBF back to stock, no matter what happened to my phone. It was impossible for me to brick my D2 because no matter what happened, I could just SBF back to stock and start over.

There were also mods for the boot animation and boot logo, it was fully supported by ROM Toolbox Pro by Jrummy, we had overclock, and a few different ROMs to install, most of which were stable enough for everyday use with all the features working plus a few extras.... all this, and the droid 2 still had a locked bootloader.

so regarding SBF.... from what I understand, the Droid 4 uses fastboot files which is not the same thing. can someone explain to me what the limitations of the fastboot files are? for example, I read somewhere that if you install ICS, you can no longer go back to stock, or if you brick your phone the fastboot files wont work. Can someone explain exactly what the differences are, or maybe point me in the right direction?

Regarding ROMs, am I missing something or is CM9 the only one available right now? will there be more ROMs in the future, or is the Droid4 going to be one of those phones that doesnt have extensive development available to us?

I know i sound like I am complaining, but am not trying to sound like a punk... I'm honestly just trying to figure out what exactly I can do with this phone, and what to expect (or hope for?) in the future

 

[nowell29]

Lots of questions

First, you will be able to piece your answers together by reading this forum and at xda. But here is where most of us talk.

We are at the mercy of the "smart people" but we all try to help each other best we can.

ROMs are focusing mostly right now on ICS. There were a couple gb roms but most of the "smart people" have also taken on ICS and gb development is slow to stopped at this point.

AOSP is around, CM9 is doing fairly well at the moment, but the most common other than CM9 is the motorola leaks. If you see numbers like 200, 206, 208, 211, 212, and now 213 these are the leaks.

Yes, in order to update to ICS you lose the ability to come back to gb. You won't regret it the reason is because currently the d4 has a locked bootloader. We have to get around this. To do so we use safestrap. It is loaded after the kernel. From here we can load a "safe system" which is a flashed (modified to be so) OS side by side the main OS. It is called safe because you can break it and not toast your main OS.

Also this is why you can only flash ICS by using a leak from motorola, it is the only flash that d4 will accept because it is signed by motorola. Once there, you can root and install safeboot 2.0 again and flash either a leak or CM9 as a safe system.

The reason you cannot go back is because gb updates from motorola won't install over newer installs. A gb will not work once an ICS kernel is in place.

You won't see as much dev on d4 as was on d1 or d2. Big wigs went the way of popularity and bought the nexus or now the sIII. I still love the keyboard. We are at the mercy of a few, but notably hashcode who is actually a d3 user who helps us! Props to him! Help us out as you can and contribute what you can

Sent from my DROID4 using Tapatalk

 

[bishoy]

nowell29, thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, but I have a few more

ROMs are focusing mostly right now on ICS. There were a couple gb roms but most of the "smart people" have also taken on ICS and gb development is slow to stopped at this point.

in order to update to ICS you lose the ability to come back to gb. You won't regret it

The reason you cannot go back is because gb updates from motorola won't install over newer installs.

I actually dont really care for GB at all, and would much rather have ICS, but my only concern is that if I go to ICS and I have to return my phone to VZW for warranty issues (for example, the speaker starts crackling again), I can't really send it back with ICS on it because then they will know it is/was rooted. I need a way to get back to stock so that I can get a replacement if needed.

the reason is because currently the d4 has a locked bootloader. We have to get around this. To do so we use safestrap.

the droid2 had a locked bootloader, and we didnt have to use safestrap. are there any disadvantages to using safestrap? the only one that I can think of is that it uses up more storage space, which isnt that big of a deal considering what it does.

AOSP is around, CM9 is doing fairly well at the moment, but the most common other than CM9 is the motorola leaks. If you see numbers like 200, 206, 208, 211, 212, and now 213 these are the leaks.

AOSP hasn't been updated since march 5 (unless I'm missing something?). CM9 is unofficial... what does this mean? and I would actually love to use CM9 once most of the bugs are ironed out. it looks like they are doing great work on it. and arent the moto leaks just stock roms from vzw? does that mean they still have all the bloatware, etc.? I'd rather just wait for CM9

You won't see as much dev on d4 as was on d1 or d2

:sad:

We are at the mercy of a few, but notably hashcode who is actually a d3 user who helps us! Props to him!

:hail:

Help us out as you can and contribute what you can

I don't know anything about coding, building roms, or anything like that. What other ways can I contribute?