Newb seeks simple breakdown

[theDmanVR6]

So after about two days of searching and searching the forum i have succumb to posting this very newb like thread.

I am looking for someone to just very simply and very nicely define and explain what exactly ROMS, KERNELS, FLASHING and other technical keywords are when it comes to the HTC Droid Incredible root or hacking process.

Now i originally got on this forum because i wanted to find a way to get rid of the useless and never used apps that came with my Incredible. After doing some heavy googleing i found that rooting the phone was the only way to do this. So i got on here and found an extremely helpful and informative step by step guide to rooting the phone. I do have to give credit to forum member "enlightened" for writing up a great tutorial. I followed it to the t and was successful at rooting the phone using unrEVOked 3.32 on stock 2.2.

But now that i have a rooted phone and more space on it whats next? Ive been reading and seeing that a lot of people are talking about ROMS and KERNELS and flashing roms and custom themes and just talking a lot of jargon that i quite dont understand yet. I am new to this whole phone rooting business but NOT a tech newb by any means. So i dont need the replies telling me "if you need to ask then dont do it" or any condescending replies for that matter. I have noticed that there are a lot of first time phone hackers that im sure have all the same questions i do, but are afraid to ask. One of the main things i want to do is customize the UI of my phone and any cool things that i don't even know about. So if anyone is nice out there and wants to help us newbs out, that would be great. Sorry this is so lengthy but i had to get it out

 

[sbenson]

Flashing - Flashing is what it's called when you install a new rom or kernel. Flashing is done through recovery.

Recovery - Recovery is where you install new roms or kernels. You can boot into recovery through rom manager or manually by holding up (or it might be down, can't remember) on the volume key, and press and hold the power button. This will get you into Hboot, from there just boot into recovery via the Hboot menu.

Nandroid - A nandroid is just a fancy name for making a complete backup of your phone. Nandroid backups are made in recovery and should have been the VERY FIRST THING YOU DID after you finished rooting your device. Nandroid backups are vital because you can always flash back to them (like a rom) if you screw something up. If you haven't done so, make one now.

Roms - Roms are essentially new operating systems for your phone. When you install a new rom, it overwrites the existing one. Roms for the Dinc come in two forms. Sense roms and AOSP roms. Sense roms have many of the sense characteristic you'll be familiar with (i.e. dock, widgets, etc). AOSP roms are built from source code and will be a vanilla android experience (i.e. stock android). Each developer will add their own tweaks to their rom so no two roms are the same, you just have to try a few out and see what you like. Roms are FLASHED either through rom manager or through recovery.

Kernels - Kernels basically regulate how your cpu performs. Developers create their own kernels to help maximize batter and performance. Like roms, each kernel is a bit different so you just need to see what works best for you. Kernels can be flashed through recovery.

You don't specify if you removed the crap-ware from your phone, but the absolute simplest way to do this is through titanium backup (free). You can either uninstall the app completely or you can freeze it. Much easier than a lot of methods out there.

If I think of any other terminology, I'll post it.

 

[theDmanVR6]

This is exactly what i needed, and I'm sure a lot of people out there needed too. Thank you for taking the time to put that together.

I did preform a nandroid backup right after i rooted the phone. I read tons of forums and they all said to do this after you root the phone so i made sure that i did. After doing a little more searching around on forums and getting myself a little more familiar with everything, i did find and install a ROM (IncrediblyRe-Engineered v2.20). I absolutely love it. It got rid of all the crap ware i didnt want in the first place and is visually much more appealing and i even noticed an increase in speed, if that's even possible. Everything seems to be running great and i haven't had any issues yet. But i do have some dumb questions i hope you don't mind me asking.

1) Lets say i get bored with this ROM and want to change it to another one, do i have to get rid of the existing ROM first somehow before installing the new one? Or do i just go about installing the new one like i did the original one, and it will overwrite the previous ROM automatically?

2) Kernels, are they ROM specific, or will any Kernel work with any ROM? And are there any out there that you or anyone else that may read this thread recommend?

3) What App's should a person have that has a rooted phone with a ROM? I already have Titanium Backup, ROM Manager, MetaMorph, and SuperBox. Anything else i should have?

I cant think of anything else right now but i do appreciate anyone that would reply to this post, and provide some more feedback.

 

[sbenson]

1) Lets say i get bored with this ROM and want to change it to another one, do i have to get rid of the existing ROM first somehow before installing the new one? Or do i just go about installing the new one like i did the original one, and it will overwrite the previous ROM automatically?

If you get board, make another nandroid backup, this time of the existing rom you're running. Once again, that way if you screw something up, you have a solid backup to flash back to. The new nandroid will not overwrite the existing one, don't worry (you should always keep that original nandroid). Recovery should automatically rename it appropriately as well. Just make sure you wipe data, cache, etc within recovery right before you flash a new rom. This will HOPEFULLY prevent any issues or incompatibilities with the new rom.

2) Kernels, are they ROM specific, or will any Kernel work with any ROM? And are there any out there that you or anyone else that may read this thread recommend?

Rom specific? This depends. The kernel developer will usually specify which rom these should be used on. The main issue being a "sense" kernel or an "aosp" kernel. Sense kernels are only used on sense roms and aosp kernels are only used on aosp roms... you get the drift.

3) What App's should a person have that has a rooted phone with a ROM? I already have Titanium Backup, ROM Manager, MetaMorph, and SuperBox. Anything else i should have?

This is completely up to the user. What are you going to be doing with the phone? Do you really need said app? That being said, you might consider Root Explorer, it will allow you full file access to your phone, not just the sd card, like Astro. Terminal Emulator is good as well. Wireless tether is always popular, but you can't get this from the market any longer-you might find it over at XDA or someone here could probably give it to you. I never had any luck with MetaMorph so I avoid it like the plauge. It was probably just my phone.

I would stay away from things like setCPU and CPUtuner. These regulate your kernel. Most kernel dev's will tell you their kernels run better WITHOUT these type of apps and I agree.

If I think of any others, I'll post it here.

 

[tweebee]

Excellent job at explaining there sbenson!

Another thing to keep in mind about backups is that you should always do a backup before flashing any mods onto the current ROM that you're running, and that way, if you decided that you don't like the mod or it's not working well with the ROM, you can revert back to the backup.

 

[sbenson]

Excellent job at explaining there sbenson!

Another thing to keep in mind about backups is that you should always do a backup before flashing any mods onto the current ROM that you're running, and that way, if you decided that you don't like the mod or it's not working well with the ROM, you can revert back to the backup.

Very true, good point.

 

[theDmanVR6]

So i was trying to flash a new ROM last night on the phone and i ran into a little bit of an issue. I did everything i did before and followed all the same steps. Except this time the installation of the new ROM was aborted and i got this error message...

"Amend scripting no longer supported, it was deprecated by Google Android 1.5, it was necessary to remove when upgrading to clock 3.0. Switch to Edify scripting."

Now thats not quite word for word because i just jotted the error message down real quick before i restored a back up. My phone works fine and i backed it up right before i attempted to flash this new ROM and restoring that back up went successfully. But why is it now not letting me flash a new ROM? Im no expert but is it because my ClockworkMod is version 3.0.0.8? Ive read on some forums that others were having issues with this as well and they would even try to flash an older version but the new version still remained. Any ideas at all? I like the ROM and everything i have now and the phone is working just fine, but it still kind of sucks that i cant even experiment with other ROMS to see what i like.

 

[sbenson]

So i was trying to flash a new ROM last night on the phone and i ran into a little bit of an issue. I did everything i did before and followed all the same steps. Except this time the installation of the new ROM was aborted and i got this error message...

"Amend scripting no longer supported, it was deprecated by Google Android 1.5, it was necessary to remove when upgrading to clock 3.0. Switch to Edify scripting."

Now thats not quite word for word because i just jotted the error message down real quick before i restored a back up. My phone works fine and i backed it up right before i attempted to flash this new ROM and restoring that back up went successfully. But why is it now not letting me flash a new ROM? Im no expert but is it because my ClockworkMod is version 3.0.0.8? Ive read on some forums that others were having issues with this as well and they would even try to flash an older version but the new version still remained. Any ideas at all? I like the ROM and everything i have now and the phone is working just fine, but it still kind of sucks that i cant even experiment with other ROMS to see what i like.

I don't see any reason why this didn't work. Before you flashed the rom, did you wipe? You should always wipe when switching to a different rom.

 

[tweebee]

So i was trying to flash a new ROM last night on the phone and i ran into a little bit of an issue. I did everything i did before and followed all the same steps. Except this time the installation of the new ROM was aborted and i got this error message...

"Amend scripting no longer supported, it was deprecated by Google Android 1.5, it was necessary to remove when upgrading to clock 3.0. Switch to Edify scripting."

Now thats not quite word for word because i just jotted the error message down real quick before i restored a back up. My phone works fine and i backed it up right before i attempted to flash this new ROM and restoring that back up went successfully. But why is it now not letting me flash a new ROM? Im no expert but is it because my ClockworkMod is version 3.0.0.8? Ive read on some forums that others were having issues with this as well and they would even try to flash an older version but the new version still remained. Any ideas at all? I like the ROM and everything i have now and the phone is working just fine, but it still kind of sucks that i cant even experiment with other ROMS to see what i like.

What ROM were you trying to flash? It looks like the ROM have not been updated to flash with Clockworkmod 3.x. There was a change in update script starting with CMW3, so all the ROMs and mods have to be updated in order to be flashable with CMW3.

You can still flash this, but it will require you to manually downgrade your recovery to 2.5.1.2.

 

[theDmanVR6]

I was trying to flash an updated version on the Incredibly re-engineered ROM. And thats exactly what the issue is so i downgraded to 2.5.1.2 and flashed the ROM successfully. But im still looking around for a good stable ROM, any suggestions?

 

[tweebee]

I'm currently running SkyRaider 4.0 and it is a favorite of mine right now for the past couple of weeks because of the custom settings. Another good solid ROM is Redemption and I had that before SR.

 

[enlightened]

+1 for Redemption ROM. I've been running it for months and have no issues whatsoever.

 

[theDmanVR6]

Thank you guys for all the feedback, now I do have another dumb newb question....will deleting a ROM that I know I will never flash back to corrupt or cause any issues what so ever on my phone?

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