The Android rooting + flashing super guide

glitch · 17 Oct 2010 at 22:40

Mekrel said:
I've added greater undervolt, put in a new governor known as "smartass" that's basically an edited version of another governor.

All of that is way above my limited technical knowledge, but could you take your tinkering one step further and construct a ROM that met your exacting needs? Or is that a whole different kettle of fish?

Mekrel said:
I use 32.47.00.32U_5.10.05.23 and its associated RIL files.

Sorry, stupid question #175; RIL files?

Mekrel;17593835A said:
lso, what about T9 quick dial where you press the buttons corresponding to the letters you want and it short lists your contacts? You don't get that with stock Android.

That's another thing I miss with DeFroST. I spent ages wading through menus to see if you could switch it on...

Mekrel · 17 Oct 2010 at 23:01

glitch said:
All of that is way above my limited technical knowledge, but could you take your tinkering one step further and construct a ROM that met your exacting needs? Or is that a whole different kettle of fish?

I'm considering doing this, but it wouldn't be too different from Teppic's ROM as I wouldn't like to steer too far from Sense. As you can tell from my posts, I'm a big fan of Sense.

I have considered sharing this kernel but it's undervolted substantially (100mV vs others who tend to only undervolt by 75mV max) and could cause stability issues on phones that can't operate properly on the reduced voltage.

glitch said:
Sorry, stupid question #175; RIL files?

It's a layer of the operating system that talks to the hardware radio, if you update the radio you need the layer for best compatibility.

I run 32.47 because I find it the best before battery life

glitch said:
That's another thing I miss with DeFroST. I spent ages wading through menus to see if you could switch it on...

There's a lot under the hood that Sense does, people keep telling me "yeah but you can get XYZ app to provide the same functionality of Sense on a stock Android install" but why would you remove Sense and then install applications to get the features back?

Unfortunately, Android in some ways is too customisable. People spend more time flashing their devices, making them unstable and less enjoyable to use than they do actually using the device. :eek:

glitch · 17 Oct 2010 at 23:18

Mekrel said:
I'm considering doing this, but it wouldn't be too different from Teppic's ROM as I wouldn't like to steer too far from Sense. As you can tell from my posts, I'm a big fan of Sense.

And I think I'm with you on that.

I'd convinced myself that Sense was all the flashy stuff that occupied the homescreens but there's a massive amount going on all over the place that I had completely taken for granted.

Mekrel said:
It's a layer of the operating system that talks to the hardware radio, if you update the radio you need the layer for best compatibility.

Ohhhhh. Sorry, I thought the RIL files were something extra - you can tell I'm somewhat lacking on the technical front, can't you?!

Mekrel said:
I run 32.47 because I find it the best before battery life

I'll give it a whirl - thanks for the tip.

Mekrel said:
Unfortunately, Android in some ways is too customisable. People spend more time flashing their devices, making them unstable and less enjoyable to use than they do actually using the device.

Which is exactly what I've spent the last 48-hours doing. I'm extremely grateful for all the advice thus far, Mekrel.

benjo · 17 Oct 2010 at 23:36

Going to root my Desire now.

Is Modaco's ROM with A2SD+ hosted anywhere else? The one on the forums is going at about 2KB/s

edit: Ah it's picked up now

benjo · 18 Oct 2010 at 00:25

ignore

glitch · 18 Oct 2010 at 08:57

Help!

I'm trying to wipe and partition my SD Card in preparation for installing the ROM that Mekrel has pointed me in the direction of, but I'm hitting a brick wall. Or, as is more likely, doing something wrong.

I head into ROM Manager and select Partition SD Card > 512MB > 32MB > OK and the system reboots, but I'm greeted by a little picture of an Android standing in front of a triangle with an exclamation mark in it and all I can do is press the Power button to be greeted with the following message:

ClockwordMod Recovery v2.5.0.7
Finding Update Package...
Opening Update Package...
Verifying Update Package...
E:failed to seek in cache/update.zip (Invalid argument)
E:signature verification failed
Installation aborted.

What have I done wrong this time?

Deep · 18 Oct 2010 at 11:40

glitch said:
Help!

I'm trying to wipe and partition my SD Card in preparation for installing the ROM that Mekrel has pointed me in the direction of, but I'm hitting a brick wall. Or, as is more likely, doing something wrong.

I head into ROM Manager and select Partition SD Card > 512MB > 32MB > OK and the system reboots, but I'm greeted by a little picture of an Android standing in front of a triangle with an exclamation mark in it and all I can do is press the Power button to be greeted with the following message:

What have I done wrong this time?

Hey the exact same thing happened yesterday!

Open Rom Manager and press Flash ClockworkMod Recovery (1st option) and change it to 2.5.0.0

Then try it, thats what I did yesterday and it worked!

wellibob · 18 Oct 2010 at 13:22

Im about to load on Defrost rom 5.4, this is the first time ive done this, and it says i need a radio , which i ve downloaded the zip same as defrost rom zip. Ok i put the rom zip on root of sd, install , once this rom is on, do i have to go back into boot, and install the radio zip ?

Updated did it all ok, and yes, it was so easy, i should face palm anyone who has trouble following khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaans guide... many thanks ;-)

glitch · 18 Oct 2010 at 13:33

Deep said:
Hey the exact same thing happened yesterday!

Open Rom Manager and press Flash ClockworkMod Recovery (1st option) and change it to 2.5.0.0

Then try it, thats what I did yesterday and it worked!

Ah, much obliged to you!

Quick question about this whole thing; if I've already partitioned the card once, do I have to do it every time or can I just wipe the card from an internal menu?

molinari · 18 Oct 2010 at 13:50

Finally rooted and flashed my Desire (Modaco 2.2 rom), and it was fairly painless

One question, how does Apps2SD+ differ from A2SD?

benjo · 18 Oct 2010 at 15:39

I've had a play with some Roms, going to stick with Modaco 2.2. One question though, each time I flash a new rom, do I need to create a partition in Rom Manager for Apps2SD+ each time?

wellibob · 18 Oct 2010 at 17:42

question, i put on defrost 5.4, but the signal indicator is missing, i only seem to be able to put numbers , not a signal gauge ? Also the additional 5.4 apps, i go to install, and a mesage pops up saying "to install, you need o download a recovery image" ? New to this rooting lark, and am treading way to carefully probably

sgx.saint · 18 Oct 2010 at 18:30

Hi All,

Quick newbie question.

Can someone link me to the latest Defrost ROM which is sutiable for my UK based HTC Desire?

I just don't want to download a US Rom and break my phone!

glitch · 18 Oct 2010 at 19:55

sgx.saint said:
Can someone link me to the latest Defrost ROM which is sutiable for my UK based HTC Desire?

I just don't want to download a US Rom and break my phone!

Whatever the latest version on offer in the thread over at XDA ought to be fine. As far as I know there aren't any UK/USA-specific versions.

Mekrel · 18 Oct 2010 at 20:52

glitch said:
Ah, much obliged to you!

Quick question about this whole thing; if I've already partitioned the card once, do I have to do it every time or can I just wipe the card from an internal menu?

You only have to do it once, when you change a completely different ROM you can wipe the EXT partition from Clockwork recovery. However if you just flash an update of Teppic's ROM you won't have to wipe anything.

I do recommend that before you flash anything else after your first custom ROM, that you do a nand backup from the recovery console.

molinari said:
Finally rooted and flashed my Desire (Modaco 2.2 rom), and it was fairly painless
One question, how does Apps2SD+ differ from A2SD?

AP2SD+ works by creating a symbolic link to the EXT partition of the SDCard, the symbolic link is basically a "diversion". The /data/app, data/app-private and data/dalvik-cache directories are linked to the /mnt/ext-sd partition.

So when an application goes to install to /data/app as per normal, it's diverted to the EXT partition.

With native AP2SD, the application is moved to the FAT32 partition of the card. Problem with this is that the FAT32 partition doesn't mount until the phone is booted. This causes an issue when the application is needed when the system loads, such as replacement keyboards and flash or if the application has a widget on your home screen. The FAT32 mounting so late makes them not load!

The EXT partition in AP2SD+ is mounted much earlier by a script in the init.d directory. So you can install anything there and it will be available for the system.

benjo said:
I've had a play with some Roms, going to stick with Modaco 2.2. One question though, each time I flash a new rom, do I need to create a partition in Rom Manager for Apps2SD+ each time?

Nope, but you may have to wipe it (the SD-Ext partition) if you change to a completely different ROM.

glitch · 18 Oct 2010 at 22:34

Mekrel said:
You only have to do it once, when you change a completely different ROM you can wipe the EXT partition from Clockwork recovery. However if you just flash an update of Teppic's ROM you won't have to wipe anything.

Ah, that's in mounts and storage, isn't it? I'd forgotten that option was even there. Thanks for the pointer.

I've got to say that I'm absolutely loving this Teppic ROM so far. All the best bits of Sense and loads of little additional tweaks to make it even better.

benjo · 18 Oct 2010 at 23:09

Mekrel said:
Nope, but you may have to wipe it (the SD-Ext partition) if you change to a completely different ROM.

Thanks. Ended up sticking with Teppic74's rom. Although I'm not sure if App2SD is working. Each time I install a new app, I've noticed the internal memory decreasing. I tried creating the partition again in Rom Manager but it fails to reboot and I get an android with an exclamation mark in the clockwork boot bit.

Mekrel · 18 Oct 2010 at 23:15

It will decrease because the application data still resides on the phone memory, the application itself is on the SD card though.

If you want to test if it's working, open up a command prompt and type:

Code:

adb shell ls -l /data

You should see something like

/data/app ---> /sd-ext/app
/data/app-private ---> /sd-ext/app-private
/data/dalvik-cache ---> /sd-ext/dalvik-cache

benjo · 18 Oct 2010 at 23:19

Gave it a try, but I'm not getting anything after entering that in the command prompt.

Mekrel · 18 Oct 2010 at 23:37

Have you got the Android SDK downloaded and are you running the command from the "SDK"/tools folder where the adb.exe is located?

Alternitavely, download "Android Terminal Emulator" by Jack Palevich from the Market and type this command into that:

Code:

su
ls -l /data

After you type SU, the application will ask for root access which you'll need to accept