[Q] What are the benefits of a custom ROM? - Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

By custom ROM I mean like Cognition or CyanogenMod.
Are there any advantages to these over the stock ROM on my Rooted Device?
Such as more features or whatever else?
Am I just better off waiting for FroYo to be released?
I kinda miss flashing ROMs from the good ol'days of WinMo =]

Sometimes, it's the little things that make a world of difference. Cognition, for example, makes my battery indicator give me a number, the percentage of power left. Much better than having to make a fuzzy guess based on a tiny blue/yellow/red battery graphic. It also comes packaged with a nice lagfix as well as app sideloading - things I can and did do for myself, but are nice to not have to redo with a new ROM.
And in general, my phone is just smoother with the new kernel and everything else. So I don't regret flashing a custom ROM at all; it was worth it.

Do I need a Lag-fix?
This is my first android device so I have no idea what slow is haha.
I think I already enabled sideloading, I did something with a command prompt window and my computer, thats kinda sad that I don't remember what lol.

If you edited a database file in something like SQLite Manager, you enabled sideloading.
And I totally recommend a lagfix. There are several wonderfully technical reasons as to why one's good to have, but practically speaking, I like it because the phone is noticeably more responsive. Although, watch which one you get... I had one that utilized a program called SL4A, and removing that lagfix broke my phone for the day. -_- I had to do an Odin3 flash to make it usable again.

I have noticed that lag when I try to resume the phone from stand-by. The lag-fix doesn't have any negative side affects to the phone like over-clocking does?

Related

[Q] How many people are running stock ROMs?

I have never found any ROM that runs as well as the stock JL2 (I9000M) I am on now. GPS works great (10 sats seen with 32.8ft/10m accuracy), no lag at all, no nothing, the phone works as advertised. I don't have all the features the other ROMs have, but I don't have any problems either.
Just curious how many people are running stock ROM's.
Ian
ROMs offer more than GPS fixes. I use a custom ROM for its visual enhancements, some bundled features and fixes (like wifi drain, etc.) and lag fixes which are not otherwise found in many stock releases.
That said, if one is comfortable with the performance on the whole, then one shouldn't really bother moving across cooked ROMs -- you're right at that
To be honest I never entirely understood why people ran stock ROMs for daily use. Custom ROMs are just so much more versatile, faster (lagfix!), and generally better, so I see no use in running a stock ROM over a cooked one.
EDIT: Except for ROM selection, I guess.. I don't believe there are any cooked ROMs running JL2 right now. Soon as I get my phone back from repair I'll start workin' on one.
QwertyManiac said:
ROMs offer more than GPS fixes. I use a custom ROM for its visual enhancements, some bundled features and fixes (like wifi drain, etc.) and lag fixes which are not otherwise found in many stock releases.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I only mentioned the GPS as an example because this seems to be one point people are having difficulty with. I get no lag with my phone at all so no lag fix is needed, everything works very well.
I do miss some of the extras on the cooked ROMs like the cool multi-colored 'X' at boot-up on Darky's ROM, the extra SGS tools (I did download them separately though), and other stuff.
I did install the Gingerbread keyboard from that ROM onto mine as it's just a simple apk install.
stock
I have stock JPX but with advance voodoo. over clocked to 1.2 gingerbread launcher and keyboard with aosp lockscreen.
used to flash roms on hero and dream and they just lost to many features or after a few month got very buggy so staying away this time.
What is a stock ROM?? I think I saw or heard that thing when I bought my phone 4 months ago
Seriously, if you're happy with what you have, then stick with it
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
QwertyManiac said:
...visual enhancements...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That mod seems to be subjective...thats why I haven't installed any custom ROMs, all the ones I've seen include Voodoo's visual enhancements, but everything on the screen looked slightly over-exposed and washed-out to me.
The only thing i miss with a stock ROM is the superior idle battery life, anything else cant be missed.
w98seeng said:
I only mentioned the GPS as an example because this seems to be one point people are having difficulty with. I get no lag with my phone at all so no lag fix is needed, everything works very well.
I do miss some of the extras on the cooked ROMs like the cool multi-colored 'X' at boot-up on Darky's ROM, the extra SGS tools (I did download them separately though), and other stuff.
I did install the Gingerbread keyboard from that ROM onto mine as it's just a simple apk install.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See, its a matter of personal taste and preference.
Compare it with a car. You buy a car and some people like it stock and untouched. The stock ride is good anyway and is mostly fine. Some people want to personalize the car and put alloys, change interiors. Some want more performance and put some engine enhancement parts or boosts.
Same goes with your phone. You can pimp it any way you want by using different ROMs or you can stay at stock.
No one can tell you and convince you what you are missing unless you try it.
I've been using stock rom, currently jpo, will upgrade to jpy via kies as soon as I get some time.
I have tried a lot of different roms in the 4 months I have had my phone.
I always found the cooked roms a bit flaky, not too bad, but enough where I always go back to stock.
Is there a list somewhere where I can see the changes between 2.1, 2.2 and 2.2.1?
Thanks,
Ian
PS, sorry for posting in the wrong forum, I'll take 20 lashings out of petty cash.
I'm running with Darkys V7.6 Rom at the moment it is much, much faster then the stock XXJPY and im now running speedmod instead of voodoo and battery life has improved a little.
Overall i think if you can make a rom or use a custom one with all of the required lagfixes and other little tweaks they are far superior to stock roms!
I am a big fan of Stock ROMS in general. The cleaner the better I always say... The new JL2 ROM is very nice. Fast, stable, and works well. I do like to change the home screen for visual stylings.
That being said, I blew my phone up yesterday trying to download 2.2.1 from Kies so I am currently running Darky 7.6.

General question about Froyo 2.2 on 32B

First, I apologize if this is an issue that has already been discussed; however, I did look through the stickied threads and didn't find anything that really answered the question I have.
I have tried several different Froyo 2.2 ROMs on my Dream, and they always seem to run a fraction of the speed of Donut ROMs. Loading the home screen, applications, and webpages always seems to take a lot longer, and there just isn't that quickness that Donut has.
Am I doing something wrong? Anyone else have the same experiences?
I actually have to stick with this fact. Also i did notice that the rom i tried "passing through" the process of moving on from Android 1.6 to Android 2.2.1 (was JF if i recall) was kinda faster then the Biff mod i have on my G1 now.
But i don't think that it is anything wrong about it, i think that frankly the g1 start to be an obsolete piece of hardware.
Maybe i am wrong but just so that you know i tried to download "Angry Birds Lite" and start it...well it's kinda a shame as it stutters terribly. Is it a matter of ROM MOD or just that the G1 isn't a young quicky fella anymore ?
The hardware is outdated .
It's just interesting then how so many people appear to be running these Froyo 2.2 builds. Do they not realize how sluggish they have made their phones?
Why shouldn't we M!x. Me, on my hand, i have a G1 blocked by my phoning company and sold me an 1.1 Android HTC Dream...so awful...i couldn't even use my camera as a video recorder (and they didn't release not 1, not only 1 update!)
And as long as i am flashing and modifying everything i don't find why shouldn't i update my phone to the latest version of this wonderful OS.
N4R4Y4N said:
Why shouldn't we M!x. Me, on my hand, i have a G1 blocked by my phoning company and sold me an 1.1 Android HTC Dream...so awful...i couldn't even use my camera as a video recorder (and they didn't release not 1, not only 1 update!)
And as long as i am flashing and modifying everything i don't find why shouldn't i update my phone to the latest version of this wonderful OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why shouldn't you? Because it's slow? Have you tested Android 1.6 vs Android 2.2? You don't notice the significant slowdown? Taking 5 seconds to bring up the dialpad?
ok wait wait wait...
Oh well...i dont know if u intend that literally takes 5 seconds...but with the Biff mod it's not THAT slow...
i only joined up in the topic cos i found the phone slow in some occasions but not that it jeopardize the overall use.
-
i guess your the two among the fews who didnt get their phones up and running froyo fluently.
checkout the OTA and after that the more bareboners/tweaked roms, read through the corresponding forums, and try to admit that you have to abandon having fancy stuff on yer phone.
as for me im right now running the OTA the one available here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=811620
with cpu set 122-614mhz, using modified radio hack to gain +14mb of ram and modified lowmemorykiller values.
ive been running the system since weeks with no hangups,and is snappy az should be.
done these not with with third party apps but adding an initscript that sets these values at boot time WITHOUT needing running yetanother app running.
i dont even have to use compcache.
must mention that i use ADW home manager with only 2 desktops, no dockbar and so, minimized fancy in order to keep its memory consumption low, using only the calendar widget and Quick Settings in notification bar.
i have even found out recently that switching on the animations lets you feel your phone more snappy since it takes your attention while loading or switching between views/screensD
[it does work indeed!]
so snappy and stable that i am afraid of trying new so said tweaked roms like:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=825716&page=48
or
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=929678
i guess more and more G1 users/developers are trying to strip down and tweak froyo to get the max out it since this may be the last stable rom available for our devices.
and no, i dont think that our devices are outdated, definitely not for normal day use.
so keep up finding the best way for yours!
cheers
:GY
M!x said:
First, I apologize if this is an issue that has already been discussed; however, I did look through the stickied threads and didn't find anything that really answered the question I have.
I have tried several different Froyo 2.2 ROMs on my Dream, and they always seem to run a fraction of the speed of Donut ROMs. Loading the home screen, applications, and webpages always seems to take a lot longer, and there just isn't that quickness that Donut has.
Am I doing something wrong? Anyone else have the same experiences?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You make these claims without telling what roms you've tried.
Have you tried this one: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=811620 ??? Because this one *IS FAST*. At least it is when combined with the 2708 memory hack.
I'll surely give it a shot, thank you guys
Thanks for the information guys, I will certainly try these ROMs. I have, by the way, tried standard builds of Froyo, CM6, SuperF, with disappointing results. They worked "OK," but had a fraction of the performance of Donut.
You guys can try my Froyo rom. Only complaints I get is about the Bloatware,lol. No drag, almost like a donut rom in speed. I have over 3000 downloads. The link is on my signature or on the G1 development section. Let me know what you think!

[Q][i9000] Custom Firmware?

I have the 16GB Vodafone UK Galaxy S. Today I was in a city trying to use satnav and it was rank rotten. So I thought I'd see if an upgrade would do it. I was using the very first Froyo that Vodafone came out with - I upgraded to that and hadn't upgraded since. I did have it rooted and 1 click lag fix was on it.
I upgraded to Gingerbread just there, sadly I had to do a factory reset, however it's all working.
I have realised that if I am going to put a custom firmware on it then now is just the right time to do it.
Is there one out there that's stable, and an improvement over the Gingerbread I'm using? Particularly I'd like it to fix the lag (if that still needs fixed) and even better would be fixing GPS/Satnav.
Pinpong blockbuster rom - ticks all your boxes. Get faster fix from market.
Your gps will never be 100% satisfactory in the city, in fact it will probably always be poor - no matter what custom rom you use.
Halkus said:
I have the 16GB Vodafone UK Galaxy S. Today I was in a city trying to use satnav and it was rank rotten. So I thought I'd see if an upgrade would do it. I was using the very first Froyo that Vodafone came out with - I upgraded to that and hadn't upgraded since. I did have it rooted and 1 click lag fix was on it.
I upgraded to Gingerbread just there, sadly I had to do a factory reset, however it's all working.
I have realised that if I am going to put a custom firmware on it then now is just the right time to do it.
Is there one out there that's stable, and an improvement over the Gingerbread I'm using? Particularly I'd like it to fix the lag (if that still needs fixed) and even better would be fixing GPS/Satnav.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you think about CM7? Great Rom, works well on my phone, and add many new things.
Hi Mate, I tried many custom roms and finally settled for
(ROM)GingerCriskeloV77-9LS-CamHack- SIP + NoIncRing I9000/T/M JVP 2.3.4
Cheers
Well, I managed to get it on. Booting up is weird though, it looks for a long time as if the screen is broken, but eventually ti comes on to the Blockbuster lock screen and then everything is fine. It does seem faster - but I'll only really know when I get to one of those situations where I feel the phone is frustratingly slow.
Thanks very much Woolf!
Time allowing I'll give the other roms a shot, although this Blockbuster one does seem to be good enough for me.
Sadly my phone now reboots constantly. it seems to do it when the screen locks
Halkus said:
Sadly my phone now reboots constantly. it seems to do it when the screen locks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check you got the installation right for that rom, maybe you had to flash a jvp stock first or some similar omission?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App
Sorry to hear you're having issues. Try flashing to a totally stock JVQ first (with repartition) once you've backed up, then if you don't like that, try a custom ROM. I don't think many JVQ custom ROMs are worth trying if you want a taste of custom ROMs. Better to try CM7 or MIUI for something fast and different.
As a side note, the best tip I've seen for fixing the dreadful GPS we have with the i9000 is to buy a Nexus S or just ANY other phone! Yes, some radios appear better than others, but nobody can prove anything and it's almost all subjective feedback. A drop in the ocean of improvement needed for satisfactory function. If you must use it, a bluetooth GPS receiver and 3rd party navigation app seem the best way to deal with it.
I've now stepped away from Blockbuster. Even doing the a perfect install it crashed often and repeatedly. I did try upgrading to the very latest and that crashed several times in the past hour. Part of the problem was the rom starts with a lockscreen that has a messaging unlock on it, but it isn't set to an app that comes with the rom, so it reboots every time. Sadly that wasn't the only problem, as I was still getting loads of reboots.
So that's out of the way.
I'm now a lot more comfortable using Odin so I'll be able to try other options. I'll try the other two suggested in this thread first of all.
Next to test is CM7.
Thanks for the help folks!
CM7 aborted. Instructions are incorrect, the file they say to download doesn't actually match the instructions so that's out. Plus it clearly states it's not suitable for day to day use... so I don't thnk the time in working out how to fix it is justified since it looks like it wouldn't be useful.
I'm going back to the original question in the thread, to say that I'm looking for something stable. I now think that a custom rom is not the way to go. However some modifications may well be.
Can anyone suggest some kind of lagfix/speedup that isn't a complete overhaul like CM7, Blockbuster etc, that is very stable and that'll make my phone faster?
Edit : Part of what I was doing to install Blockbuster was install Speedmod kernel. So I've gone and put that on, and used the clockwork mod to root it, and also convert to ext4. I think things are looking pretty fast so far. I'm not sure if there's a lagfix for this, but I'm quite comfortable just now footering around - unlike the complete rom I don't feel out of my depth. So I think I'll be ok for now.

[Q] Performance Question

Hey
I just updated my Galaxy S to firmware 2.3.3, JVQ through kies
I was just wondering if there would be any dramatic performance advantage if i used a custom ROM or something?
Also another question, when i updated through kies i didnt do a factory reset, Should i do one now? would it make any difference to my phones poerformance?
Thanks for any help
If you are currently experiencing nothing out of the ordinary (errors, lag, etc.) then I don't feel doing a factory reset would help in any way.
Custom ROMs are made for plenty of different things. If you like what Samsung has to offer, keep at it. If you feel you'd enjoy more speed, power, etc., then try a custom one. That's literally why people make one—to improve on an area where they feel could use improving. Personally, I use CM7. If you're after power, that's the ROM for you.
Thanks for your reply, I do sometimes get a little bit of lag, sometimes apps freezing up...
What im really asking is how noticeable would the difference in performance be?
Shotdog said:
Thanks for your reply, I do sometimes get a little bit of lag, sometimes apps freezing up...
What im really asking is how noticeable would the difference in performance be?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use CM7 with Glitch's kernel, and I usually have my phone running at 1.2 GHz. I never, ever experience lag in the launcher—opening the app drawer, transitioning between homescreens (filled with widgets); for the most part, my phone doesn't lag when using/multi-tasking between apps (although some apps still take time to load, of course); I virtually never, ever have any lag whatsoever when browsing the web (I use Opera Mobile); and I rarely have any stuttering in games, although I simply bump my CPU up a bit more if I need the extra power (some games are fairly intensive).
For the most part, I don't experience lag. When I do, I feel like I haven't tweaked my phone quite right. I quickly jumped off the Samsung boat once I realized that there were different, more performance-oriented ROMs available—and I must say that I am extremely pleased with both the performance and elaborated settings menu of CM7, which leaves for a truly customizable experience. If you're at all interested in an experience like this, I'd start looking into custom ROMs. It takes a little bit to wrap your head around it all, but once you learn the basics and set your phone up just right, you'll have a much more enjoyable experience. I certainly have.
I found ram tweaks had the most effect, there's a thread in the dev section on optimizing your phone, or you can use the simplicity rom, I think it has those tweaks all pre done.

Help me get some more usage out of this phone :/ Asking basic questions!

Hi guys!
So I'm probably not as good with phones as you, but I learned to install a ROM, I've tried many of them but then returned to CyanogenMod ROM that was offered on their site. The performance is not that good, it lags often and battery life is too bad! The questions I want to ask you are:
1. Which ROM do you think is the most stable and would be a better alternative to Jelly Bean CyanogenMod?
2. What ROM are you using and why? Experiences etc.
Thank you!
Kind of in the same boat, just three meters further out. Have been putting off buying a new pho.... embiggened touch-pad device with phone capability and less battery life, that should in a reasonable world come with a carrying case with a shoulder-strap, and a stock portfolio for the handset maker... for a few years. But finally caved in, and bought something on sale with a really good screen, a replaceable battery, and a 3,5mm jack not made exclusively out of conductive rubber.
But. Now that I had a new phone pad, I wouldn't have to worry about bricking my old phone. All that much. So I went through a bunch of excruciating testing and failing yesterday to get something without ram-crippling bloatware and google applications that essentially force the 4x to run constantly at max speed.
What I seemed to be running into was two types of problems: a lot of the roms (custom firmware) were made by someone who was simply testing something new at the time, experimented a lot, and then left the project behind (or simply focused on other handsets). That's not necessarily a problem, but it can mean that you have stability issues you might not expect, and that has not been tested or reported while the project was active. And that might actually stop you from getting far enough to install some app that changes cpu-governor, ram-handling, and so on (even things like the standard keyboard/language variant.. kind of essential that that works). Install instructions also tend to link to outdated bootloaders, or have workaround suggestions that worked at the time, but now are obsoleted completely. The second problem was the OpenGapps - some of the core apps conflict with the builds' own apps.
And then there's the fact that the kernel in these roms tend to be from when the project was last maintained. I can't seem to decipher exactly what's going on, but I think a lot of the early roms were based on an old kernel with inserts (like the original one from LG). While the older builds on new kernel branches tend to have better support, but then have certain types of functionality simply gone completely. I don't know why that is, but the experience with this on linux laptops and android devices is what made me hold off until I had something that could replace the 4x before starting to try out some of the experiment builds people have.
So I went through getting the bootloader unlocked, trying a billion different methods before realizing they were all workarounds for the non-eu handsets - just use the oem-unlock method with fastboot. It's really as simple as it sounds. Use the "all in one" thing on the forum, set up the drivers, get root, and things like that - and then install a new, updated bootloader. I think after one of the official LG updates, everyone can actually use the oem-unlock.
Then I chose the wrong bootloader, apparently.. the cwm touch thing - superb bootloader. But apparently has some quirks that prevents it from installing certain firmware packages. I think it has something to do with consistency checking. I liked the idea of a multiboot, and didn't see why that wouldn't be extremely easy on android (with a storage size vs. cfw package being basically infinite to naught). But apparently what you want(need) is the twrp bootloader, and it has to be the last version. I don't know why that is, but you really don't want to be stuck - after basically wrecking your only boot - with an uninstallable image on your sdcard. So if you try something else than the "best one", just be prepared for an exit strategy with a backup and things like that before trying to install new images. There's also no way on these bootloaders to simply run a test first, nor is there a very easy way to partition the on-phone storage without having to start configuring install packages, so this is kind of awful if you're not actually deep into the development toolchains already.
I'd really love it if some of the tutorials said things like: our build really doesn't need a thorough wipe, and you can happily choose the file system you'd like, and the one that actually makes sense. For example. Or "for this cfw, you can just install gapps later on, that's going to work perfectly - don't force the install before you get through our own intro stage", etc. Alas.
Then I went through slimkat, an aosp lineage based rom, an old 4.1 rom, a new 5.1 rom, which all had different game-breaking problems. One refused to install gapps (note: you'll need the gapps that fit with the android version - but some packages simply won't install, period), another build had no sound other than on the speaker. One hanged randomly, another didn't scale the processor cores.
The good news is that this isn't really a problem - once you're set up you can just keep wiping and installing new ones. But it might be a really good idea to make a backup of your initial rom/custom firmware, just in case (i.e., you root, install the bootloader, and once you're in the bootloader, you make a backup of your current "rom" that is installed now. Then you can just revert to that without any problems later. I obviously didn't do that, because I was just fumbling around).
Some of the issues I ran into also might have workarounds, but I don't know - how would I, there's no way to actually tell what the problem is, or what it's related to. The most useful ones in the end seemed to be Vanir 6.0-based, and the one I ended up with, something called Euphoria on lollipop/5.1. That one seems to have all the hardware functions and benefitting a lot from a later kernel. I haven't done incredible amounts of testing on it yet, but it seems to work a lot better than the original firmware ever did.
And when you choose a gapps package, just go with the pico version. You can install everything you need after that from the store (and it takes less time than pre-installing the infinite amounts of crap in the stock package).
In sum - while you can get pretty far with the 4x on just rooting it and uninstalling some of the infinitely memory-hogging google crap, along with installing a new governor for the cpu and things like that. You can actually get something extremely neat by installing a new "rom"/cfw, that doesn't necessarily have the "oh, but you just have to forgo feature X, Y and Z because open source" problems.
I'm sure a cfw-developer is going to see this one day and roll their eyes back in their heads. And will have some very sharp words about the kind of effort that went into making a specific kernel, insert and build combination to even boot. But the later kernels seem to work really well.
And thanks to that Euphoria thing, I'm probably not going to use my new padphone-thing as much as I would. Because that one is over the "just testing stuff, getting it to work" stage. There's things with the home-button bar lighting up when there's notifications, things like that, that kind of show someone who used the handset was maintaining the build.
Anyway - I really recommend that you try out some different types to find these really good roms that works well. I'm sure there are lots of unknown cfw packages out there that work.. you know, for the 300 people who use it every day. That might be some of the early cfw variants with old kernels. And it might clearly also be some of the new ones, which I really didn't expect. Honestly, was kind of expecting stripes across the screen and hangs, but that didn't happen.
Optionally, a dev who actually knows what they're talking about could maybe suggest a list of cfw that have the later kernels that work, or the same kernels that Euphoria has Really, trying to search the net now, and find possible candidates was not easy.

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