General ROOT, ROM, and Flash questions.

[Pdelponte]

So i have searched the forums for answers but can seem to get a clear picture of what i need to root.

here are a few things i am unsure of

Lots of ROOT and ROM guides talk about altering or loading (flashing?) files on the SD card. Do they mean an actual removable SD card? or the location "sdcard" that is in my phones internal storage (/mnt/sdcard)?

Do i NEED or is it highly recomended that i use a PC to Root, backup, or flash ROMs to my phone? (I have a Mac)

What does "flash" or "flashing" mean when talking about ROMs? is it the same as "load" or "loading"?

Who makes these different ROMS? Can I make a custom ROM? Can i preview them on some sort of emulator?

Thanks in advance.

 

[triptosyll]

If u have a removable SD card, then they're talking about that. If not then u use your internal storage.
'Flashing' means the process of putting whatever on your phone.
There are ways now to flash packages via your phone, depending on the type of phone, but generally you would rely on your computer to flash packages.


Sent from my SCH-I500 using Android Central Forums

 

[triptosyll]

Oh, and, no, it doesn't have to b a PC. A lot of people use Macs, and Linux computers too.
When it comes to building roms, yes you can do it, but to my knowledge, its not supported on Macs, tho I could b wrong. Building roms is quite a bit more technical. Its takes a bit of work to get your building environments set up, and it requires download MASS amounts of information. I downloaded the master branch of android source code, and it used up over 16gb. And that's not including all of the downloads it took just to get the environment set up.

But a word of advice: learn to Google. Don't just search one forum. And with most forums, don't post questions without doing A LOT of Googling first. For some reason these guys don't like to answer the same questions 500 times. If you can't manage to find the answers to the questions you just posted, without pasting them in a forum, your gonna have a really hard time getting to the point where you can actually build a rom.

Research research research

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Android Central Forums

 

[BlakeGates]

Check out the user QBKing77 on YouTube. He's got fantastic videos on the exact questions you're asking here. You won't be disappointed.

Sent from my ICS loaded Samsung G S II E4GT

 

[cyanogen-man]

Well it also depends on the phone there could be multiple ways to root them. Or one and flashing is usually from the a computer that gose into comand prompt and basically brick forces the exploit and dose its thing make sure you have 100% battery and research it go to xda-developers and I'm sure rhere is a multi platform developer with mac included to root the phone tip when you flash a rom get clock work mod it is a streight forward