Ehh need some advice custom rom etc

[terramir]

Okies I rooted my phone and get root access when I use the autokiller memory optimizer etc. but, here my problem. I have quite a few questions and google is not your friend all I get are some half guides that assume knowledge I do not have, heck I can go into terminal in macosx and even write a terminal batch script, but my linux is sort of shaky not to mention my android (non existent knowledge base.) Also there are some phone specifics VM670 I would like answered.

1. seems like this phone only has 190 mb of memory available I saw people out the with custom rom's that had 420 mb available. I assumed that froyo couldn't access all of the memory and that improved with gingerbread, but my sister have a sprint optimus and just got the gingerbread stock rom and she still only got around 190 user mem. (so does this phone have 512), but the stock roms are eating up too much memory? or was this guy booting from an ext2 partition?

2. there are many choices availible on recovery / rom's etc.
What I want is as much as possible memory I dun need a bunch of ringers actually I would like to just add the two three ringers I want and ex-nee the rest if possible as for the backgrounds same difference, I just need my picture of pink (well I'm 40 and I think she is wrong in all the right ways ) which I already got stock wise I rather get rid of everything possible.
3. bootscreen another memory and time waster, I rather not even waste those 1/10s of seconds to display that I rather the phone boot faster.
4. I rather have a mod where pretty much everything works that is barebones when it comes to all the crap ware and that includes the twitter app at least for me. I'd really like to strip the rom down and get rid of any programs I dun use. removing the browser all together in favor of opera mobile is probably too much to ask lol.
okies long story short
What is the most universal stable gingerbread rom and what is the best recovery for speed purposes, I assume you have to hold down some buttons while powering on to invoke. and how to I strip crap like pictures, ringtones, the picture taking sound, before I flash the darn thing. Also how do you back-up the dang google apps before I upgrade?
also what is the darn dalvik cache? I keep reading about clearing it but I dun have the first clue wth it is.
(BTW is it feasible to strip the boot animation or would that hang the phone?)
So many questions and google mostly ends up with half tutorials, either it's step by step for dummies with no explanation, or it assumes background knowledge which I dun have, but you discover this on the macOSX forums as well
Sorry for the long post
help
terramir

 

[watskyhotsky]

1. it sounds like you are confusing RAM with available storage space.

I believe the phone has 512 MB for RAM (random access memory, to run apps and such) and 256 for Flash Storage (where the actual ROM and boot files and system files are stored. this is what gets erased and re written when you flash a new rom. as well as where the 190 MB of space for apps comes in. its whatever is left over after the ROM is written)

most apps can be moved to the SD card very easily through a menu built into Android OS. storage space is NOT a concern. especially considering its hard to fill up the internal storage unless you are downloading like every app from the store or a lot of huge ones like Netflix (takes upwards of 20MB just for that one app, I believe) most apps are tiny.

when you start filling the internal storage, do NOT confuse it for RAM and start uninstalling apps.

2. ROMs.

for the OV, the Gingerbread roms have come a LONG way, the most popular ones are a sync of the latest CyanogenMod 7.1 rom, which is a well maintained and stable rom. MOST of the bugs have been worked out in I.H.O. roms.

here is the link

https://github.com/inferiorhumanorgans/android_device_lge_thunderc/wiki/Binary

BACKside is the one I use most often. I do love it. however, the one built my mrg666 (the name is next to the link for the rom itself, hard to miss) is also great.

these get updated a lot, so when you flash it, check in once a week to see if an update fixes a major bug or something in your current release. I myself tend to stick to one build for weeks at a time becuase these are very stable roms. I usually only update when they are synced with the latest CyanogenMod

3. your phone will load the same regardless. leave bootscreens as they are, all it is is a looped animation until the phone is ready to load so whatever you do the phone will take its time doing whatever it wants until its ready.

4. I think this was answered with question #2. the I.H.O. roms are stripped very bare. if you REALLY want to be frugal, the ONLY thing you have to worry about is the Maps app, it doesnt come with the ROM, you have to download it from the market, BUT it is known to hog the cpu and force you to restart the phone to fix it. no other apps will hurt the performance in any way. removing stock apps like the browser or the SMS app is a BAD IDEA, as other apps usually rely on functions of the stock app, if it goes missing, you might need to reflash an entire rom to fix it.




as for the dalvik cache, its just another cache thats in the main partition (the 256MB space I mentioned earlier where the rom gets installed) it needs to be wiped seperately, as well as the normal cache, and then the actual rom data.

once you boot into the I.H.O. recovery you will see these options very clearly listed and wiping the data wont be difficult in any way. its hard to explain until you get into the custom recovery yourself, then you smack yourself on the head and go ohhhhh i see it now. haha. I was in your boat but that was my experience.



edit* i should add that up till a few weeks ago, the only bugs in the gingerbread roms were that the stock headset didnt work as a mic for phone calls, and bluetooth headsets didnt work, but these problems have since been fixed. i remember seeing some of the latest roms being listen as "fully functional" meaning everything works. nothing broken. I would assume the newest ones are still fully functional.

and I havent had ANY problems with these roms since 9/25 anyways. everything works for me, fast as hell and way more functional than any 2.2 "Froyo" based rom.

 

[bigsupersquid]

I think ram is only 256MB except on optimus one.
system apps you can't delete without rendering the phone nonfunctional reduce available ram to about 230MB.
edit: retracted. see next couple posts.
reason: brainfart.

 

[watskyhotsky]

I think ram is only 256MB except on optimus one.
system apps you can't delete without rendering the phone nonfunctional reduce available ram to about 230MB.

RAM or ROM?

dont get them confused now

 

[bigsupersquid]

me... getting confused?
oh, no, never.
especially not this time, when I look in phone info, and see that it has 425 MB RAM available to system (duh, me)
dunno why it's hiding the extra 87MB, but I retract my comment, it's probably a 512MB chip, not 256 MB.

 

[Spiral_ouT#AC]

Looks like watskyhotsky covered pretty much everything.

If you want the most stripped down, but still fully functioning gingerbread ROM, go with mrg666's Mirage build. It has more unneeded things removed than Backside or Bobzhome's builds.

We definitely have 512mb of separate ram on the OV. My phone shows only 425mb of usable ram, though.

 

[watskyhotsky]

my phone shows the same 425 of usable RAM, but I liken it to pretty much the same effect that affects PCs. that is, a portion of RAM is reserved for the system and hardware. its still 512.

now, if the RAM is 512, something ELSE must store the OS and its persistant files (boot partition, OS system files, downloaded apps and app data not stored on SD card)

this must be the ROM, which is probably another 512 or a 256 MB flash storage. Im leaning towards 256 in the OV, becuase the rom, when unpacked, isnt THAT large and we are still only left with 190 or so. so it seems logical

if you guys cant tell, its a pet peeve of mine when I look through threads and see people mistake rom for ram. maybe thats just me

 

[bigsupersquid]

I'd lean towards 512 MB of nand flash (where /system, /data, /cache, /boot, /recovery, /persist, /FOTA_STO, and maybe the radio live.
just the available space for /system, /data, and /cache MTD partitions total up to 453.5 MB.
to see, enter terminal and type
df -h
I'd post a screenshot but can't upload from the Android browser.
with flash memory used instead of real read-only memory, the term ROM is kind of a misnomer for the storage in these phones anyway.
you could maybe call it EEPROM, but I see references to NAND flash memory more often.

 

[watskyhotsky]

I'd lean towards 512 MB of nand flash (where /system, /data, /cache, /boot, /recovery, /persist, /FOTA_STO, and maybe the radio live.
just the available space for /system, /data, and /cache MTD partitions total up to 453.5 MB.
to see, enter terminal and type
df -h
I'd post a screenshot but can't upload from the Android browser.
with flash memory used instead of real read-only memory, the term ROM is kind of a misnomer for the storage in these phones anyway.
you could maybe call it EEPROM, but I see references to NAND flash memory more often.

good to know. didnt factor in that. maybe 512.

 

[fenrix]

hmm now that you mention that I'm trying to figure
out what the other mtdblocks are by mounting them if I can figure them out
mtdblock3 is 1.3 mb (lost+found) [type=yaffs]

 

[fenrix]

mtdblock 6 yaffs2 as stated here
Android Fastboot - eLinux.org
seems to have quite a bit of the filesystem but appears a bit different structurally

edit: I take that back; that IS the- data folder-