newby Android / OV user with some starter questions.

[I3ig Al]

Hey peoples, I am a brand new Android and OV user and I am really anjoying this community so far.


A little bit about myself, I am a very computer literate person and love tweaking. I always enjoy finding that nifty utility or whathaveyou that makes its one function better. for the fellow WoW addicts, I am crazy for addons and everything in my UI is redone I'm not very comfortable with jumping into completely new things but do follow directions to the T I got myself and my GF a 70$ OV at Target for xmas, and have been doing nothing but reading for the last two days in preparation for rooting/customizing to get better battery life and performance. I feel like I am slowly getting my head wrapped around things but still have quite a few questions, most of which I am sure are very facepalm/headdesk but I think its better to ask than to brick my brand new phone.


So moving into my questions, I will try and keep thing short simple and to the point. I am also putting them in order relative to how I understand the whole root/rom process from start to end.

1. I have an 8gig class 6 micro SD. Is this big enough / does the class really make a noticeable difference? I will likely not be an app hoarder but I do enjoy trying out all sorts of things to see what works best for me. I use the SD card as a USB drive to ferry files around, mostly movies to the xbox. will partitioning affect this? do I really need a second partition?


2. I believe that both of our OVs are the ones with new screens. I have read about the trouble this causes, and about the workaround fixes. have most recovery tools been updated to include this fix or should I be ready and waiting for it to happen?


3. Rooting, there seems to be several different ways to accomplish root, either temp or permanent root. Does the method used really matter? Mostly I have seen people talk about Gingerbreak, SuperUser, and Fastboot root.


4. Custom Recovery seems like a Live CD for computers on the phone, correct? Android has one built in but the custom setups give expanded options. I read that certain ROMs prefer/require certain Custom Recovery setups, what would I be looking to get for a Harmonia ROM? Are Xionia and ClockWorkMod the same thing?


5. Harmonia 1.7 vs 2.0? I have settled on Harmonia because of its barebones style, I like having a lean stock system to build upon. I am just unsure if I should move up to GB or not. In particular I read about MMS getting broken, has that been fixed?


6. Kernel swapping, is it worth the effort and something I should jump into, or should I just stick with the included kernel in Harmonia? If I should swap, what kernel would be recommended to pair with Harmonia? Is the Wifi driver battery drain issue (discussed here ) a thing of the past or still something to watch out for?


7. ADB. I have gathered that its how you communicate/transfer data between the computer and the phone through the command prompt, but not much else yet. Could someone point me to a beginners guide on ADB?


I know this seems long but it should be easy to answer most of this stuff. I appreciate anything and everything you guys could provide me, its really nice having a place to come and talk about this stuff instead of just bashing my face against google search results all night.

Thanks a Ton

~I3ig Al

 

[Raul720]

1. The 8GB SD card should be more then adequate. You are not required to partition your SD card only if you want to have an app2sd tool or multirom.

Sent from my LG-VM670 using Tapatalk

 

[notown]

1. I have an 8gig class 6 micro SD. Is this big enough / does the class really make a noticeable difference? I will likely not be an app hoarder but I do enjoy trying out all sorts of things to see what works best for me. I use the SD card as a USB drive to ferry files around, mostly movies to the xbox. will partitioning affect this? do I really need a second partition?


Yeah thats a good start. I have the 4gb and i feel like its more than fine for me. The class can make a difference but i really wouldn't look too much into that. It really wont matter that much on the OV.. second partition is really not needed, its up to you really.


2. I believe that both of our OVs are the ones with new screens. I have read about the trouble this causes, and about the workaround fixes. have most recovery tools been updated to include this fix or should I be ready and waiting for it to happen?


Everything has been fixed by the genius devs. The latest "Xionia recovery" will give you no trouble with the new OV screens. I speak from experience. Gingerbreak also works on the new OVs.


3. Rooting, there seems to be several different ways to accomplish root, either temp or permanent root. Does the method used really matter? Mostly I have seen people talk about Gingerbreak, SuperUser, and Fastboot root.


Yeah it matters. What do YOU want? .. might as well do a full root if you want to root your OV the fast and easy way then do the gingerbreak app on the OV. Last week when i got the new OV I installed the gingerbreak app that took literally 3 mins or less and gave me a newly rooted OV just like that.

4. Custom Recovery seems like a Live CD for computers on the phone, correct? Android has one built in but the custom setups give expanded options. I read that certain ROMs prefer/require certain Custom Recovery setups, what would I be looking to get for a Harmonia ROM? Are Xionia and ClockWorkMod the same thing?

Clock work and Xionia in essence are the same thing, because they do the same thing. However, xionia is for old and new OVs. As to where clock work will give you a black screen on the newer OVs.. so stick with xionia !



5. Harmonia 1.7 vs 2.0? I have settled on Harmonia because of its barebones style, I like having a lean stock system to build upon. I am just unsure if I should move up to GB or not. In particular I read about MMS getting broken, has that been fixed?

Well since you have the new OV and want the froyo rom (1.7) then you should read up on the last 2 pages where we talk about a fix for the new OVs. It requires you to install 1.7 then install a kernal over that... Id stick with 2.0 (which im currently using and loving).. its less hassle and it has very good battery life over all, very clean and clutter/garbage less .


6. Kernel swapping, is it worth the effort and something I should jump into, or should I just stick with the included kernel in Harmonia? If I should swap, what kernel would be recommended to pair with Harmonia? Is the Wifi driver battery drain issue (discussed here ) a thing of the past or still something to watch out for?

generally you stick to the kernels already in the roms. As for Harmonia 1.7 it does require you to flash the fixed kernel for the new OVs.. even though I think it says its been replaced on the latest build for the new OVs ( I need to check that again) but i tried the harmonia 1.7 and it gave me a black screen. Once i flashed the kernel that 'supersquid' (forum member) it worked .



7. ADB. I have gathered that its how you communicate/transfer data between the computer and the phone through the command prompt, but not much else yet. Could someone point me to a beginners guide on ADB?

cant help you there ... i dont do anything with ADB .. i really dont see the need.. but im sure someone will chime in to direct you the right way.


I know this seems long but it should be easy to answer most of this stuff. I appreciate anything and everything you guys could provide me, its really nice having a place to come and talk about this stuff instead of just bashing my face against google search results all night.

Thanks a Ton

~I3ig Al

Hope

 

[Irate Iguana]

Hope

Clockwork (the IHO version, not ROM manager) works with new OVs.

 

[thewraith420]

Clockwork (the IHO version, not ROM manager) works with new OVs.

Also there are 2 IHO recoverys you want bobzhomes for the new ov

Sent from my LG-VM670 using Tapatalk

 

[kcls]

The four most important things to think about when hacking around with your new phone:

1. Never use ROM Manager. Ever. The recoveries will not work on your phone, and the ROMs posted up there are unofficial, not supported by the devs here, and were not actually posted by the devs.

2. NEVER use the Factory Reset button in the privacy menu. It will brick your phone (Which is android terms for basically turning your phone into, well, a brick)

3. READ READ READ! This is probably the most important thing to do. Read whole forum posts before beginning, read the last few pages of a forum thread to see any problems people may be experiencing. You don't want to put a mod on your phone only to find that it has a bunch of problems that could have been avoided just by reading the last page of a thread. You would be surprised what you can miss

4. Most of all have fun!

 

[Irate Iguana]

Also there are 2 IHO recoverys you want bobzhomes for the new ov

Sent from my LG-VM670 using Tapatalk

I thought they updated the "official" IHO recovery?

 

[I3ig Al]

Hey @notown, thanks for the awesome reply!

If you don't mind, I am still a little confused on a couple things, would you mind going a little more in depth for me?


3.How does the method of rooting matter? I would like a full/permanent root, is that what Gingerbreak will do for me?


5. I actually would like to install the GB Harmonia 2.0, however a big part of getting the OV was to send and receive pictures/video with family out of state. I read that MMS was messed up somehow with GB ROMs and Virgin Mobile, has this been fixed? I read on the Harmonia 2.0 thread yes and no answers so I'm not sure.


7.I was under the impression that ADB was an integral part of rooting/ROMing a phone. How do you get things done without it? was it only for the more advanced things like editing system files and pushing the changes back to the phone?

thanks again to notown and everyone else helpin out!

 

[Irate Iguana]

3. Gingerbreak will give you perm root, and its the easiest.

5. I though that was fixed a longgg time ago .

7. Just to root and ROM you really wont need it. If you brick, well then you might.

 

[watskyhotsky]

Hey @notown, thanks for the awesome reply!

If you don't mind, I am still a little confused on a couple things, would you mind going a little more in depth for me?


3.How does the method of rooting matter? I would like a full/permanent root, is that what Gingerbreak will do for me?

Gingerbreak will root and make it permanant.

5. I actually would like to install the GB Harmonia 2.0, however a big part of getting the OV was to send and receive pictures/video with family out of state. I read that MMS was messed up somehow with GB ROMs and Virgin Mobile, has this been fixed? I read on the Harmonia 2.0 thread yes and no answers so I'm not sure.

When you read through an old thread, the comments might look fresh to you as the reader, but its important to pay attention to the dates. I was around when the MMs was broken and then fixed in the GB roms and I can assure you MMS works perfectly. it was a bumpy road but its been smooth sailing for a long, long time. with MMS at least. Also, I can fully recommend Leslieanns Harmonia 2.0 ROM myself. its easier to install (no gapps, their included in the rom) and it works just perfect. Since it was released I updated all my friends OVs with it.

7.I was under the impression that ADB was an integral part of rooting/ROMing a phone. How do you get things done without it? was it only for the more advanced things like editing system files and pushing the changes back to the phone?

Some phones require different rooting methods. for the Optimus V, its very easy to gain root access. but you will need to push a file called "Flash_Image" to a part of the phones memory so the phone knows how to flash the new recovery. There are workarounds. specifically this.

All In One Recovery Thread - Android Forums

the thread I just linked to contains the Flash_Image file and instructions for how to get the phone to use the file from the SD card to flash a recovery. any ADB commands can be entered directly on the phone using the software keyboard in the "Terminal Emulator" app. I successfully used this method on three OVs. just make sure to follow the directions.

thanks again to notown and everyone else helpin out!

 

[I3ig Al]

Thanks guys for the quick answers. I like doing it the hard way so I know whats going on behind the scenes, going to install the android SDK and start looking at the ADB stuff. Gingerbreak and Harmonia 2.0 to get things going but I do want to do some of the advanced stuff like updating to the Sprint PRL and changing the hard buttons as I like.

Wish me luck!

 

[I3ig Al]

ok back again, sorry for all the questions but I want to be completely sure and set before I start flashing things.

I did the Gingerbreak and confirmed a working root by getting AdFree and checking Angry Birds for ads, they are gone now.


before I start flashing stuff to my phone I want to have a fallback ready. I have been reading alot of things mentioning Nandroid, is that a specific app I need, or a built in function of the custom recoveries? I know I can backup the Stock ROM after installing a custom recovery like Xionia, but is there any way for me to back up the stock recovery? I have the android SDK installed, and through the command I have gotten ADB to show a # prompt, but have done nothing else with it.


I also found this link here, it has instructions for returning to stock and has files included

How to restore your Optimus V to almost original condition - Prepaid Android

Is this information still current and usable, and does it matter that the files are not from my phone? I really would like a copy of my original stuff but if any original is fine then thats ok.


EDIT: I also found this thread about backing up the phone completely through ADB.

http://forums.androidcentral.com/lg...ense-back-up-your-phone-without-nandroid.html

Does that do basically the same thing as a ROM but in chunks?

 

[notown]

ok back again, sorry for all the questions but I want to be completely sure and set before I start flashing things.

I did the Gingerbreak and confirmed a working root by getting AdFree and checking Angry Birds for ads, they are gone now.

Oh you can also use this app to double check if youre rooted

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.joeykrim.rootcheck&hl=en


before I start flashing stuff to my phone I want to have a fallback ready. I have been reading alot of things mentioning Nandroid, is that a specific app I need, or a built in function of the custom recoveries? I know I can backup the Stock ROM after installing a custom recovery like Xionia, but is there any way for me to back up the stock recovery? I have the android SDK installed, and through the command I have gotten ADB to show a # prompt, but have done nothing else with it.


Im not sure how you back up the stock recovery but there are links (sticky) for the stock recovery. And yes it is a feature on the custom recoveries. You can "back up" your original VM rom using this method.



I also found this link here, it has instructions for returning to stock and has files included

How to restore your Optimus V to almost original condition - Prepaid Android



Is this information still current and usable, and does it matter that the files are not from my phone? I really would like a copy of my original stuff but if any original is fine then thats ok.

not sure on that one. I would think you can follow the steps but with your files for your specific OV...


EDIT: I also found this thread about backing up the phone completely through ADB.

http://forums.androidcentral.com/lg...ense-back-up-your-phone-without-nandroid.html

I dont do ABD lol .. I wish i knew how but like i said i dont need it because i do everything i need with either apps or custom recoveries

Does that do basically the same thing as a ROM but in chunks?

 

[watskyhotsky]

if you've ever downloaded a cd or dvd .iso file on your PC and had to mount it before the computer could read it, thats basically what the recovery does to your rom. it pulls all the parts of the phone as they are, copies them, and stores it on the SD card as an image file

makes a perfect image clone of your phones storage. yes, in chunks, becuase there are different partitions. the ADB method does each individually, the recovery does them all at once in one step and saves the file on the SD, ready for long term storage on your PC.


once your inside the recovery, making a nandroid literally is as easy as scrolling to "backup and restore" entering that menu, scrolling to "backup" hitting enter and letting it do its thing for the next 3 to 5 minutes. it will save the nandroid in a directory on the SD card under ClockWorkMod/Backup/12.27.11.9.30. (thats an example timestamp, it will name after the date and time it was created.) dont rename these, but feel free to move them between the sdcard and a PC.




getting the actual recovery flashed to the phone requires root for this PARTICULAR phone. so once you are in the custom recovery, its very likely your stock rom will have a permanent root since it was a required step to get the recovery. so the nandroid will back up the root and when you restore it in the future, it will boot exactly as you left it when you shut down to go into recovery. root and all.

on a side note, the Motorola Triumph lets you completely bypass all those steps by booting the phone a special way, connecting it to a PC, and swapping the "recovery.img" with your custom recovery. enabling you to nandroid the stock rom completely intact, never seeing root or anything. I really wish all phones were this easy to swap recoveries. Id still have a working LG Vortex. I failed somewhere along the way of flashing a recovery and totally bricked that phone

 

[JerryScript]

In a nutshell, Nandroid backups are an exact copy of everything on your phone at that moment, minus your sdcard's contents. If you mess up a ROM install, you can reboot into recovery and restore your Nandroid backup, and you will be right back where you started.

MMS has been fixed on CyanogenMod based ROMs for months now. Just be sure to stick with the IHO based ROMs (BACKside, BobZhome, Harmonia2.0, mrg666). The older aospCMod is no longer supported by it's dev.

Here's some additional info you may find usefull, though I may have repeated some of what has already been posted:

- Rooting gives you "SuperUser" or "Administrative" permissions, meaning you can change anything you want on your phone. This also means you can mess anything/everything up.

- Recovery is a base OS with only a kernel and a couple of necessary system files, sort of like plain Linux without Ubuntu or Debian installed over it. It is used to make changes to the OS that cannot be made while the OS is running.

- Custom ROMs for the OV come in two flavors, Froyo or Gingerbread. They are created with one of two methods, building from source (Gingerbread based ROMs), or from tweaking the ROM install package and/or using baksmali edits (Froyo based ROMs).

- CyaongenMod is a custom version of Gingerbread, and is the single most used base for creating custom ROMs. The IHO based ROMs are all built from kanged CM source, with tweaks to make it work on our phone's hardware/software, and smaller tweaks made by the individual builders to make it their own.

- Harmonia comes in two flavors, Froyo and Gingerbread. The Froyo based build is one of the best ROMs ever created for the OV. Smooth, lean, and battery life to make the energizer bunny jealous. The Gingerbread based build is more of a WIP, but you can expect LeslieAnn to continue to improve it as time goes by (if it even needs any improvements ).

- ADB is a powerful tool, but once rooted, is not necessary (it's not even necessary to root anymore). 99% of what can be done via ADB can also be done on a rooted phone using a Terminal Emulator app.

Remember:

 

[I3ig Al]

Thanks for the continued support guys! I have successfully flashed Xionia 12518.6 and am working through getting backups made and stored on a separate USB key (I'm super anal about having fallbacks, too many times reinstalling for dumb mistakes).

going to put Harmonia 2.0 on and I will let you guys know how it goes later!

EDIT: well this is much easier and less scary on the other side lol, Harmonia 2.0 is loaded and I like it so far. much cleaner looking, now time to mess it all up with lots of apps

 

[Irate Iguana]

Remember:
Click to view quoted image

bawhahaha, I love that gif .

But anywho, glad to hear it all worked out and you got what you wanted! , now you can experience the life of customized ROMS!

 

[I3ig Al]

I have been having one lingering issue with Wifi that I just narrowed down to my router.

When I turn on wifi and try to connect to my home AP the wifi connection status just cycles "Connecting... Scanning... Disconnected" constantly. No connection actually get established, and the phone never shows up in logs on the router.

I have a 2WIRE 3700HGV-B from AT&T U-Verse service. I have tested it with custom WPA-2 key, completely default settings, and a fully open network.

I have tested harmonia 2.0, Stock ROM with root, and an additional completely untouched stock OV. In every instance the same "Connecting... Scanning... Disconnected" happens. Reading around the net I have only really found information relating to the HTC Hero from 2010 I don't think its the phones because it always happens and I doubt I bought two OVs with borked wifi, but I'm close to doing an exchange and trying again.

Anyone have some clue as to whats going on?


EDIT: I just tried it also with a friend's completely stock Samsung Intercept, same exact errors. I have not been able to test any of the phones on any other wifi spot yet, going to try that tomorrow at work.

EDIT2: well im retarted..... I forgot I had MAC filtering enabled. all good now.

 

[watskyhotsky]

I have been having one lingering issue with Wifi that I just narrowed down to my router.

When I turn on wifi and try to connect to my home AP the wifi connection status just cycles "Connecting... Scanning... Disconnected" constantly. No connection actually get established, and the phone never shows up in logs on the router.

I have a 2WIRE 3700HGV-B from AT&T U-Verse service. I have tested it with custom WPA-2 key, completely default settings, and a fully open network.

I have tested harmonia 2.0, Stock ROM with root, and an additional completely untouched stock OV. In every instance the same "Connecting... Scanning... Disconnected" happens. Reading around the net I have only really found information relating to the HTC Hero from 2010 I don't think its the phones because it always happens and I doubt I bought two OVs with borked wifi, but I'm close to doing an exchange and trying again.

Anyone have some clue as to whats going on?


EDIT: I just tried it also with a friend's completely stock Samsung Intercept, same exact errors. I have not been able to test any of the phones on any other wifi spot yet, going to try that tomorrow at work.

EDIT2: well im retarted..... I forgot I had MAC filtering enabled. all good now.

hahaha, awesome.

I used to forget changes I made to the router, until I started a new practice. Everytime I set up or make changes to anything in the router or modem, I write it all down, fold up the paper, and tape it to the router itself. when I need to go back in, i look up what I did last time and fix whats needed. sounds dumb but its SO helpful. ESPECIALLY becuase I write the complex and long wifi password and router login password on it, which I ALWAYS forget becuase I so rarely need to enter those again.