Rooting, flashing, s-off etc. What are they?

[Mingneh]

Hi community!

I have been using my HTC sensation for two months now. I was adviced to root my phone for better performance, be it speed or battery life. Naturally i am very attracted to the idea, however it is a very tedious process for me, more so when i have no idea what all those terms mean. I'm posting this hoping someone could help.

1) What is rooting and how is the process like?
2) How do i 'flash' a ROM into my phone? What are ROMs?
3) I was adviced to flash revolution HD, is it good?
4) What is S-off and how do i do it?
5) If any, what's the process flow of rooting?

I sincerely hope i can find a solution from the forum, and i apologize for being so inquisitive about this questions for they appear pretty basic.

 

[devgru82]

Hi community!

I have been using my HTC sensation for two months now. I was adviced to root my phone for better performance, be it speed or battery life. Naturally i am very attracted to the idea, however it is a very tedious process for me, more so when i have no idea what all those terms mean. I'm posting this hoping someone could help.

1) What is rooting and how is the process like?
2) How do i 'flash' a ROM into my phone? What are ROMs?
3) I was adviced to flash revolution HD, is it good?
4) What is S-off and how do i do it?
5) If any, what's the process flow of rooting?

I sincerely hope i can find a solution from the forum, and i apologize for being so inquisitive about this questions for they appear pretty basic.

Its not as daunting as it seems
What is rooting: http://www.androidcentral.com/rooting-it-me-some-qa

All the answers to your questions: [Guide] to Installing S-off, Unlocking, ClockWork, Root, SuperCID & S-on - xda-developers
Yes ARHD is a very good ROM. They even have a 4.0 ROM working:[ROM] Android Revolution HD? 5.0.2 XE | ICS | Sense 3.5 | High Quality & Performance - xda-developers

Another good thread to look at: [INDEX] Guides - ROMs - Kernels - Radios & RILs - MODs - xda-developers

 

[somerussianguy]

In basic terms...or if you're too lazy to read all that info on XDA...

1) Rooting basically means you unlock access to system-level portion of your phone
2) Think of a ROM as an overall operating system. At it's core it's still Android, but different ROMs add different options to your phone - some are just basic and simply aim to make your phone faster, other's provide a whole array of customization options. The options, additions, and changes a custom ROM gives you compared to the regular stock ROM your phone originally came with, depends on the ROM. Look under "features" of a custom ROM thread in XDA to find out what that ROM actually changes over the stock ROM.

First google some of the terminology: bootloader, ClockWorkMod Recovery, ROM Manager

Flashing = installing (although I don't think you can actually uninstall a ROM...)

You have to be rooted to flash a ROM and it's advisable to have ClockWorkMod recovery installed rather than stock one as it gives you more options.

Now I have a different phone than you but I always flashed ROMs this way: transfer the ROM zip onto your SD card, boot into bootloader then access ClockWorkMod recovery, wipe data/factory reset, wipe cache, wipe Dalvik cache, then "Install zip from SD card", and finally restart/reboot your phone.

You should watch some YouTube videos on rooting and flashing ROMs since you can actually see how it's done and what's happening on your screen.

3) Can't help you there since I have a different phone
4) Same as above but at least I found this: What is s-off...
5) ...not really sure what you mean by that.

 

[Mingneh]

Thankyou for all your help. Devgru, what you provided will prove to be extremely useful for my rooting attempt! Thanks

And Russianguy, thanks for simplyfing the terms for me. With this i can relate rooting to something im more farmilliar with. You see i was an iphone user, and one that didn't even dare to try jailbreaking it. (Let alone rooting!)

Btw there is something i would like to clarify. Is it possible to install something into/onto my phone using PC? I thought all necessities can be done through downloading apps:-X

 

[somerussianguy]

...I thought jailbraking was the same as rooting, just different terminology.

I'm not sure what you mean by installing using PC...you can download application .apk (application package), transfer it to your SD card and install it using some file-manager app like Astro. This is called manual install.

You can install apps from the Market on your PC web browser. It's just a more convenient way of searching and installing apps compared to doing it from your phone.

 

[Mingneh]

Hey guys! I have successfully rooted my phone and flashed it with ARHD! Never knew flashing was simply putting a zip into sim xD Thanks alot for the advices and help you both gave me especially Devgru with the links

Now, what can i do with a rooted phone o.0 besides the better performance of course.

 

[somerussianguy]

Hey guys! I have successfully rooted my phone and flashed it with ARHD! Never knew flashing was simply putting a zip into sim xD Thanks alot for the advices and help you both gave me especially Devgru with the links

Now, what can i do with a rooted phone o.0 besides the better performance of course.

You can try this: 8 Android Apps for Rooted Users

 

[Mingneh]

Hi people. I noticed something diabolical to me.

As stated, one of the core reasons i decided to root my phone was because of the supposed increase battery efficiency. However after i flashed ARHD, my battery life seems to not improve or in fact, drain a little quicker! I'm not sure if it is placebo but the feeling is definitely there. I tried self help before by following the instructions from [ROM] Android Revolution HD? 5.0.2 XE | ICS | High Quality & Performance [01.01.2012] - xda-developers, [How to] Brilliant Battery Life 100% working! - xda-developers & [GUIDE][NOT SPAM] Enlarge your battery life : an attempt to fix the battery drain - xda-developers but nothing seem to work..

Will re-flashing ARHD by installing from sdcard work? Pls help