Brand new to Optimus S, HELP!

[korndawg]

This is my first smart phone, I've had it for all of two days. I am interested in learning about the things that can make my phone better but am having trouble understanding many of the threads on here as I am a complete newb.

If there's any terminology in your reply, please explain it. I can't understand hardly any threads on here because they contain language I'm unfamiliar with.

I found this forum from a link about making my phone's performance a lot better. It mentioned ThundeROM and I tried reading the thread about it but came away understanding very little.

First off,

1. What does "rooted" mean?

2. What does "brick my phone" mean?

3. Are there dangers involved in attempting these things?

4. If I don't understand any of this in the first place, should I even be trying it in the first place?

5. Are there any simple things I can/should do with my phone to improve performance or otherwise?


I really appreciate responses.

Thanks

 

[shortyjacobs]

1) Rooted means you have gained "root" access. Root access to the phone allows you to change things not normally available to you. The way the Android Operating system is set up, the user only has access to options and files that can't "break" the phone. This means a lot of stuff is "blocked" to you, so you can't accidentally delete important files, etc. Rooting gives you access to any part of the phone, which allows you to install apps that have more power, (the ability to affect more important things with the phone). Really, there is little danger in rooting, unless you go and start deleting system files using a file explorer meant to work with root, (such as Root Explorer). What rooting allows you to do is install more powerful apps that give your phone more functionality.

2) Bricked means "turned into a brick" or paperweight. It's when you do something to your phone so catastrophic that the phone can't be fixed, and it's basically become a paperweight. A bricked phone will not power on, or if it does power on, will not boot up anything that you can use, (no operating system, no phone calls, no functionality). Bricking a phone means doing something so bad to the phone that it becomes useless, and you need to buy/trade in for a new one.

3) Rooting is not very dangerous at all. Like I said, you need to REALLY try to screw stuff up in order to brick your phone.

4) Read lots. Read it all again. Google terms you don't understand, or ask us. It's a lot of terminology and lingo to pick up, but the great people on this forum have done all the hard work for you. You don't need to be a programmer or hacker or coder to root, install ROMs, (ROMs are like operating systems), or install a Custom Recovery, (a custom recovery is kind of a background operating system. It allows you to install new ROMs, kind of like installing Windows 7 over Windows Vista). You just need to follow the step by step directions. I didn't understand MANY of the commands I was typing in, but by following the step-by-step directions, there is a relatively low risk of you mucking something up.

5) Simple as in not rooting, installing a custom recovery, and installing something like ThundeROM? I don't know. I DO know that following those steps, in that order, will give you a big boost.

 

[korndawg]

First off, I appreciate the response very much.

I am very worried about irreversibility ruining my phone as I cannot afford to replace it. So thank you for easing my concern a little bit.

What exactly is meant by "will give you a big boost"? Will it make some functions of the phone faster? Will it make the connection faster? Will it increase battery life? What are the specific advantages?

If I wanted to install ThundeROM, what steps would I have to take to get there? I see you said:

~5) Simple as in not rooting, installing a custom recovery, and installing something like ThundeROM? I don't know. I DO know that following those steps, in that order, will give you a big boost.~

So should I just be installing a custom recovery and then installing ThundeROM? I do NOT have to root then?


Again, I very much appreciate any responses and thank you for your time and knowledge.

 

[ccrs8]

First off, I appreciate the response very much.

I am very worried about irreversibility ruining my phone as I cannot afford to replace it. So thank you for easing my concern a little bit.

What exactly is meant by "will give you a big boost"? Will it make some functions of the phone faster? Will it make the connection faster? Will it increase battery life? What are the specific advantages?

If I wanted to install ThundeROM, what steps would I have to take to get there? I see you said:

~5) Simple as in not rooting, installing a custom recovery, and installing something like ThundeROM? I don't know. I DO know that following those steps, in that order, will give you a big boost.~

So should I just be installing a custom recovery and then installing ThundeROM? I do NOT have to root then?


Again, I very much appreciate any responses and thank you for your time and knowledge.

You'd need to root before installing custom recovery and then ThundeROM. You'll get a general performance increase with ThundeROM, as it has some configurations that speed up the phone. Probably not your network connection, but the phone processing speed will increase.

You need to follow these steps very carefully in order to root/recovery/ROM your phone:
http://forum.androidcentral.com/lg-...de-rooting-custom-roms-optimus-s-edition.html

It can be a bit intimidating at first - make sure you read at least the first three posts all the way through. If you run in to any questions or problems, be sure to post in the appropriate thread.

 

[korndawg]

Thanks for the response.

It's the wording "very carefully" that scares me.

That thread looks like it's written in a foreign language to me. I'll continue to try to understand a little more here and there but right now I'm debating whether it's worth it. I truly do not understand exactly what I'm doing.

It seems like there are lots of benefits to rooting, custom ROMS, and ThundeROM, but all I really want to a bit more speed, and don't think I would be able to take advantage of the rest.

Should I scrap this idea altogether?

 

[O.a.T.]

Thanks for the response.

It's the wording "very carefully" that scares me.

That thread looks like it's written in a foreign language to me. I'll continue to try to understand a little more here and there but right now I'm debating whether it's worth it. I truly do not understand exactly what I'm doing.

It seems like there are lots of benefits to rooting, custom ROMS, and ThundeROM, but all I really want to a bit more speed, and don't think I would be able to take advantage of the rest.

Should I scrap this idea altogether?

IMHO, one true measure of the performance increase you will see is in the LINPACK (google it if you don't know what it is) benchmark where my Optimus S basically doubled from ~3.7 to ~7.5 after rooting, custom recovery, and TR'ing. I'd suggest you ignore the increase in the Quadrant Benchmark scores that are reported as these are really bogus.

 

[apinkel]

I'm rooted and running thunderrom.

I don't really see a performance increase in day to day use.

I'm using thunderrom because it uses far less internal memory then stock (and it has some nice visuals). I have 3 really large apps that I wouldn't have been able to all load on my phone at one time if I was on stock.

That said, start with rooting. It's the first step. This is just giving you permission to access the system files on your phone and in and of itself poses little danger of bricking your phone. If you want to gain some understanding of the android system I recommend the do-it-yourself rooting option. If you have no interest in that there are one-click rooting apps (z4root) that will do the work for you.

Once you get a handle on that, then move onto custom recovery.

After you get a handle on custom recovery, move onto custom roms.

 

[kcmookie]

Or do what I did, which is NOTHING. I was like you about 2 months ago, a smart phone newbie, yet tech savvy. I want to get this thing up and humming, but then I realized being a newb that I was quite content with the way this thing ran stock. Rooting and all that stuff doesn't seem necessary at this point as I am spending time learning about all the different apps and things I can get for my phone. Maybe a year from now I will feel I need to get more out of my phone, but currently I am thrilled with it in stock form (bigger SD card and a lot of playing with apps). Just my 2 cents.