Custom Rom to AOSP 4.4; easy way?

[Michael Rodgers]

Hi all, I have CM 10.2 on my n4 and have been having problems lately. I'd like to put an AOSP 4.4 on. However, I'm not in need of it being "pure stock" for any warranty issue, or resale, or whatever. I just want a clean 4.4 on it. Is there a way to flash 4.4 without going through all the return to stock steps? In other words, to flash AOSP 4.4 as if it were itself a custom rom, which I download and use TWRP to install?

I'm familiar with the process of returning to stock and know the XDA threads that give the steps to do this. I'm asking if there is another way, or a custom rom out there that is just a packaged aosp 4.4. This seems like it would be obvious but everytime I search for anything I get instructions for resetting it back to stock.

Thanks!

 

[Rizy7]

This should help you...

 

[someguy01234]

Since you already know how to unlock your bootloader, you just have to install a custom recovery to flash roms, using the command: fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
You can get latest TWRP recovery for the Nexus 4 here: http://techerrata.com/browse/twrp2/mako
See this video if you never use TWRP before: youtube.com/watch?v=R9qxsV-gTfg

There are AOSP roms you can get at XDA, just look for 'AOSP' in the rom thread title. However, many of them are AOSP-based roms with extra custom features though (like CyanogenMod). So I am assuming you need to find a clean AOSP rom without added features. Here are two I found that are on the cleaner side:
[ROM][4.4] Project: KitKat | AOSP Mako 4.4_r1.2 KRT16S [PKK][11/21/13] - xda-developers
[ROM][AOSP 4.4] KitKat Xperience v0.1 - xda-developers

Just for clarification, the video above is not AOSP rom. Please don't confuse stock rom and AOSP rom. AOSP roms are built from AOSP source and doesn't include proprietary Google apps. It's not just stock rom with Google apps deleted. It also include somethings the stock rom don't have like the AOSP Browser. However you will miss out on some proprietary Google features like Google Caller ID, Photosphere and faceunlock (you can always flash them in though).

If you need Google apps, you can get the slim modular gapps packages (or here), though they are deodexed, which 'might' not work with ART enabled, though I haven't ran into issue if flashing the "GoogleCore" package from link above only.

I personally just use stock rom, but make my own script that I flash through custom recovery to debloat roms by deleting unneed apps. The AOSP rom I like is Pure Seed X (dev discontinued it for the public for now), which is one of the fastest Nexus rom I used, but it required flashing the gapps package or core functions won't work.

 

[Michael Rodgers]

Lots of thanks to you both. Both very helpful.

Just to be clear, I already have TWRP and am familiar with flashing, getting the right gapps package, etc. I just wanted to find either a packaged stock nexus rom (first choice), OR a clean AOSP as a second choice. So the video is helpful (or I should say, the link under the video to the rom ). As are your clean AOSPs.

Thanks!