Root Need ROM recommendations - what are the advantages/disadvantages?

[John728]

According to the All Things Root Guide, there are two ROMs available:

* EK1 - Rooted, Stock, Deodexed and Zipaligned
* EH2 - Full Factory Odin Restore

What are the advantages and disadvantages of each one? What are the advantages and disadvantages of just rooting the phone and not installing any ROMs? Is the second ROM just to get it back the way it was before being rooted? Are there user guides available for each one? If not, I may just root the phone and stick with the OS that's on there now so I can use the manual I have. I clicked on the links but those articles may just as well have been Greek.

 

[KnightCrusader]

According to the All Things Root Guide, there are two ROMs available:

* EK1 - Rooted, Stock, Deodexed and Zipaligned
* EH2 - Full Factory Odin Restore

What are the advantages and disadvantages of each one? What are the advantages and disadvantages of just rooting the phone and not installing any ROMs? Is the second ROM just to get it back the way it was before being rooted? Are there user guides available for each one? If not, I may just root the phone and stick with the OS that's on there now so I can use the manual I have. I clicked on the links but those articles may just as well have been Greek.

Actually, I would use neither of them. They are both test builds and if you flash them, you may not get back to EI2 (which is the official production release). I am working on a current way to clean up EI2 for everyone and also port some Charge ROMs over.

 

[Diversebydesign]

@KC - First of all, I would give credance to anything you say considering I used your guides to root my Strat as well as to flash the recovery. But at the same time, I did flash the Ek1 about a week ago. In all honestly I have not noticed any issues with it. Of course, there is a warning when doing so to make sure that you also flash the kernel to EK1 otherwise you could lose your radio functionality.

Again, to be honest, I am not even too sure what the real point to flashing this to my phone was. Except for maybe making it a bit easier to transfer over to other ROMS later when they do get released. Myself, I am a bit new to the whole Droid thing. I am a computer geek who came over from Blackberry. My computer knowledge allows me the smarts to understand this stuff easier and to be able to get it done, but I am still learning this new format just like most others. This site has been a great help and a few of the members here have been even better! Rootzwiki is great too. Although you probably seen it already, here is the link to the EK1 instructions over there as well as the ongoing conversation about it:

Rootzwiki EK1 Info

I hope you find the answers you are looking for. Then again.. so do I..

 

[dwitherell]

Theres a custom rom based on EI2 available on rootzwiki now called TweakStock. There are a number of things done to it that may be of interest - feel free to check it out!

 

[Scur]

There is one big disadvantage to even rooting the Strat: the marker flag. Once you mess with the kernel, it flags your phone, and there's no way to unflag it. If you have to take it in for replacement or repair, your carrier will know that you've been messing around with things. What this means, I'm not 100% sure. They might not mind if it's all been put back to stock, but they might just say that you've broken your ToS and refuse to repair/replace it.

What did I do? I threw Knight's rootable kernel on my Strat the first chance I got, rooted, installed the recovery, and performed a nandroid before grabbing my root apps. I can't stand not having a non-rooted phone. If it was only a phone and basic tool for me, I probably wouldn't change a thing from stock. But it's more of a toy to me, so I look at the yellow warning triangle every time I boot up now.

 

[Diversebydesign]

Hey Scur, to your point of the "Marker Flag"...

I am assuming there is something within the code that will show a "tech" that the phone has been rooted - even if put back to stock right? I mean aside from the little yellow caution flag at bootup.

I ask because after I rooted my phone, flashed recovery and made a backup and all that fun stuff, I too was seeing that flag or symbol every time I would boot her up. However, and I'm not sure if this is the cause but I feel it is safe to assume so, after I flashed the EK1 kernel and the deodexed/zipaligned ROM, I no longer get that little caution flag.

So I wonder considering the conversation, is that enough to make a tech think the phone is stock? I know that there are the ignorant and oblivious standard reps everywhere and sometimes we are lucky enough to deal with one of these people when we are trying to get a replacement, etc... but say for instance I happen to get a "normal" or "aware" rep/tech.. will the absence of that flag cause them to think my warranty is still intact? What do you think?

 

[shrpshtr325]

honestly i would say yes chances are they would assume your warranty was still intact, i took mine back when i was having problems with it reading my sd card, and i just removed SU and busybox, and reflashed the stock kernel, they didnt say anything to me about having rooted the phone, i also was not there with a problem which was a candidate for replacement (since the problem came and went on its own until i figured it out) so that may have played a role in it too, but i would expect as long as the yellow triangle doesnt come up, and there are no apps which require root access you will likely be fine.

 

[dwitherell]

FYI - You can flash custom kernels in cwm and not get the exclamation point.

 

[Scur]

I was going by what I read from various sources. Maybe the stock kernel being put back on replaces the internal flag or just turns it off or something, but I'll keep looking for a definite answer. I don't see the problem with putting things back to stock to take your phone back. After all, if the issue your phone is having continues after going back to stock then it's going to be a hardware issue and not something you did (most likely).
But good to know, I'll modify the warnings in various posts.

 

[Scur]

FYI - You can flash custom kernels in cwm and not get the exclamation point.

So how do you root to get CWM on in the first place without showing the warning symbol on the boot screen? Flash the rootable kernel, install CWM, then flash the original kernel? Does that keep CWM and root on your phone, or do you simply have CWM on an unrooted phone?

 

[dwitherell]

So how do you root to get CWM on in the first place without showing the warning symbol on the boot screen? Flash the rootable kernel, install CWM, then flash the original kernel? Does that keep CWM and root on your phone, or do you simply have CWM on an unrooted phone?

Thanks to the good work of KnightCrusader, I put together a guide here that outlined the steps I took to get rooted without touching the kernel. This still will increment the binary counter, but it will be deemed "official" and exclamation point-free. Also - re-ODINing (or Heimdall-ing) stock stuff (which includes the EK1 stuff) removes the exclamation point, but the count does not change. When using CWM to flash kernels, the counter does not change (the flag is only set when flashed in download mode). Unless there's another way to tell, the only way a rep could tell you were rooted (outside of not removing obvious signs like rooted apps) is to go into Download mode (and there are even ways to get into this that don't show anything... very confusing).

Per KnightCrusaders line of thinking (so all the credit for it goes to him of course), it's possible to get rooted and CWM without incrementing the counter at all - I'm thinking about getting some things together to make this a bit easier to do, but it seems pretty straight forward. Simply flash in ODIN/Heimdall a rooted rom (factoryfs.rfs that has su and superuser already included/installed) - that will get you rooted WITHOUT tripping any sort of bootloader flags. Then use commands (dd) to push recovery.bin into the correct partition. I may try to get something together that does this in the next day or so - not sure if it will be successful of course

 

[KnightCrusader]

Thanks to the good work of KnightCrusader, I put together a guide here that outlined the steps I took to get rooted without touching the kernel. This still will increment the binary counter, but it will be deemed "official" and exclamation point-free. Also - re-ODINing (or Heimdall-ing) stock stuff (which includes the EK1 stuff) removes the exclamation point, but the count does not change. When using CWM to flash kernels, the counter does not change (the flag is only set when flashed in download mode). Unless there's another way to tell, the only way a rep could tell you were rooted (outside of not removing obvious signs like rooted apps) is to go into Download mode (and there are even ways to get into this that don't show anything... very confusing).

Per KnightCrusaders line of thinking (so all the credit for it goes to him of course), it's possible to get rooted and CWM without incrementing the counter at all - I'm thinking about getting some things together to make this a bit easier to do, but it seems pretty straight forward. Simply flash in ODIN/Heimdall a rooted rom (factoryfs.rfs that has su and superuser already included/installed) - that will get you rooted WITHOUT tripping any sort of bootloader flags. Then use commands (dd) to push recovery.bin into the correct partition. I may try to get something together that does this in the next day or so - not sure if it will be successful of course

Yeah, its what I call the "sneaky" way. If you flash a rooted system image (factoryfs.rfs) to the phone, it shouldn't trip the counter... and then you boot up, dd cwm to the recovery partition and then you are done.

 

[Diversebydesign]

Well, considering the way this conversation is going this may be the wrong place for this.....

Since flashing the ek1 kernel (not before with flashing rootable kernel) I get an alarm tone at startup that does not stop until the SD card is done getting scanned. Could this be as simple as the result of some app? Or is it a result of flashing something? Anybody else experience anything similar?

 

[Scur]

Well, considering the way this conversation is going this may be the wrong place for this.....

Since flashing the ek1 kernel (not before with flashing rootable kernel) I get an alarm tone at startup that does not stop until the SD card is done getting scanned. Could this be as simple as the result of some app? Or is it a result of flashing something? Anybody else experience anything similar?

Nope, not I. Sounds irritating, though.

 

[Diversebydesign]

Nope, not I. Sounds irritating, though.

... very! I have searched and searched through the phone and various settings and have not found any viable reason for the alarm sound to exist at startup. I am back to thinking that it has to have something to do with something that I did during the rooting process. Of course I have no proof or evidence of this but I also have no other answers.

Could this have something (anything) to do with the binary counter or the fact that the marker flag is now gone and this is what replaces it as a signal to a voided warranty?

 

[Scur]

Well, considering the way this conversation is going this may be the wrong place for this.....

Since flashing the ek1 kernel (not before with flashing rootable kernel) I get an alarm tone at startup that does not stop until the SD card is done getting scanned. Could this be as simple as the result of some app? Or is it a result of flashing something? Anybody else experience anything similar?

Ok, this has suddenly started on my phone too. Can't even turn down the volume.

EDIT: So I've been rebooting, and found I can turn it off simply by pulling down the notification bar. It still goes off and I still have to unlock my phone first, but at least I can cut down the amount of time I have to listen to it.

 

[Diversebydesign]

Great catch! Fortunetely I no longer have to listen to it as I switched to Tweakstock and the included rhcp kernel. So it is surely the ek1 that is the cause. Sucks to have to hear that though. I remember how annoying it was and to be honest, it was one of the primary reasons I was looking for an alternate kernel.

 

[snowman110011]

Nevermind