Root Questions about already rooted Dinc with S-on still active.

[rgnicholas]

Hello everyone, please share your thoughts with me. Let me say that I am not quite a newbie... but close I have followed the first part of scotty85's directions on how to use HTCdev to unlock and achieve root. However, I did not go through the S-off part of the tutorial. I have experimented with some of the ROMs out there and like MIUI best. It just hits my sense of look and feel. MIUI currently has 2 versions on their US site and the lesser (gingerbread) version works very well and is smooth. The newer (jellybean) version has some features which I would like to have but the overall experience is sluggish and some items are buggy.

Even with S-on, I seem to be able to flash the custom ROMs without any difficulty but since I am relatively new to all of this, is it possible or probable that my results as described, the sluggishness of some ROMs, could be attributed to my still having S-on? Specifically, I really would like to use the new version of MIUI but I don't want to continue messing with the system if there will be no performance difference between S-on and S-off. I sincerely appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.

Blessings to you!
Nick

 

[iowabowtech]

Hello everyone, please share your thoughts with me. Let me say that I am not quite a newbie... but close I have followed the first part of scotty85's directions on how to use HTCdev to unlock and achieve root. However, I did not go through the S-off part of the tutorial. I have experimented with some of the ROMs out there and like MIUI best. It just hits my sense of look and feel. MIUI currently has 2 versions on their US site and the lesser (gingerbread) version works very well and is smooth. The newer (jellybean) version has some features which I would like to have but the overall experience is sluggish and some items are buggy.

Even with S-on, I seem to be able to flash the custom ROMs without any difficulty but since I am relatively new to all of this, is it possible or probable that my results as described, the sluggishness of some ROMs, could be attributed to my still having S-on? Specifically, I really would like to use the new version of MIUI but I don't want to continue messing with the system if there will be no performance difference between S-on and S-off. I sincerely appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.

Blessings to you!
Nick

Hi Nick. S-Off vs S-On will have zero effect on the snappiness of ROMs or the lack thereof. If you are doing fine with the process of flashing ROMs while S-On, you have nothing to worry about. Its just nice to be able to flash the entire ROM + kernel from recovery but its probably not as big a deal unless you're used to doing that way like yours truly.

The only other thing about S-Off is it provides some great get out of jail options if the SHTF as compared to S-On because you can flash any RUU without issue. Personally speaking, it would bug me to no end if I had an S-On phone but at the same time, it may not be worth the extra effort/risk for everyone. Although Scotty can bring a ship into the harbor on the foggiest of nights so you're in good hands with he and sdrawkcab monitoring that thread.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

Your problem with sluggishness may be due to not flashing the MIUI kernel in fastboot. Like Iowa mentioned, without s-off the kernel for a ROM requires another step to be installed. MIUI will definitely run slower than it should without the proper kernel.

In my opinion it is well worth the extra effort for s-off.

 

[rgnicholas]

Thanks for the input from you both. Now, I need to ask (and sorry if this is obvious to you) that if I had S-off already and flashed a ROM like MIUI 2.9.4 which is the stated latest JB rom on the miui.us site... would this automatically install (flash) the proper kernel or is that a separate process? When I read through their instructions here, they do not mention a separate flash process. Thanks for being patient... I am learning as I go

 

[sdrawkcab25]

Thanks for the input from you both. Now, I need to ask (and sorry if this is obvious to you) that if I had S-off already and flashed a ROM like MIUI 2.9.4 which is the stated latest JB rom on the miui.us site... would this automatically install (flash) the proper kernel or is that a separate process? When I read through their instructions here, they do not mention a separate flash process. Thanks for being patient... I am learning as I go

Yes, if you have s-off, there is no need to separately flash the kernel, it would be installed with the ROM. However without s-off, you have to flash the kernel separately in fastboot.

That JB based rom however may always be a little sluggish on the incredible just because of hardware limitations of the phone.

 

[rgnicholas]

Hey, thanks for the confirmation. That is enough to prompt me to finish up the process for S-off. I am sure the newer OS will not be completely smooth on the older phone but any improvements will be worth it. Thanks again!

 

[rgnicholas]

Just a little follow-up and a question about "Step 8." I have finished the tutorial through attaining S-off but when I got to the step about "update hboot/radio" I was a little nervous about proceeding. Anyway, can you folks give me in layman's terms why there is an advantage or disadvantage to updating these items? Considering I will likely test out ICS & JB on my phone, I am most interested in how this may help or hurt speed and smoothness of a flashed ROM. TIA...

 

[sdrawkcab25]

Just a little follow-up and a question about "Step 8." I have finished the tutorial through attaining S-off but when I got to the step about "update hboot/radio" I was a little nervous about proceeding. Anyway, can you folks give me in layman's terms why there is an advantage or disadvantage to updating these items? Considering I will likely test out ICS & JB on my phone, I am most interested in how this may help or hurt speed and smoothness of a flashed ROM. TIA...

They are completely optional. But the reason they are there: in the process of obtaining s-off you changed your radio and hboot to an older version. Older, does not mean "worse" though. The "radio" is firmware on the phone that controls/influences your reception, cellular, WiFi/Bluetooth, GPS etc. It also has a minor role in other aspects in the phone. The radio you currently have on the phone is one version old. Some people have better/worse reception with the radio...if you experience no problems(battery life, reception etc), there is no pressing reason to change it.

The hboot is similar to what a bios would be on a PC. The only real reason to update it would be to gain a couple extra fastboot commands that can be helpful in solving/fixing problems should your phone not boot up.

 

[rgnicholas]

sdrawkcab25, thank you for the explanation! That helps a lot and using the analogy to BIOS, etc. makes it make sense to me. I will just see how things go for a bit before I try the next step with the radio and so forth. Thanks again!