Root Few Q's before I root away.

[Shags78]

Let me start with a little background info. Wanted the Droid since it came out but had to wait until T-Schmobile contract was up(not willing to pay ETF). Finally got my Droid 2 weeks ago knowing that it could be rooted and with intentions to do so. Before I did root I wanted to get familiar with the Android OS in general. I've had smartphones before(BB, Palm, WinMo, but not iPhone). Now that I'm familiar I'm ready to take the plunge. I've read up on a lot of root stuff lately and for me it looks like I'm going to flash the 2.1 SPRecovery file since of course I'm running stock 2.1. From there I was going to install the stock ESE81 ROM with root, su and baseband. After that I was going to install one of P3Droid's kernels for overclocking, etc.

Questions are:

1-Should I do a factory reset before I flash the SPRecovery SBF? Is it beneficial to have a clean slate to work with? I'm not worried about recovering apps and such, I have everything backed up with Astro.

2-Would the above mentioned ROM and kernel work with each other?

To tell you the truth I really love the stock Droid look for now. I use Helix for my home replacement and like the layout and icons as they are. In the future, probably sooner than later, I'll probably flash to whatever Bugless ROM is popular at that time. Just looking to get my feet wet and get started for now.

Thanks for any help provided, it is greatly appreciated.

T

 

[shadowdude777]

1) SBF files wipe everything for you completely. So complete that you'll need to reactivate your phone. So don't worry about that.

Note that Astro's backups won't restore your Market links. That means you can reinstall the apps but the Market won't recognize them meaning you'll never get updates to them. But if you go into Settings --> Privacy and check off Back up my Settings and then give it like 30 minutes to make sure your phone is properly synchronized, when you restore the SBF, as soon as you sign into your GMail account your apps will be listed in the Downloads page in the Market and you can redownload and reinstall them there.

2) Any ROM and kernel should work together except the DroidMod ROM because they don't like to update their ROM ever. Personally I like bekit's kernels more than P3Droid's. I also would recommend you download ROM Manager and try out CyanogenMod (which also means you have to use ClockworkMod, which in my opinion is better than SPRecovery anyway). I'd say a good chunk, possibly the majority, of users here are on CyanogenMod.

 

[Shags78]

Yeah so I went ahead and flashed the SPRecovery sbf and then installed JRummy's Remix v0.6 CyanMod 5.0.6.1. I went with this one because it already had wifi tether and bekit's overlock kernels built into it. I'll have to say this is one of the easiest things I've ever done. From start to finish, all apps reinstalled and Droid looking almost identical to when it was stock, I'd say about 15 minutes. I have SetCPU set to 1000 right now and it's snappy and very responsive. No hiccups so far and I've been playing with it for about 2 hours or so. ROM Manager came pre-installed to so while I was at it I flashed ClockworkMod as well.

 

[CRPercodani]

Jesus christ. Why can't all "newbies" be as resourceful as you!! I have been trying to tell them how easy it is if you just read and here is the proof needed. You Sir are welcome here and can PM me for help anytime.

 

[Shags78]

Jesus christ. Why can't all "newbies" be as resourceful as you!! I have been trying to tell them how easy it is if you just read and here is the proof needed. You Sir are welcome here and can PM me for help anytime.

Hahaha yeah it really wasn't hard at all either. So many guides and posts to pull info from. I will admit it can be quite confusing sometimes because there is so much out there to choose from as far as ROM's go. Lot's of info and some of it contradicts each other. What really got me was the SPRecovery guide for 2.1 that Fabolous posted a few days ago. That made it even easier. I'm sure I'll be switching ROM's like every other day now.

 

[Shags78]

Only issue I've found so far is that auto brightness doesn't work. Oh well.

 

[ska.t73]

Only issue I've found so far is that auto brightness doesn't work. Oh well.

According to some folks over at CyanogenMod... this is a feature of the new ESE81 build, and is working as intended. It will no longer adjust the brightness until you lock and un-lock the screen again... So it will adjust the brightness to the environment when you first un-lock it and then will not adjust the brightness unless it is unlocked again.

I believe this was done as a battery save... as auto brightness was notorious for eating up battery on 2.0.1

 

[dmodert66]

Jesus christ. Why can't all "newbies" be as resourceful as you!! I have been trying to tell them how easy it is if you just read and here is the proof needed. You Sir are welcome here and can PM me for help anytime.

QFT. Nice job OP. It's great to have someone that actually looks at the available material before posting. Not that we don't help those people too, but it makes things MUCH easier... (BTW, I'm certainly no expert, but I help when I can...)

 

[Crazy_J]

Jesus christ. Why can't all "newbies" be as resourceful as you!! I have been trying to tell them how easy it is if you just read and here is the proof needed. You Sir are welcome here and can PM me for help anytime.

Lazy people want their hands held. People who actually care about what they are doing, do the research and are able to do what it is they want to do. I personally like the fact that the questions that were asked weren't the usual "noob" questions. I know there are a lot of different guides to root, and way too many rom guides, but do the research and everyone could root and rom their phone just as this person did.