desire with stock android easily possible?

[bfink]

i've been waiting for the n1 to be sold in my country for quite some time now and after months we don't even have a release date. so i was reading some reviews of the desire which seems to be quite similar. before i like to decide if i'll buy a desire now or keep waiting for the n1 i'd like to understand the two philosophies though. did i get it right that

1) the desire once had an option to disable the sense ui and fallback to stock android but this option has been removed from retail devices lately?

2) for installing a rom not coming from htc on the desire the device has to be rooted first, which is, contrary to the n1, something that can only be achieved by motivated hackers as htc has not included an official option to do this?

3) once my desire was rooted, would i be able to install a stock android on it to cover those months where htc adapts sense to a new android release? or doesn't it work like that as the hardware is similar but not identical?

4) if it should work, where do i get a stock android image for installation? is it offered linux-like on different sites or does it depend on skilled people hacking it together in their spare time?

as i have never experienced the difference between android and sense i'd like to use that unbiasedness to choose the right device from the beginning. i don't want to sacrifice freedom of choice for eye candy.

if an htc product would impose limitations and dependencies to the goodwill of one supplier that would be contraproductive, as i'd like to get rid of exactly that by choosing the android platform in the first place instead of the iphone.

if the desire was just a device with an optional extension that i could get rid of whenever i wanted and get back to the 'main branch' of android i guess my waiting time for google is over.

 

[lekky]

1) the desire once had an option to disable the sense ui and fallback to stock android but this option has been removed from retail devices lately?

Removed yes, but you can install it yourself anyway without rooting.

2) for installing a rom not coming from htc on the desire the device has to be rooted first, which is, contrary to the n1, something that can only be achieved by motivated hackers as htc has not included an official option to do this?

Same with th N1 no? Anyway rooting is such a painless process it shouldn't matter that you have to root.

3) once my desire was rooted, would i be able to install a stock android on it to cover those months where htc adapts sense to a new android release? or doesn't it work like that as the hardware is similar but not identical?

Probably you can yes, the rooting/custom rom community is very active. Take the Hero as an example, there has been a stable 2.1 ROM available for many months. The official 2.1 ROM is not out yet.

4) if it should work, where do i get a stock android image for installation? is it offered linux-like on different sites or does it depend on skilled people hacking it together in their spare time?

The current main guy for Desire rooting is Modaco, check out his site.

as i have never experienced the difference between android and sense i'd like to use that unbiasedness to choose the right device from the beginning. i don't want to sacrifice freedom of choice for eye candy.

They are pretty much similar tbh. For instance you can install sense on the N1, you can use default 2.1 on the Desire. Pick which one you like the look of most

if an htc product would impose limitations and dependencies to the goodwill of one supplier that would be contraproductive, as i'd like to get rid of exactly that by choosing the android platform in the first place instead of the iphone.

I'm not sure of the question, but HTC doesn't offer such limitations as the iPhone. Like I said before, if you root the Desire you are pretty much free to do whatever you like with it!

 

[bfink]

Removed yes, but you can install it yourself anyway without rooting.

I thought they had made some precautions in the retail release that should stop people from switching to a stock android look&feel?

Same with th N1 no? Anyway rooting is such a painless process it shouldn't matter that you have to root.

still it requires to wait for those people who are coming up with new root exploits for every release, right? because this really bothered me on the iphone and i don't want to play this game anymore. i'd like to finaly get a device that can be used in full extend without the help of a few encouraged ones who try to circumvent all the obstacles someone put in front of the users.

also i saw a list on one site dealing with htc hacks that showed what functionality you had to go without with once you convert the desire to an android2.1 device. not sure if the hw-support is and will be complete by using a stock android by now.

I'm not sure of the question, but HTC doesn't offer such limitations as the iPhone.

but judging from some posts in this forum the desire is one of the first devices where getting root alone was not enough as htc made some extra precautions to prevent people from writing to e.g. the boot partition. this sounded pretty apple-like to me