Root Easiest rom for an aspiring dev to customize

[ratjr15]

Hi all,
There have been some great people that have come through here and made progress with this phone in leaps and bounds. I'm incredibly grateful to them, as honestly, this phone would suck otherwise.
Given the latest promo (free prevail with $55 month of service), I'm going to pick up a new one. With 2 phones, I'll have 1 that I dont have 2 worry about bricking and I'd like to learn how to develop. I've set up the Linux environment on my Win7 PC and have SDK, Notepad++, and I believe all the necessary programs.
Would anyone have any input as to where to start?

 

[Shabbypenguin]

there is 3 kinds of roms.

stock based, you grab the stock files off the phone and muck with em til its something nice, this is your easiest and most common rom.

CM (and all its kang's) now you need to setup a device tree and compile a rom from source. this usually is the final stage for most devices. it requires a great amount of work but offers the best reward for the work as you can then gain access to versions your device would never normally have (read: CM9/10).

AOSP most devices never bother because cm has support for hundreds of devices and thus most of the code you need is already in there, aosp you are limited to under 14 devices, thus a lot more code isnt there and requires a LOT more work. same benefits as cm but thats all