Hi! I am brand new to Android and smartphones, having just purchased my first one. I’ve spent the past week combing through the forums here and on xda trying to learn about rooting, but I have a few newb-y questions that I hope I can get some clarification on!
I was looking at QBking77’s video tutorials on how to root, install Clockworkmod, and install the stock EL29 modem. Is this still the most recent version? More importantly, will installing a stock modem effectively work like doing a clean install on a computer, where it removes all the bloatware and excess apps that came on the phone?
I am not sure what the most recent "official" one is but the most recent modem I know of is fb27, but I think you need to have an ICS ROM with it, not really sure if it works properly with gingerbread
I literally just bought this phone and got it up and running, all that’s been done is activating it and porting in my phone number from my old service. I haven’t bought apps, customized anything, or even imported my contacts, so I have no data that I’m aware needs to be kept. I’d like to start as clean and fresh as possible, with a phone that runs well and dosen’t have a bunch of junk apps I don’t need or won’t use.
Any new ROM you flash you are going to want to do a factory reset at some point during the process so it will give you a fresh start anyways
I don’t currently intend to do anything extensive, beyond basic appearance and functionality tweaks. No hardcore development testing or trying to flash things that aren’t stable.
You can get a lot of appearance and functionality by just using certain app like a new launcher (I prefer LauncherPro for gingerbread and Nova for ICS) or a new messaging app (GoSMS)
I don’t run any risk of my phone spontaneously bricking simply by being rooted and having a well-established ROM or theme installed, correct? The dangerous part is when you start experimenting with different kernels/roms/new things, as I understand it.
Flashing any new ROM/kernel/modem is not risk free. Usually you are fine if you follow directions exactly, but there is always that time that things go wrong anyways. I would recommend reading about Odin and getting the required files to reset your phone through Odin if something does go wrong before you start flashing different things
Will this affect my ability to update (as in, will this mean I have to find a stock rom to flash if a new build comes out, like ICS, instead of what I assume would have been an automatic upgrade on an unrooted phone?)
You will not automatically get updates once you change ROMs, but you can always update before the official one is released. For example, I already have ICS and love it!
Out of curiosity, I saw someone mention something about rooting being used to get rid of the ads in certain apps. Is this true?
Install AdFree, I always have this on my phone and LOVE it!
If there’s any specific build, tutorial, or software you would recommend, please let me know! Or even anything specifically useful app-wise. I am completely new to smartphones and Android, and while I know it’ll largely be my own learning experience, I’d love to hear any tips or hints. I just want to get the most out of my Galaxy!
My advice honestly is to use your phone for a while, play around with it, get familiar with it, then decide if you want to use a custom ROM. There are a lot of apps that add a lot of tweaks and customization with out a custom ROM.
Thank you very much to anyone who responds and can help me out, and my apologies for the wall of text! I really appreciate any guidance you can give.