Root Interested in rooting phone, need some help

[jrodrig7]

Greetings all,

So I've had my Vibrant since August, and I really enjoy it. However after the OTA my phones been acting very sluggish, and I feel like the battery life isn't what it used to be. I have always been interested in rooting this phone, but haven't thought it to be to necessary until now, since I feel like the OTA just hurt my phone as opposed to helping it. This is my first android device, so I am pretty new to all of this. With that I will release my slurry of questions.

1) So far I am pretty impressed with the way Bionix looks on the Vibrant. I am wondering what the significant difference between Bionix final and Bionix Fusion is. Which do you guys prefer?

2) I've noticed on https://sites.google.com/site/projectbionix/home/downloads that there are several different versions of each one. Whats the difference between them [for exampleBionix Kings (OC/UV by KingKlix) vs Bionix JAC (OC/UV Kernel)]

3) I've been researching this, and there appears to be several ways to root your Vibrant, as of now I' using this guide (How To: Root the Samsung Vibrant / Captivate | TheUnlockr). Is this the best way to do so, or are there easier alternative methods?

4) The above guide mentions nothing about the flashable modems, and I am wondering where they come into play.

Any information/answers/tips would be greatly appreciated, and if someone wants to walk me through the whole process, well that would just be swell

Thanks in advance!

 

[w_bovine]

Greetings all,

So I've had my Vibrant since August, and I really enjoy it. However after the OTA my phones been acting very sluggish, and I feel like the battery life isn't what it used to be. I have always been interested in rooting this phone, but haven't thought it to be to necessary until now, since I feel like the OTA just hurt my phone as opposed to helping it. This is my first android device, so I am pretty new to all of this. With that I will release my slurry of questions.

1) So far I am pretty impressed with the way Bionix looks on the Vibrant. I am wondering what the significant difference between Bionix final and Bionix Fusion is. Which do you guys prefer?

2) I've noticed on https://sites.google.com/site/projectbionix/home/downloads that there are several different versions of each one. Whats the difference between them [for exampleBionix Kings (OC/UV by KingKlix) vs Bionix JAC (OC/UV Kernel)]

3) I've been researching this, and there appears to be several ways to root your Vibrant, as of know I' using this guide (How To: Root the Samsung Vibrant / Captivate | TheUnlockr). Is this the best way to do so, or are there easier alternative methods?

4) The above guide mentions nothing about the flashable modems, and I am wondering where they come into play.

Any information/answers/tips would be greatly appreciated, and if someone wants to walk me through the whole process, well that would just be swell

Thanks in advance!

I'll try to keep track of everything!

1. Fusion removes TouchWiz as much as possible; that is the primary distinction from Bionix Final. I've used both, and I can say without hesitation that I prefer Fusion. I had no love for TouchWiz.

2. The main difference here is with the kernels. Both JAC's and Kingklick's are OC/UV kernels, that is, overclocked and undervolted. Overclocking...that's pretty obvious I expect. The undervolting has to do with increased battery life mainly. It strikes me as counterintuitive in that to overclock on a PC one generally increases the voltage, but hey, I'm no dev or engineer. As for which is preferred...try each and see which works best for you. I started with Kingklicks then moved to JAC's. I find JAC's kernel to be a bit "smoother" than Kingklick's. At the same time, I've seen posts from people who say just the opposite.

3. I don't even remember how exactly I rooted my Vibrant. It doesn't really matter what method you use, especially if your intention is to install a custom ROM. All the Bionix ROM's come rooted, i.e. you are already rooted once the ROM is installed. I believe you can find a .zip file you can flash via stock recovery to gain root. I would think that to be about as easy as could be.

4. As for modems, the vast majority of the talk lately is between the JI2 and JI6 modems. I don't recall which is in Bionix Final, but I know Fusion comes with the JI2 modem. The JI2 modem is known for having better battery life but a lower data throughput. The JI6 modem is considered very poor for battery life but has a substantially better date throughput. Factors such as the strength/type of signal in one's area and the the desire for the best possible battery life affect one's decision on which modem to use. The good news here is that it's a small matter to switch between modems. In fact you may have noticed that on Team Whiskey's website you have the option to download 3 different modems.

Take some time to learn about Odin and ADB. They are your friends.

You have seen the Vibrant Bible? If not, take some time to look around:

[REF]***Vibrant Directory(Bible)Rev2.1--A little color can't hurt--***(10/28/2010)*** - xda-developers

If you have more questions, just ask away. Better to ask first than brick your phone and be sad!

 

[jrodrig7]

Ok thank you for clearing that up for me, I greatly appreciate it. Yeah you make a very good point regarding the overclocking... it makes no sense at all that you would overclock a phone while simultaneously reducing it's voltage... that seems very counter intuitive... On a PC, one must incrementally increase the voltage in order to reach stable and safe OC benchmarks... can anyone explain the science behind this? Now for the slurry of my next questions.

1) Ok so I've got the one click unroot program, and have decided to go with the fusion rom, as I too am not a fan of the touchwiz. I suppose I too will go with JAC's kernel. So my question now is do I just go with Fusion JAC's kernel, or JAC's XMOD kernel with Voodoo... whats the difference?

2) That being said, I am reading a lot about making sure that Voodoo is disabled... does the Fusion JAC's kernel come with Voodoo? If not, how do I go about putting Voodoo on it? If it does have it already installed, am I going to have to disable it first?

So if I have this straight, this is what I believe to be the sequence of this ROM flashing scenario
1) Root Phone using one click root program
2) Run ROM Manager to make a backup
3) Save ROM that I will be using onto internal SD card in zip format
4) Reboot in recovery mode using ROM Manager
5) Select wipe data/ factory reset
6) Accept
7) Once it's finished select install zip from SD card
8) Choose said file
9) Confirm
10) Enjoy

Am I on the right track, or am I missing something?

Thanks again

 

[w_bovine]

Ok thank you for clearing that up for me, I greatly appreciate it. Yeah you make a very good point regarding the overclocking... it makes no sense at all that you would overclock a phone while simultaneously reducing it's voltage... that seems very counter intuitive... On a PC, one must incrementally increase the voltage in order to reach stable and safe OC benchmarks... can anyone explain the science behind this? Now for the slurry of my next questions.

1) Ok so I've got the one click unroot program, and have decided to go with the fusion rom, as I too am not a fan of the touchwiz. I suppose I too will go with JAC's kernel. So my question now is do I just go with Fusion JAC's kernel, or JAC's XMOD kernel with Voodoo... whats the difference?

2) That being said, I am reading a lot about making sure that Voodoo is disabled... does the Fusion JAC's kernel come with Voodoo? If not, how do I go about putting Voodoo on it? If it does have it already installed, am I going to have to disable it first?

So if I have this straight, this is what I believe to be the sequence of this ROM flashing scenario
1) Root Phone using one click root program
2) Run ROM Manager to make a backup
3) Save ROM that I will be using onto internal SD card in zip format
4) Reboot in recovery mode using ROM Manager
5) Select wipe data/ factory reset
6) Accept
7) Once it's finished select install zip from SD card
8) Choose said file
9) Confirm
10) Enjoy

Am I on the right track, or am I missing something?

Thanks again

Voodoo is a lagfix that converts the phone's file system from RFS to ext4. The one-click lag fix is an ext2 solution and does not convert the file system.

Fusion does not come with a Voodoo-enhanced kernel, but it's a simple matter to install Voodoo after flashing the ROM. It can be installed in the same manner as the ROM as well.

As you've likely noticed, JAC's with Voodoo can be downloaded from the Team Whiskey website.

Team Whiskey

I prefer Voodoo of course. It's darn fast and I've had no trouble at all with stability. If you decide to use it, remember to disable it before flashing anything. Keep in mind too that it can take 10 or 15 minutes for the conversion process. You'll hear Linda the robot giving you the status of the process.

When using ROM Manager to install Fusion you don't have to do step #5. Bionix ROM's wipe as part of the install.

 

[jrodrig7]

Ok gotcha, and now to the questions lol.

1) So from your response, I'm assuming that Fusion JAC's kernel and JAC's XMODE Kernels w/ voodoo are the same, except the latter has voodoo. Am I correct to make this assumption?

2) After doing some further reading, I definitely want Voodoo. So assuming that I am making the correct assumption in my previous statement, then I'm assuming that I need to disable the voodoo before I install this kernel... that being said how do I do this? I see that there is a flashable disable Voodoo keyfile, do I just install this onto the internal SD card as well, or is it a little more complicated then that?

Thanks for being so helpful Bovine, I owe you a beer

 

[deadfish]

I'll try to keep track of everything!

1. Fusion removes TouchWiz as much as possible; that is the primary distinction from Bionix Final. I've used both, and I can say without hesitation that I prefer Fusion. I had no love for TouchWiz.

2. The main difference here is with the kernels. Both JAC's and Kingklick's are OC/UV kernels, that is, overclocked and undervolted. Overclocking...that's pretty obvious I expect. The undervolting has to do with increased battery life mainly. It strikes me as counterintuitive in that to overclock on a PC one generally increases the voltage, but hey, I'm no dev or engineer. As for which is preferred...try each and see which works best for you. I started with Kingklicks then moved to JAC's. I find JAC's kernel to be a bit "smoother" than Kingklick's. At the same time, I've seen posts from people who say just the opposite.

3. I don't even remember how exactly I rooted my Vibrant. It doesn't really matter what method you use, especially if your intention is to install a custom ROM. All the Bionix ROM's come rooted, i.e. you are already rooted once the ROM is installed. I believe you can find a .zip file you can flash via stock recovery to gain root. I would think that to be about as easy as could be.

4. As for modems, the vast majority of the talk lately is between the JI2 and JI6 modems. I don't recall which is in Bionix Final, but I know Fusion comes with the JI2 modem. The JI2 modem is known for having better battery life but a lower data throughput. The JI6 modem is considered very poor for battery life but has a substantially better date throughput. Factors such as the strength/type of signal in one's area and the the desire for the best possible battery life affect one's decision on which modem to use. The good news here is that it's a small matter to switch between modems. In fact you may have noticed that on Team Whiskey's website you have the option to download 3 different modems.

Take some time to learn about Odin and ADB. They are your friends.

You have seen the Vibrant Bible? If not, take some time to look around:

[REF]***Vibrant Directory(Bible)Rev2.1--A little color can't hurt--***(10/28/2010)*** - xda-developers

If you have more questions, just ask away. Better to ask first than brick your phone and be sad!

Hi all, i am new on here today, i have a htc g1 t-mobile black and managed to gain super user permissions on my device by installing a free app called " UniversalAndroot-1.6.2-5beta " and am able to get root access WITHOUT reflashing and risking bricking my lovely htc g1< give it a go work's for me!!!!!

 

[w_bovine]

Ok gotcha, and now to the questions lol.

1) So from your response, I'm assuming that Fusion JAC's kernel and JAC's XMODE Kernels w/ voodoo are the same, except the latter has voodoo. Am I correct to make this assumption?

2) After doing some further reading, I definitely want Voodoo. So assuming that I am making the correct assumption in my previous statement, then I'm assuming that I need to disable the voodoo before I install this kernel... that being said how do I do this? I see that there is a flashable disable Voodoo keyfile, do I just install this onto the internal SD card as well, or is it a little more complicated then that?

Thanks for being so helpful Bovine, I owe you a beer

1. As far as I know, yes.

2. Okay, let's say you've flashed Fusion (remember Fusion does not have a Voodoo kernel option to download). After that you want to flash Voodoo. All you would have to do is flash the Voodoo file via Clockwork recovery (included in ROM Manager).

You don't actually need to install JAC's kernel with Voodoo...you can just flash Voodoo itself. You can find it in this post:

[PRJ] Vibrant Voodo Lag-fix w/OC-Optimized 2.6.29 Kernel - Beta4 9/19/2010 - xda-developers

Or you could just use the file you see on the Team Whiskey web site. It would flash the kernel again, but big deal. Makes no difference at all.

Since you won't have Voodoo installed after you flash Fusion you don't have to do anything before you flash Voodoo.

Voodoo will create a folder on /sdcard named Voodoo. Inside that folder you need a file named "disable-lagfix" without the quotes, NO FILE EXTENSION. You can make a file in Notepad or whatever, name it disable-lagfix and save it without an extension. That file goes into /sdcard/Voodoo.

If the file is the Voodoo folder when you reboot Voodoo will be disabled. You'll hear Linda telling you the file system is being converted back to rfs.

To enable Voodoo, simple delete or rename the file (easily done with Root Explorer, another app you ought to have Root Explorer (File Manager) - Android app on AppBrain ).

What I do is this: I keep a file in the Voodoo folder named "disable-lagfi" Notice there is no "x" at the end. When it's like this, Voodoo is enabled. When I need to flash something, I go to the file and put the "x" back into the name and reboot. Once the conversion process is complete I can flash whatever I need to.

When it's time to convert back to ext4 (Voodoo enabled) I just go back to that file and take off the "x" and reboot. Linda tells me the conversion is taking place. In a few minutes I'm good to go.

You can check to see if Voodoo is enabled with a terminal emulator (download this too...free app. Android Terminal Emulator - Android app on AppBrain )

Go to Terminal Emulator and enter the command "mount." This is from the OP of the Bionix thread:

How-to Confirm Voodoo Lagfix is Disabled:
1. In adb shell or terminal type 'mount'
2. If it is disabled is should read '/dev/block/mmcblk0p2'.
3. If it is not disabled, it will read '/dev/block/mmcblk0p4'.

It's really all very easy. You simply have to remember to disable Voodoo before flashing anything. I've had smashing success with Voodoo.

Oh...one more thing. Some Vibrants have a larger NAND chip than others. If this is the case, you'll need to follow the instructions on the first page of the Bionix thread under "Did You Flash Something Before Disabling Voodoo? 2 Fixes to Help You Out."

This is what I had to do to get Voodoo to work. I've only had to do it one time. Ever since then I've been able to install and run Voodoo with no problems. It was well worth the effort I assure you.

Okay...this post is really long. If you have more questions, just ask!

 

[jrodrig7]

Alright, I think I'm going to flash the kernel first then flash voodoo... wish me luck.

P.s.

Bovine, I appreciate all the help, thank you very much for answering all my questions <tips hat>

 

[jrodrig7]

EDIT:
Ended up just turning it off and restarting it, luckily that seemed to work fine. Just finished installing BIONIX Fusion on it, and am currently reinstalling apps and what not. I'm pretty excited to see what this bad boy can do now. Gotta also flash VOODOO still, which I'll get around to once I make sure that everything is the way it should be!

--

Anyone know how long it takes to wipe the data?

Here's what I have completed so far:
1) Root Phone using one click root program
2) Run ROM Manager to make a backup
3) Save ROM that I will be using onto internal SD card in zip format
4) Reboot in recovery mode using ROM Manager
5) Select wipe data/ factory reset
6) Accept
7) Once it's finished select install zip from SD card
8) Choose said file
9) Confirm
10) Enjoy

My screen says ClockworkMod Recovery v2.5.1.2
--Wiping data...

its been like that for about ten minutes now... how long does this take, I'm getting nervous...