Root New to Rooting and worried

[dannyg40]

Im not sure if rooting is what I need. My main problem for wanting to root my phone is the horrible battery life. I have had my phone for 9 months and have had nothing but problems with battery life. I have tried everything from stopping apps from running, disable gps, diable bluetooth, everything. Still cannot sit and mess with my phone for texts, internet, facebook, for more than 30 minutes before I get the "low battery, connect charger" thing. I did the 2.1 from 1.5 update and that seemed to make the battery worse. I keep hearing and reading on this forum I should "root" my phone. I downloaded spare parts and look at the usage for that ampk2 thing or something thats supposed to eat battery life, but In my case the phone isnt using a lot of power for that. Im totally lost with rooting. I see and can figure out how to root using the videos and the download from that 2 part movie here, but have no idea what a "rom", "Kernal", or anything is. I searched the forums and read a lot, but every post I read where someone asks, they all seem to figure it out and Im missing something. Im just looking to get a good battery life from this phone. I looked on youtube and didnt find many videos on how the phone will look or act when I root it. Will I have the same home screen ? If I root to remove the stock sprint apps how do I do that ? Will they just show up in the "manage applications" and I can remove them from there ?

Do I need to root just to help this poor battery life out ?

Thanks

 

[my1zamboni]

I am rooted and have noticed a great improvement in battery life and speed of the phone. I used to get 3 hours and can now go all day with moderate usage (off the charger at 6am and back on around 9 pm).
If you have the 2 part video that is a good start.
Just follow the directions.
Go here
Haxsung SDX Custom Custom ROM Kitchen
and build your rom, this is what you will "drop" on your SD card in the video.
I personally use meatcurtains v2 from here and didn't change anything I didn't know what it was. I would add launcher pro as it is a great home replacement (my opinion but read up on it) the best part is at the bottom of that linked page you can chose what "stock" apps to take out, then just hit download and it is good.
I would also add juice defender from the market as it seems to have helped my battery life (again just my opinion)
One thing I did notice is I went from a work location with poor service indoors to one with full service indoors and get much better battery life. Not sure if this applies to you or not, but I am under the impression that if you have poor service it keeps looking to connect and eats up your battery.

 

[dannyg40]

I have upgraded to 2.1 a few months ago. Do I have to do a complete fresh install of 2.1 also like the 1st part of the video ? Or can I just do the rooting ?

Thanks

 

[my1zamboni]

as long as you haven't done anything but update then no, just watch part one to get the correct files to download, but after that follow video 2.
You can either use the rom they show in the video or build your own in the kitchen with the link I gave you earlier. If you build your own in the kitchen the ony thing you would do different is where it has you drop the file on your SD card you would drop your custom one there.
Also, I never asked what video you are using.......
Is it this one?
http://androidforums.com/samsung-mo...t-2-1-rooting-video-walkthrough-tutorial.html
This is the one I used and he did a great job and it is super easy to follow. The only extra step I did is download winrar (free just google it) so my stuff looked the same as his when I unzipped the file.
It is real easy to follow this video though. It makes it simple for computer illiterate people like me.

 

[SteveVHT]

Just follow that video step by step. It's easy and well worth it.
I am going back to the original rom/kernal from that video because I tried another kernal after rooting and my battery life went down.
I got 28 hrs on one charge the day after I rooted, now average about 24. I just removed the junk I didn't want and keep all the wifi, bluetooth, gps etc turned off unless I need it.
Well worth it IMHO....
Steve

 

[dannyg40]

Thas the one Im going to use. I do have Astro File Manager, Handcent, and Weather Bug installed since I did the 2.1 upgrade but thats about it.

as long as you haven't done anything but update then no, just watch part one to get the correct files to download, but after that follow video 2.
You can either use the rom they show in the video or build your own in the kitchen with the link I gave you earlier. If you build your own in the kitchen the ony thing you would do different is where it has you drop the file on your SD card you would drop your custom one there.
Also, I never asked what video you are using.......
Is it this one?
http://androidforums.com/samsung-mo...t-2-1-rooting-video-walkthrough-tutorial.html
This is the one I used and he did a great job and it is super easy to follow. The only extra step I did is download winrar (free just google it) so my stuff looked the same as his when I unzipped the file.
It is real easy to follow this video though. It makes it simple for computer illiterate people like me.

 

[dannyg40]

Thanks again Steve,
I see your other post about your battery life going down after installing another Kernal. I know once I get mine done Im going to try very hard not to mess with it, though it will be tempting to try new things.

Just follow that video step by step. It's easy and well worth it.
I am going back to the original rom/kernal from that video because I tried another kernal after rooting and my battery life went down.
I got 28 hrs on one charge the day after I rooted, now average about 24. I just removed the junk I didn't want and keep all the wifi, bluetooth, gps etc turned off unless I need it.
Well worth it IMHO....
Steve

 

[my1zamboni]

Dannyg40,
you are all set then, you only installed apps not really did anything.
Just follow part 2 (use part 1 to get your files)
That is the same video I used and it is very easy to follow, they did a great job with it.
If you end up not liking the rom in the video go to the kitchen and build your own.
I used the one in the video for a few weeks, but then got the confidence to go to the kitchen.
Good luck, and any more help needed the people in this forum are a great help.
They were to me.

 

[SteveVHT]

Thanks again Steve,
I see your other post about your battery life going down after installing another Kernal. I know once I get mine done Im going to try very hard not to mess with it, though it will be tempting to try new things.

Yes, I figured that out too....It was a combination of things....
The new Meatcurtains for some reason did not like to play nice with a specific live wallpaper I downloaded. After I did a comparison with the wallpaper running in that kernal, then changed it to a simple one, and the battery life improved again. I compared the two using the Spare Parts battery meter and the original Live WP was sucking it dry.....

 

[jwh401]

Wonder if anyone can help with me with the Haxsung custom install? When applying the update in recovery, I am getting message failed to open no such file or directory AND signature verification failed installation aborted. File is located in root directory of sd card. Thank for your ideas. Great forum!