EvilZone
Hacking and Security => Mobile Hacking => Android => Topic started by: atsuktuvas on February 21, 2012, 07:24:55 PM
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I have got a Samsung Galaxy S II and really love it.
However, I have been reading about Android mods, like CyanogenMod, but do not fully know what advantages it would give.
I have heard that it runs a little faster, but I don't think it would make a noticable difference on my SGSII because it already runs pretty fast.
Anyone?
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As a proud CyanogenMod user I feel I should I answer this.
First take note: I have HTC Wildfire so this is only my perspective.
When I flashed CM onto the phone, at first it was not so cool, but after a while I got used to it and it's much much much better than the stock rom. Latest CM (7) is based on 2.3.7 Android, where Wildfire officially can only run Android up to 2.2.1, but I think there are different rom releases for different phones, so android version may vary.
CM is rooted (obviously), looks much nicer without that stiff-looking HTC Sense environment. CM gives a shit ton of configuration options and on top of that it has CM-ONLY configurations, to fully customize any piece of anything on the phone (software-wise).
CM in itself has option to tweak the CPU power (over/under-clock voltage and speed), it's also faster as I noticed - playing angry birds with a stock rom was annoying because it was lagging most of the time, and with CM it doesn't lag at all.
Because CM is a custom rom, you might experience some problems with a battery - I noticed that my phones lifetime is little less than it was with a stock rom, but I don't complain...
Another very annoying thing I find with CM is that you HAVE to import all your contacts from the SIM card to phone memory, otherwise you can't use the contacts. While with a stock rom you can add/delete/edit sim contacts directly...
Another thing I experienced with CM is that after flashing the GPS didn't work and Wifi worked partially, but that was easily solved by flashing the radio chip to newest firmware.
Overall: Is it worth to flash a phone with custom rom? Hell yeah!
Check out xda developers forum (http://forum.xda-developers.com/) for all kinds of details, tuts and questions/problems.
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Kulverstukas, thanks for the info.
I will give it a try. Just for the hell of it. :)
Oh, forgot to ask if I can physically damage the phone by installing other rom?
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Of course there is always a risk of bricking the device, but I think it's rare. More likely that something may stop working... it's not like flashing the phone could make it burst into flames or anything.
Before doing this you should always gather as much info as you can and NEVER try Beta or RC releases - let other suckers try them, potentially brick their phone and report back for you to learn.
I flashed my phone because I didn't have a choice :D (long story)
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Of course there is always a risk of bricking the device, but I think it's rare. More likely that something may stop working... it's not like flashing the phone could make it burst into flames or anything.
Before doing this you should always gather as much info as you can and NEVER try Beta or RC releases - let other suckers try them, potentially brick their phone and report back for you to learn.
I flashed my phone because I didn't have a choice :D (long story)
RC's are good dude -_-, even you have no idea of how low the risks are of bricking a phone, if you do not touch the boot loader every day and thinks like the radio, the only thing you will find may be minor bugs, but less as the stock rom's.
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http://www.miuiandroid.com
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http://www.miuiandroid.com
MIUI is cool, i used it for half a year, i upgraded to icecreamsandwich
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Just letting you know that I have finally rooted my Samsung Galaxy S2, installed ClockWorksMod recovery kernel, and flashed the ROM with CyanogenMod 7.1 Stable.
Eventhough I had Samsungs official Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.3 android, I wasn't happy with it. I just hate the TouchWiz that samsung android flavour uses. Also hate all the samsung and google bloatware. I know you can get rid of most bloatware by gaining root and removing those apps, but I really wanted a fresh and clean os.
I am really happy with CM7.1.
It works faster then the official samsung android, and uses very little RAM. Has all the options I need and more. Will never go back to samsung version of android again. Now playing around with settings and trying to find some amazing theme :D
With all that extra free ram I will be able to run some nice eye candy without slowing the phone down.
I recommend Cyanogenmod strongly.
By the way, don't be afraid of voiding the warranty. Just make a backup of your whole firmware including the kernel, apps, data and system using flash ClockworksMod recovery, and buy a Usb Jig like this one (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Samsung-i9100-Galaxy-S-II-Download-mode-USB-Dongle-Jig?item=140613132507&cmd=ViewItem&_trksid=p5197.m7&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D4%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D7162997209604341382) to reset the ODIN counter (to make it look as if your phone was never rooted) or to access the odin downloader incase you get bricked.
So if you research before doing random stuff, you have almost 0 chance of permanently destroy your phone. I don't know why everyone on the net seems to be so scared to root their phones or flash the ROMs with custom firmware. Everything is FULLY reversible if you read before doing anything.
By the way, after trying ICS I realised that there is very little practical improvement from gingerbread. It is a bit faster and has a few extra features, but untill a stable CyanogenMod 9 (based on ICS) ROM comes out, I will stick to CM7.1 with GingerBread android.
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If you have an account on XDA then make sure to get SetCPU. It's a CPU clock tool, free for XDA members. Set min/max clock rates and set different rates for when the screen is on or off. It's a great battery saver.
Yeah CM has clock rate built in but SetCPU (and also OverclockWidget) have more features.
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If you have an account on XDA then make sure to get SetCPU. It's a CPU clock tool, free for XDA members. Set min/max clock rates and set different rates for when the screen is on or off. It's a great battery saver.
Yeah CM has clock rate built in but SetCPU (and also OverclockWidget) have more features.
Will give it a try.
What settings would you recommend to maximise battery time?
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Check what the default clock rate is on the phone. Set the screen-off min to lowest it will go, then put the screen-off max in between that and the default clock rate. Set the screen-on min to at least that middle value, and put the screen-on max at or slightly above the default clock.
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Ice-cream sandwich battery performance is also VERYFUCKING nice :)
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Ice-cream sandwich battery performance is also VERYFUCKING nice :)
Personally, I didn't notice any significant difference between gingerbread and ICS on my SGSII.
Maybe it depends on specific firmware and headset combination? On what phone did you test ICS on?
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CynogenMod cambined with aroma is very fast and cool but still has bugs in it, MIUI is much stable for an android rom
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Another very annoying thing I find with CM is that you HAVE to import all your contacts from the SIM card to phone memory, otherwise you can't use the contacts. While with a stock rom you can add/delete/edit sim contacts directly...
@Kulverstukas, wtf are you using your sim to store contacts for, use your gmail account DUh!@! Then no matter what all your contacts are in your gmail account!!
@atsuktuvas, Glad you decided to root your phone and put CyogenMod on it, it really is a great Custom ROM! There are several benefits of rooting and flashing custom ROMs as you've found out. It runs faster (a lot of bloatware was removed) over clocking, wireless tether, etc
Also, ICS in general has better battery life over gingerbread as far as the OPERATING system goes. If you have stock gingerbread and go to stock ICS, ICS will have better battery life.
@iandraco
MIUI is cool, but really its too "iPhone" like. However I remember when MIUI first emerged I had a Droid Incredible I had it flashed on there for a while. It did have some innovative features (that sparked more innovation from both XDA developers as well as the big boys like Samsung, Motorola, LG, etc) It was good, but meh, I don't really like MIUI just really too iCrappy
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@Kulverstukas, wtf are you using your sim to store contacts for, use your gmail account DUh!@! Then no matter what all your contacts are in your gmail account!!
Ahahahaha, no.
There's a reason why private data is called "private".
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Ahahahaha, no.
There's a reason why private data is called "private".
Thats why you just set up a random email address to it lol
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hello there,
i have just rooted my HTC wildfire . i unlocked the bootloader from htcdev.com and flashed latest version of cwm available for wildfire (5.0.2 i guess). when i try to flash any cyanogen ROM it gets installed but when i start the phone it just keep on loading (keep on going round round and round) if loading stops, the android again comes on the skateboard and and again starts loading. i waited for an hour once but it didn't started.. can anybody help?
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hello there,
i have just rooted my HTC wildfire . i unlocked the bootloader from htcdev.com and flashed latest version of cwm available for wildfire (5.0.2 i guess). when i try to flash any cyanogen ROM it gets installed but when i start the phone it just keep on loading (keep on going round round and round) if loading stops, the android again comes on the skateboard and and again starts loading. i waited for an hour once but it didn't started.. can anybody help?
That's a weird problem, though I think it would of been better to ask at XDA-Developers's forum.
Anyway, I had written about rooting wildfire on my blog here (http://9v.lt/blog/rooting-wildfire-with-2-2-1-is-now-possible/).
With flashing I had no problem - just that it took very long (but less than an hour) to start up.
How did you install Cyanogen? When installing, from CWM you have to wipe everything clean (user data and the system partition(?)) and only then install Cyanogen. Else it might fuck up.
Though I highly advise you to go to http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=678
and search for answers there. I really think you will find a proper manual somewhere in there.
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ok, thank you
i didn't wipe the things you said. i'll try out . if it doesn't work i'll check out the xda developers forum. i did root from their tutorial...
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one other thing worth mentioning here is to always make sure the md5 hashes match up on any and all software or firmware that you download to flash with...especially the radio and bios firmware because corruption of these files WILL brick a phone.
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I use Cyanogenmod 7 on my MyTouch 4G, also 2.3.7 when my stock is capped at 2.3.4 reason to that is because they are different Kernels (Like software on a specific OS).
Though I just unlocked my phone, I genuinely love CM7..
Cyanogenmod offers so much, It uses a ADW launcher, which is available on the Play Store, so you can try it out before getting it... Only that using the launcher leaves out a lot of Key root features within the initial ROM.
You can use in-ROM software to overclock your processor and many other things to optimize your phone for performance and batter life..
Over-all Cyanogenmod 7 is a great ROM, I definately infer that you try it.
Rated 9/10* There have been some crashing issues on my MyTouch 4G, but not an issue for it reloads quickly.
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Why the fuck is everyone still on CM7?
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Why the fuck is everyone still on CM7?
There are phones that do not support higher CM numbers, ya know. And this thread is old.
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This thread makes me want to go and start flashing random shit again on my cellphone, probably ruining it again
Haven't tried CM,but this thread open my appetite for it.
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CyanogenMod is nice but its on what like 10.1 or something... Also TWRP seems to be the new style of flashing along with the Aroma installers... I couldn't believe how simple it was to flash the Galaxy S3, locked bootloader or not. I haven't used CyanogenMod in a long time though not since my Droid X. As long as you stay away from the nightlies and stick to the stable releases they should run pretty smooth. A lot of other people like AOSP (Android Open Source Project) which is vanilla android, aka android how its originally meant to be without OEM skins (Sense UI, Motoblur, TouchWiz, etc) and AOKP (Android Open Kang Project). However most either use an AOSP source or a CyanogenMod source. Then there are ROMs like MIUI which is iPhone like but in its time had some amazing features not present in any other rom. On the S3 I'm running Jelly 'Beans' which out of Synergy, Hyperdrive, etc has been the best. If there was a good official CyanogenMod however I'd probably run that.