New to forum . pros and cons of custom roms

[comanick]

I'm new to the forum. I've had a ppc6700 for about 4 months and I would like to know what r custom roms and there pros and cons.

I'm a rookie when it comes to custom roms. I'm running 1.41 radio

[scottishwarrior]

The biggest advantage to custom roms is that when you do hard reset, the programs are in the rom and don't have to be reinstalled. It is done when the phone is hard reset. Second is that you have more memory because the programs are in the flash so it doesn't take up available memory. Another thing is that the custom roms are more stable and take advantage of newer drivers and core components to that make it more stable and faster.

jay

[lazyboy0172]

mostly agreed with above.

Custom roms come with a lot more programs you may actually use in the internal memory, leaving you more memory, less junk, and less programs to install after a hard reset. Over the old official rom (2.7) they also offer a lot more speed.

However, as for stability, I have tried many custom roms, and many are very unstable compared to official offerings. I am on the official 3.3 now, minus the new bootloaders, so that I may upgrade later, but when on custom Roms I would constantly see a signal, but not be connected and thus miss phone calls and text messages and have to reset often. I would also get problems with the phone not recognizing when it is plugged into USB to charge, or when I woke it up the phone would either be locked up or the storage card wouldnt be recognized. Sure, these things didn't happen tooo often, about once a day I would have to reset it just to keep going smoothly and be sure it was working, but It's an annoyance, and right now with this official 3.3 I'm having much better stability and havent ran into Any of those problems I mentioned with my custom roms.

[comanick]

thanks for the replies fellas. so what is the best or shall I say most stable rom to try. I'm runnin iLauncher and I really like it. could I still run it with a custom rom?

[gguruusa]

Unless you can't wait a moment longer, wait for the next kitchen release from Helmi & company (ETA: imminent). If you can't wait and want stability, I'd say give the BellMobility 3.3 a shot (the OS part, not the boot loader - you've been warned).

If you want to play while you wait, try any of the ROMs built on Helmi's 3.5 r4 kitchen - you'll get a good idea what custom roms are all about. Then try the kitchen - its so easy its addictive.

you can run anything you used to run. The difference as far as programs is concerned is some are baked into the rom (so you don't have to load them or consume valuable program memory), and some useless fluff has been removed (to make room for more wholesome goodness). Most ROMs these days have the carrier customizations baked right in AND unlock the ext rom, so you can do a reset on your first boot when the customizations start to download, and then use the ext rom as extra program storage.

BTW - if this is your first foray into customized ROMs, be aware that nothing will survive the upgrade from a stock rom - no contacts, no call histories, no text messages, no pictures, no applications...nothing. Be sure to put anything you want to keep onto permanent storage - like an SD card or a host computer.

[OMJ]

I'm getting ready to cook my first ROM, I have downloaded the latest kitchen and have some questions about ROM & program space. So according to the specs, the Apache has 128mb Flash ROM & 64mb SDRAM.

When you install a program is it stored in the 128mb w/ the ROM?

Is the 64mb SDRAM only used when loading/running programs?

I guess I'm just confused on how the storage/memory is used, and I'm wondering if it makes a difference if I install a program after loading the new ROM or include it on the ROM.

thanks

[luv2chill]

OK the 64MB SDRAM works like how you described it (just like a PC).

The 128MB Flash ROM is partitioned up like a hard disk. The ROM uses one part of it, the radio another, and there are some other small parititions for other stuff. The rest becomes your "storage memory" which you use to install apps and store things like photos, your PIM data, etc.

So by building apps into the ROM with the kitchen you are including them in the ROM partition, thus saving space in your "storage memory" partition for other uses.

Hope that helps clarify.

[OMJ]

yes, that help alot.....what is the size of the partition for the ROM, and how do you know how big your custom ROM is when your selecting your options & adding OEM's to the ROM?

thanks!

[luv2chill]

Just got to use trial and error, unfortunately. So far no one has come up with a hard and fast rule of how much you can squeeze in there. After you run buildos go into the temp folder and get properties on the dump folder... as a rough guideline aim for about 84MB. There maybe some more wiggle room in there but 84 was the highest I got.

When you're too full you will know because either createROM.bat will fail, or after flashing you will get a scrambled or white screen.

[OMJ]

cool, thx chill.....1 last question....so if your ROM was only 50mb, you lose/waste that 34mb of reserved space?