The pain and joy of custom roms
I'm fairly new to the custom rom game but I'm jumping in full speed ahead. In the past couple weeks I've rooted my phone, installed a custom rom and several updates to that custom rom. What this has done for me is give me a much stronger understanding of how the Android OS works and how to restore apps. I've also been forced to realize which apps are fluff and which ones are worth keeping.
Even with all the head aches of hunting for solutions and flashing six roms in two weeks, I've enjoyed the experience. I'm hoping that a final build will be available soon and I'm interested in seeing what comes from the rom. I liked the first version, built off a leaked Verizon HTC Legend 2.1, that removed all the Sprint apps. Losing all those bloat apps was nice but also losing some fun apps kind of sucked. I'm glad I had work arounds and was able restore apps via side loading (installing apps not on the market place). I hope to see what cool custom roms will be released based on the official Sprint rom once it comes out.
Since I rooted my phone I've had issues with Facebook not syncing with contacts, missing apps in the marketplace, getting kicked out of my Google account constantly, an endless sync killing my battery, camera not working and phone losing audio on phone calls. To say the least it's been an adventure. I've had to search developer forums to find solutions and have found them for every issue mentioned. Sometimes it was in a new version of the custom rom or and update to fix an issue or learning how to install/uninstall apps via command line.
It hasn't been pretty, that's for sure. I do think that running the latest version of Android weeks before others with my same phone has been worth it though. While many people wait to see the improved Marketplace or better battery diagnostics or improved performance, I have all those already. The custom rom I'm running is built on a leaked version of the upcoming Sprint release. The bugs I'm seeing are the ones the Sprint testers are working through right now. I'd say they are very close to having the build optimized but I can say for sure the update will not be coming out all that soon.
Even with all the head aches of hunting for solutions and flashing six roms in two weeks, I've enjoyed the experience. I'm hoping that a final build will be available soon and I'm interested in seeing what comes from the rom. I liked the first version, built off a leaked Verizon HTC Legend 2.1, that removed all the Sprint apps. Losing all those bloat apps was nice but also losing some fun apps kind of sucked. I'm glad I had work arounds and was able restore apps via side loading (installing apps not on the market place). I hope to see what cool custom roms will be released based on the official Sprint rom once it comes out.
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