Can you please help a newbie?

[Guest Andrew Ryan]

Hi guys! I'm trying to understand all this custom ROM stuff, because i am really disappointed with the performance of my HTC (European) Hero.

I have some questions that i would be grateful if you could help me find an answer for (by clearing it up for me, or pointing me to some links/guides).

1. Does the MoDaCo ROM include all the HTC apps & widgets? I saw that some HTC apps are removed - Footprints, Peep... what about the rest? The mail client, music player and so on, are still there?

2. What about Google apps? I heard there was some king of legal trouble about redistributing those. Are mail, talk, youtube still on the device with the custom ROM?

3. How is this ROM made, anyway? Did you take the SDK source code, the HTC Hero kernel source, modify these source and compile them? Or is this some kind of binary hack of the ROM dump? I'm asking because it seems that this ROM is available since before HTC released the source code for the Hero's kernel, so i wonder how where the first ROMs built, without having the source code.

4. In the "[GSM] 04/11 2.9 - MoDaCo Custom ROM Core / Chinese with TCK featuring Wavesecure" thread, it says "I also strongly recommend installing the latest radio (63.18.55.06IU_6.35.08.22 at time of writing).". What is this "radio"? It this the GSM's modem firmware, kind like the "baseband" of the iPhone? How to i install this new radio? Most of all, how do i back it up before installing? :)

5. This "radio" thing... how did you obtain it? By hacking away at a binary image, or from the sources, or is it publicly available?

6. I'm just interested in the ROM for the performance gain. Is there any way to remove from the ROM what i don't use? Specifically, things like additional file system supported, Google Voice Search, WiFi Status, android-wifi-tether, busybox, nano, parted, sqlite tools, files required for Debian linux, cyanogen's huge APN list... I am quite geeky myself, and while i enjoy tinkering, i don't do this on my phone: i like it to keep it really simple (i owned and iPhone before it left me for good)... so i'd like to remove all these addons, which i feel are of use only for tinkering, not for everyday use. Are these installed as normal apks, and so i can simply uninstall them? Or are they "integrated" somehow in the ROM, and cannot be simply removed?

I know i'm being a pain in the ass with my "how did you obtain it" questions... but i like my phone "clean&lean", and i just wanna be sure that what i'm installing is derived from official source code only.

Anyway - thank you guys for taking the time to read and reply to me!

[Guest squirreleater]

Hi guys! I'm trying to understand all this custom ROM stuff, because i am really disappointed with the performance of my HTC (European) Hero.

I have some questions that i would be grateful if you could help me find an answer for (by clearing it up for me, or pointing me to some links/guides).

1. Does the MoDaCo ROM include all the HTC apps & widgets? I saw that some HTC apps are removed - Footprints, Peep... what about the rest? The mail client, music player and so on, are still there?

2. What about Google apps? I heard there was some king of legal trouble about redistributing those. Are mail, talk, youtube still on the device with the custom ROM?

3. How is this ROM made, anyway? Did you take the SDK source code, the HTC Hero kernel source, modify these source and compile them? Or is this some kind of binary hack of the ROM dump? I'm asking because it seems that this ROM is available since before HTC released the source code for the Hero's kernel, so i wonder how where the first ROMs built, without having the source code.

4. In the "[GSM] 04/11 2.9 - MoDaCo Custom ROM Core / Chinese with TCK featuring Wavesecure" thread, it says "I also strongly recommend installing the latest radio (63.18.55.06IU_6.35.08.22 at time of writing).". What is this "radio"? It this the GSM's modem firmware, kind like the "baseband" of the iPhone? How to i install this new radio? Most of all, how do i back it up before installing? :)

5. This "radio" thing... how did you obtain it? By hacking away at a binary image, or from the sources, or is it publicly available?

6. I'm just interested in the ROM for the performance gain. Is there any way to remove from the ROM what i don't use? Specifically, things like additional file system supported, Google Voice Search, WiFi Status, android-wifi-tether, busybox, nano, parted, sqlite tools, files required for Debian linux, cyanogen's huge APN list... I am quite geeky myself, and while i enjoy tinkering, i don't do this on my phone: i like it to keep it really simple (i owned and iPhone before it left me for good)... so i'd like to remove all these addons, which i feel are of use only for tinkering, not for everyday use. Are these installed as normal apks, and so i can simply uninstall them? Or are they "integrated" somehow in the ROM, and cannot be simply removed?

I know i'm being a pain in the ass with my "how did you obtain it" questions... but i like my phone "clean&lean", and i just wanna be sure that what i'm installing is derived from official source code only.

Anyway - thank you guys for taking the time to read and reply to me!

Ok, I'm no techie so you'll get easy to understand answers.....

1: It's all there, same as the stock phone.

2: Google stuff is all there as well.

3:I'll leave to Paul etc, but basically the kernel will allow more advance modding, before it was released there was a limit to what could be done.

4 + 5: The radio is the part of the phone that helps it recieve it's signal, WiFi etc. You get it from Pauls Rom thread, first page- simply download the latest one, rename it update, drag to sd card and (you need to install the recovery image first) click on the update bit in the recovery image bit- same as a rom.

6:Yes you can, but to be honest I just ignore the stuff I don't want, I don't think it make much difference to perfomance when it is dormant in the background.

Final point, Pauls Roms are based on the latest HTC updates. often before they are official.

for advise rooting the phone try 'the unlockr' (google it) they have easy to follow how to vids.

Stu

[Guest kendon]

Hi guys! I'm trying to understand all this custom ROM stuff, because i am really disappointed with the performance of my HTC (European) Hero.

I have some questions that i would be grateful if you could help me find an answer for (by clearing it up for me, or pointing me to some links/guides).

1. Does the MoDaCo ROM include all the HTC apps & widgets? I saw that some HTC apps are removed - Footprints, Peep... what about the rest? The mail client, music player and so on, are still there?

it is all in there. peep and footprints are removed by many users, because they (imho) suck, especially if you don't use them.

2. What about Google apps? I heard there was some king of legal trouble about redistributing those. Are mail, talk, youtube still on the device with the custom ROM?

hasn't arrived here (yet?). google apps are included just as in the stock rom.

3. How is this ROM made, anyway? Did you take the SDK source code, the HTC Hero kernel source, modify these source and compile them? Or is this some kind of binary hack of the ROM dump? I'm asking because it seems that this ROM is available since before HTC released the source code for the Hero's kernel, so i wonder how where the first ROMs built, without having the source code.

you are talking about the source code of the kernel. the kernel is only the well... "kernel". the source code is needed for adding features like filesystem support and compcache, which boost speed incredibly.

4. In the "[GSM] 04/11 2.9 - MoDaCo Custom ROM Core / Chinese with TCK featuring Wavesecure" thread, it says "I also strongly recommend installing the latest radio (63.18.55.06IU_6.35.08.22 at time of writing).". What is this "radio"? It this the GSM's modem firmware, kind like the "baseband" of the iPhone? How to i install this new radio? Most of all, how do i back it up before installing? :D

the radio is the part managing gsm, 3g, gps, wifi and i think bluetooth. i think it is comparable to the baseband of the iphone, yes. new radio is installed via recovery image, the same way as the rom is installed. childs play, i would say difficulty level about -4 :)

5. This "radio" thing... how did you obtain it? By hacking away at a binary image, or from the sources, or is it publicly available?

afaik it is extracted from a binary image, the so called nandroid backup. it backups all your flash memory (internal memory), and therefore radio, system, settings, contacts, mails etc... restore a nandroid backup and everything is as before, except the contents of your sdcard, as they are not backedup. i would recommend you to install amonr ras recovery image v1.2.3, see stickies.

6. I'm just interested in the ROM for the performance gain. Is there any way to remove from the ROM what i don't use? Specifically, things like additional file system supported, Google Voice Search, WiFi Status, android-wifi-tether, busybox, nano, parted, sqlite tools, files required for Debian linux, cyanogen's huge APN list... I am quite geeky myself, and while i enjoy tinkering, i don't do this on my phone: i like it to keep it really simple (i owned and iPhone before it left me for good)... so i'd like to remove all these addons, which i feel are of use only for tinkering, not for everyday use. Are these installed as normal apks, and so i can simply uninstall them? Or are they "integrated" somehow in the ROM, and cannot be simply removed?

for removing the filesystem support you'd need to recompile the kernel. if you know what that means maybe you can do it, but after your questions about the source code i would think that you are not familiar with kernel compiling. don't get me wrong here, it is way beyond my skills also, especially because you need to cross-compile...

you can remove: Google Voice Search, WiFi Status, android-wifi-tether with adb shell, but i don't know if it works to remove the voice search. just trying

for: busybox, nano, parted, sqlite tools, files required for Debian linux you could remove the binaries from the filesystem, but you would not come in contact with these files if you don't want to (and know what you are doing). so imho it is not worth the effort.

I know i'm being a pain in the ass with my "how did you obtain it" questions... but i like my phone "clean&lean", and i just wanna be sure that what i'm installing is derived from official source code only.

Anyway - thank you guys for taking the time to read and reply to me!

well as long as you have specific questions you will get answers. though some of them could have been answered by reading the stickies it is obvious that you have put some thought in your questions, not a dumb "i want to root my phone but it doesn't work" thread... :D

have fun, and if you are after speed and responsibility for the hero you are at the best place you could be. here is what you gonna do:

- install amon ras recovery

- partition your sdcard with one ext4 and one fat32 partition

- install latest radio (the "IU" one)

- install mcr2.9

and then you're set :D don't forget do a nandroid backup as soon as you have installed the recovery image, then save that to your pc before you partition the sdcard! and wipe before you install mcr2.9.

[Guest kendon]

Ok, I'm no techie so you'll get easy to understand answers.....

damnit you beat me :) i guess im sort of a techie, but i tried to keep it understandable :D

[Guest Andrew Ryan]

beware: i'm gonna rant about android a bit...

hasn't arrived here (yet?). google apps are included just as in the stock rom.

You mean that in a moment's notice the ROM could be pulled down for a while while MoDaCo fixes it, because Google's legal comes in and says he can't redistribute the Gmail app? :D

(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_%28op...-based_firmware )

This sucks... :D

you are talking about the source code of the kernel. the kernel is only the well... "kernel". the source code is needed for adding features like filesystem support and compcache, which boost speed incredibly.

So, if i understand correctly... MoDaCo's ROM is just a reconfiguration of the stock kernel: config files are edited, settings are changed, but the underlying linux binaries are the same as in the stock ROM?

While teknologist's kernel is a real recompilation, from the official HTC source code?

the radio is the part managing gsm, 3g, gps, wifi and i think bluetooth. i think it is comparable to the baseband of the iphone, yes. new radio is installed via recovery image, the same way as the rom is installed. childs play, i would say difficulty level about -4 :)

So in nandroid there should be at least the four options: "backup ROM", "restore ROM", "backup radio", "restore radio"?

I don't understand... from this screenshot http://www.flickr.com/photos/30551781@N06/3819034560/ seems like there is no separate way to reflash the radio... is the radio reflashing included in the ROM reflashing?

afaik it is extracted from a binary image, the so called nandroid backup. it backups all your flash memory (internal memory), and therefore radio, system, settings, contacts, mails etc... restore a nandroid backup and everything is as before, except the contents of your sdcard, as they are not backedup. i would recommend you to install amonr ras recovery image v1.2.3, see stickies.

So, the recovery image is another thing i should take care of... that's the third thing to reflash, after the ROM and the radio... just to get more performance :D

for removing the filesystem support you'd need to recompile the kernel. if you know what that means maybe you can do it, but after your questions about the source code i would think that you are not familiar with kernel compiling. don't get me wrong here, it is way beyond my skills also, especially because you need to cross-compile...

I know what it means and i already looked up some documentation around, but it's definitely not an easy task.

I toyed with the idea of recompiling it, becuse i don't like the Sense UI, and i was egaer to build a vanilla donut or eclair for the hero... (i know about the "Remove default" setting in TouchFLO - but it's not the same thing)

well as long as you have specific questions you will get answers. though some of them could have been answered by reading the stickies it is obvious that you have put some thought in your questions, not a dumb "i want to root my phone but it doesn't work" thread... :D

have fun, and if you are after speed and responsibility for the hero you are at the best place you could be. here is what you gonna do:

- install amon ras recovery

- partition your sdcard with one ext4 and one fat32 partition

why should i partition my sdcard? is it required by the flashing tools? i don't enjoy doing unclean things just to make things works...

All in all, i have quite a good idea of the steps involved, and i'm still searching for documentation around the net and reading all the relevant stickies.

But let's face it: my iPhone made me become a nitpicky spoiled brat. It was wonderful to have a device that "just works" - without resorting to reflashing, repartitioning... it really felt like "you use the phone", while with my Hero sometimes i feel like "the phone is using me".

I thought "heck, let's give it a try"... some things are nice, but all in all there is an abysmal difference between the user experiences of the Hero and the iPhone...

I guess i just made the wrong choiche, and the Hero's not for me: it's for enthusiastic people like guys, that enjoy tinkering and perfecting your phone... i just wanted something that works quickly...

Well, thank you guys for your help, really appreciate it! Maybe i'll try to reflash my rom when i can gather the will to do it!

[Guest kendon]

i got the feeling that you still don't get the difference between kernel and rom. the kernel is a part of the rom, as are the applications and sense ui (which is basically a set off applications added by htc to the vanilla android system). until htc had released the kernel sources we were tied to the stock kernel (provided by htc in the original rom as a binary file). so we had a modded rom with the stock kernel. now that we have the kernel sources we can modify them, compile them and pack the resulting (binary) custom kernel to our already existing custom rom.

so removing sense ui does not have anything to do with recompiling, you need to remove the according applications and replace them with their respective originals from vanilla android. so far this has not been done yet (afaik), there is a android 1.6 rom out there for hero, but without working trackball, camera, bluetooth etc... so i guess that is not for you.

you do not NEED to partition the sdcard, but afaik it is worth the effort, and gives you more space for applications as you are not limited to the internal flash memory of the phone.

i think you can work with the hero even without modding it, modded it is more fun, if you are willing to put some effort in it. this is not necessarily a long-term project, find out how it works, what you want, do it and be happy with the result. there is no need to flash every update from modaco, as right now the modaco custom rom is highly functional and usable imho. but tbh, if you were that happy with the iphone then probably you should go back, it is not "bad" by definition :) you need to know what is your thing, mine is definitely the hero running android and me doing all the nasty stuff i want :D just installed debian and lxde successfully, idk what to do with it exactly but IMHO it is plain awesome that it works...

[Guest Ibanez33]

why should i partition my sdcard? is it required by the flashing tools? i don't enjoy doing unclean things just to make things works...

But let's face it: my iPhone made me become a nitpicky spoiled brat. It was wonderful to have a device that "just works" - without resorting to reflashing, repartitioning... it really felt like "you use the phone", while with my Hero sometimes i feel like "the phone is using me".

I thought "heck, let's give it a try"... some things are nice, but all in all there is an abysmal difference between the user experiences of the Hero and the iPhone...

I guess i just made the wrong choiche, and the Hero's not for me: it's for enthusiastic people like guys, that enjoy tinkering and perfecting your phone... i just wanted something that works quickly...

Well, thank you guys for your help, really appreciate it! Maybe i'll try to reflash my rom when i can gather the will to do it!

The partition is just for the Apps2sd that comes on the custom rom and all that does is install apps onto your sd card to save space on the internal flash on the phone.

Funny you should say that about the iphone, that was the main reason I bought the iphone i had before was to see what you can get it to do that doesn't out of the box :)...

But I do get what you mean its not a necessity, and hopefully when they bring out v2 for the Hero it won't be for that either. Not that I'll go back to using a stock rom.

[Guest Marcony0]

But let's face it: my iPhone made me become a nitpicky spoiled brat. It was wonderful to have a device that "just works" - without resorting to reflashing, repartitioning... it really felt like "you use the phone", while with my Hero sometimes i feel like "the phone is using me".

I thought "heck, let's give it a try"... some things are nice, but all in all there is an abysmal difference between the user experiences of the Hero and the iPhone...

I guess i just made the wrong choiche, and the Hero's not for me: it's for enthusiastic people like guys, that enjoy tinkering and perfecting your phone... i just wanted something that works quickly...

Well, thank you guys for your help, really appreciate it! Maybe i'll try to reflash my rom when i can gather the will to do it!

I used to be a Techie , now simlpy i don't have time for it. But, i didn't choose iPhone because i do want things our way not the companies way.

Let me give you a bit of advice :) go ahead with updating to 2.9,personally i jump every 2-3 versions, follow the guide and you will enjoy the way faster performance of your Hero. All other parts that you won't use wont affect your phone,they are dormant and wont hog your memory or performance in anyway. And second time u want to upgrade your phone, will be easier than first one * put zipped ROM on your SD card, reboot into recovery, select it and wait 5 min and you are done* Just make sure you make it all that on a wiped phone, just to avoid headaches , its simply to restore your contacts if you are synched with gmail. And there are apps for backing up your sms.

My Next Upgrade will be 2.0, lets hope its going to be soon. I don't use A2SD or how you call it, i don't see why should i use it - im happy with its performance. From that point, i think you should enjoy your true social communicator :D that will let you intergrate into online social activities way more than iPhone. Maybe after that , you will change your mind about Android and Hero. Give it a try, and tell us how it goes :D

[Guest Andrew Ryan]

OK, i guess that maybe this weekend i'll give it a try... we'll see...

There's just one more thing i ask you guys (you're all too kind and patient!).

This thread - http://android.modaco.com/content/htc-hero...on-your-device/ - tells me how to install the patched recovery image, which i believe is the first step of the whole reflashing process.

The one thing i don't know is: does my phone have to be rooted before following the instructions in that thread? If so, when can i find a reliable procedure for rooting the euro (HTC) Hero? seems like there a thousand different ways to do it, but which is the best one?

Or, is the act of installing the patched recovery image in itself a rooting process?

Thank you again guys! I'll probably give it a try (after all, i paid 500€ for this phone, so i should get at least some joy out of it, don't you think? :) )