Root COMPATABILITY: Choosing ROMs, MTD, and Kernels

[davoid]

Hi,

As a relative noob, I still have several questions, or blank spots in my knowledge that need clearing up.

So far, with the help of this forum I have managed to root and s-off my Desire and thank you all for helping me with that!

Now, I haven't flashed a ROM yet, because I am unsure about whether I should repartition my memory table BEFORE flashing a ROM. Is this the case? And if so, should I flash the rom IMMEDIATELY after flashing the partition table? (I'm guessing that my Stock Sense system won't fit into my intended 100Mb system allocation) Or should I flash a new rom on my stock partition table (250Mb system) and THEN flash the partition table to a smaller size?

I want to save memory space while installing a fast rom, and I was thinking of flashing the Alpharev Oxygen r2 which would give me 100Mb system space. Then I was thinking of, say, CyanogenMod 7.03 Light as a suitable rom for this system size. Would this be ok? (Also, is this a fast rom compared to, say, Oxygen or redux?)

And finally (I wish ), I am thinking of flashing an eviollets kernel so I can save power by reducing CPU voltages and extending frequency range. Would this kernel (either ManU 1.4 or 2.0) be compatible with the CyanogenMod ROM, or would I need to use it in conjunction with a different ROM?

Oh, I almost forgot. I've just found out that the newest release of Oxygen (2.2) is too large to fit into the system space of the Alpharev Oxygen r2 table. Is it likely that Alpharev will release a new table or would it be worthwhile learning how to flash custom MTD and flash a non-standard table so I could try Oxygen? (I was considering trying oxygen 2.1.6, but upon hearing there was a new release it put me off trying it, in favour of the newer release, while I don't want to waste memory by flashing the Alpharev CM table in order to fit it in.)

I'm sorry for asking so many questions in one post but I thought it might make it easier to clarify my concerns if kept all in one place.

 

[handy5876]

Hi,

As a relative noob, I still have several questions, or blank spots in my knowledge that need clearing up.

So far, with the help of this forum I have managed to root and s-off my Desire and thank you all for helping me with that!

Now, I haven't flashed a ROM yet, because I am unsure about whether I should repartition my memory table BEFORE flashing a ROM. Is this the case? And if so, should I flash the rom IMMEDIATELY after flashing the partition table? (I'm guessing that my Stock Sense system won't fit into my intended 100Mb system allocation) Or should I flash a new rom on my stock partition table (250Mb system) and THEN flash the partition table to a smaller size?

I want to save memory space while installing a fast rom, and I was thinking of flashing the Alpharev Oxygen r2 which would give me 100Mb system space. Then I was thinking of, say, CyanogenMod 7.03 Light as a suitable rom for this system size. Would this be ok? (Also, is this a fast rom compared to, say, Oxygen or redux?)

And finally (I wish ), I am thinking of flashing an eviollets kernel so I can save power by reducing CPU voltages and extending frequency range. Would this kernel (either ManU 1.4 or 2.0) be compatible with the CyanogenMod ROM, or would I need to use it in conjunction with a different ROM?

Oh, I almost forgot. I've just found out that the newest release of Oxygen (2.2) is too large to fit into the system space of the Alpharev Oxygen r2 table. Is it likely that Alpharev will release a new table or would it be worthwhile learning how to flash custom MTD and flash a non-standard table so I could try Oxygen? (I was considering trying oxygen 2.1.6, but upon hearing there was a new release it put me off trying it, in favour of the newer release, while I don't want to waste memory by flashing the Alpharev CM table in order to fit it in.)

I'm sorry for asking so many questions in one post but I thought it might make it easier to clarify my concerns if kept all in one place.

I think you can go one step at a time. Just flash a rom without any partitioning changes. Get comfortable and then see if you need partitioning or will a2sd+ serve your purpose.

Oxygen is now at 2.2.1 and that will fit into 100mb oxygen r2 table.

 

[subsist]

Partition tables: The sense ROM is extremely large in comparison to oxygen and cyanogenmod so it is only possible to flash new tables after you have switched ROM. The default partition sizes will allow virtually any ROM to run, though the internal storage will remain low. I'm using the cyanogenmod tables from the alpharev website, which should be suitable for any ASOP ROMs, as cyanogenmod is the most feature heavy and has a bigger system section. Note that sense has a larger system than any ASOP ROM I've heard of (certainly bigger than redux, cyanogenmod and oxygen). You will see around a 70mb increase in internal memory with the cyanogenmod table as opposed to the default one.

Cyanogenmod apparently has an undervolted kernel as standard, but you may find other low voltage kernels further increase battery life.

I can't help you with anything else, being somewhat of a noob myself.

 

[SUroot]

I think you can go one step at a time. Just flash a rom without any partitioning changes. Get comfortable and then see if you need partitioning or will a2sd+ serve your purpose.

Oxygen is now at 2.2.1 and that will fit into 100mb oxygen r2 table.

Completely agree. Especially if you're thinking of custom MTD. Thats advanced.

 

[Hadron]

It's also simpler to do one thing at a time. If you change the partition and flash the ROM immediately, and it doesn't work, it's harder to work out where the problem was. Also you can't restore your nandroid (you must take a nandroid before doing either operation) without changing back to the original partitions, since as has been said the Sense ROM won't fit the new mtd.

Conversely, if you leave the partitions alone and just try the ROMs, then once you are happy with a ROM it's easy to see what table would work with it, and changing to a different alpharev hboot is then simple to do (full custom mtd is slightly more involved).

 

[davoid]

ok, so I flash ROM first.

I think I'm going to try devnull 1.1 to get a feel of the fastest ROM, so that I have the two extremes to compare other ROMs with (coming from stock Orange 2.2)

Then I'll flash the partition table with Oxygen r2, as I think little 'ol devnull will be rattling around loose inside that 250Mb cavern of a sense system partition.

@subsist. Thanks for the info about the CyanogenMod undervolted kernel.

Does anyone know whether this is as good as the eviollets kernel?

Will the eviollets kernel work with devnull, or will I need a more modded ROM to take advantage of it?

Is there a list of system sizes for the different ROMs?

Thanks for all advice

 

[davoid]

you must take a nandroid before doing either operation

If I do a nandroid after flashing my new ROM, will my original nandroid of my rooted stock ROM still be available, or will it be written over?

Is it possible to have more than one nandroid to recover from?

If not, what would be the point of nandroiding the newly-flashed ROM before flashing the partition table?

 

[Hadron]

You can have as many nandroids as you have space for on your card. They are directories, whose name = the date+time the backup was made, though I usually rename them to add the ROM name as well.

You can also copy them to a computer as a backup: they live on the SD card in clockworkmod/backup. I generally keep a few on my laptop, in case anything happens to the SD card.

Edit: You take a nandroid before changing partition table, as changing the partitions will corrupt the current data. After repartitioning you restore the nandroid, which restores your system, data and cache into the new partitions.