Android related Jargons

ROM

Read Only Memory (ROM) Is a class of storage media used in mobile phone or other electronic devices,ROM is the portion of the phones memory which contains the operating system,apps and other softwares that come preloaded with the phone.Data stored on ROMs cannot be modified that’s why they are called read only,but it can be modified by following a set of procedures or by running various programs.It is mainly used to distribute the firmware, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices.

Custom Made ROMs

When we buy a phone there is a default ROM preinstalled in the phone,this is the manufacturers ROM and its called as the stock ROM of the phone.This ROM contains the original firmware and kernels of the android platform, with some UI modifications by the manufacturer.The custom made ROMs are the modified version of these stock ROMs.The developers download the original source code of whichever android version they want to modify and then they make their own changes in it,which might make the phone run faster or get new apps or even get the latest version of android.There is also another way to modify the stock ROM’s which is through the android kitchen which does not need any coding and is a lot more simpler. Usually the custom ROM’s are better than the stock ROMs as they are more lighter, faster and some custom ROM’s don’t have the crappy apps which comes with the device or the space consuming UIs like the sense UI which enables you to run your phone more smoothly and efficiently without any glitches and also gives you more phone memory to store your apps. Loading a custom ROM is generally known as flashing a ROM.

Recovery Image

A recovery image is a part of the android which can be booted without actually loading the operating system, It is similar to BIOS on our computers. It lets you to boot into the recovery image even if something’s wrong with your device or if you have messed up something hence the name ‘recovery’ image.The stock recovery image which comes with the device has very few functions like if you have messed up your stock ROM or any ROM and the phone is not booting or is going back to the bootloader and is going through a boot cycle then you can go to the recovery image and perform a factory reset, by performing a factory reset you will be back to the way it was when you bought the phone, you can also use the stock recovery image to update any new software’s provided by the manufacturers or you can also install the new version of android provided by your manufacturer. The only problem with the stock recovery image is that it can only accept the updates or new versions of android which are signed by the manufacturer.

Custom recovery Images

If your device is rooted then you have the privilege of flashing custom recovery images provided by the developers of the respective android devices. A custom recovery image might look similar to the stock recovery image and is also accessed in a similar fashion but is designed to do much more things than the stock ones.From a custom recovery image you can perform a nandroid backup which is the backup up of your whole system which you are running currently.This is very important before flashing a custom ROM because if you have to unroot with the stock ROM or if you have any problem with the custom ROM then you might want to go back to the backed up ROM.You can perform a Nandroid backup from you recovery image. You can also partition your SD cards so that you can enable apps2sd on some versions and on some devices and on the latest android versions partitioning is necessary for running the apps stored in your sd card faster.People mainly flash custom recovery images for loading custom ROMs,with a custom recovery image you can flash any custom ROM which are not signed by the manufacturer and with any version of android. Other things which you can do from a custom recovery image is change the cache storage to the sd card,wipe the data off the ROM,etc.

Flashing a Custom Recovery Image

There are many ways of flashing a recovery image, in some devices the recovery images are flashed while rooting itself but the easiest way to flash a recovery image is by using koush’s ROM manager application,your device must be rooted before flashing a recovery image from this application.This application is available for free on the android market.When you install this app the first option when you run this application is to flash the clockworkmod recovery image,click on that then choose your device from the device list and then the recovery image is flashed by the app itself.For those devices which are not listed on this application there might be other ways to flash these recovery images or there might not be a recovery image for your device if you don’t find a recovery image then please specify the details of your device on our comments section and we will get back to you.

Flashing a Custom ROM

The custom ROMs are flashed using the recovery image.The recovery image can be accessed from the off state of your device by pressing multiple buttons at the same time,the buttons vary from device to device,custom ROMs can also be flashed from your computer using adb commands which is fast but not that easy.I would also like to say that some of the phones even though they have root access,you cannot flash custom ROMs because of the locked bootloader like the sony ericson xperia x10 ,x10 mini and pro,but phones like the Motorola milestone which also has its bootloader locked can flash custom ROM’s.The problem with sony ericson is that its way too costly and very few developers have it to work on it to create Custom ROM’s.Flashing a custom ROM is very easy through the recovery image,you just have to go to the flash ZIP from sd card section and select the ROM you want to flash and then wait until it flashes and then reboot the device and you are done. You can also flash custom ROMs using the ROM manager.

Advantages of custom ROM’s

There are thousands of advantages but I am only going to say few important ones,

• Many kernel patches
  
• The bugs or errors in the source code are debugged
  
• Your device runs faster
  
• Enables multitouch on some devices
  
• Gps fix for some devices
  
• Lag fix for some devices
  
• Enables Bluetooth for old android version running devices
  
• Better and newer version of android o.s
  
• All the default useless apps are removed
  
• The useless heavy UI removed
  
• Some ROMs enable extended widget support and modified better looking UI

Disadvantages of custom ROMs

None that I have heard of but some under development ROMs might have many bugs,may be slow,some ROMs disable the radio and camera because they cannot find the right drivers for the respective devices.The main point to take note is flashing a custom ROM or rooting voids you warranty, but you can always unroot and go back to your stock ROM in this way you can regain your warranty.

But you can harm your phone and maybe stop your phone from working, if you flash the wrong ROM for your device due to which you will be stuck in a boot loop,but linux on which android is running is very difficult to mess up with, on my many years of work with linux and android I am yet to see a completely unrecoverable phone. Well this is because linux has fail safe in place for such occasions, which is the recovery image which we discussed earlier and the other ones is the bootloader also known as the hboot,even if you flash a wrong ROM for your device as long as the recovery and the hboot is untouched,and you can boot into any of those two modes, you can flash a different ROM and get it working again.

Do you loose data after flashing a custom ROM?

Yes. When you do,flashing a new ROM it is like a factory reset and you loose the saved data,but the data on your sd card remains intact.

We have covered in detail about ROM’s and Custom ROM’s. Send in all your queries and we will be happy to help you to flash Custom ROM’s.

Happy Androiding

thnx for re-editing it