how to root droid, get froyo, flash, multitouch, tethering.

[complacent]

before anything else, i recommend getting (and using) MyBackup Pro from the market. It will allow you to make individual/comprehensive backups of just about everything in userland. a small price to pay for a great backup tool and very necessary before you get started, because you will wipe your device following the tutorial below. do not expect to be able to restore all of your applications after the initial rooting and flash to 2.2. make a list of them and plan to re-download them after installing 2.2. you want this tool to gather all of your personal data (SMS, MMS, call log, etc). obviously things from your google account (email, calendar, contacts, etc) won't need to be backed up.


start with this tutorial.

i would recommend following all of the directions except step 2, number 2.

instead of downloading a sapphire 2.2 rom, i recommend bugless beast v0.4. it can be found here. Information on the release can be found here.

this will give you froyo that is overclocked to 800MHz (default is 550, chip design is 600). in my experiments it has been really fast and perfectly stable.

once you're flashed and booted into froyo, you're going to want grab ROM Manager (by ClockworkMod) in the market. It will allow you to backup, restore and swap out ROMs quite easily. Start with the free version and pony up for the premium after you've gotten it all working.

after you've got froyo installed and have restored your data and re-downloaded your apps, use ROM Manager to make a backup of your ROM. this is essentially a "ghost image" of your phone. it'll include all apps and data. this will be useful if you really goof something up.

now it's time to get some flash. goto here and get the latest beta of Flash 10.1. make sure you enable applications from unknown sources (settings>applications) or you won't be able to install the application.

what's next? how about tethering? grab "Wireless Tether for Root Users" from the market. it works over wifi or bluetooth. and well.

And finally - I think I've found a keyboard that is as good as the iPhone. I kid you not. It's called "Smart Keyboard Pro". Try out the free version first. I'm using the paid version and I've already uninstalled Swype. This is my only keyboard now and I'm quite happy with the results.

what else, you ask? go figure it out yourself. use your imagination. go have fun. I am. ^_^

(although btunes is an awesome music player replacement and even has lockscreen controls!)

[Sabre]

this will give you froyo that is overclocked to 800MHz (default is 550, chip design is 600). in my experiments it has been really fast and perfectly stable.

How does it affect battery life? I love that you can do it

[complacent]

this will give you froyo that is overclocked to 800MHz (default is 550, chip design is 600). in my experiments it has been really fast and perfectly stable.

How does it affect battery life? I love that you can do it

so far, battery life has been great! the cpu ramps to 800 during active use and drizzles down to like 275 when not in active use. nice trade off!

[Cereb Daithi]

Never rooted a phone before.... but this is tempting.

[complacent]

screenshot_2.png

here's a screenshot of a typical day's usage for me (reading ~30 email, ~400 google reader items, a little over an hour web-browsing, ~60 sms/mms, ~20 minutes of phone calls and a lot of solitare) the battery is still at 40%.

i have no doubt that even while rooted, overclocked and running flash the droid will make it through a full day of use. not too shabby, eh?

[Raven]

Is multitasking improved? Cause I've always found the meager RAM of the Droid 1 to be an issue, at least with 2.0/2.1.

[complacent]

I haven't noticed a problem... although the update does allow you to toggle between the last eight programs in use. That's two more than on 2.1.

[Raven]

so far, battery life has been great! the cpu ramps to 800 during active use and drizzles down to like 275 when not in active use. nice trade off!

Do you know a good app for displaying the current CPU speed?

I'm glad this is working great for you. Can't wait for the un-overclocked, stable release.

[complacent]

Do you know a good app for displaying the current CPU speed?

SetCPU. Requires root access.

I'm glad this is working great for you. Can't wait for the un-overclocked, stable release.

I'm curious, where did you gather that this wasn't stable? My experience has been that it is quite stable. Or did you mean the official OTA release by Verizon?

In addition, I'm yet to see a custom rom that doesn't overclock. Of the folks making custom roms, all start with at least 800Mhz. I've seen releases as high as 1.2GHz.

ymmv.

[Raven]

I'm curious, where did you gather that this wasn't stable? My experience has been that it is quite stable. Or did you mean the official OTA release by Verizon?

I just mean the official release when I say stable.

I used to overclock my computer back in the day and I never seemed to gain enough performance to offset the random little issues that I'd get as a result of the overclock. If Froyo works like it's supposed to the 550MHz Cortex CPU should be plenty of power to get done what I wanna get done.

[HappyIdiot]

Since you mentioned keyboards, I just saw a new style called 8pen. I'm going to try it out tonight. It looks pretty interesting. It costs 1.65 IIRC.



There is a video on the home page.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3OuCR0EpGo[/video]

[Raven]

Oh, since this came up again, I rooted my droid and it made no difference. I need more RAM.

[complacent]

Oh, since this came up again, I rooted my droid and it made no difference. I need more RAM.

did you install a custom rom?

overclockable kernel?

cpu freq adjusting utility?

if you do some reading, you'll find things like heap size, available ram, etc are all configurable.

need more ram? specify fewer programs to run at one time... or weed out those processes that aren't needed based on your usage.

personally, i've got at least 50MB of ram available at any time on my droid, fwiw.

EDIT: I also think froyo is pretty useless running at anything less than 800MHz (droid 1 specifically) , based on my own tinkering.

[HappyIdiot]

Thx for helping me embed the video!

I rooted mine a few weeks ago with Cyanogenmod. I've been extremely happy with it so far. It did freeze on me twice though when I was trying to use the camera.

[complacent]

Thx for helping me embed the video!

I rooted mine a few weeks ago with Cyanogenmod. I've been extremely happy with it so far. It did freeze on me twice though when I was trying to use the camera.

it really makes it a totally different phone, doesn't it?

i've been running their nightlies with a different kernel and have been very pleased overall.

(i'm still firmly convinced that android needs another year or two of baking before it should be considered "awesome" though.)

[HappyIdiot]

I completely agree with both statements. Android is getting there, but it still needs time. There were plenty of times I was frustrated with the phones responsiveness. Trying to make a phone call frustrated me to no end.

It runs so much better now. Plus, I was able to use the tether two weeks ago when I was having my valve stem replaced.