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Hello all,
Made some research and found out in bad surprise that lots of the ROMs offered here are developed by some guys coming from conflict regions or cultures that preach and encourage "holy wars" against civilized, peaceful countries. This makes me somehow doubt the software/malware contained in these distributions, given the latest "digital guerillas"... I don't want my phone call information, emails, SMSs or phone call recordings being transparently forwarded to some intelligence agency.
Can somebody please reccomend a clean origin distribution so our phones are safe ? Please do not ask me to point the suspicious sources, I do not want to accuse anyone, I just want a clean, trustworthy source.
sorry vasilica2008 the mods do not allow us to give an advice about what is a good rom. simply because a good rom differs for everyone.
some like them close to stock, some like them most stable, others like max speed or naked.
it is a personal thing a rom.
if you had used the search in this forum you would have seen that all the threads asking similar questions are locked.
just look at the first few posts on a rom thread. the cook will explain what he has done to the rom.
if you like it read further. and try a few. you will find your rom for sure.
Finally read the guide about flashing. things can go wrong and most of them are easily prevented or solved.
vasilica2008 said:
Hello all,
Made some research and found out in bad surprise that lots of the ROMs offered here are developed by some guys coming from conflict regions or cultures that preach and encourage "holy wars" against civilized, peaceful countries. This makes me somehow doubt the software/malware contained in these distributions, given the latest "digital guerillas"... I don't want my phone call information, emails, SMSs or phone call recordings being transparently forwarded to some intelligence agency.
Can somebody please reccomend a clean origin distribution so our phones are safe ? Please do not ask me to point the suspicious sources, I do not want to accuse anyone, I just want a clean, trustworthy source.
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Click to collapse
i see that in the mean time i was typing you changed the post to this . I this case can you thrust anybody's rom????
i think the chefs are integer persons. if you are this afraid just stick to stock roms and look no further for any improvements and any software. as you dont know the source of any of them.
vasilica2008 said:
Hello all,
Made some research and found out in bad surprise that lots of the ROMs offered here are developed by some guys coming from conflict regions or cultures that preach and encourage "holy wars" against civilized, peaceful countries. This makes me somehow doubt the software/malware contained in these distributions, given the latest "digital guerillas"... I don't want my phone call information, emails, SMSs or phone call recordings being transparently forwarded to some intelligence agency.
Can somebody please reccomend a clean origin distribution so our phones are safe ? Please do not ask me to point the suspicious sources, I do not want to accuse anyone, I just want a clean, trustworthy source.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know why you have such suspicion, having flashed a zillion of roms and cooked a couple myself, I had never come across any of the dubious sources you have described, and even there is indeed one, the power of the community would have such source clamped down fairly quickly.
If you still do not trust the cooks here, then I suggest you should just stop flash and stick with your stock rom.
Surely, even if true and some developers come from regions in conflict, is it fair to damn them because of that (Embargoed countries withstanding). There are very few countries in the world that are ethically clean - I am from and live in the UK and there is a lot that has been done in the name of England in the past 150 years that I would be mortified if I, as a person, was judged for.
Malware? I guess that's possible with all cooked ROMS, regardless of country source. Best advice - if nervous, look carefully at conversation threads in this forum (and beware the usual false positive (search the HSPL / HSPL2 thread).
Let's not turn this thread into a political discussion
CleanEX - The Ultimate Clean and Fast ROM made in England:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=639068
Isn't it to late for april fools?
Sorry, no joke intended. Thanks for the answers, lads, I'll stick with the stock ROMs then. All the best.
hey its a risk walking on the streets! Do your research like everyone else and if you have your suspicions then don't take risks, coming out with these accusations don't help anyone!
Everyones taste is different.
You'll be missing out on a lot if you stick to stock ROM's... but hey - your choice.
it's worth remembering hundreds, thousands in some cases, of fairly technical people install some of these roms every day.it would be very difficult to conceal anything untoward in a rom for long.
I really don't want this to come across wrong, but I just have to say it.
Developers, I appreciate all your hard work. I understand this is all beta/test/etc. I understand it is free of cost, even to those who did donate to one dev or another. You do it because you want to, not because you have to.
But please, for the love of all that's good - keep an updated list of Known Issues!
It sucks having to read 50 pages of posts to try to figure out if a particular release is reliable or not, to find out if there's a key feature broken or buggy. What makes it worse is you can't tell when reading these threads which users are on which release, because many still post issues after they've been resolved. Others post things that aren't really "issues" but user error.
You know what your issues are, you read the threads and you fix the issues. But trying to find a decent rom to flash is very, very difficult when your OP says "No known problems" and the thread that follows show that to be very untrue. It generates a lot of extra posts with people posting things you already know about, and it generates a lot of bad will when someone flashes something only to find that there are a number of game breaking issues.
All it takes is to update a post, say #2, in your thread, with KNOWN ISSUES. Once you confirm a bug, whether you intend to fix it on your next release or not, add it to that thread. It helps you, as a dev keep track of the bug, and it helps potential downloaders know what bugs have been confirmed and make an educated decision as to whether they want to install your release.
Hiding known issues is something I don't think anyone does intentionally, but it feels that way sometimes. It feels like devs are in a popularity contest, and any admission of flaws in their particular ROM is a weakness. Well, to tell the truth, I and many others are sick of installing something that was CLAIMED to be working perfectly, only to have glaring problems that have been there for many versions.
For a civil and productive development community. Please. Be honest with your known issues. It will go a long way in building trust with the people who you're providing ROMs to, and will mean fewer posts for YOU to wade through of users reporting known issues, without having read 500 posts first.
I have a hard time believing that most devs actively hide them. Most of the time it's probably just a bit of laziness. But, yes, it would be helpful when comparing roms if the descriptions had a well-maintained list of active bugs.
Since the developers here are NOT getting paid (NO your $20 donation is not sh*t for the time it takes to make one of these roms), yes WE will have to bear the brunt of testing these roms out and letting them know what bugs if any are in them
The other issue is the people flashing these roms, coming from Eugene's to Whiskey to the ASOP roms may generate some ghosts in the software that the developers cannot duplicate themselves. I know that when I went with the TW 2.2 roms I had plenty of issues, more issues than I have had even when I was stock. Odining back to stock and reflashing the 4.2 TW fixed ALL my problems. Dont know what caused it but since I have flashed a couple of roms prior to that (no problems), I will assume there were some ghosts in my system. This is an example that unless a TW team member is holding MY phone and working on it, they may not be able to duplicate
They don't care to list them. It's beneath some of them.
Maybe AirBus should list "midair exploding engines" as a known issue too...
kponti said:
Since the developers here are NOT getting paid (NO your $20 donation is not sh*t for the time it takes to make one of these roms), yes WE will have to bear the brunt of testing these roms out and letting them know what bugs if any are in them
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+1. Hell, at work I run a $100,000.00+ software suite and even that company won't do what the OP suggests!
If you have a problem with them stop using their roms go back to stock and see how much better theirs is even with a few bugs, not one of you has any right to complain. They do damn good work for free with some donations that do not come close to what they should be paid for it but they do not whine at all.
The problem I find is the "spammy" and useless comments average and pretentious users make which is both hard for the developer and the end user to read the threads. A dev releases a ROM and there is a guaranteed "Oh I can't wait to flash this" comment that will pop up. And there are some issues that are minor and are sometimes not related to the release that are posted and some pretentious loser who extends his ego by trying to make simple matters complicated. This forum didn't much of this problem before and I could quickly flash ROMs easily since I could clearly grasp the status on the ROM project.
I wish they would start a new thread with new releases. It's a pain to try to read through a 500 page thread, and you comments about this or that, and you have no idea which version the person is talking about. I gave up on custom roms and just using the leaked tmo 2.2, thanks for that Eugene
kponti said:
Since the developers here are NOT getting paid (NO your $20 donation is not sh*t for the time it takes to make one of these roms), yes WE will have to bear the brunt of testing these roms out and letting them know what bugs if any are in them
The other issue is the people flashing these roms, coming from Eugene's to Whiskey to the ASOP roms may generate some ghosts in the software that the developers cannot duplicate themselves. I know that when I went with the TW 2.2 roms I had plenty of issues, more issues than I have had even when I was stock. Odining back to stock and reflashing the 4.2 TW fixed ALL my problems. Dont know what caused it but since I have flashed a couple of roms prior to that (no problems), I will assume there were some ghosts in my system. This is an example that unless a TW team member is holding MY phone and working on it, they may not be able to duplicate
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A $20 donation is not worth the risk of bricking a $550 phone just because they got "lazy" and didn't notify donators/downloaders of [a] potentially show-stopping issue.
Posted a new Thread in Dev section for the purpose of reporting issues. So if you have an issue please shoot it to me and I will post it in that thread.
Update: Here is the link for the WIKI page.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=Samsung_Galaxy_S_SGH-T959#ROMs
swehes said:
Posted a new Thread in Dev section for the purpose of reporting issues. So if you have an issue please shoot it to me and I will post it in that thread.
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You are in a heap of trouble, a lot of people don't read, and you are gonna get 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 repeats of the same issue.
"OMG! MY SD CAR DONES"T MOUNT< HELP ME!11!!111"
chui101 said:
I have a hard time believing that most devs actively hide them. Most of the time it's probably just a bit of laziness. But, yes, it would be helpful when comparing roms if the descriptions had a well-maintained list of active bugs.
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The issue here is really that a forum is not the ideal place to manage software releases. A list of bugs emerges from community testing, but there's nowhere to "post" that list of issues, or attach it to a specific release. Since there's no way for the community to add such documentation, it falls on the ROM builder, who probably has other priorities.
This kind of project could be well served by using a real software project management software solution, such as say google code, which has an issue tracker and other useful features. But XDA does already give us a better tool than the forum - the XDA wiki!
I wish people would use the XDA wiki more extensively. This would be a good place to keep updated documentation such as this, without requiring the OP to keep a forum post updated with the latest findings. All the OP needs to do is link to the wiki page, and other people can help maintain it.
OK. Looking into Google Code.
(Update) So looking into the Google Code. What Licensing agreement are the ROMs under? Is it GPL v2 or v3 or another license?
swehes said:
OK. Looking into Google Code.
(Update) So looking into the Google Code. What Licensing agreement are the ROMs under? Is it GPL v2 or v3 or another license?
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Depends on the project. The Linux kernel is GPLv2, so any kernels fall under that license. AOSP as a whole uses both GPL and apache code.
The issue with ROMs is that unless they're AOSP derived (like cyanogenmod) they often include binaries for which the license situation is murky at best, so google code isn't really an ideal fit for a "ROM" that's only ever released as a binary.
Really I was throwing google code out there as a well known example, there are tons of other ways to track issues. There are dedicated issue tracking systems such as trac, bugzilla, etc, but they require hosting. Most of the freely available hosted services require that you're running an open source project, which isn't necessarily true for the ROMs here.
IMO a serious project could very well benefit from such tools, but just using an XDA wiki page which community members can freely update is a great first step.
So looked into the Wiki for the Vibrant and have updated some information. Let me know what you guys think. Is this the way to go?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=Samsung_Galaxy_S_SGH-T959#ROMs
swehes said:
So looked into the Wiki for the Vibrant and have updated some information. Let me know what you guys think. Is this the way to go?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=Samsung_Galaxy_S_SGH-T959#ROMs
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Not to be the "Spelling Nazi", and I am not even sure if you can change it, but it is "Kernel" not "Kernal". Also, the Dev on Team Whiskey is Sombionix, not Symbionix.
Otherwise, that looks like a great idea, and possible way of tracking things!
EDIT - I guess I could go ahead and make those tweaks, with it being a wiki and all couldn't I....
EDIT EDIT - Fixed it.
Stargazer3777 said:
Not to be the "Spelling Nazi", and I am not even sure if you can change it, but it is "Kernel" not "Kernal". Also, the Dev on Team Whiskey is Sombionix, not Symbionix.
Otherwise, that looks like a great idea, and possible way of tracking things!
EDIT - I guess I could go ahead and make those tweaks, with it being a wiki and all couldn't I....
EDIT EDIT - Fixed it.
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Thanks. On both accounts.
Maybe this should be a post to Microsoft
To quote "there are known, unknowns and unknown, knowns and and even sometimes unknown,unknowns............but.........
Developers ----develop they do not become a bookkeeper of their development.........that is coordinating work...........good luck getting any developer in ANY Specialty to do that............. reporting bugs........
---Maybe this should be a post to Microsoft---
N8ter said:
A $20 donation is not worth the risk of bricking a $550 phone just because they got "lazy" and didn't notify donators/downloaders of [a] potentially show-stopping issue.
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Click to collapse
I have yet to see a REAL (completely dead) "bricked" vibrant from flashing a released Rom alone. I have seen a lot of user error cause boot loops or "soft-bricks" & HWL phones become unflashable because the end user didn't take the time to research though. As far as devs being "lazy" I dont really see that when the developer is coming here for us to tell him what else we find wrong. They are coding, you flash, you report back with a logcat. This is how development is made to my understanding. If ppl are to lazy to JUST do this then why shouldn't the developer discount long winded post or something they are not experiencing? If they know there is a bug its in the OP.
If you guys can change the interwebz & how 500 post per update are made completely useless please feel free to do so....
swehes said:
So looked into the Wiki for the Vibrant and have updated some information. Let me know what you guys think. Is this the way to go?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=Samsung_Galaxy_S_SGH-T959#ROMs
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Click to collapse
I think it's a pretty awesome start for sure
As a matter of personal taste, I think having an individual wiki page per ROM (with the known issues and other detailed info) might be nice, although I'm not sure what the policy on new pages is with the XDA wiki.
Speaking from professional experience, the most challenging aspect of any documentation system is always convincing people to use it. It's great to compile the information, but unless ROM builders and devs post a link to the wiki in the forum threads nobody will ever see it. Having good, community based documentation is a benefit to everybody though, so hopefully people will recognize the utility of it and encourage its growth!
Hi folks,
I've spent a few days looking over the forum and have to say. good work
There don’t seem to be many issues, everyone seems to be getting on in the spirit of XDA.
I'm a firm fan of ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’ so I'm not going to be flying in making huge changes or swapping things around. this is your forum I'm just here to help keep things nice. if anyone has any ideas of how to improve things in this area - (not XDA as a whole) please drop me a PM, and we’ll put it to a vote. if it’s a good idea I'll change it if i can or I'll push for the changes with the senior team.
While this may be a legacy forum it’s clear there is still a lot of interest and a lot of life in this device still keep up the work and we’ll keep the phone alive I want to start on the right foot so a FEW IMPORTANT REMINDERS
please take the time to read - and for regular users - re-read the forum rules. it’s a good thing to remind yourselves of how we work http://forum.xda-developers.com/announcement.php?f=341
All the rules are important but to focus on a few.
we are here to help and learn. people do make mistakes. I don’t like users being flamed for asking a question. I'd rather we educated and pointed people in the right way to help them for the future. it’s OK to say use search - it’s not OK to abuse people
I also don’t like people putting a lot of work into something and getting flamed either - a lot of the work posted is a work in progress - people share this out of the goodness of their heart and also so they can get positive comments on how to improve. Again it’s not OK to abuse people cos they shared a work in progress.
sharing work - many developers are happy to share their work with others and in some cases one persons work is used as a base by others. - If you want to change someones work and then release it as your own - ASK FOR PERMISSION FIRST AND THEN LINK TO THE ORIGINAL DEV IN YOU RELEASE!!!
don’t post or link to warez - they will be removed.
Please report any issues or concerns to me as soon as you can using the report button or by PM- I'll deal with them.
Thanks
Chris
Hi folks,
I've spent a few days looking over the forum and have to say. good work
There don’t seem to be many issues, everyone seems to be getting on in the spirit of XDA.
I'm a firm fan of ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’ so I'm not going to be flying in making huge changes or swapping things around. this is your forum I'm just here to help keep things nice. if anyone has any ideas of how to improve things in this area - (not XDA as a whole) please drop me a PM, and we’ll put it to a vote. if it’s a good idea I'll change it if i can or I'll push for the changes with the senior team.
While this may be a legacy forum it’s clear there is still a lot of interest and a lot of life in this device still keep up the work and we’ll keep the phone alive I want to start on the right foot so a FEW IMPORTANT REMINDERS
please take the time to read - and for regular users - re-read the forum rules. it’s a good thing to remind yourselves of how we work http://forum.xda-developers.com/announcement.php?f=341
All the rules are important but to focus on a few.
we are here to help and learn. people do make mistakes. I don’t like users being flamed for asking a question. I'd rather we educated and pointed people in the right way to help them for the future. it’s OK to say use search - it’s not OK to abuse people
I also don’t like people putting a lot of work into something and getting flamed either - a lot of the work posted is a work in progress - people share this out of the goodness of their heart and also so they can get positive comments on how to improve. Again it’s not OK to abuse people cos they shared a work in progress.
sharing work - many developers are happy to share their work with others and in some cases one persons work is used as a base by others. - If you want to change someones work and then release it as your own - ASK FOR PERMISSION FIRST AND THEN LINK TO THE ORIGINAL DEV IN YOU RELEASE!!!
don’t post or link to warez - they will be removed.
Please report any issues or concerns to me as soon as you can using the report button or by PM- I'll deal with them.
Thanks
Chris
Apparently, I had stickys of the forum rules placed in over here. Nice to see u work, all the very best. Well I am the outgoing mod over here!
Sent From My HTC Sensation Z710e Using XDA Premium!
Just putting it out there that I would love to be a tester for the Galaxy SII, I have the original one, I have flash and went through 90% of every ROM up for it in both sections the original section and regular section, I just love flashing and going through Roms and would love to just help out someone with there Rom and do whatever it is they need me to do as far as testing, please hit me back. I hope I posted this is the right place if not, I will watch the Noob video 20 times in a row for punishment.
ah ok...... that's an idea
Original SGS II ? No kidding! :|
At first, I thought of this as just a pointless thread - but you got me thinking... What if we were to create a thread where people can nominate themselves as alpha/beta/etc. testers for ROM/Kernel developers? The difference lying in that to be eligible for a position, you'd have to prove that you have basic knowledge of how to recover from, for example, a bootloop, or a device that won't even boot, or constant FCs, etc. etc., along with again, pretty basic ADB knowledge, how to create and restore a NANDroid backup, and things like that. It'd come with the usual disclaimer stating that all responsibilities lie with the user, not the developer, and while the developer may be willing to provide support for bugs, etc., they are not liable for any damage resulting either directly or indirectly from the use of their software.
This would solve two things - it would satisfy those who just can't stand to wait for the release of something, who like to always live on the bleeding edge of development, and it would provide the developers a huge testing platform.
In review, though, this provides to main issues: 1) people would only be able to test one thing at a time, e.g. you're not going to be allowed to test a beta ROM with an alpha kernel, for example - it creates too many variables, and makes it harder for the developers to isolate and fix problems - but this shouldn't be an issue for people, just pick what you want and stick with it, and 2) people who leak the otherwise tester-restricted software for the masses - but this can be solved easily: maintain a list of official testers. Anyone who comes begging for support because they went ahead and flashed some leaked ROM/kernel/whatever, and ended up without a working device without being on the list, can be denied support for breaking the rules. Moreover, they, along with the leaker, could potentially face site-imposed bans?
I'll cut the rambling here, but I think it's a good idea?
As a ROM developer, its a great idea.
Sent from HydrOG3N MOD S2.
Technology Evolves, Android Evolves.
HydrOG3N is THE Revolution.
Thinking about it, not bad idea. But to back sceamworks up a bit, there should be a number of post limit, Some form of history for the dev`s to see who is a Noob (sorry Noobs) and who is not...
I'm in
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
I like the idea and I too would be glad to help people testing there ROMs.
It also seems nice to have a thread where people (like me or the OP) can set them self available for testing.
Most real developers pick their team from watching the threads and see how is willing to put the time in and know how to properly test as well as offer ideas on fixes. But not a bad idea I guess for new rom developers
lodger said:
Thinking about it, not bad idea. But to back sceamworks up a bit, there should be a number of post limit, Some form of history for the dev`s to see who is a Noob (sorry Noobs) and who is not...
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Click to collapse
I agree completely, I'd say 50-100 would be a fair starting point? I might PM some devs sometime soon with a proper proposal, and if I get a positive response from a majority of them, I might draft something, and get some official names on-board.
zelendel said:
Most real developers pick their team from watching the threads and see how is willing to put the time in and know how to properly test as well as offer ideas on fixes. But not a bad idea I guess for new rom developers
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Click to collapse
I considered this, and I think if anything brings the idea down, it'll be that - it's a hard sell to make, and I'd love to say that there's no harm in trying, but really, there is, so I guess execution is everything?
Good idea, im in....