[Galaxy S I9000 Android Development] rschenck:
There has been a small amount of confusion recently about which Builds of CM7 go with which modems (and by "small amount" I mean "massive truck load") and how they all fit into a sort of timeline.

This phenomenon has gone hand in hand with a couple (*COUGHdozensCOUGH*) of questions asking what is up with Nightlies 15 and 16 or repeating the appeal for one of the later, unofficial builds which are not on the main CM7 sites.

Therefore I decided to prepare the following little historic cheatsheet....please print this and paste it to your monitor, affix it with magnets to your refrigerator or tattoo it on one of your children for easy reference.

PRE-NIGHTLY PERIOD (The Betacean)

These builds were organized by date and were hand created by either Atinm or Codeworkx whenever they felt they had something useful to add to the build or wanted to test something out and see how many of us died after flashing. Designed to be flashed via Recover only, these builds are totally irrelevant now except as historical items and if you are still running any of these, flash a more recent build IMMEDIATELY.

I mean it...RIGHT NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.

EARLY NIGHTLY PERIOD (The Early Mainlineasic)

These builds come after CM7 for SGS was added to the CM7 mainline, therefore they were created by the official BuildBots and organized by number. They introduced the ROM Manager system to SGS CM7 and made both installing and updating obscenely easy. Little did we know that we had it too good, and we allowed ourselves to become soft and complacent, unprepared for what would come....later.

There are 14 Early Nightly builds, though numbers 12 to 14 tended to have various troubles due to RIL changes. It is generally accepted that the most universally stable of the Early Nightly builds was #11.

Early Nightly builds can be downloaded from the ROM Manager or from HERE. Modems for these builds are hard to come by currently as they have been taken down from the main directories due to what I feel is a political purge. However, note that versions 12 to 14 required specialized modems while versions 1-11 used modems earlier modems. As these builds will automatically install an appropriate version of JVK it is STRONGLY suggested that if you need to install one, just stick with the stock modem...why get fancy?

THE BUILDPOCALYPSE (Nightly Extinction Event)

No one knows what happened exactly. It is all lost in a blood red haze. It may have been a meteor strike, or the temperature of the server room being increased due to emission gases. Perhaps it was caused by a Diet Coke Big Gulp being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or one of the CM7 devs mistaking the Buildbot server for their girlfriend while in a hallucinogenic-fueled rutting fiesta. All we know is something caused one of the BuildBots to die off suddenly and violently without warning...and the future of our phones was radically altered, the very fabric of our update schedule ripped asunder and cast down into the pit like Nokia's stock price.

This event marked the last Official Nightly up until the present day. We all await the return of civilization and sanity and Official Nightlys, some sign that we have not been forgotten, hurled unmourned on the dustheap of history like a VHS copy of Wayne's World....but for now....we must accept that we are out here on our own.

THE DARKBASTARD SERIES (Regium Codeworkxius)

In order to prevent a mass user die-off when the BuildBot system came crashing down, Codeworkx and the rest of SGSTEAM began issuing emergency, unofficial builds of CM7 incorporating certain improvements, including FM Radio, some WiFi fixes and the ability to purify drinking water. After each is sent out to us in some secret, untraceable fashion we are told it will be "the last unofficial build"....but whenever we need hope the most, whenever we fear we just can't go on and feel our thoughts turning to visiting that little burrito shop downtown where you can get "used" iPhones cheap in the back...another "unofficial" build appears.

DarkNightly 15 (05282011) was slipped to us quietly by Codeworkx and included the FM Radio fix, a tattoo around its throat that read CUT HERE and $1.75 in nickles. It was filled with anger and beauty and exciting new possibilities...though like all angry young men it had its time but was then rapidly supplanted by later versions. Once the spotlight had moved on I believe DarkNightly 15 was quietly shot against a wall somewhere in Cairo. If you need this build it can likely still be downloaded from HERE.

Soon after DarkNightly 15 appeared a version called update-cm-7.1.0-GalaxyS-KANG-signed.zip, affectionately known as KANG appeared, which was essentially DarkNightly 15 without the FM radio. Kang was playful and trusting but would go silent when certain questions were asked, a vacant, frightened look in its eyes. I don't know what has become of this build, it does not appear to be available for download anymore. Personally I think Atinm suffocated it with a pillow.

BastardNightly 16 (05302011) was discovered lost and alone in a multiupload crack den trying to sell sordid little one-off games of Angry Birds to tourists just to buy battery charges. However once we cleaned it up and washed that lurid makeup away, we saw that it had amazing new WiFi fixes inside. At first a total mystery, Codeworkx eventually admitted that it was the product of a random encounter with a Linksys Wireless Router and had been abandoned on a German forum with its ankles nailed together. We rescued it and set it up HERE for download.

All of the DarkBastard Series builds use modems from HERE.

THE FUTURE???

What comes next? If and when the BuildBot regime restores order I assume we will finally see an Official Nightly 15. On that day we will weep tears of joy and burn down the homes of foreigners and migrants in thanksgiving.

The DarkBastard series will become just a memory, a legend we will fondly tell our grandchildren that they will scoff at while stealing our support checks and turning our ventilator on and off to show their friends how we turn colors. Until then, we must just watch....and wait.....and flash whatever twisted, mysterious builds we can like nicotine addicts licking ashtrays.