[Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HeroTwin:
Dear Community,

I just joined the forums today but have done quite a bit of reading already, particularly about the upgrade to 2.3.5 i hope to carry out in the near future once i clear up just a few remaining points.

Just for the record: i have watched the introductory video prior to registration and am well informed concerning my duty to "search before asking". And while i have 'scoured' the forums for answers to every one of the questions i am about to ask, it could very well be that relevant information has eluded me by virtue of chance.

To a certain extent, these questions have in fact been answered to a certain extent already, however most have not been answered to a degree i consider sufficient before taking the plunge into firmware flashing. I therefore appreciate that to more experienced users my inquires might seem somewhat redundant. The most i can offer in return is to create an intelligible and clearly structured post that might serve to help others who find themselves in a situation similar to my own.

Here goes:

1. Frankenstein Firmwares: As the name would imply, these are custom ROM packages that are not official in the sense that they are not available through Samsung Kies (i.e. official channels), however they consist entirely of stock components. In other words, they are only considered custom because they are available in a particular configuration not officially sanctioned by Samsung and not available via their official channels.

Is this assessment correct?

2. Flashing via Odin vs. ClockWorkMod (CWM): To tell the truth, i am not sure to what extent these two are actually related. According to willk22's excellent FAQ CWM is " designed so that if the user messes up a ROM installation, they can recover their phone. CWM is a modified recovery installed into the recovery partition that allows advanced control over ROM recovery, installation and much more." According to this FAQ, it can also to "install a ROM contained inside a flashable .zip file."

Based on what i have been able to gather, ROM packages destined for flashing via ODIN cannot be flashed via CWM and vice versa. Just out of curiosity, when would i use CWM to install a ROM and when Odin? Is this left solely to the discretion of the developer? What are the major differences?

3. Frankenstein Firmwares vs. Carrier Specific vs. Country Specific: What i don't precisely understand in this regard is how the CSC (Consumer Software Customization) relates to the different ROM packages. For example:

Intratech, in his extremely helpful ROM thread offers a number of packages for download that are considered "multi-csc", meaning that by typing a certain key combination into my phone i can gain access to a 'hidden' menu which will allow to determine the CSC version. If i then select my carriers CSC, what would the exact difference be between a custom carrier firmware and the firmware with the specific carrier CSC selected?

4. Android 2.3.5 for SGS2: Assuming i want to install ('flash') the latest android firmware version containing Android 2.3.5 for my SGS2, which firmware would i be best advised to use? I assume that i would probably be most sensible to use Intratech's XWKI8 / XXKI3 / XXKI4 Frankenstein Firmwares. Assuming, however, that i live in Poland or the 'Nordic Countries' (for which an official 2.3.5 firmware already exists), would it then be more sensible to use the country specific firmware build?

5. GSM / 3G Issues: I read in a few individual posts that flashing a country specific firmware (e.g. Poland or Nordic Countries) could result in loss of 3G coverage or otherwise inhibit cellular service. Is there any truth to these rumors?

6. The Jig: I know what the USB Jig does (it is a physical piece of hardware used to reset the flash count of the SGS2 used in case the phone needs to be shipped to Samsung for maintenance) but i am not sure when exactly it needs to be used. For example, if i flash one of the firmware packages mentioned above (XWKI8 / XXKI3 / XXKI4), would i need to use a jig to reset my flash count to zero? Or does the use of a jig only matter when rooting a phone - rooting of course not being necessary for firmware flashing in this case - ?

Thats it for now. Thanks for bearing with me, and thanks in advance for reading my post.

HeroTwin