[T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide] Blue6IX:
Sorry to hear that didn't work out so well. I think you'll find that your MT4GS experience will be a lot better.

Check the link to my backup thread in my signature. Read through it, and feel free to ask any questions in that thread you may have. I or another will be happy to help you clear them up.

Link: Backups - After Rooting, before ROMing, take this step

Yea, everything tends to happen first here, so trying to keep it all organized as things change and develop is difficult at times, much too convoluted at others.

Basically, you need to take your bootloader from S-ON to S-OFF. Do this with the Revolutionary exploit. It installs CWM 4.0.0.8 during the process.

Then you need to make a nandroid backup. (see my backup thread)

Then you should upgrade to the official Clockworkmod Recovery, replacing 4.0.0.8 that was installed with the S-OFF exploit. The version is 5.0.2.7

Dev section link for the official CWM:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1329160

Once you do that, you should already have the superuser.apk you need for rooting that you found when you got the Revolutionary S-OFF tools. You can either have done it then, or now.

I'd wait until after getting the official CWM first, simply because that makes your first nandroid backup as fresh as it can be. It's up to you when you do it.

And that's basically it.

You now have a stock, rooted phone that you can start to play with. I'd say play with it for a little while on the stock ROM before switching to another, that way you'll get a feel for what you gain or lose, and if the various trade-offs are worth it.

Before doing any of that stuff, though, read through this thread:

Read this before posting. MT4G Slide Compendium

That will get you a little more familiar with the terminology, and provide helpful links to start exploring what you need to know.

Also read as much of this thread as you can stand:

S-OFF for Retail (S-ON) Devices, NOTE ADDED 8/17/11

This S-OFF for retail is the thread that officially announced the Revolutionary exploit for S-OFF here. The links in the OP will take you to where you need to go to get it.

If you get through that one, then this is a follow up:

PERMANENT-ROOT (NEW!) & Temp-Root (v2) for any MT4GS (Windows)

The temp-root thread is a bit confusing, because before we got S-OFF you could root the phone until you rebooted it. Once the Revolutionary S-OFF method was out, this thread also ran tandem with the official announcement thread. Because it was also dealing with temp root, it led to a lot of confusion.

There is some really good info in that thread, but I recommend reading the official release thread first. It'll make more sense that way, and you may not even have to check the temp-root thread.

(again, this lends to the evolving nature of what we're learning here - hard to keep it organized as it grows.)

Also, this thread: How To Turn S-Off, Install MoDaCo Clockworkmod Recovery, and Install a Rom For Dummie

Was written as a summary on how to get S-OFF and Root, because of how convoluted and looong the two previously mentioned threads got.

Once you hit this point, you're basically set.

My next move would be to install busybox, which you can find in the market, then immediately flash the Security patch to fix a glaring security flaw created by HTC.

At this point i'd make another nandroid backup.

They are all un-rootable, but once you go from S-ON to S-OFF that's a one-way trip. Several people have reported exchanging their devices after returning to stock with an S-OFF bootloader without issue.

This is returning to T-Mobile, though, it's questionable if HTC will accept a return directly of a device with an S-OFF bootloader.

As mentioned, upgrade to the official Clockworkmod recovery as soon as possible. From here on out it will be the only supported recovery.

I'm working on releasing the updated version of Bulletproof right now, actually, and you'll like that one. Should be out in a day or so. The original developer is moving on and is handing it off to me.

I've just spent the last....dunno how long working at it, and needed to take 5 and clear my head. Cruised through the XDA MT4GS forums as i'm winding down for a break, and you caught me at a good time to give a response.

CM7 just got officially put on hold, but with your interest in the camera you probably wouldn't have gone for that right away. It's an alpha release, and we are very excited to have official CM support for the device, but since Ice Cream Sandwich ( Android 4.0 ) source code was just released, the CM team is focusing on that and it's likely to be a while before the CM7 for our phone sees an update.

Honestly, i'm more excited that they are focusing so exculsively on Ice Cream Sandwich, because that means a lot more for all the phones and devices beyond just our own version of CM7.

I'll leave other ROM recommendations to others who will surely come through here and tell you more about them.

Pretty much all of the ROMs will support both the Camera app (in its entirety, included in the ROM) and Google maps.

The alpha port of CM7 is the only one (pretty sure) that doesn't support the camera, because the camera is tied into the sense frameworks. CM7 has no Sense components to it, and it was stated very clearly in the thread that it never will. The CM team and their ROM is worth losing the camera app over to a lot of people, and they are the lone exception to the "no camera app" stigma.

Keeping the camera app is one of the things that has been driving development around here, and very few people were willing to use or invest time in making a ROM that would exclude it.

I should take this time to point out that the stock gps configurations are, well, flat out wrong. Misconfigured, and it doesn't work well.

Myself and another developer independently spent a lot of time working on fixing this issue, and when we realized what each other were doing we also realized that we had the piece of the puzzle the other needed to make it work.

We released a collaboration that solved the problem, which you can find here: GPS lock too long or not at all? Try this

If you want to know how my half of the puzzle works, that thread will explain it in almost excrutiating detail. I recommend my patch over the other developers, as he is no longer with us and I will only be continuing support in my thread.

Just cruise through my backup thread. Post 1 is an adb method, post 2 is the nandroid method. If you have any questions, post them in that thread and help us try to maintain some kind of order (hah!)

Honestly, don't ever worry about asking too many or too long of a question, as long as you don't post the question itself as a new thread in the development section of the MT4GS forums.

I'm sorry to hear it took such a bad experience for you to become as cautious as you are, but now that you're long past it you are much better off.

I'd much rather see someone ask questions, read some stuff, ask more questions, and then act on knowledge then just go and do and then say "I broke it, what do I do".

I'm happy to help either way, but if the information is there already then reading it before you start is much better then retroactively. Save the "how do I fix it" for uncharted territory learning things that aren't already common knowledge.

Again, part of the problem is that information is so convoluted because we keep adding to it as we learn new things. You can't really structure it before you know what it's going to be.

Myself and a few others have been trying to put effort into organizing things, but it's really a monumental task and i'd like to develop new things more so then catalogue what we already know. It's a crappy balance, but I try to put equal time to developing and organizing/answering questions.

I hope this helped you out some, I know I didn't completely cover it all but it should give you some things to chew on and help you sift through the data by spending more time on the relevant parts. Even then it's still a lot that you should know.

Don't be afraid to ask questions, one of the reasons I go into such depth is because people can correct me precisely where i'm wrong if I am about something.

You learn more when you're willing to admit you don't know something, then to pretend you do for whatever reason. Asking the right questions depends on being honest about what you do and don't know with yourself, so fire away.

I've got to get outside for a few minutes, then get back into coding, but someone else will come along and add to this soon enough.

Take care!