[Galaxy Y GT-S5360 General] musashihatred:
NOTE: Noob is not a really good word. kinda discriminating. newbie better.

THIS will GUIDE how to get on foot if your just starting on Galaxy Y, most probably, ANDROID :)

1. First Things first. Know your Phone. before doing anything, just be on the stock for a while. Know all the things, settings, install some app and alike. This way, you'll know your way through. See apps like market, Maps and others, check bugs etc.

2. Second part is knowing a basic tweak of your phone, to be exact: BATTERY SAVINGS. Know your way from this apps. See how they handle your battery life. The purpose of this is to know the performance of your phone :D

3. So you feel much better knowing your phone, you can start rooting or installing some replacement apps :D Go, ADW, Pansi, Popups, keyboards its up to you. But i dont recommend instant rooting when your just getting on foot.

Rooting wont brick the phone, maybe but its in the least.

(I wont be giving links for many threads here are available already. Its hard just to give you everything when researching can't kill one)

WHAT IS ROOTING?

rooting gives you access to the system of your phone. thats it :D

Soft ROOT-stated in the above

Hard ROOT-gives you access to the commander of the system which allows you to access the device via shell extensions and ADBs

4. Same as step 1. See how does root work for you. Dont just access the system right away using an explorer. look for apps that can help you achieve your desired goal that requires root access. a good start would be RAM tweaks.

5. Removing apps that you dont need. Its the power of Rooting that grants you this. basically, it improves RAM usage and speed of the device especially when "app-example.apk" initiates on its own. ofcourse it increases the capacity of your device.

6. KITCHENS. for a start you can use the UOT kitchen which allows you to modify some parts of the device. as far as i know, mods like transparency, lockscreen and bootanimation wont work on stock :D dont ask why coz i dunno :D sorry. so using this kitchen can allow you to change statusbar appearance pull down notif bar, etc.

but, the MAIN concern of a KITCHEN is ROMS.

ROM is the thing that the device reads for it to run properly.

ROM development are for making a benefit that can help a device achieve its fullest performance. Speeding it up, etc.

You can see the Development Page for it :D

**EXTRAS:

FLASHING

Flashing is a way of updating or down-dating your device.

Odin is the tool used in it.

If KIES wont let u update. Flashing would be good :D but you just have to download the firmware you want.

PARTITIONING.

since SGY got a small memory for internal, u can use partitions in the SDcard to let it handle some memory for you.

BOOT recovery:

it is where you flash mini updates like rooting CWMod, UOT kitchen mods and others :D

**Clockworkmod recovery / CWM is a custom CWM :D it has additional features moreover :D see for yourself

:D i guess thats it :D ill just edit it if somethings new comes:D

THIS IS FOR NEWBIES, no noob persons exist: ONLY NEWBIES.

hoped this helps :D you can just PM me for assistance but for now please bear with this simple guide :D thanks

PS: im no dev but as soon as i got my laptop ill start :) im just using a netbook and my phone for learning. so thanks :D