yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
Thoughts - SlimICS

Hi All,

Been a while since I posted some thoughts on a ROM, but been using Slim now a while - started on 3.5 and am now on 4.0. This is my daily use phone and while I am a somewhat heavy user my primary uses are:

Phone

SMS/MMS

Email (Gmail and Exchange)

Video (MX Player over Skifta / YouTube)

Browsing (stock browser)

Some games (word games / angry birds - yes, Angry Birds *sigh*)

Additionally, there are some tweaks I make before using Slim that work for me. They are:

Modify Build.Prop as per my OP

Modify GPS.conf as per my OP

Replace the Kernel with Semaphore (1.2.2s at present)

Replace the modem with TLJ3 (only valid if coming from GB, otherwise Slim keeps your existing modem)

Replace the Launcher with Nova Prime

Replace the keyboard with SwiftKey X (Beta 3 at present)

exDailer (Miui dialer is really much better than stock, so I replace it with this)

I add a lot more sounds and ring tones - the base set is pretty limited.

I have to say I really like this ROM. Has a number of features that make it very useful. The big pros for me are:

Battery Life. I adjust wifi, sync, and data when not using them, but battery life on this is really good for my usage.

System tray - so nice having the weather, toggles and brigtness RIGHT there.

Sound adjustment - can quick adjust ALL sounds - not just ring tone - from the home screens

Lots of kewl features to adjust the clock (new in 4.0) and quiet time is nice

LCD density makes the display smaller but shows SO much more information. Works well with Nova Launcher

Rampant updates - this developer is VERY active - and builds are super stable.

Mixed with Semaphore - speed is great and UI is very fluid.

Nice lockscreen customization and options - not as nice as MIUI but close

OTA updates are super convenient

I really don't have a con other than with exception of some notable extra features above, its stock AOSP. I find with most ROMs they all generally look the same (with the exception of MIUI) but even MIUI looks like AOSP if you replace their launcher.

All in all, my favourite ROM in a long time - and the update.me application makes it pretty easy to tweak things that you want to change (like adding gallery back, etc.).

Worth trying out - I would try some other new ROMs but haven't had the time, and nothing has ticked me off about this ROM to make me want to swtich (which is usually why I switch).

Cheers for now folks, have a great weekend!
[Fascinate General] kagedtime:
Well I just flashed Gummy 1.2. So far so good. AOSP with a fair amount of customization suits me perfectly. I will report back if I run into any issues.

Oh I forgot to clear data before I flashed but I haven't run into any issues yet. My fingers are crossed.

Sent from my SGH-T959D
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
Cool - can you post some screenshots as well - especially of any custom features to that ROM that might make it appealing :)
[Fascinate General] kagedtime:
Gummy

Here is a handful of screenshots. If there's anything specific you would like to see let me know. It uses the same theme choser as AOKP and CM so there's plenty of selection if you like that kind of thing. The boot animation is a little... unique. click here if you want to see, luckily you can turn it off. If you reboot your phone a lot it get's a little annoying with the music.

I'm still running icyglitch which was the default that came with the rom. Atleast until I get around to flashing Semaphore.
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
Looks pretty good. Will be interested in your impressions :)

</not an iPhone>
[Fascinate General] jonnyb16:
new problem here, the other day I flashed to slim 3.8 and since then if I lose signal or turn on airplane mode I can't regain signal unless I replace my efs folder. I have too keep replacing the efs several times a day just to use the phone.

I've had a bunch of flashes since my last wipe so I decided to completely wipe/format the phone and start fresh with 4.0 but the problem is persisting.
[Fascinate General] finneginsfast:
Did you flash from froyo or gb? Also, if you include a step by step of what you did before flashing slim maybe someone here will be able to figure out what went wrong.
[Fascinate General] jonnyb16:
I first backed up with TB then wiped the phone as per directions at the beginning of the thread. I flashed back to froyo then updated to gb with kies. I didnt bother rooting the phone as I already have my efs saved from earlier. Then I flashed speedmod, glitch, then slim,essesentials, gapps and finally semaphore 1.2.2s and jl3 modem(the ics version).
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
Odd. Just tried airplane mode and everything returned fine. Not sure what it can be.

</not an iPhone>
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
Wait... Did you restore system data from TB?

</not an iPhone>
[Fascinate General] jonnyb16:
Yeah I did
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
Yeah, don't do that :)

System data is very Rom specific. When switching roms (or rom versions) you only want to restore user apps, and I would even be cautious on restoring those with data.

</not an iPhone>
[Fascinate General] jonnyb16:
Ah, good to know. I'll see if that fixes it up, thanks
[Fascinate General] finneginsfast:
I know people always say this (talking about user apps with data) but I always do it and never have issues. If you don't do it, there is no way to get your data back, some if it is cumulative and very much needed. So what's the way around not restoring data then? Can't be done...
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
Same here Finn. I *never* restore system data though as that will definitely lead to issues.

When restoring from TB I typically restore apps first that I want the data for - most apps though store their data in the cloud, so all you are really restoring is maybe some preferences and login information.

Then I restore apps as "just apps" if I didn't need or care about the data.

Only exception is Nova Launcher - which I restore with data last - so it has all the apps and widgets that I had set in preferences.

So its just a precaution - definitely something you want to watch as some apps may be problematic when restoring data - but like you Finn - I have not run into an issue doing that, but system data should almost never be restored.
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
Oh, and not sure if that was a question - but in TB you do have the option for restore app only - and that will not restore any data but will restore the application - saves you the time of doing it through Play Store.
[Fascinate General] jonnyb16:
Well I did a wipe and restored app only. Everything is working fine now. Thanks for the tips!
[Fascinate General] finneginsfast:
Good catch by the way Jp.

One of the things that I find contributes to a clean flash is to do "wipe data/factory reset and wipe data cache" both before as well as immediately after flashing a rom(before reboot). I know if I forget to do this problems will and can occur. It's such an easy thing to do and only takes a second to do it and can save an hour or 2 having to reflash again in a few days.
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
I was inspired. I was watching Sherlock Holmes when it came to me ;)

</not an iPhone>
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
Awesome. You can still restore app data and for you need it for an app. Just go into TB and restore data only for selected user apps.

Glad everything worked out.

</not an iPhone>
[Fascinate General] moosehead11:
I was just curious do you find you get better battery life using Data or leaving WIFI on when available??
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
I definitely do. End of the day the biggest battery eater is using the phone, but leaving data and wifi off when not needed is huge.

For an experiment charge your phone to 100% and leave unplugged with wifi and data on overnight. Then do the same for the same time period with them off. Your phone should sleep so theoretically this will show the burn differences with just those options.

</not an iPhone>
[Fascinate General] moosehead11:
Sorry i meant using WIFI instead of Mobile Data (modem i guess) for syncing, email or whatever...i currently have Juice defender running and it has Data off when the screen is off and runs a sync every 30min...i have WIFI access at work and home and was wondering if having it on there or anywhere there is a hotspot would help with battery life
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
Wifi I find uses less battery than data, but I don't have hard evidence of that :)

</not an iPhone>
[Fascinate General] moosehead11:
Thank

Maybe tomorrow i will just use WIFI and see how it goes
[Fascinate General] Dayfid:
I would have bought those but Amazon doesn't accept PayPal so instead I bought these: http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=320919855332

They're probably cheap considering the price but whatever. It comes with 3 batteries so it should be good enough for me. Something I liked about the ones you bought was the charger station thing, because it allows you to charge the battery and your phone at the same time which would have been a good feature. Oh well.

Hopefully these batteries work better than my current one. :P
[Fascinate General] HunchedoverPhone:
Phone/modem gets no service after successful Slim 4.0 instal

I rooted my phone some time ago, but I finally took the plunge into an ICS rom - Slim 4.0 (for the Vibrant T959, I have the T959d) last night.

Since then I haven't been able to get a signal from Bell. I unlocked this phone about two months ago and everything worked fine. I followed the instructions about editing the spn-conf and other files posted on p. 1. Then I flashed Perka's file of Modem TLJL3 ICS.CM.i9000.zip using the Slim recovery mode.

Before the upgrade to the Slim rom the phone was 2.3.3. unlocked for Bell.

I have no trouble connecting to Wifi, and everything else seems to work fine except for a few features in the settings menu: NS Tools for one.

Do any of you have any idea about what I should try next to get cell service from Bell?

Also, does anyone know how to get rid of the crappy app graphics that Slim produces? Can this be avoided or is this what makes it run faster?

Thanks

HunchedoverPhone in Ontario heat wave
[Fascinate General] finneginsfast:
I'm going to venture a guess, sounds like you flashed the wrong rom there. You should be flashing the i9000 build for a sgh-t959d. I'd try again and see what happens.
[Fascinate General] HunchedoverPhone:
Still no phone function

I've gone back and flashed the i9000 essentials.zip file over the installation (slim 4.0), and I've checked the files associated with the telco number, but the phone continues to search for a connection. Not really sure what to do now...
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
So sounds like Finn is right. I'm assuming by your response you flashed the essentials only for I9000 - you need to do a bit more than that.

http://code.google.com/p/slimics-40/downloads/list

You need to get BOTH the BASE and ESSENTIALS for the I9000 as well as slim_gapps.zip (not device specific).

Flash the base, then the essentials, then the GAPPS - do NOT reboot in between.

Hopefully that will fix you up - given you flashed a bad ROM, you may want to factory re-set - if so ensure you have your backups of your apps (i.e. Titanium backup) and ensure you have a copy of your EFS folder stored somewhere too.

If you STILL cannot get a cell after that, I would go into settings and look at your APN configuration - maybe that got lost somehow.

But first things first, load the I9000 ROM up on your phone

NOTE: Vibrant *should* work, but personally I have never tired a vibrant ROM and have always had success with I9000s - not without some challenges though. :o)

Good luck!
[Fascinate General] spacekobra:
Is anyone still on Miui? I want to know if its starting to have a laggy feel or if its just me.

I think I'm gonna try cyanogen mod next. So long as I can keep theming. I like the miui metro icons
[Fascinate General] finneginsfast:
I'm on it, no lag here.
[Fascinate General] spacekobra:
Which kernel? (Just to make sure its not semaphore failing on me)

I dunno, it got laggy after the latest update for me. It might be related to an app though.
[Fascinate General] finneginsfast:
Running Andy Thomson's MIUI v2.6.18 deodexed and upgraded to Semaphore v1.2.5s overclocked to 1200MHz, smartassV2 and smooth ui.
[Fascinate General] spacekobra:
Ah, I'm on 1.2.0. That might do it. I'll have to upgrade semaphore.
[Fascinate General] kagedtime:
Well I've used gummy for ten days now.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1543992 Everything was going well then about 5 days in I started getting random reboots. Usually around noon. I wouldn't have known about them if it wasn't for Gummy's terrible boot animation and music. So I cleared data etc. and flashed again. Its only happened once since then but a new problem appeared. Now my Gmail won't sync and needs to be opened for it to load emails.

I'm still enjoying the feel of the rom and the few extras that have been thrown in too. So I will mess around with the account settings and maybe reinstall the Gmail app to see if that fixes it.

I would recommend this rom to people who are patient and don't mind a bump here and there. Kind of like my G Tab. You need to see past the quirks. ;) Overall though I haven't had a problem with smoothness or responsiveness. It is obviously much harder on ram than slim but I haven't encountered any issues there yet either.

As for customization there is no shortage of options for lock screen styles and colours for the status bar icons. Combined with supporting the majority of themes that I have tried you can get some pretty cool looks. Right now I'm using holo orange which is nice and bright.

There is a few selections for battery meters too. I like the round one.

If anyone was wondering about Gummy I hope that helps.

To sum it up since I rambled on there a bit: smooth, stabilish and customizable.

Not rom related but I thought I would mention that I like that the Glitch kernel causes the soft keys to glow when a message comes in. Very handy since I don't always here my phone when I'm in the warehouse, but I can see it sitting on my desk.
[Fascinate General] spacekobra:
Gummy is aosp?

I'm having so much trouble deciding a rom to try next. I want it to be fresh and something you guys haven't used so that we can get an opinion on it.
[Fascinate General] finneginsfast:
Good luck ;) not much around that hasn't been tried yet.
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
Cm9 or tirmiaSlim perhaps

</not an iPhone>
[Fascinate General] spacekobra:
Well I have cm9 on my list. I'll probably try both over the next while. I suddenly came across huge amounts of free time
[Fascinate General] spacekobra:
Bad idea, actually. It has wifi issues. I need my wifi. Tiramislim it is
[Fascinate General] ebenze:
Just keep in mind that box.net doesn't seem to do any specific encryption for Personal accounts, so make sure to use the TitianiumBackup Pro encryption option for security.
[Fascinate General] Matt5606:
No worries man, that's what we are here for, to help you out with your questions the best we can.

Agreed! lol

Different modems have different configurations, not really sure what they do exactly, but we've all been trying different modems to get better service depending on where you live. I've been using KJ3 lately and it seems to be pretty good for "bars" pretty much everywhere i go.

Recovery mode is just that, allows you to recover your phone with a backup file, kinda like windows restore, in case you start having problems with it, or you just want to install something else (such as new kernels, new roms, or even new modems) You do access it by holding vol up/down & pwr together until the first screen (T959D) comes up, then when it goes black and comes back you just release the power button until recovery comes up. Download mode allows you to flash new firmware through Odin, a program you use on your computer, and it allows you to install pretty much anything and can access all files on your phone, and even allow it to change the file structure.

I backup mine by just copying and pasting the files i want to save onto my laptop so i can just transfer them back over afterwards. Contacts are saved with my google account so i get them back with my account sync.

Rooted allows you to make changes to the system files, files you normally can't access under mass storage. It will also allow you to uninstall the pre-loaded software that comes on the phone, which is sometimes all you need!

You can, i believe jp has a link for the stock Froyo on the OP for you to download, and it will put your phone back to stock, like the day you took it out of the box.

I dont really know too much about this, but there is so much talk in the forums about not even clearing it because your battery is "calculated" by charge time and whatnot. You'll have to check out the forums.

Again, i'm not too sure about this either, but from what i understand, there are many customs roms that use a different file system than what came on your phone. If you were to flash back to stock and not repartition, you wont be able to get it back to truly stock so you have to tick that box.

I normally do my flashing on my laptop, with it plugged into the wall. That way if the power DOES go out, i've still got my battery and that should be more than enough power to do what i've got to in case that was to happen.

I flashed back to Froyo last night just to get the GB bootloaders lol. After going to froyo, it took me literally FOREVER to get kies working properly to finally upgrade to GB. Once i did that, i had a b**** of a time trying to get S1C working (can't figure out why, seems every other time it was painless) to get my root back. Copied my EFS, then followed your steps JP. The only thing i would add to your OP is where to place the speedmod kernel in Odin. Luckily i remember reading where you put it in another post, so that saved me. Other than that, it works awesome!

On a side note, that glitch splash screen = freakin rocks! That looks sick, too bad we couldn't keep it.
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
Just some further notes to Matt's post here (which was excellent!)

Modems - as Matt points out there's different ones - and even different ones for froyo vs. CM7/ICS/MIUI - so you do have to make sure you have the right ones. I'm using the Telus on TLJ3 at the moment, and liking it lots on ICS.

Recovery vs. Download - I think Matt pretty much explains this out. Download is like forcefeeding your phone something - where as CWM is doing things at the kernel level - so you've loaded up. A custom recovery is great for flashing ROMs, kernel, modems, scripts, etc. You can also do a backup from here which is like the image you make reference too (and highly recommended before ANY flash!)

Unlocking. This is possible, but we have not covered it ...yet.

Restoring Stock. You can restore anything IF you have the files to restore with. For us, that is FROYO - and then you can use Kies to upgrade to GB which is the latest from Samsung. The files and how to links are in the OP. Also see my notes about a jig, highly recommend having a USB jig handy.

Battery. I think battery calibration is a myth (Google stated this recently) but I still do a lot. I wipe batt stats in recovery (under advanced) before flashing a new rom - as well, there is a ton of battery calibration apps in the market. Supposedly help when flashing a new ROM. What I think works best is killing your battery to 0, then recharge to full a few times - let it 'soak'.

Repartition. Your phone is a computer :) So that is essentially what it is doing, using the latest partitions to increase read speed which translates to smoothness and speed in your ROM. EXT4 is what most phones are on, but not FROYO which is why kies fails if you did not repartition - the phone is not in a state Kies is expecting to execute its update to GB.

Odin. Yes, power failure can brick your phone BUT if you have a jig - hell, sometimes even vol down while you plug in the USB from a dead state works but a jig works best.

C'est ca - read up, knowing is half the battle, and let us know how we can help.
[Fascinate General] Appetisaac:
So up and running ics with 50 gigs new space and syncing Titanium.When completed can I remove the TB folder(c.5gigs) from the sd card and restore from box? Now ready to try semaphore and modem perhaps? If anyone has a moment to refresh me as to how, I would appreciate it. My location is Victoria,BC.Many thanks!
[Fascinate General] jpmccarthy:
I would test the restore from BOX first (on my to do but haven't switched yet).

So kernels. Simply download the kernel you want, reboot to recovery, and flash the zip from CWM recovery. I recommend Semaphore for ICS (ensure its the ICS version, and not the GB one - there's a thread for ICS in the OP).

Modems. Perkas file stash is the best place to look for modems - under samsung, i9000, ICS modems - then I use 850 ones. Once again, download to the root of the SD and flash from CWM recovery.
[Fascinate General] ebenze:
Thanks Matt & JP for the detailed answer.

A few questions come to mind;

1) How do you know which folders to back up? Pictures is fairly easy (DCIM). As are downloads, etc. But what about contacts/calendars/RSS/other app data/etc?

2) Is there anything that allows me to make an ghost-equivalent image of the phone in its current state such that I would be able to restore the phone to the exact same state at a later time if I were so motivated? I realize I could prob use something like TB but that still requires me to reflash a rom, configure a google account, install TB before I could do a full recovery. I'd be looking for something that would simply allow me to make the equivalent of a ghost iso image and then restore that ISO in one shot.

3) I'm having a miserable time with sync'ing contacts with my google account; contacts that are saved to the phone do not seem to be synced. Only contacts that are stored to my gmail account are. But only phone contacts have the ability to be grouped. So I'm really confused how to do things. I love the group'ing ability. But hate the fact that they don't sync/backup to google cloud.

I am assuming you mean the micro-usb jig to put the phone in download mode? I found them on DX for $1.60 shipping included, so figured it would save me the hassle of building my own.

Is there another jig that you mean?

Thanks,

Eric
[Fascinate General] koocheese:
Unfortunately, this wasn't the case for me.

I went through the steps probably 10 times over the last 2 week, everytime ticking repartition.

In the quest for recovering the IMEI, flashing back to froyo didn't restore it like it had for others. I was following bames instructions on how to recover without a good backup but his instructions were created for the AT&T captivate so the modifications would be incorrect for our fascinates.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=881162&highlight=restore+imei

I was about to ask someone here to post their data but luckily I found an old backup and was able to compare the contents of the proper and corrupted nv_data.bin files.

Here are the lines that required modifying on the corrupted nv_data.bin. I knew it was corrupted cause the instructions listed their product code but mine said Not Active.

00188008 5F 00 00 00 00 00 FF 54 _.....ÿT

00188010 4C 53 00 00 00 00 4E 6F LS....No

00188018 74 20 41 63 74 69 76 65 t Active

00188020 00 54 4C 53 00 00 00 00 .TLS....

Luckily, I found the original but I wanted to see what the difference was.

Here are the same lines from the original.

00188008 2E 30 00 00 00 00 00 4B .0.....K

00188010 4F 52 00 00 00 00 53 47 OR....SG

00188018 48 2D 54 39 35 39 48 4B H-T959HK

00188020 41 4B 4F 52 00 00 00 00 AKOR....

I'm quite certain this discrepancy was causing Kies to not offer the update.

So now I have the correct IMEI and product code SGH-T959HK and KOR, where Kies used to list (XXX) instead of (KOR). After I restored the original nv_data.bin, Kies offered the update on the first attempt.

I guess the lesson here is to backup the EFS!!:cool: