[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II SGH-I777] wgoldfarb:
Sorry for the long post, I am noob that is getting more confused the more I read. I consider myself knowledgeable in other areas, but not very confident when it comes to Linux and Android.

I recently upgraded to the official ICS release and I am very disappointed. I had been using a stock SGS2 for a while. I had looked into rooting and decided against it, as I did not feel i knew enough to do it confidently. Now, after upgrading to the official release of ICS, I decided I cannot wait any more. I won't go into the reasons, but the ICS upgrade is (for me) very disappointing and a step down from stock GB. As a complete noob, however, I have spent a lot of time "lurking" here at XDA, reading tons of threads to try to educate myself to the point I feel confident enough to attempt rooting the phone. The more I read, the more confused I get. Since the rooting process depends on the phone and version of the OS you use, I have found conflicting instructions, which are not always 100% clear as to which android version they refer to. Other websites even provide generic instruction for the Galaxy S2 without specifying which version of the phone they refer to.

I was hoping someone here could point me to a guide or tutorial that gives reliable information for the I777 on stock ICS. As an example, a lot of the links on this FAQ thread or even on this one by creepyncrawly appear to be for earlier versions of the OS, and not for ICS. Other websites provide even worse information, but based on everything I have read so far, users here at XDA seem to be by far the most knowledgeable, so here I am :)

Here is what I have so far, I would greatly appreciate if someone could confirm whether the threads below are reliable guides for the i777 on stock ICS, or if there are other (better) threads I should be reading. I am having a hard time deciding which guides I can rely on for ICS on the I777. Instead of a step-by-step recipe, I would prefer material I can read to understand what I am doing and educate myself.

- Rooting: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1650948. This seems reliable enough, but since I have found conflicting info elsewhere I wanted to confirm that this is indeed the best thread to follow to root the I777 on ICS safely.

- I have also read that the infamous eMMC "superbrick" bug *is* present in the kernel of this official release of ICS. I understand this means that if I attempt a factory reset or wipe of my phone, even if unrooted, I could brick the phone. Is this correct? If so, is there a particular rooting method recommended to prevent this from happening during the rooting process? Many of the guides I have read strongly suggest a wipe of the phone before starting, which would seem a huge risk given this bug. Or am I missing something?

I have read tons of threads on this forum which answer some of these questions, but the answers are not always the same and sometimes even contradict each other. So, if someone could point out which guides, threads or tutorials are the most reliable ones for the I777 on ICS, I would greatly appreciate it and will get reading!

If this is the wrong forum to post this, I apologize.