[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket SGH-I727] wolverine9827:
Beanstalk 205b - Summary

Finally decided a few weeks ago to load Beanstalk 4.4.205b after using the latest Dirty Unicorn for a few months. I thought I'd put my experience here for others on the fence to read and really for no better reason than to keep this thread near the top of the list so I don't have to hunt for it! LOL

Initially I had attempted to load BS from CWM 6.0.4.3 and while it loaded without error and booted up just fine... there were some small issues that showed a flawed install - namely /system was full (before anything was even loaded) so I nand restored back to my beloved DU and kept monitoring the thread for updates, advice, and others experiences that I could absorb.... I saw the OP had been changed to point to PhilZ Touch recovery for 4.4 so I went ahead and loaded his latest. I decided I'd try 205b again a few days later.

Using PhilZ recovery I performed a nand backup again and then did a clean, then a factory reset, then formatted /system, /cache, and wiped dalvik.

Then I loaded BS 205b and the 11-17_GApps_Standard_4.4_signed.zip and rebooted. After the initial cool looking logo, it loaded up to the Google setup. Through the setup I noticed that the WiFi was a bit on the spotty side so I decided to move forward with 4g only, wifi off. This could have been my workplace wifi since it has been spotty for my tablet at times. Google setup completed without incident and I immediately dove into settings to see what damage I could do :) I set my volumes, ringtones, blah blah blah.... then set the OC to 192/1670 set on boot as I had setup in DU and then launched the Play store to do my "I Accept" so Google would start updating/loading my usual apps.... all 93 of them....

At my old haunt in Sebastian, FL, my signal was usually right on the fringe of any good tower so I usually only saw speeds of between 2 and 4 mb but here in St Pete, FL, I get from 3 to 24mb! Needless to say, my apps loaded WAY faster than I expected. While the apps were loading/updating/whatever, I started poking around in the other areas of the settings and noticed SELinux state was at ENFORCING which surprised me. It had always been PERMISSIVE before... I let my phone churn and started digging a little into SELinux on KitKat and read that the default state was changed from Permissive in 4.3 to Enforcing on 4.4.... very interesting.... I had a few errors on a few apps so I opened a terminal on my phone and after 'su' typed 'setenforce 0' which puts SELinux into permissive mode. No error on command and when I flipped over to Settings/About Phone, it showed Permissive. I didn't think this would stick since I hadn't modified any startup stuff.... I let my phone sit for a while and watched it continue to load my stuff.... then it rebooted.... I thought that was odd but I let it load back up and it continued on so I let it keep going.... it rebooted twice more in the next 10 minutes but then seemed to stabilize) I noticed that SELinux status was now back to Permissive - not sure how that happened but I'm happy with that. I then put my 'special' apps on and decided to go with Go Launcher for my main squeeze. I did my usual startup cleaning and bloat removal (I abhor that damned Apollo app and it's BT stealing ways - no particular reason, it's just me and I prefer to use Google Play Music and when I hit the PLAY button on my BT headset, I DON"T need Apollo chiming in with a random song overtop of Play Music)

Now I've been on 205b for a few weeks. It's been stable as hell and no issues to report. I turned on WiFi again and it works as expected.

I miss the signal indicators for LTE and WiFi turning BLUE when the phone registers with Google Services but ho hum on the importance of that. This ROM is my new daily driver. Right now I'm taking a BT break so if and when I get back to my constant use of BT, I'll see how it handles it. Battery life is good... not stellar but not hideous... I haven't tweaked anything for the battery life yet..... I had a few issues with the dialer but after a clear data on the dialer app, that started working. Something with my restored call log bothered it. I did a full restore of my SMS messages but they never showed up for some reason.... no biggie there.....

Overall, considering how snappy and responsive Beanstalk 205b is and how well everything works. I'm hooked. I'll admit I was a bit worried since my Skyrocket is my daily driver and all but I'm a believer now!

Wantowan2, you are ridiculously amazing! Thank you for allowing my aged device to keep up with the Jones's

For anyone considering taking the 4.4 plunge, I don't believe you can do better than Beanstalk. I can't wait to see where it goes.... :good: