[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] uwais27:
Hey guys, I'm new to the community and I just wanted to post my 1st experience with rooting etc and follow up with a few questions!

A bit of background on my device: I've had my NS for just over 3 years now and I just recently decided (when I bought my Xperia V) that I'd like to play around with it a bit. To my knowledge, my device was one of the 1st in the country and a test dummy, and I purchased it from a friend who was working and testing for Samsung at the time. It was not linked or affiliated to Vodacom (who, if I'm correct, was the only network provider to offer the NS in S. Africa) or any other carrier for that matter. So basically due to the lack of link to any carrier, I've never received any updates or notifications to update, and have been running my stock 2.3.5 for 3 years! :eek:

Anyway, my story from yesterday was a huge learning experience. I decided that I wanted to root my NS and possibly try out a new kernel before deciding whether or not I wanted to install a custom ROM. I followed this link and managed to root my NS, install CWM recovery and everything was working pretty well using UPDATE-SuperSU-v1.65.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2034264

However I think I flashed the wrong kernel (marmite_v9.1) or for some other reason messed up, keep in mind that I was still running my stock GB which the phone came with. Either way, I was stuck on the Google boot screen for more than an hour. I fired up into fastboot and then recovery, but couldn't boot from there (I just realized that I DIDN'T make an actual backup :rolleyes:). To top it off I wiped the device (another great idea) and the device wouldn't boot into fastboot, giving me a "fastboot mode no boot recovery img" message. Somehow through flashing the CWM I managed to get the device into the correct fastboot mode, and eventually after digging for a few hours I managed to find this (stock?) soju GB ROM download, and managed to flash the boot and system images using fastboot, for some reason " fastboot flash userdata data.img" refused to flash. http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=478820

Anyway, I managed to get back to GB 2.3.5, but get this, after about half an hour on charge, I was given an update to ICS 4.0.4 :D which I obviously jumped at, and to top it off, I also have JB 4.1.1 available. My NS has finally seen the light of ICS and JB!! :svetius:

I have a few questions for those who have used ICS and JB though. On the NS, does stock JB provide a notable difference in battery life and speed? With it's hardware, is it capable of handling ICS and JB effectively?

Also, which version of marmite would be compatible with ICS? From what I've picked up, marmite 9.1 is compatible with JB, but is it compatible with ICS too, and if not, can someone please point me in the right direction for kernel(s) which work with ICS (not just marmite).

Second, are the Oxygen and Rasbeanjelly ROMs still up to date? When searching for Oxygen for NS on the forum, the most recent version I find is this which was posted over a year ago: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1605273

And this for Rasbeanjelly (among others): http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2028718

When checking out fitsnugly.euroskank, I don't see anything for the NS. :confused: . But maybe I'll consider a shot at the PA and CM ROMs and try them both in a few days :)

Finally, and this 1 is way over my head, but how does CWM work? If I do a wipe before flashing a ROM/kernel, won't that wipe my backups? Do I need to partition my sd before wiping, or does CWM do that for me, and if it not, does wiping not touch the backups?

Anyway, thanks in advance, and I hope I haven't asked too many questions which have been answered before. If I have, please bare with me and point me to the correct discussion(s) and I'll go bug some other people. :p