[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S 4] Maliron:
I gotta say, I appreciate your tenacity here.

I too am fairly new to all this on the S4. I have done plenty of other flashes on other devices, and every time I go to work on a new device the learning curve is steep.

The 'scene' for lack of a better term has become a very convoluted mess filled with people that are quick to berate and think everyone is an illiterate asshole looking for a handout.

Everyday there seems to be another term or something I have not heard of. It is all well and good for the experts that have been in the thick of it from day one to just say, "Go read the forums!!!111one" and I get it, too many times the same questions are being asked. But the fact remains that if a single post like this would get stickied and maybe placed at the top General Q&A thread we would have an easy place to go for our answers and wouldn't have to start a new thread with a question like this and get flamed.

I mean good grief, you start reading the forum for OctOS, and nowhere does it say you cannot come from anything other than MDK originally. It does say that TWRP is the only supported method, but Safestrap, once booted it says at the top "Safestrap 3.70 (TWRP v2.6.3.1)" so how are we not to be confused?

You start reading a thread from the beginning and get terms like AOSP, GPe, Aroma, LOKI, Odexed, Deodexed, etc.. and all you can do is start searching for what each of those mean, which leads to you countless threads of "Shut up you lazy puke, and go read the forums!"

I know I'm ranting, but honestly, if you are taking the time to post a flame and tell someone to go read, then you could take the time and help point them in the right direction instead. I really appreciate the time both you guys took to answer his (and my) questions. It honestly did help me, and it was just a plain simple answer. I am glad I continued to read the thread though, because it certain started off as one of those 'shutup and read' threads. If there were something as simple as "So you want to mod you VZW S4?", stickied at the top of the S4 General forum, I for one would not have ended up here reading this same thread because I was in the same boat as this poor guy. Hell just making this thread a sticky would save you countless hours of replying to threads and telling people to read. I know all too well though that there are plenty lazy people out there just looking for the quick answer though, so believe me, I understand. But please remember we were all noobs at one point in time, and sometimes just need to ask someone for help.

So the long and short of it is, for us that were not smart enough to block or not take updates, or were unfortunate enough to have to swap equipment, if we are past the MDK build then we are stuck only being able to: root, install Safestrap 3.70, and possibly install one of the few Safestrap compatible roms based off the ME7 or MK2 official builds. I assume this is because the bootloader is locked on these versions and will only boot ROMS that have the same base signature, right? At least that is what I have been able to piece together from the countless threads I have tried reading and understanding.

And just because I mentioned them:

AOSP - Android Open Source Project, The raw version of Android that is free to use and modify for everyone. Countless custom roms are built on this.

GPe - Google Phone Edition? Not quite sure on this one. I think it means all the out-of-the-box Google Apps Functionality. Though I am still hazy.

Aroma - I believe this is a set of install scripts used by custom rom devs now days that allows their users to install the options they want. I have yet to be able to use a rom that has it, so I am not sure.

LOKI - A tool from Dan Rosenberg that allows people to bypass locked bootloaders. Verizon quickly caught the hole it used though and was patched after MDK, so that is why we on MK2 cannot have nice things.

Odexed vs. Deodexed - Refers to how an application runs and more specifically how it's memory space is handled. There is a nice write up but I am not allowed to post a link, essentially though odexed based ROMs will boot on the first load more quickly but are very customizible as far as themes and such go. Deodexed ROMs have to build the cache from instructions in the APK files, which take longer for the first boot only, or after a Dalvik wipe, and are just as fast after that first boot. Deodexed are more customizable.

Sorry for the long post, I am just tired of seeing threads that start off like these, while in the search for information. It was nice to see someone provide some guidance in the end though and I wanted to acknowledge that and rant a bit. [/RANT]