[Asus Transformer TF700] norkle:
CROMBi-kk ROM installation lessons - ROM2SD, tweaks

Another big thank you to sdbags, lj50036 and _that for all their work on the TF700T and getting CROMBi-kk to such a great state.

Thought I would make some comments about my install in case it helps others from making the mistakes I made. WARNING: dangerously long post, failing to take a breath during reading may lead to health problems.

About my install:

TF700T with CROMi-X 5.4 installed internal

Fastish SanDisk Ultra UHS-1 64GB microSD (look for fast random write performance, I use Androbench as my guide)

Installing CROMBi-kk 20140517 using ROM2SD so I can try kitkat without borking my CROMi-X.

What I did:

I unlocked and ROM'ed my TF700T a long time ago. If you are new to ROM'ing, this post will probably only serve to confuse.

Made sure I understood what ROM2SD offered, and some of the related terms like ROM2SD, DATA2SD, nandroid backups, partitioning, EXT4 filesystem, GParted, kernels, recovery. I have experience ROM'ing other devices and with CROMi-X on TF700T. Am familiar with using terminal on android, booting to fastboot and recovery, using adb, moving files to/from microSD & TF700T. I don't wrangle init.d, scripts or build.prop, but I know what they are and how to check details about them if directed.

Made a nandroid backup of my CROMi-X install and made sure I had a copy off-device. This turned out be essential and was used multiple times. Made sure I had copies on my microSD of the CROMBi-kk ROM, the CROMi-X Kernels 5.2 zip, recovery zip.

ROM2SD allows multi-booting so I experimented with multiple CROMBi-kk installs. This allowed me to first get ROM2SD working, then checking the additional tweaks offered in the installer, and finally testing out F2FS. I kept a spreadsheet as a log to remember what installer options I chose each time.

What I learnt:

CROMBi-kk really has everything you need to do ROM2SD with F2FS (other than GParted to partition your microSD). I got sidetracked by reading other kernel, ROM2SD and F2FS threads WHICH ONLY CAUSED PROBLEMS DUE TO CONFLICTING ADVICE. I would have been much better off if I had made my backups then just tried installing CROMBi-kk and carefully noting the installer options, to better understand what it is capable of. I'll post the current installer questions separately in case it helps others.

CROMBi-kk can NOT be installed on top of CROMi-X. Just because sdbags is a ROM god doesn't mean this is the Kit Kat upgrade from CROMi-X. They come from completely different bases. Despite a big read warning at the top of the Dev post, I still made this mistake (along with other's I've since seen in the forums).

Once you have dual-boot up and running, to choose between internal or ROM2SD ROM, have the microSD inserted or ejected at boot. I spent ages mistakenly thinking changing kernels changed boot behaviour (thought I had read that in CROMi-X discussions).

if you use anything other than GParted to format your microSD the ROM may not recognise the DATA2SD/ROM2SD partitions and will sit at the boot animation.

ROM2SD is great, but it must share the kernel with your internal ROM. For me, CROMBi-kk ROM2SD installs didn't update the kernel (caution on sdbags part?) but the installer doesn't warn you of this.

There are lots of DATA2SD1.zip/ROM2SD1.zip's out there. Only use the ones in the CROMBi-kk Dev forum post (they help the recovery 'see' the DATA2SD/ROM2SD partitions instead of internal).

I spent a lot of time trying to wipe microSD DATA2SD/ROM2SD partitions in recovery. I recommend only using GParted and not trying DATA2SD/ROM2SD wipes.

F2FS is intended for /data. CROMBi-kk's installer allows you to choose if you want to install to F2FS on internal or DATA2SD. But you must format the partitions to F2FS yourself. If your device tries to use F2FS but finds EXT4 you will boot and reach a notification that your device encryption has failed and to reset the device (DON'T: Power off instead).

I learnt a lot about Android's boot process and interaction with recovery, kernel and filesystems. In hindsight I would get .zip's of the kernels used by CROMBi-kk (already had it for CROMi-) so I could quickly change kernels (remember - only one kernel shared between internal and ROM2SD).

On Dalvik, the Quadrant benchmarking performance is similar between CROMi-X and CROMBi-kk. Haven't been able to get ART working yet, but that reportedly skyrockets the scores to those shown in the Dev post.

Conclusions:

Keep things simple. Take backups and expect to lose everything and brick your device :) Personally I would suggest you get familiar with plain vanilla CROMBi-kk before worrying about ROM2SD or F2FS. I learnt a lot from the process, but ROM2SD and F2FS don't make startling changes to my TF700T performance to make it worthwhile on that basis (my benefits were trying -kk before losing -X, learning more about ROM'ing, experiementing with TF700T tweaks to improve performance).

sdbags, lj50036 and _that (amongst others) do a great job, but at times there isn't a lot of good information on what you are about to do, and to be honest I find the unthreaded forum posts painful. If you want to do a lot of experimenting, you will do well to become familiar with the forum posts.

To me CROMBi-kk can be used now to replace CROMi-X, YMMV. If you're planning on using ROM2SD and F2FS, the dev's are cooking up an update the auto-detects the partitions and adjusts on the fly (_that's droid-penguins are killer).

If you found this post useful, please remember to click Thanks below. Errors? Let me know and I'll update the post.

---------- Post added at 11:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:02 AM ----------

CROMBi-kk 140517 Installer Prompts

From my previous post, in case it helps others. (Sorry for the formatting, can't work out how to do indented unordered lists in the editor).

Installer Theme

Wipe Dalvik & Cache

Kernel:

CM11 stock by lj50036/sdbags

_that Modded Asus OC Kernel v9 by lj50036/_that/sdbags

Hunds Modded ET OC Kernel v3.4.5 by hundsbuah/LMK/sdbags

Don’t flash kernel

Data2SD/Rom2SD (Must have EXT4 or F2FS partitions on MicroSD:

Install INTERNAL CROMBi-kk (Install /data and /system internally)

Install Data2SD (install /data to MicroSD)

Install Rom2SD (install /data & /system to microSD - allows dual-booting)

EXT4/F2FS Options:

Install EXT4 compatibility mode (Stock Mode)

Install F2FS compatibility mode (Next screen will show optoins)

F2FS Options (F2FS only)

Internal data - F2FS and External data = F2FS

Internal data = EXT4 and External data = F2FS

Internal data = F2FS and External data = EXT4

Enable Data Journalling (EXT4 only)

Enable (Default)

Disable (WARNING: can cause data corruption)

DPI

Resolution

Boot Animation

Launcher/s

Google Apps

Misc Apps

Tweaks

Browser2RAM

AdBlock Hosts file

IO Tweak: Disable fsync

Zip Align Apps

Xposed Framework

GPU Rendering 1: Force GPU Rendering (for 2D)

GPU Rendering 2: Disable Software Rendering