[ONE Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Timmmmaaahh!:
I read all of it :silly:

It's hard to compare flashing different brands. Even though the mechanics are the same, they all respond very differently. Huawei is one of the least developer friendly brands out there. They have encrypted bootloaders that require you to get in touch with them in order to receive an unlock key. However, Huawei/Honor stopped doing this a while back. There are paid services though, whom probably have contracts with Huawei. It's dodgy business and what matters is that they turned their back on developer communities so from an ethical point of view I will not provide support for Huawei and sub-branded devices. The Ideos X5 is really old (2.2 Froyo, wow!) so you might be in more luck.

Yes, it's basically safe. [MENTION=2948558]Spannaa[/MENTION] covered that perfectly.

Hmm, that all sounds very software related. If you've given your Bacon enough care, it can probably endure for another while with a software refresher. No guarantees of course. Care to share a link to the game you were looking forward to? I can test it on my Bacon for you.

One doesn't need to get into programming to understand flashing. I'm more of a graphics person myself (made my own avatar and signature :victory:) but I'm quite familiar with flashing mechanics. But they remain full of surprises! XDA is an excellent place to gather modding resources because it has a strong moderation team that overlooks the trustworthiness of information. My willingness to help support an "old" device is strongly affiliated with my love for the device. It's basically where my "XDA career" really took off. My experiences with Bacon has taught me so much. It's only fair to share :)

Whipping things doesn't really relate to technology :laugh:

Wiping, however, basically means 'deleting everything'. The basic construct is the following. Your device contains a few important partitions in this process: system, data and cache (there are more but let's just focus on these for now). /cache consists of two partitions (cache and ART/Dalvik cache) but you can ignore that as they are the most negligible ones because they only contain temporary data to make your system run faster. It's only important to wipe them because if you flash a new system and the cache still contains data of the old system it will cause conflicts and crashes.

/system contains the operating system: Android. This partitions now holds Cyanogen Operating System on your device. This includes the OS, its kernel and all system apps. As long as the bootloader is locked, nothing can change the state of 'system' except for official (signed with an encrypted signature) updates. "But why can I update system apps then?", I hear you ask.

This is where /data kicks in. /data builds upon the system in the form of settings you change and system apps you update. If Candy Crush came preinstalled on your device (not the case for Bacon, just making an example) and you've played it for a while, the core app will be on the /system partition but all subsequent updates and your level progress will be in /data. So if you wipe /data, Candy Crush will still be there but it'll be an older version and will act like you've never played it before. /data also holds all user-installed apps and their settings.

A factory reset wipes /data and /cache partitions, leaving system intact. So you still have the same OS but all user data will be gone. It basically returns to the state you got the device in.

There's another partition that we call 'internal storage', also referred to as /sdcard. That contains user files (downloads, photos, videos, music, documents, etc.). It's the partition you see when the device is connected to your PC or when you access a file explorer on the device. I know 'sdcard' is confusing because this device doesn't support SD cards, that's just unfortunate naming by Google.

That's a funny thread but I don't believe you should turn the other way if you don't understand but have a willingness to learn. You are clearly interested in digging into this and it's no doubt a fun learning process. Root is the word used for the lowest system level. Like the root of your PC being "C:". Root access if a free pass to change

everything

. Unlocking the bootloader enables the possibility to root so it's nothing more than a two-step process to unlock all access. Flashing is what comes next because if you wipe the aforementioned partitions, your device is just about completely void: no OS, no apps, no settings. Flashing is the act of installing a new (custom) OS, equipping the OS with Google elements (flashing Gapps to allow access to Play Store, Gmail, etc.) and more advanced modding.

The kernel is the core of Android and allows the software to communicate with the hardware. A custom kernel (can be flashed separately) can tweak the OS to interact with the hardware differently in order to make things faster, more battery friendly, etc. However, it's important not to get into this until you master the basics of flashing. When you flash a ROM, it holds both the Android OS and a (default or customized) kernel. So stick with ROM flashing for now, ignore the whole kernel concept. Flashing the wrong kernel can do a lot of damage.

I don't have any experience with it but it looks like it focuses more on basic aspects and less on development/flashing. Looks properly moderated though. I can't vouch for or against it.

Your mindset is spot on and eventually you'll have to make that choice for yourself. I'll remain present to help out when needed. "You may kill your phone" does need some nuance as this very rarely happens. It's like playing the lottery but inverted: thousands of chances to win but one chance to get nothing :eek:

You're most welcome. :)