[myTouch 4G General] FuturePanache:
Introduction

It's 2014, and stock GingerBread is so boring, so you googled and found the best surviving Glacier rooting guide, upon the newest ROM list, but you saw the entries covered with dust, links as old as Fred Flintstone rolling towards extinction in a dinosaur powered car. You said to yourself, It's too late, the phone's dead.

Your lead is cold, and you don't feel like playing thread detective, so allow me to present, your best answer since the last phone retirement case...

Panache DD HoF Requirements

Well I do say old chap, we ought to have standards coming from a Titanic class phone, and thus...​

Stability - The least crashes, freezes, and bugs.

Function - Every hardware function works with software. Buttons! GPS! BlueTooth! WIFI! Data! Camera! Speakers! Light! Sound! Action! all working as intended.

Battery - Efficient Kernel, combined with ROM must match or exceed stock battery uptime.

Compatibility - Common apps on the market works on the phone. (Youtube, MX player, Browser, etc)

Physical upgrades

We can rebuild him, with a bigger battery!.​

SD Card: SanDisk ultra 64GB microSD from stock Samsung 8GB (iirc)

This was just an adhoc cheap fill one day on amazon.

Battery: Mugen 1700mAh Thunderbolt slim (similar size for MT4G/Panache) from stock 1400mAh OEM

Why? Stock died on 2013, charge held for literally 1 hour max, then battery started bulging.

Improvements: 48 hours uptime on light use, stock gingerbread 2.3

Also: Slightly bigger than stock 1400mAh, in length, fits very tight, no extra backcover required.

Alternatives: Anker batteries, use the search, I've heard they're the best upgrade and bang for your buck.

After Root Report

How I ate the breadcrumb trail, ROM after ROM; optional read..​

So the first thing I did was find the newest version of android and the most recent candidate.

aospSX, which was the Synthetic.Nightmare's aospX's work carried over to android 4.2.2 (Jellybean) by SteppNasty.

Looked and felt amazing, however impassable amounts of issues lead me to switch, including malfunctioning stock camera, firefox, dolphin, and stock browser stops responding, and 1-bar signal which plagued Android 4.2 (term: "signal drop" if you want to search).

So I searched for the word "stable"...

CM 7.2, the most stable version of Gingerbread, the stability and battery was amazing, but it didn't feel as good as the JB ROM before.

So I searched again, and I found a like-minded user from the past with similar objectives, Darkgiant revealed through a conversation to another user about the most stable ROMs.

The clue is CM10.0 by either 0.0 or coderz, but one is a dead link, the other have outlined issues after it got discontinued.

So I went back, double guessed myself on the older versions of Steppnasty's ROM.

2014 Stepp_aospX Editorial Correction

For installation of aforementioned ROM, some non-obvious things he didn't mention..​

To summon the proper Steppnasty's ROM for your android... you must:

Install the Stepp_aospSX Final

Fix Permissions

Reboot and setup phone settings (Language, google sync etc.,)

Reboot into recovery

Wipe Cache, Dalvik Cache

Install ICS GAPPs

Reboot and use the phone!

Trouble with ICS GAPPs ? (Based off of my anecdotal evidence).​

After ROM installation from downgraded Froyo, ICS GAPPs wasn't applicable (md5 double checked)

I just used the phone as is, later on, somehow I was able to install the ICS GAPPs.

Incase you can't use GAPPs, know this may be temporary and you're missing these features (afaik):

Facial recognition via lockscreen

Software EQ for stock Music player

TLDR:

aospSX 1.0.0 -- Android 4.2.2 (JellyBean) -- newer version -- Unstable

Stepp_aospX Final -- Android 4.0.4 (IceCreamSandwich) works only without GAPPs.

Although the ICS version (Stepp_aospX) is old, it's better and not much different, a halfway mark between GB and JB.

Stepp_aospX Troubleshooting Final Corrections

Radio, bugs/glitches, GPS locking, Perma-Voicemail-Notification, My battery omg my battery :crying:!.​

Only swap radio files if absolutely necessary, and when you do, check the md5 sum every hair of the way.

The Radio Version, most important function to your phone, receiving calls from the network towers, has been changed! Haha I should've posted this before the link to rooting. It's when you were downgrading to Froyo (iirc), because no other ROMs I've installed changes radio, this ROM didn't change it either. But no worries, there are vast lists of these radios, available to download either here (CM Wiki) or here (dropbox by acefsw). Just use adb to push the PD15IMG.zip file as usual to sd for a recovery install. The difference between your signal, if it's even different, should be almost immediate after a reboot.

Bugs/Glitches:

Matrix/Zalgo Text // looks like y͏̴̡͢o͜͞҉̴͢u̢̨̕͝'̸ĺ̛͞͝l̕͜ ̸̵k̢͟͟͢ǹ̢̡̕͟ơ̸̡w̨͏҉̡̧ // Fix via rebooting

GPS Never-lock // Fix via dorqus

For GPS, you can also try FasterGPS the app.​

Perma-voicemail-Notification on every reboot // Temp fix: Settings => Manage Apps => Phone => Clear Cache.

Trying permanent fixes now, I've heard if you get voicemail, delete it from voicemail center, it'll work.​

Battery Drain from wakelock // GOOGLE PLAY SERVICES! // To Fix, either task it or filter it (require xposed framework) (For more information on battery, I'll make a separate section later on for wakelocks to filter by, to reduce drain, it allows battery drain only from user permitted activity apart from being idle)

Screen turns off automatically on camera mode and youtube videos // Fix: use screenOn app

Notification cannot be manually toggled off like app settings of JB. // No Fix, hope your app isn't as bad as my Lux D:

Headphone Heat: No bug noticeable, with ATH-M50 headphones, Skullcandy earbuds, Speaker phone over long hours, no over heating.

Extra tips while Unix Editing:

adb remount

to change permissions of /system/ folder files

[in shell]

mv renameMe.file renamed.bak

renames .file to renamed.bak, useful for creating backups before pushing gps.conf.

rm renameMe.file

deletes renameMe.file

cd ..
cd space

Moves up a directory outside of current folder

Moves into space folder

ls

lists items in folder

Final Result

Subject to change from threats, bribes and future tweaks/experiences.​

:good: Stability - 9/10, only zalgo text so far...

:good: Function - 8/10 Every hardware button works from stock apps, two of the cameras, LED, Flash, light sensor, microphone, voice search, gps, bluetooth, speakers, mobile data, backup-sync, auto-rotate all work well, I only wish some functions could work without tweaking, ie GPS and notifications bug.

:confused: Battery - 5/10 Efficient options provided with smartassv2 and selectable others, however the phone is awake more than necessary, see batstats Currently I'm trying to figure out what wake trigger is doing this (apart from google play) to see if it can beat <20 hour battery time from stock >48 hours with light usage.

Problem solved, new section write-up incoming soon...

:good: Compatibility - 10/10 Stepp_Nasty advised some amazon apps doesn't work, I don't dwell on those fields, being a canadian. However it's awesome that this works just as well as the stock gingerbread, and your camera resolution increased. See comparison (2592px × 1456px vs 2592px x 1936px).

This is the best ROM I can find, if you have another favourite, please list it and give it a rating, because in a few years this phone is going to the grave yard, and whoever is looking here now, still have a glimmer of hope!

Shoutout to XDA Glacier, past and future posters, for giving us the resources to build on this awesome phone.

Future Edits: Format; txt y u no wrd wrap, More Links, Updated Root Guide, Experience/Final Result, more Bugs/tweaks.