[Tilt, TyTN II, MDA Vario III Windows Mobile ROM De] bengalih:
Hey all...

So I have been in the Kaiser forums for about a week now and have played around with some of the ROMs out there. My previous device was a PPC-6700. On that device there was a ROM and an Extended ROM. To the best of my experience, I never played with the ROM, but I did unlock the extended ROM and remove many of the bloatware cabs. I also set up some file (I can't remember the name, but it was similar to the UC option) which would allow my own CABs placed in the extended ROM to be auto-installed. In this way we were able to distribute the phones to employees with only the software we wanted (for instance, with our company cert pre-loaded and TCPMP to play back cisco VMs).

While I understand the interest in "cooking" a ROM to get all the latest and greates components (WM version, Radio, etc.) from the various ROMs into one uber-ROM, I'm not sure I see the advantage of adding in all the additional pieces of software.

From my viewpoint, I would think that a ROM should be as clean as possible, this would present a nice base for users to customize. Instead of "cooking" all the files for other components (plugins, menu replacements, voice command, SIPs, etc) into the ROM, why not just provide these as CABs either within the ROM or as a separate download alongside the ROM?

This would allow not only users to choose what to add, but also allow them to remove an installed CAB if they no longer want to use it or if a new one comes along.

I understand part of the allure of a cooked ROM is that the cook has ensured all the components work together... and in my scenario this would still be the case. The ROM would be qualified and shipped with a certain set of applications, but that doesn't mean they all need to be installed.

Another argument I hear for using a cooked ROM is that all the apps are already installed and it doesn't take time to reinstall all the apps. However, with UC, can you not just load all CABs onto an SD and have them all autoinstall? I am pretty sure you can write a file that will install a set of cabs even from local storage. While I understand that this might take a couple minutes more initially, I think the time saved in the long run would be equal or more. For instance, it might take me 10 minutes after I re-flash a base ROM to load another 15 CABs that I want. But, when a new version comes out of my application, or another application I want to install conflicts with something on there, I can easily uninstall the CAB. Small changes to the configurations can also be made without cooking a new ROM.

Now I

fully

appreciate all the work the cooks on this site have done. I think their work is great. What I am suggesting is an alternative methodology and one that is certainly not new. I am the type of person who likes a very clean build, but also enjoy the many features that are offered with some of the busier ROMs. I feel that having a base build and then simple a suite of approved or offered CABs make the whole process cleaner.

I am trying to understand how the mindset evolved here to make these feature rich ROMs instead of the alternative. The main argument I have heard is that it is quicker to just flash a ROM with all apps rather than load each one. As I have addressed that above, I don't think that the time savings are significant in comparison to the flexibility of modular CABs.

Perhaps there are additional advantages to the current approach that I have overlooked and I would be interested in hearing them.

tell me your thoughts?