[Hero CDMA Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] moxlon69:
Not sure which phone you are working with, but I'm pretty sure, as a general

rule, you need root before you can flash the recovery image. Could be mistaken

on that, but that's how it was for my hero. Once you have the recovery image

flashed, you are correct, you can make and restore backups, you can access

the phone's internal storage and SD card, push/install apps, remove apps, etc.

Wipe/Factory Reset basically formats the various partitions in the phone's

internal memory, if you do a wipe and reboot your phone, you'll boot loop, as

the phone no longer has an operating system. To restore back to original,

you would need to use an official RUU as andythegreenguy stated. You can

get the official rom upgrades (RUU's) from your carrier's website.

I'm still learning a lot of this myself, but the Dalvik-Cache is basically the OS's

cache, which has files randomly dumped into it and removed from it. Wiping

the Dalvik-Cache is beneficial (and sometimes required) when making

modifications to your rom. It can help improve your performance under some

circumstances, but will make your phone boot slower while the cache is being

recreated. SD:EXT only applies if you have partitioned your SD, for example,

to be used with Apps2SD. If you have no EXT partition, you can't format it.

If you are using Apps2SD, and have partitioned your SD card, this will erase

the EXT partition.

As a general rule that I follow, whenever I am making major changes, and

especially when I am flashing between different roms, I wipe everything, and

repartition/format my SD card. This helps me to know that any problems I run

into are not caused by something from a previous rom that didn't get erased.

I've never messed with wiping rotate, but wiping battery stats can be useful.

Lithium batteries have a little controller board that basically stores the battery

state. Sometimes this can get messed up, and a perfectly healthy battery will

think it's out of power a lot faster than it should. Resetting the battery info

can sometimes fix this issue. A recommendation I saw was to run your battery

down, reset the battery state, let the phone die, then do a full charge/discharge

cycle. Never had to do this, myself..

Sorta.. hboot and the radio are both beyond the recovery, and messing with

either of those without knowing what you are doing can cause your phone to

become a brick. Any recovery you flash should remain in place unless you use a

RUU, flash a different recovery, flash a rom that includes a different recovery,

(haven't run across that except for the RUU's), or mess with the MTD partitions.

Apps2SD is fine, any speed issues would primaryly be loading delays on slower

SD cards. Apps2SD also requires your SD card to be properly partitioned. The

Apps2SD that is in Android 2.2 is a little different, in that from my nderstanding,

it uses the Fat32 partition on the SD card, and thus does not require you to

partition your SD card. It is also to my knowledge only available on roms based

on Android 2.2.

A lot of custom roms have some form of Apps2SD now, but they require you to partition the SD card, and, as far as "speed" issues, I have ran my apps from

a class 2 card just fine, but moving the Dalvik-Cache to the SD card will cause

lag if you have a slow card. Class 4 or higher is recommended for moving your

cache.

Correct, you can flash ROMS, Kernels, Radios, apps (if packaged properly),

apk files that aren't packaged in an update.zip will either have to be pushed

via ADB, or can be installed from your SD card with a file manager.

As far as the biggest reason to root your phone, I would have to say that the

answer to that would vary from person to person. Most users root to install

custom roms, but rooting gives you full control of the operating system. Since

android is Linux, having root access on your phone will allow you to change the

things that you otherwise could not. Utilities like Titanium backup can be used

to back up and restore your apps and data, performance benefits are always

a huge consideration. Companies like HTC and Sprint don't take performance

concerns into consideration because they are providing a product that is in their

opinion disposable, and "generic enough" for most users. Asking why they don't

fix the performance issues is like asking why every car on the road can't run 160

miles per hour while getting 40 miles per gallon. Some people don't care to have

the fastest, most efficient phone, and some people can't stand having sluggish

and unresponsive phones.

With a recovery, rom, and kernel, you've flashed all of the major software components

that you will be concerned about. Performance gains are all found in the ROM

and Kernel, and so most people have no need to go further than that. Basically,

think of the Kernel as the brain, and the ROM as the rest of the operating system

The recovery is important, but is transparent to the function of the phone once

everything is up and running.

I'll try to answer these in one shot. It's recommended that you always wipe

everything before installing a custom rom, except if the rom you are installing

is *SPECIFICALLY* an update for the rom you are running, and the dev states

that a wipe is not necessary. Generally, you want to make a nandroid backup,

wipe, install the rom, make sure everything is fine, nandroid, install the kernel,

check things over, rinse and repeat.

In my case, I generally return to configs that I've already tested, so I skip some

steps, but the order is ROM, Kernel, then the other parts.

If you forgot a text message from another rom, as long as you have the nandroid

you should be OK. You can boot into recovery, make a nandroid backup of your

current configuration, then wipe everything, restore the nandroid from the

old configuration, retrieve your message or data, Then you can reboot, wipe,

and restore the nandroid from the new configuration. Keeping multiple nandroids

can be userful if you are using an AOSP rom as your daily rom, since on the

Hero, to my knowledge, you can only update your PRL under a Sense based rom.

A lot of users will restore the sense backup to update their PRL, then restore the

AOSP rom.

Never used WaveSecure, but as a general rule, if you can download the APK, you

should be able to install it on any rom.

Some people like fat chicks, and some people don't. The argument about

gapps is akin to asking what's better, PC or Mac, Linux or Windows, sports cars

or station wagons. It's all personal preference. What's right for you might not

be right for your best friend.

The messaging app had a bug that would lock the dialer and prevent the phone

from sleeping. This bug was supposedly fixed in the 2.1 update, but 2.1 also

introduced a whole plethora of other bugs. Some people still prefer third party

messenging apps, but I use the stock app with no issues. on a good day I can

get 27 hours on a charge, but I do a lot and so most days I get 12 hours or so.

Hope this has helped.

This may sound strange from a guy with a cellphone, but I actually hate talking

on the phone. Feel free to send me a PM now and then with questions. If I know the answer, I'll help out.

I'm not as knowledgeable as any of the devs, I'm still learning all of this myself. My answers might not be

'correct', but they work for me. most things related to android have no 'correct' or 'definitive' answer, but

that's the beauty of a platform that can be customized to taste. We can all make recommendations, and

can even tell you our reasoning or logic behind them, but we can all also learn a few things.