[Galaxy S I9000 Android Development] Panthers_Den:
What can we use to build the rom if not that kitchen?

Also, I've used this method, using that kitchen and it works for me. As stated in the video, there is only like 2-3 features in that kitchen that will work on our phone. I personally only use it to build the rom and change the rom name so I can keep track of which revision I'm on. I haven't messed with modifying a stock rom just yet, but I've successfully modified 2 custom roms (about 7 revisions from each, each revision tweaked from the previous), swapped out icons in the framework, twframework, system apks and data apks successfully and modified 3 custom themes to my liking and even merged my modified rom and modified theme into one rom and flashed that onto my phone. So far the only times my roms/themes don't work is when I used my own custom pngs (guess it needs to be optimized or something, haven't researched it yet since I just discovered this morning my apks with my own custom pngs didnt' work) or i modified the wrong file on accident or I simply forget to sign a data apk.

So far, just doing the basics as you can see, but I'm almost ready to start looking into more complicated aspects of roms now I think. Just need to find a good tutorial that goes beyond just simple editing of apks.

One question though... do you sign a data apk THEN zipalign a file or zipalign the file THEN sign the apk? Since I wasn't sure of the order, I haven't ZipAligned any of my modified data apk's yet.

Also, anyone know a good zipalign tool? I tried using apk manager but instead of zipaligning my files, it keeps deleting them. :D But it does work well for signing apks :)

So in short, this method does work, it's just a pain in the butt. If you miss a single step or get something out of order or modify something you should not have touched, then your rom will fail.

Here's a couple things I learned:

1. Install Java before you do anything else.

2. Pay attention to what/where you're installing cygwin. First time I installed it, I installed it incorrectly. The first path the install asks for is where to install cygwin (ex: C:\cygwin) the second directory it asks for is where the install package is located (ex: c:\cygwin\cygwin_packages). The install path will be the same location you ran the setup.exe from.

3. you MUST sign any modified data apk's or they will not install. You won't get an error during a flash, the apk's just won't install.

4. do not sign system apk's.

5. some tools require the path to java to be set up in your systems environment variables, so be sure to do that. Don't remember if the ones posted here required it, but if you use any of the other tools on xda, some will, so just do it now before you forget.

6. you can NOT flash your custom rom if your phone is using 3e recovery, it MUST be using 2e recovery. If you have 3e recovery, go here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=788108 and follow the instructions to get 2e recovery.

7. Do NOT do any of this if you can not access the download mode of your phone.

8. Personally, until I konw the rom is working, I always do a factory data wipe and delete the dalvik cache just to make sure the phone is clean and nothing there to possibly mess up the install. My first install was a no wipe install and my phone got stuck in a bootload loop. Once I recovered, I clean wiped then installed again and it worked fine. go figure.

9. Take a deep breath, don't stress out and just be meticulous about what you're doing. If your rom fails, look at what you did, make sure you didn't miss anything and try again. If you brick the phone, go into download mode and use odin to recover. You really do need to pay close attention to details when you're playing with roms though or something can/will go wrong.

There's a lot more I learned, but all I can think of right now.