Putting Froyo on Hero - A few questions

Sam Vimes

Hi, I'm finally planning to put Froyo on my Hero but I have a few questions first that have probably been asked before but anyway....


I'm going to use this guide. Good, bad, terrible? Any other recommendations?

It says I'm going to lose HTC Sense. What exactly does that mean? Having only used HTC Android phones for any length of times I don't know what parts are HTC Sense and what parts are just Android. The only thing the article mentions is not being able to long press letters to get punctuation which isn't a problem.

Is the FroydVillain release stable or can I expect regular crashes and instability?

Looking at this page, he gives the FroydVillain release and then links to multiple kernels. What are the kernels for and do I need to download them too? The installation instructions page makes no mention of kernels.

Thanks

flugel

Sense is the user interface. Also some apps like calendar, camera, phone dialer on a HTC phone will be Sense originated. Without sense you won't have these the same but you can easily get replacement apps.


I've been on FV 1.5 since it came out. Combined with Launcher Pro (used instead of sense) I find it really good. I've stuck with stock kernel, haven't even bothered over clocking it either, tis fast enough as it is. Can get two days out of battery with normal use.

Basically, I'd strongly recommend FV 1.5, fast and stable for me anyways!

iknorr

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Hi, I'm finally planning to put Froyo on my Hero but I have a few questions first that have probably been asked before but anyway....


I'm going to use this guide. Good, bad, terrible? Any other recommendations?

It says I'm going to lose HTC Sense. What exactly does that mean? Having only used HTC Android phones for any length of times I don't know what parts are HTC Sense and what parts are just Android. The only thing the article mentions is not being able to long press letters to get punctuation which isn't a problem.

Is the FroydVillain release stable or can I expect regular crashes and instability?

Looking at this page, he gives the FroydVillain release and then links to multiple kernels. What are the kernels for and do I need to download them too? The installation instructions page makes no mention of kernels.

Thanks

id really appreciate if you can give me some feedback on how it goes for you. i was planning to do the same about a month ago but i had too many questions and gave up. ( im a picky little ****er)

Im ok with you being the guiney pig

Sam Vimes

I got impatient and did it before anyone replied :P

Without Sense some apps are missing but as flugel said I was able to find replacements for them. The main difference is the keypad. The standard one has no option to hold down keys to get punctuation but you can change the input method to two other keyboard types, one of which gives the option. One thing that's annoying me is that in landscape mode the text box doesn't pop up into its own box anymore, you're writing directly in the text box on the page and the screen doesn't follow the cursor properly so I have to keep dragging the screen to see what I'm typing. Does anyone know if I can stop that and get the old screen back?

One other thing I noticed is that the home screen etc now auto rotates. I think Froydvillain 1.5 came with Launcher pro as standard because I can see some options for it and I assume that's what's giving me that option.

I can't find any option for wifi tethering which I thought was supposed to be standard on 2.2 . The tethering menu only gives me an option for USB tethering. Does anyone know if I should have got the option or how to get it?

The procedure for upgrading was straightforward enough. I backed up my texts with SMS Backup & Restore and my contacts were all synced with Google. I didn't bother saving any app settings. I did a hard reset just before doing the update in case my phone did anything funny. You might as well do one because everything's going to be wiped anyway. The upgrade instructions said my sd card would be wiped but it wasn't. I'd still recommend doing a backup anyway

I've noticed a bit of instability, I've had to restart the phone a few times when gmail stopped responding, when messaging stopped responding and when Newstalk's apparently kept saying it couldn't connect but it seems to be getting better now.

Overall I think it was a good decision so far. The thing that finally made me update was real time latitude updates and that works well. Being able to move apps to the SD card is good too.

neacy69

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I got impatient and did it before anyone replied :P

Without Sense some apps are missing but as flugel said I was able to find replacements for them. The main difference is the keypad. The standard one has no option to hold down keys to get punctuation but you can change the input method to two other keyboard types, one of which gives the option. One thing that's annoying me is that in landscape mode the text box doesn't pop up into its own box anymore, you're writing directly in the text box on the page and the screen doesn't follow the cursor properly so I have to keep dragging the screen to see what I'm typing. Does anyone know if I can stop that and get the old screen back?

One other thing I noticed is that the home screen etc now auto rotates. I think Froydvillain 1.5 came with Launcher pro as standard because I can see some options for it and I assume that's what's giving me that option.

I can't find any option for wifi tethering which I thought was supposed to be standard on 2.2 . The tethering menu only gives me an option for USB tethering. Does anyone know if I should have got the option or how to get it?

The procedure for upgrading was straightforward enough. I backed up my texts with SMS Backup & Restore and my contacts were all synced with Google. I didn't bother saving any app settings. I did a hard reset just before doing the update in case my phone did anything funny. You might as well do one because everything's going to be wiped anyway. The upgrade instructions said my sd card would be wiped but it wasn't. I'd still recommend doing a backup anyway

I've noticed a bit of instability, I've had to restart the phone a few times when gmail stopped responding, when messaging stopped responding and when Newstalk's apparently kept saying it couldn't connect but it seems to be getting better now.

Overall I think it was a good decision so far. The thing that finally made me update was real time latitude updates and that works well. Being able to move apps to the SD card is good too.

Hows the battery life so far sam? Did you calibrate the battery yet?

been on VR12 for a couple months and im finally starting to annoyed with the lack of battery life?

oh: did you figure out what the kernels are all about?

Sam Vimes

The battery life is woeful. It was fully charged at about 8 this morning and with some browsing it's now down to 37%. I keep two batteries in my pocket most of the time and my record is 6 batteries between 6pm on a Friday and 12am on a Sunday. I can only imagine it getting worse now.

I haven't calibrated the battery. How do I do that?

I think the Kernels have something to do with overclocking but I don't know anything beyond that

neacy69

Sam Vimes wrote: »

The battery life is woeful. It was fully charged at about 8 this morning and with some browsing it's now down to 37%. I keep two batteries in my pocket most of the time and my record is 6 batteries between 6pm on a Friday and 12am on a Sunday. I can only imagine it getting worse now.

I haven't calibrated the battery. How do I do that?

I think the Kernels have something to do with overclocking but I don't know anything beyond that

Calibrate battery....

Apparently you should do it with each new ROM although i've never done it

ps: where'd you get the batteries? ebay?

Sam Vimes

Calibrating looks like an awful lot of hassle so I don't think I'll bother

This is where I got the batteries: http://cgi.ebay.ie:80/2x-Battery-USB-AC-Charger-Cable-HTC-Hero-G3-2B-UK-/290495172964?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item43a2dc9164&autoredirect=off&emvAD=320x455

A user called egatechina. The batteries look genuine, the only differences are the color of the text and the part number is slightly different. It's hard to tell if they're any worse than the one I got with the phone since they're all so bad but they don't seem any worse.

It comes with a USB cable which I assume is for plugging into the USB port on the plug for charging your phone but when I tried it the screen went unstable, acting as if I was touching it in random places. I think the voltage is slightly wrong but its fine for charging the batteries.

iknorr

Sam,

Im a little confused about the start - downgraded to a rom part.
Which rom did you downgrade to?

I have the latest "stock" rom that i got ota, its a meteor phone.

Waits in anticipation to try it today!!!!!!

edit....i came across a much easier way to root and install roms....
Ill stick a post up tmro about it.

Sam Vimes

I didn't downgrade. I had stock 2.1 on my phone

iknorr

I c. Me also...the linky was a little confusing but i understand now.


theres a little post up here on it http://techfeen.com/rooting-hero-3-32-405-2/

basically i used universal androot to gain root access and i used rom manager to install the recovery image and the rom on it.

I used Floyo....Its a massive improvement on the stock 2.1. Its built upon CM6.
Alot of people are moving over from cm6 and villian to it.

neacy69

So i put Floyo on yesterday....

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=784689

this is the first ROM that I have used without sense and not really missing it too much apart from the Clock widget....

so far the battery life has been decent (i havent calibrated it yet) left work at 4.30pm with 84% battery and I used it only for texts and calls (and angry birds!!) and its currently at 61% so 23% for about 19 hours uptime...

impressed so far...

neacy69

neacy69 wrote: »

So i put Floyo on yesterday....

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=784689

this is the first ROM that I have used without sense and not really missing it too much apart from the Clock widget....

so far the battery life has been decent (i havent calibrated it yet) left work at 4.30pm with 84% battery and I used it only for texts and calls (and angry birds!!) and its currently at 61% so 23% for about 19 hours uptime...

impressed so far...

Still goin on the same charge....Almost 42 hours now and I have gone from 84% to 12%....not bad

Tea_Bag

neacy69 wrote: »

Still goin on the same charge....Almost 42 hours now and I have gone from 84% to 12%....not bad

sounds good! what steps did you take, do you have a link to the method?

i think im going to jump onto the floyo ship, but ive never changed Roms or anything, just have a 2.1 hero, rooted with ultimate androot.

neacy69

Tea_Bag wrote: »

sounds good! what steps did you take, do you have a link to the method?

i think im going to jump onto the floyo ship, but ive never changed Roms or anything, just have a 2.1 hero, rooted with ultimate androot.

bare in mind that I have only been using it for calls, sms, a little angry birds and a smaill amount of wifi browsing....

Mobile data, GPS, auto-sync are all turned off and the screen brightness is down to the lowest....

But at that still going at 48 hours later with about 7% left....

Tea_Bag

neacy69 wrote: »

bare in mind that I have only been using it for calls, sms, a little angry birds and a smaill amount of wifi browsing....

Mobile data, GPS, auto-sync are all turned off and the screen brightness is down to the lowest....

But at that still going at 48 hours later with about 7% left....

yeah that sounds reasonable.

i always keep my gps on incase someone steals/i lose my phone, i can find it with wavesecure, and i browse the net alot, wifi and 3g, so im not expecting the ammount you get.

still, i have no idea where to begin with this, what totorial should i follow for installing floyo?

neacy69

Tea_Bag wrote: »

yeah that sounds reasonable.

i always keep my gps on incase someone steals/i lose my phone, i can find it with wavesecure, and i browse the net alot, wifi and 3g, so im not expecting the ammount you get.

still, i have no idea where to begin with this, what totorial should i follow for installing floyo?

Decent guide here...This isnt the one I used but its the same info:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=645253

If you are already rooted the all you need to do is:
Download a Custom ROMto your computer.

2. Make sure your phone is in recovery mode (Home + Power)
Plug your phone into your computer and select "USB-MS toggle" in recovery
Place the Custom ROM on your SD card in the main directory and press Home when it has finished copying over

3. Select Backup/Restore > Nand backup > confirm with Home > Wait
(or Nand + Ext if you have A2SD setup)

4. Press back then select Wipe from the main menu, then select:
Wipe data/factory reset > Home
Wipe cache > Home
Wipe Dalvik-cache > Home
Wipe SD:ext partition > Home
Press back button
Select Flash Zip from SD Card
Select the file
Press Home to confirm

Note: Ignore any "errors", they are normal and usually mean you're not using that feature.

5. Once it is done, select Reboot and you will boot into the new Custom ROM




I used Titamium backup to backup the apps and then restore them once the ROM had installed...

Get Floyo 1.1.9 here

Tea_Bag

thanks neacy69 for the info. i installed titanium backup (free) from the market, and it said it cant gain root access, even though it was granted from superuser. it also mentioned in the same box that it cant find busybox. so i installed busybox from the market too, thinking it would solve the problem, but busybox wont install, saying that it needs at least 1000kb of free space in "/system" (and that only 244kb is free).

what am i doing wrong?

there is atleast 36mb free on internal memory, and 200mb+ on the SD card.

neacy69

Tea_Bag wrote: »

thanks neacy69 for the info. i installed titanium backup (free) from the market, and it said it cant gain root access, even though it was granted from superuser. it also mentioned in the same box that it cant find busybox. so i installed busybox from the market too, thinking it would solve the problem, but busybox wont install, saying that it needs at least 1000kb of free space in "/system" (and that only 244kb is free).

what am i doing wrong?

there is atleast 36mb free on internal memory, and 200mb+ on the SD card.

Is your phone already rooted then?
I think I had that problem the first time I used titanium and i cant remember how I solved it (I think i didn't solve it and installed the apps manually)...

Tea_Bag

yeah its rooted (using universal androot) i guess ill just have to reinstall everything.
is there anything i need to do to enable app2sd? thats my main reason for wanting a new ROM tbh. i so sick of seeing the "low space" thing.