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Droid X ROMs, where to start?

G

gregulator

Senior member
So my droid x seems to be getting a little sluggish these days, but it is in fine shape, and I certainly don't want to sign any new contracts. In fact, I will likely use this phone until it is totally dead, and then get another one, used, for cheap.

With that said, I would love to play with a new ROM for the phone, and after a lot of reading, and google searching, all I find are these terrible droid forums with a lot of disorganized information. Does anyone have a recommended starting point, for installation guidance and/or ROM (I find this forum with a lot more educated users than most, hence asking here)? I don't do anything too fancy with my phones, mostly email, web, navigation, Google Voice, some pictures and have a MOG subscription.

Thanks for any thoughts!
 
Rootzwiki is one of the better forums to check out. I had a Droid X for a while and the best ROM in terms of stability and battery life was Liberty (IMO of course).
 
If I recall correctly, the droid-x had a locked bootloader, so you won't get anything other than skinned gingerbread.. However, you will be able to get rid of all the bloat.
 
ss284 said:
If I recall correctly, the droid-x had a locked bootloader, so you won't get anything other than skinned gingerbread.. However, you will be able to get rid of all the bloat.
Click to expand...

I'll go tell the devs over at rootzwiki that they're lying to me because there is no way I could have Android 4.0.4 on my Droid X.

List of Decent Roms

All ICS based roms do not have functioning camcorder, but Camera works.

Gummy 1.2 - 4.0.4 Based. Very Good. What I use. Camcorder does not work due to lack of OMAP drivers, but camera works. HWA starting to be built into the latest releases. Rock solid and fast.

Project Omap- 4.0.4 AOSP build. Linaro drivers are being experimented on atm, so not the best to use for daily use but decent enough,

Cyanogen Mod 9- Don't like it much.

MIU- Great choice. Its more of a iphoneish skin with a massive massive overhaul of the UI. You wont see anything like it on any ROM> MIUI has tons of features, ICS based, and has massive customization options

AOKP- The most powerful to customize. Similar to CM9 with more customizing. Great Choice.




The issue is that currently, you most likely have the newest update and its a PITA to get root working. And then its a decent amount of work to get 2nd init and bootstrap running to get into clockworkmod recovery. Rootzwiki Droid X forums is the best resources on how to get started.

I recommend Gummy 1.2 followed by MIUI followed by AOKP. Liberty if you want to stay on Gingerbread and use Camera.

There are Blur based ROMS if you want the best battery life though.
http://rootzwiki.com/topic/21337-roms-multi-rom-thread-blur-based-roms-for-those-on-621604/

Liberty 3.0 - Gingerbread Blur based. Decent, rock solid.
Vortex - Never tried


Screenshot_2012-07-11-19-10-22.png


http://rootzwiki.com/forum/16-droid-x-development/

Every ROM has a features section. Read them and see what you like.

http://rootzwiki.com/forum/14-droid-x/
This section will get you started.
 
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i just went through all this myself. i settled on the latest MIUI rom. its pretty much the best. its pretty fast and everything works as it should.

just make sure to get vingrette or some other good camera app, cause the stock one is bad (focus it wont, its always blurry!)
 
Well I just got Gummy 1.2 running as per your suggestion, and it is pretty nice. Hardware acceleration would be great, but other than that it seems to have everything I need, with a nice new look!

You weren't kidding about it being somewhat of a pain to get going. Lots of disorganized info all over the place, but finally did enough googling to get it all set.
 
i should have said before... the best way to flash a DX is with a linux live boot cd thats made just for this purpose. theres a few out there, but i managed to find one that has flashed 4 out of the 5 DX's i had, and i think the 5th one was just broken anyway...

the boot cd is nice cause you just boot it up, basically hit enter and then it does everything for you. if your dx hasnt been updated and its running an older bootloader, then rooting is easy, but if it has the new bootloader then its much better to just grab the linux cd and go from there.
 
about android 4 on the DX- why? i thought about doing it myself, but i just couldnt see why it would be much different. i stayed with a stable 2.3.7 miui rom and it hasnt held me back at all...
 
gregulator said:
Well I just got Gummy 1.2 running as per your suggestion, and it is pretty nice. Hardware acceleration would be great, but other than that it seems to have everything I need, with a nice new look!

You weren't kidding about it being somewhat of a pain to get going. Lots of disorganized info all over the place, but finally did enough googling to get it all set.
Click to expand...


If you want, you can grab the latest nightlies. The latest one is 1.3 which is what I'm on.

http://androtransfer.com/center/?developer=Gummy&folder=shadow

The latest ones implement HWA into the browser and many other apps using a whitelist. Its instantly noticeable. However, there are a couple of bugs and quirks, but its still 99.99% usable.

wirednuts said:
about android 4 on the DX- why? i thought about doing it myself, but i just couldnt see why it would be much different. i stayed with a stable 2.3.7 miui rom and it hasnt held me back at all...
Click to expand...


Why not? Devs put a lot of work working around the locked bootloader. ICS has tons of features. HWA is being implemented, Linaro is being implemented, the stock browser is massively better than GB, and the UI is "better". Tons of reasons to go to ICS.
 
I have been out of the Dx world since I got my Nexus, whats with .621? Is it rootable?

My dad is going from his Razr to the DroidX finally, so I am thinking Stock rom rooted with bloat removed + a battery mod will do him just fine.

Is .602 still the thing to do?
 
thescreensavers said:
I have been out of the Dx world since I got my Nexus, whats with .621? Is it rootable?

My dad is going from his Razr to the DroidX finally, so I am thinking Stock rom rooted with bloat removed + a battery mod will do him just fine.

Is .602 still the thing to do?
Click to expand...

if you have .621 installed, it locks the phone up pretty good. you have to do a full system binary file flash, which installs a rom that runs .602. from there, you can flash whatever custom rom you want. premade linux live cd's make this easier....
 
I used linux for mine. Windows would NOT recognize the phone properly and lots of things just plain didn't work on it.

I thought AOKP had HWA enabled though? Gummy last I checked was working pretty well with some HWA but not full.
 
Excelllent Info! I'm doing the flash back to .604 as I type and will be trying am ICS rom shortly. I want to thank NikolaeVarius for the detailed breakdown of the various roms.

As I understand, the HWA improves the speed noticeably on all the apps that support it. I remember reading about a whitelist being used to enable HWA on certain apps. I understand that without OMAP driver support the camcorder will not work. Is this the only thing that is not functioning?

Which build has the best combination of HWA, customization, and most functionality? Is one build more likely to get an OMAP driver sooner than the others?

This thread has saved me the task of wading through multiple forums to glean the info I wanted. Many thanks to all those involved!
 
no prob. i looked for the same questions when i went to do this and i found the same garbled mess all over the net

the camera is a big deal for me.. it has to work. its a really nice camera.
 
Just got a GS III, but my g/f is stuck with her Dx for a while longer, so I was going to see if i could test out ROMming mine before I messed with hers (never had the time to mess with this until recently). Thanks for all of the posted info! This should be very helpful. 🙂
 
do it for her! it makes the phone SO much faster, especially when you overclock. and you can also undervolt so that overclock doesnt kill your battery 😀 the downsides ive seen is the phone might freeze at some point if the clock/volt settings are good enough.

the DX is still a great phone....
 
The only thing that was annoying for me toward the end were the apps that would crash (generally dolphin), presumably due to low RAM. She hasn't had that problem, though, so I was probably just running too many things at once.

For her, I absolutely need the most stable ROM. She has a lot of patience when it comes to certain things, but technology is not one of them. The increased speed associated with certain ROMs certainly is appealing. 🙂
 
download her the latest official MIUI rom. thats the one i used to sell rooted DX's on ebay. its so much better then the stock rom its funny.
 
wirednuts said:
download her the latest official MIUI rom. thats the one i used to sell rooted DX's on ebay. its so much better then the stock rom its funny.
Click to expand...

MIUI's far and away the most polished rom on Android and the skinning capabilities of it are pretty damn sick.
 
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