Proud But surprised new gn owner

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mick3444

Senior Member
Jan 9, 2012
222
31
San Francisco, Ca
Hey All! Just got my gn a couple weeks ago and I love it! I must say though I'm a little surprised at how few roms there are out for it. I know it's new and all but still it HAS been out since last fall! Is this how long it normally takes to build a fan base with these phones? I'm not complaining. I just found it curious, coming from the Nexus S to owning the new Android flagship that there would still be such relatively little support by now. Any takers on the topic? I'd Be interested to hear your input!

Oh By the way, I'm in no way bashing the phone or this forum. I think both are outstanding. Just making conversation lol

What variant of the galaxy nexus do you have!?!? I have the sprint version, and I'd definitely agree that there are very many roms out there. The Verizon and GSM version have a ton more. Does anybody have any guidance as to when we might see as many roms as GSM or Verizon? Don't get me wrong, the sprint version has some pretty cool roms, there's just not very many to choose from.
 

santeana

Senior Member
Apr 14, 2011
471
181
mine is a gsm. bought it outright from an online retailer unlocked.
I agree that more roms aren't always needed. but part of the fun of owning a nexus phone in the first place is experimenting and testing all the latest firmwares to come out. after all, most nexus owners I know are Android enthusiasts! I was running a great rom on my nexus s before I got this phone. it was a custom aokp rom called kangyu(ltra) by daxmax. he's actually porting paranoid to the NS at the moment. but kangyu is a rom based on aokp and he's included tons of extras for you to customize it the way you like without having to download a ton of extras on the side to add in later. he's included several themes with theme chooser, inverted gapps with a working inverted phone apk (none of the others I've tried work) and lots of other things too !it took me hours to set it all up how I like it because there is so much in there to choose from! but it was totally worth it. all I added was a different kernel and its the best rom I've ever used on any phone! that's all I'm saying. these roms are awesome! but what's the harm in having a little more? its half the fun just to test out new ****! lol :)
 
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mick3444

Senior Member
Jan 9, 2012
222
31
San Francisco, Ca
Well, there are 8 pages full of roms for the gsm version. I have one and a half in the sprint section. I agree that there can always be more roms but I think you GSM owners have enough to be happy with. What kind of roms are you looking for that are not already there?
 

qwer23

Senior Member
Jan 6, 2010
1,375
290
Realm of Württemberg
As someone said before, on most other phones you have tons of themed stock roms that are flagged as [ROM]. On the sgs II this was done to a degree that they needed to create subforums for "Android Development" (= theming/slightly modifying stock rom) and "Original Android Development" (=real custom roms). Since the GNex already is pure AOSP and Themes are only called [THEME] here, it seems there are a lot less roms. But every ROM you find here is at least an originally developed rom ;)

Another point is that most of the roms that are created are almost free of major bugs, since all kernel sources and hardware drivers are open source. On SGS II you find a lot of roms, where this or that doesn't work and therefore someone makes a new rom where this or that special feature works ;)
 

doeboy711

Senior Member
Dec 12, 2009
1,069
180
Owings, MD
I was suprised as well since this phone is the most developer friendly phone out there. I know that quality over quantity is a good thing. What I see a lil off is that those great Rom's have not many comments on it. I am using a Rom on my Evo3D that started in May with 2900+ comments in it. The last one before that had 10,000+ comments. Most of these Rom's barley have 1,000 available. It was just different from what I was use to. I thought the GN community would be more active.
 

El Daddy

Retired Forum Moderator
May 2, 2008
4,261
5,210
Roseville, MN
Most people bought the galaxy nexus because they prefer aosp Android over OEM skins.

That's why you don't see multiple roms with different skins. We already have the best version of Android.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
 

doeboy711

Senior Member
Dec 12, 2009
1,069
180
Owings, MD
Most people bought the galaxy nexus because they prefer aosp Android over OEM skins.

That's why you don't see multiple roms with different skins. We already have the best version of Android.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

I totally agree with that, but I am use to a new release to a Rom every week at the most trying to tweak it the most to get better performance and battery life. Mikeyxda is always asking for user input, and implements with changes that are within his control and he is always trying to get the most out of the phone. Our Kernel developers are the same way, always pushing to find better performance and battery life.

I am not knocking the GN community what so ever since I do not have the phone and haven't had a chance to try anything out. But I am looking to jump ship to Verizon and this in one of the phones I am looking at getting.
 

lowandbehold

Senior Member
Feb 26, 2011
3,535
574
Vandling, PA
I was suprised as well since this phone is the most developer friendly phone out there. I know that quality over quantity is a good thing. What I see a lil off is that those great Rom's have not many comments on it. I am using a Rom on my Evo3D that started in May with 2900+ comments in it. The last one before that had 10,000+ comments. Most of these Rom's barley have 1,000 available. It was just different from what I was use to. I thought the GN community would be more active.

The amount of comments doesn't mean anything. TECHNICALLY, in the ROM thread, comments are supposed to be used for bug reports, not attaboys. So maybe there was a reason for those 10,000 comments? ;)
 

doeboy711

Senior Member
Dec 12, 2009
1,069
180
Owings, MD
The amount of comments doesn't mean anything. TECHNICALLY, in the ROM thread, comments are supposed to be used for bug reports, not attaboys. So maybe there was a reason for those 10,000 comments? ;)

Well it one aspect, the amount of comments doesn't mean anything. For me, being a new user, I would rather go to a rom that seems more active and alive than one that no one comments on or hasn't been updated in a few weeks/month. About the thread that has the 10k+ comments, most of it's bug reports, and user's helping other user's out. It is a very nice community that really helped each other out without flamming/trolling. The developer of that Rom is very active in his Rom's and puts out new versions when he or user's finds an error with something or find better performance updates. He has put out probably 43 versions of his Rom since the new base came out in Jan. That's an averave of 10 a month making the Rom very smooth. It is kinda like the way CM does nightly. Each download of his rom had over 1k downloads. His new ICS Rom that he built off the leak has well over 2k people downloading it. That is just 2 threads from one developer, and there are many more just like him.

Also, the Evo3d CDMA developing section has over 223,000 posts where the Galaxy Nexus as a whole (Sprint, Verizon and other one) has about 34,392 posts. That's well over 6 times the amount of posts over the GN. I was suprised to see that since this is a developer dream since it's pure android, get's updates first, and is unlocked, it would have more ROM's. I am not hating or knocking the GN community at all. Just an observation is all.
 

qwer23

Senior Member
Jan 6, 2010
1,375
290
Realm of Württemberg
Well it one aspect, the amount of comments doesn't mean anything. For me, being a new user, I would rather go to a rom that seems more active and alive than one that no one comments on or hasn't been updated in a few weeks/month. About the thread that has the 10k+ comments, most of it's bug reports, and user's helping other user's out. It is a very nice community that really helped each other out without flamming/trolling. The developer of that Rom is very active in his Rom's and puts out new versions when he or user's finds an error with something or find better performance updates. He has put out probably 43 versions of his Rom since the new base came out in Jan. That's an averave of 10 a month making the Rom very smooth. It is kinda like the way CM does nightly. Each download of his rom had over 1k downloads. His new ICS Rom that he built off the leak has well over 2k people downloading it. That is just 2 threads from one developer, and there are many more just like him.

Also, the Evo3d CDMA developing section has over 223,000 posts where the Galaxy Nexus as a whole (Sprint, Verizon and other one) has about 34,392 posts. That's well over 6 times the amount of posts over the GN. I was suprised to see that since this is a developer dream since it's pure android, get's updates first, and is unlocked, it would have more ROM's. I am not hating or knocking the GN community at all. Just an observation is all.

Basically it's exactly like lowandbehold said:
Posts in Android Dev Section are for bug report. Since almost everything about the GNex is bug-free, there is nothing to complain about.
And about your comment for recent updates: just look at the AOKP ROM as the most popular example. It's updated at a crazy frequency, and xda-developers is not even the main forum for AOKP since they post even more frequent updates at rootzwiki (really no advertising meant, just a fact for this specific ROM).
Another great example is franco.kernel which sees another nightly almost every day. There are tons of more examples, too much to actually write down (Trinity kernel, GlaDOS, GummyNex, SlimICS)
And both of the above examples are mostly adding new and amazing features or implement user requests since those ROMs and kernels are already nearly bug-free.
You obviously won't find a lot of Touchwiz / Sense / Sony UI ports because besides the technical (non-standard APIs) and legal (not open source) problems, there are not that many GNex users interested in those OEM UIs.

Another thing: I didn't check that right now, but maybe you should look in the GSM section of Galaxy Nexus which seems to me a lot more popular as the CDMA section.
 

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    yeah a lot of you guys make sense. I guess with all the options on the nexus s I had become a bit of a crack flasher. I just enjoyed trying out new and different roms and playing with them. but as someone just said here earlier all the ones here are pretty much the same. I'm using aokp now and I like it. I just also like other stuff too lol :)

    thanks for your opinions everyone! keep em coming! great reading :)
    1
    I agree. I miss my galaxy s2 i9100. That phone has the most development. I wanna give you a reason for more development... it was expensive but it was launched everywhere in the world. Second you can run 4 different (base) types of roms.
    1) touchwiz gingerbread
    2) cm7 aosp based gingerbread
    3) touchwiz ICS
    4) cm9 aosp based ics roms
    So you can see how there are always roms to flash. I loved flashing early builds as well. So I encourage more devs to build different and unique roms rather than taking features from other roms. Thanks

    Sent from Galaxy Nexus
    1
    I agree. I miss my galaxy s2 i9100. That phone has the most development. I wanna give you a reason for more development... it was expensive but it was launched everywhere in the world. Second you can run 4 different (base) types of roms.
    1) touchwiz gingerbread
    2) cm7 aosp based gingerbread
    3) touchwiz ICS
    4) cm9 aosp based ics roms
    So you can see how there are always roms to flash. I loved flashing early builds as well. So I encourage more devs to build different and unique roms rather than taking features from other roms. Thanks

    Sent from Galaxy Nexus

    I second that.

    -sent from my galaxy nexus