I am going to give this a spin this weekend when I can give it my undivided attention. If all i want is root and bloatware removed, is there a ROM that I can download that will look just like a stock EVO? I dont want anything fancy, just the ability to remove the factory APPs and get tethering working.
If I follow the guide will I lose any "Functionality" of the phone at all?
That was my original intention for rooting and it spawned a can of worms for me.
If you follow this root method precisely you will have a rooted stock 2.2 rom. Meaning it is the exact same rom you get from the store (I believe its the exact same one) except it is rooted. When I did it my 4g/3g, wifi, bluetooth, etc were all still functional.
Removing the bloatware is nice but you have to be careful. Some of them are tied into others and also connected deep into the system. Stocks is one example. If you remove that (from reports that I have read) the system will literally become unstable and you would have to reinstall stocks.
So far, I have managed to remove all the apps I wanted (including stocks) and my system is stable. Come friday I plan on removing a couple more bloat and seeing if it doesn't break.
My needs are different from others but I made sure that the gmail, facebook, internet, youtube, and market were all working after removing the bloat. So far so good.
Someone posted earlier that there are roms with the bloat already removed and you could go that route if you wanted however, I have read that some roms lose functionality (such as 4g and 8mp camera) so it's up to you on which route you want to take.
I chose to remove the bloat myself to keep as much functions as possible (like my 8mp/720p camera).
Good luck.