Firmware Questions

[karthikrr]

I've been getting frustrated with the stock lollipop firmware on this device. Just doesn't feel snappy enough, but I seem to remember the device being quite good when I first got it. Had a few questions about stock as well as custom ROMs for this device:

1) Does anybody know if I can downgrade to one of the kitkat firmwares? Perhaps those will be more responsive than the LL ones. Note that I am currently running Resurrection Remix on it, but it was updated to the last LL ROM before I switched to RR, so the bootloader is the latest one out there.
2) I tried Lineage and RR custom ROMs .. Lineage was very buggy, while RR was quite stable. However, RR is not very responsive either, and it does not seem like the team is maintaining it anymore, because I have not seen any updates in a while and for some reason they made it near impossible to do an OTA update! Have not tried any of the unofficial custom ROMS. Anybody have any suggestions on a good one?

I use the device exclusively to read on and write with. I don't do any media, no games, no nothing else. Looking for the leanest and smoothest experience I can get for this use case. Any suggestions?

I don't care about knox and have rooted the device on stock LL successfully (I even have a guide here on how to patch the boot images to make it happen) ... Would going back to stock and then rooting, debloating and using a custom kernel deliver better results for my use case?

Any and all suggestions appreciated. Just don't ask me to go out and buy a new tablet This thing is in good shape and all I want to do with it is make it a glorified e-book reader, that shouldn't be too hard, right?

Thanks,
Karthik

 

[ultramag69]

I think the mistake you're making is that you have a newer phone... The newer hardware is blitzingly fast in comparison to the older hardware.
You need to remember, this tablet is almost 6 years old...
That said, you might get a bit more speed out of a newer kernel and OS but a factory reset might work just as well.
If you fill up the internal storage the tablet WILL lag big time...

 

[karthikrr]

I think the mistake you're making is that you have a newer phone... The newer hardware is blitzingly fast in comparison to the older hardware.
You need to remember, this tablet is almost 6 years old...
That said, you might get a bit more speed out of a newer kernel and OS but a factory reset might work just as well.
If you fill up the internal storage the tablet WILL lag big time...

You are 100% right about the new phone messing up the experience. And already did the reset, and the internal storage is EMPTY, just the OS and a bunch of pdfs and epubs for me to read, nothing else on it, apps are minimal too.

Knowing that the hardware is old, I suppose what I would really like to do is slim down the OS and overheads to such an extent that the tablet is basically a glorified ebook reader. I just want the scrolling, selection, notes taking and so on to be as smooth as it can be.

I ended up using the ElementalX kernel manager to set the governors and whatever else I could find to "Performance" and already it made a noticeable difference when I read. But when I type in Word, there is still the occasional stutter that bugs me. I have not put a custom kernel on there yet, mainly because I wanted to do both ROM and kernel all at once. It seems like RR is no longer updating for this device, so I might have to move back to Lineage, but I wonder if the community can suggest any other ROMs that are good. Again, its not that I need the updates or care about being on the latest Android version, but RR is not as good as I want right now, and without future updates it means its as good as its going to get.

What would be great is a way to go back to stock TW, root it and then strip it bare, load a custom kernel in there and tweak the crap out of it for performance (don't even care about battery) ... Too much to ask?

 

[ultramag69]

You should be able to go back to stock using ODIN - you will have to root again.
Then you could use a debloater script or app to kill off all the functions you don't want/need.
Using an sd card may also slow down the system a bit as it is a bottleneck to the faster internal storage but if you have the 32gb version that should be enough to have a library on it as an ebook reader and still have room for word processing...
I'm waiting to see how the new Lineage rom develops before committing to it as development has slowed or petered out on other roms I found of interest.

Also one last thing to consider, you only have 3gb of ram on your 10.1 2014 edition... This will slow things down A LOT...
Most phones now have at least 4gb of ram so your already behind...
If you want to see slow, dust off an old phone or tablet that has only 1 or 2gb ram... Seriously, it feels like waiting forever.
Tthat's all I have for you other than trying to get the stock rom from Sammobile.com...
Cheers...

 

[karthikrr]

You should be able to go back to stock using ODIN - you will have to root again..

Yes, but for some reason the last time I did this, I ended up with a bootloop that was only resolved by going back to Lineage. I will try this again though. Bigger question is whether I can only go back to stock 5.x ROM or downgrade back to 4.x ROM. I would like to go back to 4.x because I feel that might be faster and smoother, but to be perfectly honest, I don't remember!

I don't have a memory card either, 32 gig version and its enough for my use, especially with cloud storage doing the heavy lifting.

I just switched back to Lineage from RR because, for some reason MS Word was having difficulty understanding that it was running on a small tablet (wouldn't let me save without Office 365 because it thought I was using a bigger device) ... Lineage is REALLY slow compared to RR, not sure why this is. Going to play with the kernel settings and look for some custom kernels and see if that makes a difference. If not, goodbye to Lineage and back to stock with root and kernel tweaks.

Are there even any other ROMs still being updated? I see unofficial Lineage 16, but not really sure if I should be getting that ambitious!

Maybe I should spend some time looking up ROM build guides and try my hand at making a clean 'e-reader ROM'

Yes, the RAM thing is a problem certainly, but I figure killing everything else and using it exclusively for reading and writing should not be bottle-necked by 3gigs of RAM. However, I do know what you mean about using an old phone with 1 or 2 gigs, and its a NIGHTMARE!

Sammobile doesn't let me download the older ROMs anymore without coughing up for a premium account. But thankfully, I found some other sources to get me the other ROMs, so phew, thats a relief...

 

[ultramag69]

Yes, but for some reason the last time I did this, I ended up with a bootloop that was only resolved by going back to Lineage. I will try this again though. Bigger question is whether I can only go back to stock 5.x ROM or downgrade back to 4.x ROM. I would like to go back to 4.x because I feel that might be faster and smoother, but to be perfectly honest, I don't remember!

I don't have a memory card either, 32 gig version and its enough for my use, especially with cloud storage doing the heavy lifting.

I just switched back to Lineage from RR because, for some reason MS Word was having difficulty understanding that it was running on a small tablet (wouldn't let me save without Office 365 because it thought I was using a bigger device) ... Lineage is REALLY slow compared to RR, not sure why this is. Going to play with the kernel settings and look for some custom kernels and see if that makes a difference. If not, goodbye to Lineage and back to stock with root and kernel tweaks.

Are there even any other ROMs still being updated? I see unofficial Lineage 16, but not really sure if I should be getting that ambitious!

Maybe I should spend some time looking up ROM build guides and try my hand at making a clean 'e-reader ROM'

Yes, the RAM thing is a problem certainly, but I figure killing everything else and using it exclusively for reading and writing should not be bottle-necked by 3gigs of RAM. However, I do know what you mean about using an old phone with 1 or 2 gigs, and its a NIGHTMARE!

Sammobile doesn't let me download the older ROMs anymore without coughing up for a premium account. But thankfully, I found some other sources to get me the other ROMs, so phew, thats a relief...

If you get bootloop, you need to wipe device completely...