Introduce yourself! What's your XDA story?

[Tank1488]

I came to XDA cause I really want to meet people who like to do the same thing I like! I love knowledge. I need help putting back my key board on my android tablet and would be super grateful for some help ... Thank you

 

[MXQ Master]

Actually, this forum is so good that I didn't have the necessity to ever subscribe, as all the questions that I ever had concerning smartphones were already answered here.

But how did I find this place?
Well, it was spring or maybe summer 2015 when a friend visited me from Portugal. He had that brand new and beautiful Galaxy Note 4, Samsung's flagship at that time, and wanted me to install a custom ROM on it. He left the phone with me and said he will pick it up next time he visits me.
I played a few days with the phone and decided then to google for custom Android ROMs. That's how I found this site.
I remember the bright background of the website and foremost the endless list of Custom ROMs, nicely put in categories for each model that ever existed, it was like discovering the internet for the very first time. A new world opened its gates for me.
I downloaded the Cyanogen Mod, the predecessor of LineageOS and started the installation over Odin. Unfortunately, I unplugged the USB too early and bricked my friend's brand new phone!
It took me some time and some drinks to recover from that shock, but after returning to XDA Developers, it took me just some minutes to find the solution to my problem.

Since then, I'm a lurker here and somehow also a thief, as I modded every phone that passed through my fingers with XDA Software/Knowledge, without giving something in return.

I have learned one very important thing here at this place. When you follow a guide, you should follow it 100% otherwise it will end in absolute failure.
I broke the screen of my Huawei Mate 30 Pro recently and found a LIO-L29 replacement screen for $299 on eBay, but I needed a phone instantly, so I bought an Honor 50 instead. I love it, but I missed my Mate, so I bought a new one. It had already the newest EMUI 12 installed, and I wanted to downgrade to 10 for installing GMS.
I followed @badmania98's Huawei P40 thread as it has the same software as the Mate 30, but couldn't get it to work. Until I went back to his post and read the whole f***ing text to find out that I have to use the latest version of HiSuite with EMUI 12. While I was trying it with dload over OTG (USB-C Stick) the entire time.

Now I'm here just for fun and to say thank you for all these years of support.

I have an IT background that goes far back into the last century, starting already as a kid in the late 1970ies, losing my virginity to a Tandy TRS-80, then came the Atari era, the Commodore 64, Intel's 8086, 80-286, 80-386 and so on. Got early some certificates in programming (BASIC, COBOL, Pascal, C# etc.) but got extremely distracted by the opposite sex, so the programming path discontinued for a while:
Went from Europe to New York in the early 80's, mostly for girls and partying, then a few years in LA, actually for studying, but got distracted by the girls again. Afterwards to Asia for about a decade. First year there just partying again, only girls in my head, later became more adult-like and married a Chinese girl there and then returned with her to Europe in 1996 again, where I'm at right now.

When the Internet came into being (the first provider was in April 1996 at my location), I learned HTML, CSS, PHP, Python, C++, Java, JavaScript (later also with all its associations like AJAX, JSON etc.). Networking and especially network security studies also took a good portion of my lifetime. Started intense work with Linux Servers (CentOS or Debian mostly) Apache and MySQL Databases in 2001 until presence. Forced to learn and to manage Microsoft Servers and the entire Azure Infrastructure, forced to learn Google Infrastructure and its endless services, to keep up to date and to finally keep the job.

Got into extreme pc overclocking from 2005 till 2010, still using a first gen Core i7 965 @ 4GHz from 2009 right now. Mounted on an X58 DFI LANParty board with UEFI support for my NVMe Samsung 970 SSDs over Tianocore (UEFI DUET), running on Windows 11.

Well versed on all versions of Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, Android. Well versed on CMS WordPress and Joomla (both business related). Like to play around with Xcode, Visual Studio, Android Studio, Eclipse a lot. When time allows me days not just hours, I like to delve into 3D graphics and animation, mostly with Blender or Maya in combination with Photoshop. Other 3D programs that I use in combination are Makehuman, Poser Pro and ZBrush.
Newest serious hobbies are reverse engineering tools like Ghidra and IDA Pro. Newest fun hobbies are 3D engines Unreal Engine, Unity, Epic Games. Further interests are in deepfakes and one thing that I've discovered here: KLWP.

My hobbies in real life are martial arts and body building (without roids now) for the physical body, science, literature and philosophy for the mind, and music, meditation, cooking, some good wine and a good smoke for the soul. I like to watch Movies but more and more the TV series which became better and better by the day.

That's it, you know now everything that is legal to be known.

 

[Guanaboy]

Hi guys, I'm a new registered on the forum.

I'm a french eletronical and computing lover. Sorry for my gramar and not so good english writing.

Thanks a lot for all your work which already helped me a lot and improved my knowledge on Android world.

 

[Tsuchimursu]

Ive used some tips from XDA before to remove bloat with adb, but Im in the process of rooting for the first time, and might need some tips in the process... (currently can't get my pro-I to reboot into bootloader despite enabling oem unlock but I will keep working on it......)

 

[Pablitus_Maximus]

Hi! New one here playing with his new Moto Edge X30

 

[elhaci41]

selam
Ben Türkiye Kocaeliden.
Forumunuz güzel.
Samsung m52 kullanıyorum.
Bir problemde bilgilerinizi paylaşıp sizdende yardım alabiliriz insallah.

Herkese mutlu ve huzurlu hayatlar dilerim.

 

[orb3000]

selam
Ben Türkiye Kocaeliden.
Forumunuz güzel.
Samsung m52 kullanıyorum.
Bir problemde bilgilerinizi paylaşıp sizdende yardım alabiliriz insallah.

Herkese mutlu ve huzurlu hayatlar dilerim.

Welcome to XDA
English is the preferred language, but hey you can always use an online translator!

 

[Centurion779]

Just here trying to learn a few things, actually a lot of things, and excommunicate from my devices and my life whoever has had me under electronic surveillance for about 2 years, 6 devices, and i cant remember how many gmail account's. And im trying to locate the owner of this malicious custom build version: alps-mp-q0.mp1-V3_tct.q0mp1.k61v1.64.bsp_P62 Build number: vC84 that i have been trying to remove for the last 2 months

 

[iusr419]

Hi everybody, I've been in and out for 5years and now bother to register,
My XDA story is this:
At first there was no Internet. then it came and I was drawn to it from the inside out so I became Sysadmin and life was good for 20y but there was no Blockchains..
(...)
now I'm here to root tvboxes to make crypto nodes for "minting" rewards for dVPN nodes (not mining)
H96 Max RK3566 8GB --> I have working full root on 1 with some custom ROM and Magisk
Wechip V10 H616 4GB --> Root switch not very permissive (help)

edit: the Endgame being to run Armbian Linux instead of Android

 

[erikufli]

Hi! This place is amazing! I came here bc I have a problem with my Xiaomi and after reading everything about it I decided to join and look for knowledge. In my journey through your posts, I have learned about things that I didn't know that it can be done with phones and I am looking forward to learning more so I can have control over the technology that I use (and love). Thanks to everyone on this forum for contributing!

 

[pauljulian]

I've been on XDA for, it seems, eons, through many devices and service vendors...

Likely more than 10 years, but I really don't tend to ascribe a lot of relevance to the number of years being on a place like this for, like, ever... LOL.

I'm currently the dubious owner of a T-Mobile REVVL V 4g (TMRVL4G)... a Wingtech/MediaTek device which is relatively obscure, I admit.

I responded to someone else on another thread that it's less that the vendors want to make rooting and all a challenge... keeps noobs from breaking their phones... it's that they all seem to be "Hold my beer and watch this" regarding making it nigh impossible to tweak without a copy of the vendors' support software on my PC... Did a short-term gig at Sprint's El Paso support team, and there's a way to do what we need... there's always a way.

I'm a 65-year-old Army vet, IT geek, and former radio/TV broadcaster in various capacities... I still keep my tech chops sort of up-to-date to scrape the cobwebs off the little grey cells, have done software development in the past, as I've an AA in it, but my coding chops are seriously out of date... I do Delphi, Code-Typhon, FoxPro, and a bunch of other off=the=wall things, but the change in symbology for C and C++ throws me... Pascal flavors don't seem to need all the differences in brackets, and all... LOL.

I'm, sadly, officially a senior citizen, but a willing guinea pig for any developers around here for any device I've used over the years of my membership here.

 

[FireFighter90]

Registered to thank for the PixelExperience ROM I'm using for years on my Redmi Note 8!

<3 ROMs and 3D printing.

 

[Philbec44]

Hi,
It was a long time since I Had a look at XDA and my previous account was closed. But always pleased to find helpful people on this forum.

 

[CrystalCommunication]

Looks like this is as good a place as any to introduce myself.

I'm Crystal, I've been tinkering with Android devices since I was a kid, so I've been a lurker here for a long time. Decided to create an account today as it will come in handy when I decide to release my projects or leave feedback on ROMs I'm trying out.

 

[netra3441]

Hi alltogether, this is Netra3441.

I am an elder and severly handicaped person rolling in the wheelchair.

For me in my special situation the communication via a smartphone is highly important to survive and to have contact to the outer world. So I own a seven years old Samsung Galaxy S7, wich still runs properly, and I had upgraded it to LOS 19.1 using the very great and honourable work of XDA-member Ivan Meler!

For the very most people like me it is impossible spend money for new hardware.

So, it is a gift and a great pleasure for us, that you guys of XDA and of LOS do this work and help us folks in poverty allover the world to keep our old, but good mobile hardware with actual Android.

My respect and deep gratitude!

Thank you all!

But I am not just have a benefit about LOS.

I do help friends in my enviroment on strictly voluntary basis to get their mobile hardware upgraded to LOS, as far as possible technically. I also do help friends on strictly voluntary basis with their PCs and notebooks installing Linux on it. Myself I use Linux since more than 25 years.

Greetings to you all,
Netra3441

 

[Timmmmaaahh!]

Hi alltogether, this is Netra3441.

I am an elder and severly handicaped person rolling in the wheelchair.

For me in my special situation the communication via a smartphone is highly important to survive and to have contact to the outer world. So I own a seven years old Samsung Galaxy S7, wich still runs properly, and I had upgraded it to LOS 19.1 using the very great and honourable work of XDA-member Ivan Meler!

For the very most people like me it is impossible spend money for new hardware.

So, it is a gift and a great pleasure for us, that you guys of XDA and of LOS do this work and help us folks in poverty allover the world to keep our old, but good mobile hardware with actual Android.

My respect and deep gratitude!

Thank you all!

But I am not just have a benefit about LOS.

I do help friends in my enviroment on strictly voluntary basis to get their mobile hardware upgraded to LOS, as far as possible technically. I also do help friends on strictly voluntary basis with their PCs and notebooks installing Linux on it. Myself I use Linux since more than 25 years.

Greetings to you all,
Netra3441

Hi Netra3441

Thank you sharing your heart warming story on how free development can be so meaningful in our lives. I'm sure @Ivan_Meler will be thrilled to read this and it will be an extra motivation for all our established developers but also those that are taking their very first steps in the wonderful world of Android development.

It doesn't always have to be a financial motivation. I'm convinced that all the continued development for legacy devices on XDA and far beyond has already had a tremendous positive impact on our climate.

On behalf of our team I warmly welcome you and others in similar situations to the XDA family

Cheers!
Timmy

 

[Ivan_Meler]

Hi Netra3441

Thank you sharing your heart warming story on how free development can be so meaningful in our lives. I'm sure @Ivan_Meler will be thrilled to read this and it will be an extra motivation for all our established developers but also those that are taking their very first steps in the wonderful world of Android development.

It doesn't always have to be a financial motivation. I'm convinced that all the continued development for legacy devices on XDA and far beyond has already had a tremendous positive impact on our climate.

On behalf of our team I warmly welcome you and others in similar situations to the XDA family

Cheers!
Timmy

Oh hey thanks for tagging me here, this actually made my day haha.
Always love reading user feedback like this way more than donations as this is main reason why i even started messing with android and posting my work to xda.

Welcome to XDA @netra3441 and have a nice stay

 

[orb3000]

Hi, i'm a new user on this fantastic forum. I'm from italy. I like to read people's problems and i like to find a solution.

Hello, i am starting my career as a technician ... it's really nice to be here

I came to XDA cause I really want to meet people who like to do the same thing I like! I love knowledge. I need help putting back my key board on my android tablet and would be super grateful for some help ... Thank you

Actually, this forum is so good that I didn't have the necessity to ever subscribe, as all the questions that I ever had concerning smartphones were already answered here.

But how did I find this place?
Well, it was spring or maybe summer 2015 when a friend visited me from Portugal. He had that brand new and beautiful Galaxy Note 4, Samsung's flagship at that time, and wanted me to install a custom ROM on it. He left the phone with me and said he will pick it up next time he visits me.
I played a few days with the phone and decided then to google for custom Android ROMs. That's how I found this site.
I remember the bright background of the website and foremost the endless list of Custom ROMs, nicely put in categories for each model that ever existed, it was like discovering the internet for the very first time. A new world opened its gates for me.
I downloaded the Cyanogen Mod, the predecessor of LineageOS and started the installation over Odin. Unfortunately, I unplugged the USB too early and bricked my friend's brand new phone!
It took me some time and some drinks to recover from that shock, but after returning to XDA Developers, it took me just some minutes to find the solution to my problem.

Since then, I'm a lurker here and somehow also a thief, as I modded every phone that passed through my fingers with XDA Software/Knowledge, without giving something in return.

I have learned one very important thing here at this place. When you follow a guide, you should follow it 100% otherwise it will end in absolute failure.
I broke the screen of my Huawei Mate 30 Pro recently and found a LIO-L29 replacement screen for $299 on eBay, but I needed a phone instantly, so I bought an Honor 50 instead. I love it, but I missed my Mate, so I bought a new one. It had already the newest EMUI 12 installed, and I wanted to downgrade to 10 for installing GMS.
I followed @badmania98's Huawei P40 thread as it has the same software as the Mate 30, but couldn't get it to work. Until I went back to his post and read the whole f***ing text to find out that I have to use the latest version of HiSuite with EMUI 12. While I was trying it with dload over OTG (USB-C Stick) the entire time.

Now I'm here just for fun and to say thank you for all these years of support.

I have an IT background that goes far back into the last century, starting already as a kid in the late 1970ies, losing my virginity to a Tandy TRS-80, then came the Atari era, the Commodore 64, Intel's 8086, 80-286, 80-386 and so on. Got early some certificates in programming (BASIC, COBOL, Pascal, C# etc.) but got extremely distracted by the opposite sex, so the programming path discontinued for a while:
Went from Europe to New York in the early 80's, mostly for girls and partying, then a few years in LA, actually for studying, but got distracted by the girls again. Afterwards to Asia for about a decade. First year there just partying again, only girls in my head, later became more adult-like and married a Chinese girl there and then returned with her to Europe in 1996 again, where I'm at right now.

When the Internet came into being (the first provider was in April 1996 at my location), I learned HTML, CSS, PHP, Python, C++, Java, JavaScript (later also with all its associations like AJAX, JSON etc.). Networking and especially network security studies also took a good portion of my lifetime. Started intense work with Linux Servers (CentOS or Debian mostly) Apache and MySQL Databases in 2001 until presence. Forced to learn and to manage Microsoft Servers and the entire Azure Infrastructure, forced to learn Google Infrastructure and its endless services, to keep up to date and to finally keep the job.

Got into extreme pc overclocking from 2005 till 2010, still using a first gen Core i7 965 @ 4GHz from 2009 right now. Mounted on an X58 DFI LANParty board with UEFI support for my NVMe Samsung 970 SSDs over Tianocore (UEFI DUET), running on Windows 11.

Well versed on all versions of Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, Android. Well versed on CMS WordPress and Joomla (both business related). Like to play around with Xcode, Visual Studio, Android Studio, Eclipse a lot. When time allows me days not just hours, I like to delve into 3D graphics and animation, mostly with Blender or Maya in combination with Photoshop. Other 3D programs that I use in combination are Makehuman, Poser Pro and ZBrush.
Newest serious hobbies are reverse engineering tools like Ghidra and IDA Pro. Newest fun hobbies are 3D engines Unreal Engine, Unity, Epic Games. Further interests are in deepfakes and one thing that I've discovered here: KLWP.

My hobbies in real life are martial arts and body building (without roids now) for the physical body, science, literature and philosophy for the mind, and music, meditation, cooking, some good wine and a good smoke for the soul. I like to watch Movies but more and more the TV series which became better and better by the day.

That's it, you know now everything that is legal to be known.

Hi guys, I'm a new registered on the forum.

I'm a french eletronical and computing lover. Sorry for my gramar and not so good english writing.

Thanks a lot for all your work which already helped me a lot and improved my knowledge on Android world.

Ive used some tips from XDA before to remove bloat with adb, but Im in the process of rooting for the first time, and might need some tips in the process... (currently can't get my pro-I to reboot into bootloader despite enabling oem unlock but I will keep working on it......)

Hi! New one here playing with his new Moto Edge X30

Just here trying to learn a few things, actually a lot of things, and excommunicate from my devices and my life whoever has had me under electronic surveillance for about 2 years, 6 devices, and i cant remember how many gmail account's. And im trying to locate the owner of this malicious custom build version: alps-mp-q0.mp1-V3_tct.q0mp1.k61v1.64.bsp_P62 Build number: vC84 that i have been trying to remove for the last 2 months

Hi everybody, I've been in and out for 5years and now bother to register,
My XDA story is this:
At first there was no Internet. then it came and I was drawn to it from the inside out so I became Sysadmin and life was good for 20y but there was no Blockchains..
(...)
now I'm here to root tvboxes to make crypto nodes for "minting" rewards for dVPN nodes (not mining)
H96 Max RK3566 8GB --> I have working full root on 1 with some custom ROM and Magisk
Wechip V10 H616 4GB --> Root switch not very permissive (help)

edit: the Endgame being to run Armbian Linux instead of Android

Hi! This place is amazing! I came here bc I have a problem with my Xiaomi and after reading everything about it I decided to join and look for knowledge. In my journey through your posts, I have learned about things that I didn't know that it can be done with phones and I am looking forward to learning more so I can have control over the technology that I use (and love). Thanks to everyone on this forum for contributing!

I've been on XDA for, it seems, eons, through many devices and service vendors...

Likely more than 10 years, but I really don't tend to ascribe a lot of relevance to the number of years being on a place like this for, like, ever... LOL.

I'm currently the dubious owner of a T-Mobile REVVL V 4g (TMRVL4G)... a Wingtech/MediaTek device which is relatively obscure, I admit.

I responded to someone else on another thread that it's less that the vendors want to make rooting and all a challenge... keeps noobs from breaking their phones... it's that they all seem to be "Hold my beer and watch this" regarding making it nigh impossible to tweak without a copy of the vendors' support software on my PC... Did a short-term gig at Sprint's El Paso support team, and there's a way to do what we need... there's always a way.

I'm a 65-year-old Army vet, IT geek, and former radio/TV broadcaster in various capacities... I still keep my tech chops sort of up-to-date to scrape the cobwebs off the little grey cells, have done software development in the past, as I've an AA in it, but my coding chops are seriously out of date... I do Delphi, Code-Typhon, FoxPro, and a bunch of other off=the=wall things, but the change in symbology for C and C++ throws me... Pascal flavors don't seem to need all the differences in brackets, and all... LOL.

I'm, sadly, officially a senior citizen, but a willing guinea pig for any developers around here for any device I've used over the years of my membership here.

Registered to thank for the PixelExperience ROM I'm using for years on my Redmi Note 8!

<3 ROMs and 3D printing.

Hi,
It was a long time since I Had a look at XDA and my previous account was closed. But always pleased to find helpful people on this forum.

Looks like this is as good a place as any to introduce myself.

I'm Crystal, I've been tinkering with Android devices since I was a kid, so I've been a lurker here for a long time. Decided to create an account today as it will come in handy when I decide to release my projects or leave feedback on ROMs I'm trying out.

Hello all and welcome to XDA!

 

[zulaphod]

Hiya all,

I have been aware of this forum for years, but have always been too nervous to do anything with my phone (which is generally always old) in fear of bricking it. There seems to be a lot of useful info on here and also a lot of very knowledgeable people. I hope I can learn a bit from you all, and if I can, help in the long run, however currently my knowledge in this field would make that a real stretch.

Still, live and learn.

zul

 

[belaoudbouch]

Hey