Questions on best practice and most stable ROMS

[Camicia]

So far I have always been running rooted stock ROMS. From what I read they tent to be very stable, the battery last longer, and do not lose some features (4G, HDMI) etc.
However lately, probably because of the apps I have installed, the phone is pretty slow, the memory on the phone is running out and does not work properly.
It is time for a complete wipe. However I am not the kind the person that change rom once a week. I would like something for the long term.

I have a few questions (feel free to answer to a subset of them):
1) I can I maximize the free space on the phone? On stock you can update a stock app (ex flash, acrobat reader, etc) but you cannot uninstalled. I was wondering if after the update, I have now the app taking twice as much space that is supposed to.
2) What is the best way to backup all the apps on the phone and restore them quickly, being able to chose what and what not? I am using Titanium Backup but it is not clear what is an installed app and what is system app. How do I guarantee that I do not lose the app data? I am trying to find a way that once I update the ROM I can configure/restore the apps that I want without having to spend hours on it. What I am afraid is to install/restore something that it is not going to work but it takes spaces on the phone. One of the thing I really want to keep is the email configuration (3 gmails account, 1 hotmail and the link with Facebook accounts).
3) I am using App 2 SD Free but there are some large apps that cannot be moved on the SD (gmail, facebook, qik, flash, maps, twitter, Google Music, G+, etc). Does any work around exist to save precious space on the phone?
4) Regarding stability, not bloated, and full features available on OTA (4G, Bluetooth, HDMI, etc) What is the best ROM? I was looking into Fresh Evo (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=20101297), Swagged Out (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1258932), Sprint Updated 2.0 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1321340), Clean Rom 1.0 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1351890). I am leaning toward Fresh Evo because the author have been updating for a long time). Any suggestions?

Best,
Camicia

 

[HipKat]

So far I have always been running rooted stock ROMS. From what I read they tent to be very stable, the battery last longer, and do not lose some features (4G, HDMI) etc.
However lately, probably because of the apps I have installed, the phone is pretty slow, the memory on the phone is running out and does not work properly.
It is time for a complete wipe. However I am not the kind the person that change rom once a week. I would like something for the long term.

I have a few questions (feel free to answer to a subset of them):
1) I can I maximize the free space on the phone? On stock you can update a stock app (ex flash, acrobat reader, etc) but you cannot uninstalled. I was wondering if after the update, I have now the app taking twice as much space that is supposed to.

Use A2SD, in terminal type:
SU
a2sd cachesd

Moves your Dalvik Cache to the SD Card. Free'd up about 200+MB on mine

2) What is the best way to backup all the apps on the phone and restore them quickly, being able to chose what and what not? I am using Titanium Backup but it is not clear what is an installed app and what is system app. How do I guarantee that I do not lose the app data? I am trying to find a way that once I update the ROM I can configure/restore the apps that I want without having to spend hours on it. What I am afraid is to install/restore something that it is not going to work but it takes spaces on the phone. One of the thing I really want to keep is the email configuration (3 gmails account, 1 hotmail and the link with Facebook accounts).

It's actually very easy to tell which are user apps with TB. They're the ones in white text

3) I am using App 2 SD Free but there are some large apps that cannot be moved on the SD (gmail, facebook, qik, flash, maps, twitter, Google Music, G+, etc). Does any work around exist to save precious space on the phone?
4) Regarding stability, not bloated, and full features available on OTA (4G, Bluetooth, HDMI, etc) What is the best ROM? I was looking into Fresh Evo (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=20101297), Swagged Out (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1258932), Sprint Updated 2.0 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1321340), Clean Rom 1.0 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1351890). I am leaning toward Fresh Evo because the author have been updating for a long time). Any suggestions?

MIUI, as long as you don't need 4G, everything else works and it's extremely stable. Other than a few times trying other ROMs, I've been using it as a Daily since June

Best,
Camicia

see the bold text!

 

[Camicia]

Thank you for your answers. I have some follow up questions:

1)

Use A2SD, in terminal type:
SU
a2sd cachesd

Moves your Dalvik Cache to the SD Card. Free'd up about 200+MB on mine

What is the quickest way to use terminal? Do I need the dev tools on my computer and put the phone in debug mode?

Where is the Dalvik Cache normally stored? I thought it was on RAM. Since it is a cache, I would expect that it changes often. Is it not going to wear out the sd card quickly?

2) The point is that I want to save also some system settings (ex: remembered password of wifis, browser history, sync settings, etc). Last backup save 203 items. It is going to be a pain to go thought one by one.

4) I looked at MIUI but I ruled it out because it does not support 4G. I use it every now and then.

 

[DocEsq]

Like you I was having some problems with my rooted stock (low phone memory, slow and some other performance issues).

I downloaded ROM Manager and then made a backup of my rooted stock. You can also do it manually by booting into recovery but ROM Manager is easier though some people will say is more prone to errors. Also download Titanium Backup or something similar and save all of the apps (both download and system apps).

Once I backed up my rooted stock ROM I then downloaded and installed the latest Cyanogenmod. As this does not have HTC Sense or bloatware I immediately got a significant amount of free space that handles all that I load.

One thing with Cyanogenmod 7.1, some people like myself will have freezing issues if you have less than 130 MB of free space on the phone. This is not a problem for me as I have more than that available. I chose Cyanogoenmod ROM over MIUI ROM as Cyanogenmod allows for 4G. Take a look though at all of the ROMs out there and decide for yourself.

I find that everything is running faster now and I no longer have the Bloat that Sprint put on the phone. You can also move more apps over to the SD Card freeing up more internal memory.

Apps like Flash and Adobe Reader can be downloaded from the Market and are updated just like any other app.

Good luck

 

[HipKat]

Uhh, no to ROM Manager. It's known to cause problems.
The Terminal is an app. You use it on your phone.

AS for system settings, only a very few can be successfully moved from ROM to ROM. The only thing I backup is my Alarms. You don't have to do them one at a time, you know. Hit Menu, Batch and then you can do them en masse

 

[Azathothify]

Depending on how many apps you load on your phone you may want to re-partition your SD card if you have the space and create a 1-2 gig ext2 or ext3 partition to use for apps2sd. The main reason I rooted my EVO was because I constantly kept running out of space on my phone. I'm an app addict though and have been known to have up to 200+ apps on my phone before I re-flash it with another rom. With a 1.5 gig partition and apps2d, I have never run out of space for apps on my phone though If you do decide to re-partition your SD card you will need to completely backup your SD card to your PC first as it will wipe all data on the card. I have a 16 gig class 10card in my EVO and the speed is pretty good.

 

[acefour23]

i would give energy sensation a go, i was using that rom as my daily it is really staple, great battery life and improves the video recording to 1080p HD as well as plenty of other little tweaks here and there....I am running ics-decks-pre-alpha7 which i am really liking only thing is you would have to be willing to give up your camera til a stable alpha or beta is released. I hope this helps...

 

[Camicia]

I have been running the Sprint Updated 2.0 Final for a few weeks (see http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=20631581 ). I also re-partition my SD card with 1.5Gb (if I remember well). So far everything is good except:
1) I have 99Mb free on the phone. I think the main reason is that I disinstall some of the Sprint Bloatware and haven't reinstall all the apps. However I started having problems when I had 60Mb available before the upgrade to this new ROM. So I am afraid that I am getting close :-/
2) Wifi Tether has problems. I am experience the problem here: http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/issues/detail?id=1288 .
The workaround with Barnacle alleviate the problem but beside being annoying that I have to start Bernacle first and then the Wi-Fi tether, it sometimes stop working (I think it is when I I use the 4G and the 4g connection is lost) and I have to go though the cycle again :-/

Best,
Camicia

 

[HTCEvo4G3D]

Best ROM is probably team nocturnal's shooter, but everyone likes different stuff.

I sure my backup root to back up and restore apps

Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

 

[HTCEvo4G3D]

I use my backup root I meant lol

Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

 

[Shark_On_Land]

I think that one ROM that's 2.3.7 but they managed to get the ics launcher on it. My ***** runs it, so I forgot the name. Sorry I use a ns4g

Edit: it's by chadthegreat.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA App

 

[HipKat]

Your *****?? nice.... <sarcasm>

 

[Shark_On_Land]

Yes my *****. Because I think I could do better.

Your *****?? nice.... <sarcasm>

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA App

 

[DroidManIc]

Im on Mikg v3.0 w. Less freedom kernel and its extremely stable smooth and complete im not sure if it has 4g (im on metro so only got 3g) i do reflash like crazy but this ROM has me pretty satisfied i havent flashed in a while u might lose a thing or two but nothing u cant live w. Out.

Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

 

[DroidManIc]

If u want AOSP evo-deck-(gingerbread 2.3.7) only takes up 13mb of internal on initial boot 19mb after flashing gapps and its really stable too u might have to fix gps but thats the only issue i ran into (which is just a flashable zip if you do have to) and you can move the majority of apps to sd like CM it has a allow move to external option.

Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App