systamatics
what the hell does it mean?
I'm reading all around the web about this thing related to android , and the s-off and s-on , but im not getting anything , are the roms "read only memory" how can you write to such memory , isnt what is wrote on it is only written once? please someone BROADLY explain in simpler ways about this , because i read two articles about this , they explained in a very narrow way that i did not get the full concept. thank you.
hamzewassim
You're right, flashing roms isn't only for android it's for windows mobile too as I know and it means modifying those and then restoring them to the device illegally. Flashed rooms are mostly illegal.
As for s-on/off, read this:
The unrevoked team has really outdone themselves this time. If it wasn’t enough that they gave us a painless root and reflash tool for devices like the Incredible, now they have brought us the ability to flash custom firmware images as well. With unrevoked forever, your phone’s security level will be set to S-OFF, thus bypassing a standard security feature which checks the signatures of firmware images before flashing them. That ain’t all, folks. This bad boy applies the S-OFF fix to the radio’s NV memory, which means that even if you apply an OTA update that is unrootable, you are still able to reflash a custom recovery image. At this time, unrevoked forever only supports the Incredible and the Evo 4G, but the team is fairly confident the software will work with other devices as well, and are planning additional support in the future.
S-on/s-off is for enabling/disabling security on android devices running flashed roms. S-off disables security so you have root privileges(admin privileges) and s-on does the inverse.
omar_killer
ROMs are (as you said) read only memory,they can be changend by either flashing,or by CWM
there are 2 kinds of roms,the stock rom,or the custom rom..custom roms can add some cool stuff for your device.
flashing:is to flash your new ROM on your phone with a tool (such as odin) with your pc
CWM:(clock work mod) is to install your new rom on your phone throughout your recovery (like bios in your pc)
s-off///s-on is something related to htc's security,when "s" is on,you can't flash a custom rom,when you make you make s-off..then you can install a custom rom..I don't know more about s-on/s-off as I have a galaxy s
hope it helps :)
vegetaleb
s-on = security on
s-off = security off
So you can't flash a rom before you root your android aka s-off, for every device you have a detailed method on XDA board ;)
You have to only do it once, then you can flash roms as much as you want, it's very very very easy using clockwork recovery!
-Backup
-WIPE everything but SD
-Flash zip (rom) from SD
-Reboot
Voila you have a brand new RoM installed.
You can backup any app and games with titanium backup then restore them later on any rom (need s-off before)
systamatics
Guys im still not getting it :p , what does flashing rom means , i mean what would you exactly write on your roms?? applications? cant you already do that ? what admin privileges? , some examples please , i need to know what you couldnt do before and what you could do after
omar_killer
flashing:is the process when the program writes the new system files (rom) on your device.
root access is like having admin's privilege in windows vista/7
what you can do when you have a rooted device:
-install apps that need root access
-modding your phone
-installing themes
TIP: a normal guy won't need to root his device,so if you just want to install games,apps on your phone then you don't really need to root your phone.
