Cooking your own ROM

I have a few friends who recently bought a Samsung Galaxy S and are now threatening to change to iPhone 4 due to "slowness" or "laggy-ness" on the device as they install apps over time. Some of these friends had came to me and asked me to help them flash the device - in which I am very happy to assist. But the problem arised when they soon discovered that the new ROM that had been flashed-in does not have the original applications in which they wish to use. (One man's poison is another man's food right ?)

This blog entry is to teach you how to create your own ROM and flash into your device. As there are many options within, I may be biased on some of the choice in which I recommend to you. That is based on my experience in flashing my device and may not be necessary be your cup of tea. So are you ready ? Here goes...

Pre-requisites (Sanity check - anything is not met, STOP IMMEDIATELY):-

1. You must have a SAMSUNG GALAXY S (i9000 model)
2. Your phone must have "3 button combo" enabled.
3. Your phone needs to have ClockWorkMod Recovery installed
4. You need to have guts !

STEPS:-

1. Visit ROMKITCHEN

2. Click on GALAXY S (Obviously !)

3. On the top right hand side, click on "GENERATOR"

4. Refer below for options:-

BASE ROM:

• XWJS3 v9.1.3 WIPE (Yes, I recommend you to wipe your phone's data !!!)

CSC:

• XEN-JS3 (I used other CSC and resulted forced close on my phone)

KERNEL:

• HARDCORE'S KERNEL (Reason at the end of this post)

MODEM:

• JPE MODEM (Best so far)

APPS (Ensure the following is chosen, rest is optional):

• BROWSER: ANDROID 2.2.1 BROWSER
• KEYBOARD: Choose at least one please

BASE APPLICATIONS

• Choose FACEBOOK SUPPORT, SNS PROVIDER, ACCOUNT, UNIFIED INBOX if you wanna sync your contacts to facebook and use the email features within
• LIVE WALLPAPER PICKER - If you use them
• MMS - Samsung Standard (Please)
• Samsung APP and Widgets you can choose NOT TO INSTALL if you're using another launcher besides the default launcher
• MEMO - Useful if you wish to take notes during phonecall
• Maps 5.0 - If you do not use Brut (hacked) Map application. This does not provide Navigation features besides using in US

UTILITIES:

• CHOOSE ALL

TWEAKS:

• Leave it (unless you have different thoughts about the default selections)

THEMES:

• I like R64Theme. You may try another

5. Click on the GENERATE BUTTON at the bottom and wait for the generated zip file

6. Download the zip file and put it into your INTERNAL SDCARD of your device

7. Boot into clockworkmod recovery and apply the zip

WHAT NEXT ?

1. Be sure to enable all the TWEAKS in ClockWorkMod recovery
2. Enable ext4 LAGFIX in ClockWorkMod recovery
3. Flashing Hardcore Kernel allows you to update the Kernel without affecting the base ROM (XWJS3). You can get Hardcore's latest work at the following URL http://touristinparadise.blogspot.com/2010/11/samsung-galaxy-s-download-speedmod.html. My suggestion is for you to check his work from time to time, download latest kernel zip file, put into your device and flash again.

Caveat: These selection is correct as at 22-January-2010. If you're reading this at more than 2 weeks away. Ask me what's the latest changes in selection.