I've definitely been there. For probably a majority of the phone models, the modding community is a loosely-organized collection of barely-tested hacks and vague tales of something that worked for somebody once. Use anything you find there, and you will probably run into lots of strange problems that nobody available has any idea how to solve, so you're on your own to debug it and get your device back into a usable state.

If you manage to get it working in some modified state, it's entirely possible that some random thing will cause it to go completely off the rails at some random moment, whether or not you need it then, or have access to alternate hardware, troubleshooting tools, or anybody who could help.

If you really want to have a modified phone, it's probably best to check out the community first and choose a phone model based on what is best supported. Even then, you probably shouldn't mess with it much if you aren't in a position to troubleshoot any problems that come up.

This is factually true; however I found that you presented it in a surprisingly negative light, for a contributor of a site called "hacker" news.

It is both true and practically useful advice... what's negative about that?

Speaking from years of experience (and as someone whose day job is Android app development) for every Android phone that has high quality developer support for 3rd party OS builds in the custom build "scene" there are dozens with really crappy half-ass amateur hour "support", and this tends to happen more on the phones that most non-hacker-types want to mod (because their carrier/vendor has stuck them on an old version of the OS for no good technical reason, etc).

If you aren't on the latest flagship phone from a big vendor or on a Nexus device, you probably shouldn't bother with custom builds unless you are prepared to deal with a lot of random issues.

I'd say that a necessary part of being a hacker includes considering the purpose and importance of things that you're hacking on. Hack on your hobby Raspberry Pi or the side project you're working on at home to your heart's content. Don't hack around on the production servers for your multi-million dollar business.

The phone that you use to organize your real-life events, keep in touch with the people in your life, get important alerts, etc. is more towards the production server level of importance than the toy gadget. I recommend thinking twice before putting some hacked-up barely-supported ROM on it.

I feel the complete opposite: the phone I use everyday and has become more important in my digital life than my pc, must be hacked (owned) by me even more.

Hacking means making it work to your needs, despite all the limitations some clever suits have decided on your behalf.

For example my phone carries some immigrant files and I need them stored as files, therefore I am not able to use non hacked Apple devices.

There are a few steps that are usually needed that you didn't list. You may have done them, but I figure I better check.

1) Your phone must be in developer mode. This is achieved by going to Settings >> About Phone >> and tapping the Build Number item 5 or 10 times (you will see a notification that developer mode is active).

2) You must go into developer mode and check the "Enable USB Debugging" menu. After that, you can plug in your phone (while powered on) and after a few seconds you should see a notification on your phone asking for confirmation to allow debugging from the computer.

3)The "fastboot" command only works from the bootloader screen. "adb" is the tool you can use when the phone is on with debugging enabled. You can run "adb reboot-bootloader" and should be able to use fastboot from there.

I used to have a Nexus device where unlocking the boot loader and flashing a custom ROM is easiest. It took me several tries and reading of several tutorials, that were all omitting different crucial steps or assuming domain specific knowledge. If you have an HTC phone and to worry about S-On and stuff like that it's even harder.

The forums (especially xda) are full of voodoo (wipe cache three times!!!11!) and ridiculous claims (so fast! much battery life! very scheduler!). It's really hard to get at the useful information.

Let me outline the general steps to installing Cyanogen.

1. Unlock bootloader (this involves downloading at least one piece of software) 2. Flash custom bootloader 3. Flash custom ROM 4. Wipe and start over

Once you have managed to install Cyanogenmod, it's a really nice experience.

Using Cyanogen with only free software is a pain for die hard RMS fans and other masochists. It makes your phone a lot less useful and a lot more high maintenance. Central app installation and automatic updating? Not really.

If you want a fully Open Source or Google free phone there two several alternatives: Jolla, Firefox OS. If you don't need the latest and greatest check out the N800, N900 and N9 Nokia phones.

One of my criteria when buying phones is "Must support Cyanogenmod". It hasn't been a problem; frankly speaking, there are enough good phones that are fully supported that I don't need to mess around with the semi-working ones.

Same here, I had to choose the European edition of the galaxy note 3 N9005. The most difficult part was to buy this exact piece of hardware. Then I played two days with the Samsung oily os, and got the real android with CM11.

Yeah. I want to install Cyanogenmod on my phone, a T-Mobile Moto X. But their wiki page for this device[1] lists only nightly builds, no stable builds whatsoever. I'm sorry, I'm not going to install an automated nightly onto my phone.

Their installation instructions are pretty worthless as well, as they're clearly built from a template with the device name swapped in.

Shambles.

[1] http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Xt1053_Info

If you're serious about wanting to install CM (or another distribution) on your device I'd first read through the relevant development thread on the forum or mailing list used for the distribution. This is where you'll find out which version to install, which problems you're likely to encounter and - if you're lucky - even ways to solve those problems. You'll find loads and loads of opinionated posts by people who often don't have a clue what they're talking about but that should come as no surprise given the subject matter and the medium. There'll probably be some good posts by the original developer(s) and a core of knowledgeable people, just focus on those and ignore the noise.

For the Motorola X you could have a look at the relevant XDA forum (http://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-x), there might be something worth your while there. Not having one of those devices I can't tell.

Just look at the last few pages in the XDA development forum for the ROM you're trying to install to figure out which NIGHTLY is the most STABLE. :/ You shouldn't run into very many issues.

It takes time for a stable build to be released. Be patient or help out.

I had a similar experience with last phone. After nearly bricking it, I found an image that sort of worked.. There would always be some feature that crashed or some other annoyance I'd have to live with. Once I found myself flashing my phone on a subway because it wouldn't turn on. I thought i'd be free once rooted, but it felt more like i was owned. Thanks to being gainfully employed at 60hrs/week I just want a working dependable smart phone.

All that said i'm itching to do it again because my HTC One is on 4.3 and I can't get the latest lens blur camera onto it!

if I remember my encounter with fastboot and Windows 7 machine correctly, W7+ does not allows unsigned drivers, but, unlike XP, which asked you to confirm installation of unsigned drivers, W7 silently skips it. Your fastboot drivers maybe installed but not loaded, until you allow unsigned drivers in W7 as such, via special "testing" reboot. Google "permanently disable driver signature enforcement". or use XP inside Virtualbox. That actually works.

Why are people downvoting this? Just because you don't like it doesn't make it not true. You may be able to argue that Windows is necessary (ha! for rooting Android? why is that?), but that doesn't make the most insecure and malware-ridden platform out there exempt or immune from criticism, especially since you can't see the code. Same goes for OSX.