CyanogenMod 9 turns stable, finally!
After months of development and nightly builds, version 9 of the CyanogenMod custom Android ROM becomes finally stable.
The CyanogenMod is a replacement for the original Android system, completely open source, and with a lot of extra features; it supports over 60 devices (only official ports, there are also unofficial versions for other devices) and has over 2 million users.
Version 9 is based on Android 4.0 (a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich) and Linux Kernel 3.0 (altough you can install another kernel version, or even build your own, isn’t open source awesome?); development started in late 2011, and just today (9 August 2012) the stable version was released.
I’ve been a CM9 user since its early stages (as soon as a build for the Galaxy S2 was released, I installed it), I was really excited about ICS, but official builds didn’t satisfy me at all,so I gave it a try, and even if it was really buggy back then, it was simply the best ROM I’ve ever tried.
It comes with the Trebuchet Launcher, very fast, stable and good looking. I was a big supporter of TouchWiz when I used GingerBread, but Trebuchet is simply better; and it’s very well integrated with the CM9, which makes it my favourite launcher so far.
The default music player is Apollo, a very good music player in my opinion, it automatically grabs album covers and artist photos from last.fm, which is both nice and annoying, since you have to tag all your music correctly, or you’ll get an ugly “Keep stats clean” warning from last.fm. CM9 comes also with DSPManager, a nice equalizer, to enjoy your music even more.
Right now the CyanogenMod team is working on the next version, CyanogenMod 10, based on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, some nightlies have been released so far, but they’re still really unstable.
You can get CyanogenMod from http://get.cm, check the list for your device and download the desired version, if you’re a ROM Manager Premium user, you can send it directly to your phone.
If you’re an Android user, let me know, which device do you own? Do you use CM or any other custom ROM? Do you use a custom kernel? And do you think the custom ROM improved your device?
Also, if you want me to review another ROM, just tell me (keep in mind I only own a Samsung Galaxy S2) and I’ll take a look at it 🙂
– Freddy
can it work on my xperia play?
I second this notion. I am rooting ky xp as soon. As I return home from vacation. I would like the option of a qualified stable Rom.
i’m turn on all day
I have an HTC Evo 4G (OG) and have Energy ROM on it.
I tried CM7 and it was way too buggy for me and others who have Evos. Our phones would randomly shut down, freeze up, etc. Sometimes would’ve even accept phone calls.
For Galaxy SII owners, like yourself Wololo, how is CM going for you? What has been the worst problem that you’ve experienced while on the ROM?
This article is not written by me but by freddy. I personally have an htc desire hd which is very close to the evo 4g. But it is not rooted.
you tinker a lot with vita/hbl and other programming stuff, yet you dont root your android??
sorry but its kinda unforgivable.. 🙂
In japan, rooting equals losing my data plan.
what? how could a phone company know if your rooted? unless there collecting data from your phone without your knowledge (i imagine thats illegal). also, there are some phones that come rooted like the Xiaomi Phone does that mean the moment your sim cards enters that phone your data shuts off? lol
I don’t know the details. Basically custom roms are missing some special identifiers that allow the carrier to recognize the phone as one of theirs. Because of that, the phone is considered as an “external” device, and therefore gets roaming fees. We’re talking of something like $5’000 a month with my data usage. Of course, maybe this system has been fully reverse engineered now, but when I checked 1 year ago it was not easy to retrieve those ids.
Also, in Japan carriers are all powerful and don’t care about what’s legal or not. I’ve heard that Docomo is asking phone manufacturers to *not* upgrade their devices to ICS despite google’s recommendations
ew carrier IQ. not a good thing in the EU and US that sorta thing is not acceptable due to the fact that it’s an invasion of privacy. and yeah they don’t need to be recording the calls or viewing your txt messages and such.
as on topic. my tab won’t see cm9 anytime soon that is till pershoot jumps in, I’ve been working with team drh and they use some of CM’s sources and mods in the rom for the Nvidea Harmony.
ohh i see… in my case i use an unlocked note.. i don’t use custom roms, but i’m always rooted… 😀
too bad Docomo users cant update to ics
Wow…I had no idea that it was that bad in Japan.
For me on Sprint, they tell us not to root and if we do, it voids our warranty with both Sprint and HTC or whatever manufacturer we have. But they can’t find out unless we tell a Sprint representative or they check out our phone thoroughly and find root apps or check the Hboot. I’d like to learn more about Japan’s because that sounds unreal.
I had a boot loop the first time I installed it (I didn’t clear the Dalvik cache), search bar crashing randomly, the “Flash screen when updated” setting couldn’t be turned off, and the screen would randomly flash red, lag, random crashes especially when watching videos. But with the stable version everything looks good, no problems so far.
Yes! I totally forgot about the boot loops. That’s what really made me leave CM. But if that’s true, I’ll try it out if it’s available for me. I really did like it. It had good features, was fast…Thanks!
Sorry to confuse you two freddy and Wololo lol I should read the author’s name before posting next time 😛
I was using MIUI for a long time on my galaxy S2, but I recently switched to CM9 and I’m really liking it so far.
If only they could port it to the tablet S. =(
Any versions working for Droid X? I didn’t see it on that list. =(
Isn’t a Ps Vita an android? Can it be ported?
Vita Android
*not equal to
I used to have an evo 4g rooted. I once installed the cm7 rom and I ended up in a boot loop. There went 20 minutes of my life restoring the backup. Never done it again. Now I have IOS and loving it. Minus a few restrictions and tedious steps to do simple things.
i use a galaxy nexus, and am currently on cm10 (unoffical build), and its honestly not unstable at all :p been running it for about 2 weeks now and no crashes or anything. i’m also using franco.kernel with the Wheatley governor, CPU clocked at 1.2GHz …i also prefer brain *** scheduler over Completely fair scheduler, but i don’t think frano.kernel has a BFS version 🙁
oh, i also have a asus transformer(tf101) running a pretty earlier cm10 build (super unstable) with harmony kernel (JB modded one), with CPU clocked at 1.4GHz with the smartass v2 govener
i used to bounce around between miui, cm7 and android revolution HD when i had my desire hd, but i don’t have it anymore haha (wololo, if i was u i’d go to miui(gingerbread base) or cm9)
will probably never go back to miui or android revolution as miui stated they won’t be changing there base from ics, and once you’ve used jellybean, ice cream sandwich seem incredibly laggy. and no to android revolution because its pretty much stock with minor tweaks :p
and to freddy if you wanna review something cool check out the paranoid android rom …this is by far the most unique rom i’ve seen, i don’t personally use it, but i definitely see the appeal. i’ve never seen anything like it before
I never used the franco.kernel, I usually compile my own from cyanogen repositories with a few modifications (undervolted, smartassv2, etc.), but I should give it a try sooner or later.
I will take a look at the paranoid, thanks for the suggestion 🙂
sony ericsson live with walkman, Its been said a gazillion times before but again: hardware this baby is awesome, good price, but software sucks. Half of the SELWW have updated to 4.x android, mine hasn’t. So I was looking for other ROM’s, good thing that sony allowed rooted devices. 🙂
decided to randomly google your phone …hardware’s more like entry level, wouldn’t you say? 1GHz Scorpion CPU is quite old. and 320 x 480 screen resolution is quite low by todays standards, plus it only has 320MB storage. the ram is pretty decent though. awesome hardware would be HTC’s one x or Samsung’s GS3 (quad core version) or the Nexus 7 :p
Yeah, price hardware 🙂 I only payed 160 €, having a GPS module, Wifi, 1GHz proc and well it has low internal storage, but it came with a 4 GB memory card so …
Then again, yes, this entry level and old, but it runs everything I want, even my buggy high-ram-using apps 😀
I love the way my old phone runs CM9 and even CM10 (CM10 has got a camera bug, CM9 hasn’t got any bugs :D)
Some specs:
600MHz ARMv6 Single Core Processor (Though overclocking is possible at a maximum of 825MHz)
188MB RAM (SWAP is recommended ;P)
Very weak adreno GPU
And as if that wasn’t enough yet, it runs an linux kernel 2.6.29 with a lot af backports from newer linux kernels. ;D
Thanks to all the developer who made this possible. <3
What phone do you use?
It’s a Sony Ericsson Xperia X8. ;D
Sony Ericsson stopped updating at 2.1, thankfully we got some amazing developers at XDA. :3
Mine is on 2.3 offical came out last year
With a bit of tweaks here and there, I kinda got it to work on my Google Nexus 7.
Still needs work on it tho.
Darkside rom for sgs2 is pretty good but doesn’t give me voltage setting in setcpu.
voltage is relatd to your kernel not your rom
Nice to see android having a space here.I’ve been giving jelly been cm10 on my rooted HTC one x for about a week now but its as the but has a long way to go,power drain being a issue, so I’ve been waiting for this one.thanks for the info.
What are the benifits of rooting an android? haven’t decided whether to do it yet (pantech burst p9097) . I don’t know if its worth it and I don’t want to mess up my phone.
You can install a custom ROM, to improve performance, and have complete control over your phone. The only disadvantage is that it voids your warranty :/
I have it on my galaxy note! 🙂 Super cool!
S3 rooted but no Custom ROM.
I had a Samsung galaxy s before this with Custom ROM but it felt like my battery life decreased and as time passed i got more and more errors and the device became slow as heck.;
Dunno if i’m going custom just yet or at all.
I have a Vodafone 858 at CM9, but its very buggy, and the phone isnt good at all too but still fun to have ICS.
I also have a Samsgung galaxy mini, but im not sure if i will get CM9/CM10 on it, because i actually enjoy the looks of TouchWiz and its pretty fast.
I rooted my phone today 🙂 but I have a question about this room.
I have a Pantech Burst P9070, and I dont see it on the list. Does that mean I can’t use this rom? Or is there compatibility with other roms to work on it.
Don’t suppose this is available for the HTC Thunderbolt is it? Couldn’t find anything on the get.cm link.
The almighty Galaxy Note. 😀
Running Paranoid Android v0.5 (Tablet/Hybrid).
It’s simply amazing.
It uses CM9 as a base though so that’s probably where a lot of its awesomeness comes from. 😛
I seriously can’t wait for a stable CM10 to be released though.
I recently switched to Apex Launcher in favour over Trebuchet. Even though they look almost identical, because it provides so many more customisation options and settings (plus settings backup/restore), it just had to win over Trebuchet.
You could try giving it a shot yourself? 🙂
Also I’m really glad we finally have an “Android” category. ^^