Develop Bugs

[Q] Best first step in flashing new ROM for Kindle Fire

So my wife's Kindle Fire has logged about 4 hours of use since LAUNCH day. Most of that use has been just me keeping it updated so it runs smoothly when she DOES decide to pick it up.
Turns out she prefers reading on the e-ink kindle. She also forgets that her Fire is also a tablet. I catch her using one of the iPads (mine and my daughter's) every once in a while so I think she would use it if she thought of it as a tablet more.
My thought is to flash it w/ ICS or Jellybean as an experiment to see if it's the software or the size/form factor that keeps her from using it.
The results of the experiment will decide whether or not I have to blow more $$ or not . If she starts picking it up, it's a win because she gets a tablet and I keep my $$ intact. If she doesn't, then I will have to buy a new iPad eventually (for me) and give her mine . For the money, I at least will get a new iPad AND a rooted and flashed Kindle Fire, so I guess I win either way .
Three paragraphs later, here's the question. Where to start? I am no stranger to rooting/flashing (did it w/ my Evo and a couple of old tablets all the way back to Nokia Tablets). I just want to reap some of the benefit of the community having a huge head start on this w/ trials and errors. Are there any obvious pitfalls I should avoid when first embarking on this?
Otherwise, I will be scouring XDA later this afternoon for threads on flashing the Fire, Discovering which ROM to use always seems to be enjoyable. I just want to get to the point of being able to do so w/ any catastrophic errors up front!
Thanks in advance for any pointers.

Hey Scott,
I just have a bit of advice when it comes to flashing your kindle. First of all: the easiest, maybe only way to root now is using the Kindle Fire Utility:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1399889
Use KFU to flash TWRP and FFF (recovery and bootloader)
From there you can use TWRP to flash a ROM just like you did with your phone. Make sure you wipe before you flash, and make a backup. I would suggest you use one of the ICS ROMs for your wife because Jellybean is not yet really ready for people who are not familiar with the dev process. It is smooth and stable but there are a lot more modifications for the ICS ROMs and she probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway. Personally I like the AOKP ICS ROM because it allows you to change the soft keys to your personal liking, including replacing the menu button that was removed in ICS.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1614004
Of course, If you wanted you could always just side load Go Launcher Ex to the kindle to give it a more tablet-y feel without having to root, but it is much more clean to load an ICS ROM.

Thank you for the info. Time to play...
*edit***
Worked like a charm. Thank you!

[Q] Need help finding a Fire HD ROM

I'm in the market for a tablet for my mother. Most of the tablets with great hardware lack an SD slot or HDMI or both. The Kindle Fire HD 32GB seems like the best combination of hardware & optionals but comes with the bastardized OS. I want to completely format the Fire HD & install the latest Android OS. 4.2 I believe it is. I don't want dual boot, modded ROMs or anything fancy, just the stock Android ROM installed on the Fire HD. She plays games, checks email & surfs the net. I could do all that with the stock Amazon OS but a lot of apps either don't work with it or just aren't available. I know not all apps are tablet friendly but with the huge assortments of apps available I'm sure I can find alternatives.
So, my questions are:
1. Is there a Stock Android ROM available for the Kindle Fire HD? The 7" version (NOT the 8.9).
2. If there is, could someone please link me to it? I've tried searching the forums but the results were just a cluttered mess of questions, development discussions, & 1st gen ROMs.
3. Is there a better 7" tablet I should be looking at in the $200-$250 range? It must have HDMI, bluetooth, WiFi, SD slot, USB (micro-b) & a 3.5mm.
If anyone has comments or suggestions I welcome them. I've installed Roms on cell phones so the process is not new to me.

1. I don't know for sure but I strongly believe so.
2. You're in the wrong forum, m8. Search for the Fire HD (within XDA) and look from there.
3. Better in term of what? personal preference? If I said the Nexus 7 is better, KF fanboys will eat me alive

[Q][Hellfire 10.2 jelly 2.4] too slow, something to set?

Hello guys,
I am currently using a Kindle Fire 7" 1st gen (rooted about 1 year ago and flashed cyano7), last week i decided to upgrade and I tried some roms but everyone of these present some little problems i didn't solve (rotation problem, error with keyboard process, usb mount storage problem..) with use of forum.
Finally I found ROM hellfire 10.2 jelly 2.4 (built Tue, Aug 27 and kernel 3.0.72+). Everything ok, no problems...but the kindle now is going very very slow: a long time to open app, and it is not so reactive as before. I don't play with it, I use kindle for gmail, web nav, twit, read books using amazon app and comics using ACV.. I think these apps are not so expensive in terms of hardware resources. Moreover, in order to increase the battery life I travel with wifi off and turn it on just to check notifications.
Is it normal? Does it depend on the hardware that it is not very performant using a rom so recently? Or can I set or check some parameters to increase performance?
Alternative could be flash an older rom or a lighter (but new) rom to increase reactivity and speed?
Thank you so much for any suggest!

Optimal Snapchat configuration?

Besides getting a new phone lol!
I'm currently running CM11 by ggow (who is a genuine Android god! Awesome work! You rock!) and to be honest it's the most stable experience I have EVER had with CM across tens of devices I've used it for.
However recently I've had to sell quite a few of my devices to help pay bills during a career transition. Now the Fire Phone has became my daily driver solely because of how cheap the hardware is (resell value isn't that high, it has fantastic hardware, plus I got mine for free when I used to work for at&t), and although CM11 is so damn stable with phenomenal battery life; I have began to notice how often I use apps that utilize the stock camera... Like Snapchat & depositing checks through my bank app.
I have a backup of my rooted 3.5.1 installation, but before I go back I just had a few questions that maybe someone else here has ran into or has had experience with.
What's the most optimal way of running snapchat to your experience?
Should I upgrade my Fire OS or keep it at 3.5.1? I want permanent root, and I plan on tweaking it w/ xposed to manipulate the interface to be as close to a stock Android/AOSP experience as possible. However it is quite outdated. Is battery life better on newer releases? Is permanent root possible on newer releases? Or is 3.5.1 the best version to stay on for tweaking/flashaholic purposes? Would restoring my 3.5.1 backup break my Safestrap recovery at all?
Do Google Play Services break all the time still for those of you using Fire OS?
I've read many threads and different boards/reddit trying to find answers and what other users are doing, but I wanted to get a little dialog going about this and maybe hear from users with experiences.
Sent from my Fire Phone using Tapatalk

Unfortunately, no custom ROM for the Fire Phone can use those apps (i.e. snapchat, some scanner apps). The problem is not the ROM itself, there is no source code available for the custom HAL(Heuristic ALgorithmic), so the cause for all those apps not working properly is located "deeper". You may have to go back to stock Fire OS. Sorry. You should have Fire OS 4.6.6 for best experience.

Is there life for this device?

I have had 2 AFTV1 devices since launch and they have been good devices. In my opinion, the hardware is still great. The most disappointing thing about these boxes is that they have never received a non-FireOS based ROM. We have TWRP recovery now and pre-rooted stock ROMS, but I'm starting to wonder if we will ever see a true custom ROM on this device will vanilla Android Marshmallow or Nougat. I use KODI to stream my Blu Rays from a local mediaserver/NAS and with KODI recently getting up to snuff on "Official" Android standards with the latest Krypton builds, DTS passthrough has been removed since the the FireOS API version only on version 22, based on Lollipop. API 23 is the minimum for DTS support now, Marshmallow. These boxes aren't much use to me know if I can't have surround for my movies.

I think you need to either update your AFTV1. (Not sure if possible, since even the AFTV2 is Lollipop), or downgrade your Kodi back to Jarvis 16.x. Which is still the 'Stable Current' Build.
Perhaps down the Road, SPMC, or other fork, might correct these oversights for these Boxes.

That is just the problem there. "Downgrade" my Kodi to Jarvis. I don't want to do that. Kryton stable is not far off now and I have been running the nightlies for a while now. I also have SPMC (jarvis-based) loaded so I can have DTS passthrough support. I don't see FireOS getting updated anytime soon if ever from Lollipop. Normally, a custom ROM will get you around this on a device. We just never got one for this box. I just don't get the KODI team removing the working DTS Passthrough (apparently they had a workaround in place to make it work), and now that they have decided to adhere to the Android API standards (which isn't a bad thing) they broke existing functionality. Their stance is "bug your vendor" for android update on your device which is not a good answer for these boxes. So although this hardware is more than capbable, if I want to use Krypton I will most likely have to buy new hardware.

Did you say AFTV, or AFTV2?
AFTV with its Snap 600? Might eventually someday perhaps get a custom ROM, as Qualcomm are pretty decent about releasing Code.
AFTV2 With its MediaTek SoC? Not a chance in Hell Amazon are in a fairly decent position to muscle MediaTek 'round a bit, but as is the case with these Chinese outfits. Once the Parts out the Door, its no longer their problem. And what's that? You wanted a new Android?! Well buy our new Box then.
But, back to the topic if you like what is a beta version of Krypton better then Jarvis. Then you'll have to live with the fact that somethings will break.