Gadgetory

welcome back to another episode of the Android power-user the pocket now series where we learn less about the frilly stuff and more about the nuts and bolts the terminology and the concepts behind Android we learn the stuff that helps us understand all of the other cool frilly things you might read elsewhere and why they work the way they do today we're gonna talk about the system image which is something very very near and dear to my heart it's something that when we talk about custom Rahming that's the thing let's get right to it Android is made up of a couple different images now what are images we talked a little bit about that last time in the last episode we talked about clockworkmod recovery and more specifically the recovery image well there's also a boot image and a system image the three of them kind of worked together to make everything work find out more about the recovery image go back and watch last week's episode I'll have a link for you at the end of this video today we're going to focus on the system image what it is what it does why we have it what it's good for and well kind of what we have to do with out if it weren't around so let's jump right into that what is an image an image is essentially just a collection of stuff in a certain configuration you like that fancy terminology computer stuff files settings yada yada yada the image comprises in this case the system image everything that you need to run the operating system so let's compare this to Windows or Mac the system image is Windows or Mac you boot up your computer it goes through boot sound familiar once it's booted up it boots into that system image then you have windows you have your kernel you have your programs you have your wallpaper you have everything that you've configured on Mac it's the same thing on Linux it's the same thing in well since Android is essentially Linux there you go when you boot your Android up you're booting into the system image that's where all of your settings are so why do we have it we want to run stuff I know I had to throw that in there when you get your device from the factory it comes with what's called a factory image it's exactly the way that the factory wants it to be whose the factory in this case well that's the OEM whether that Samsung Motorola HTC LG any of the other guys or the carrier Sprint t-mobile orange Oh to any of those guys and usually they work together to customize there's my air quotes customize the image to do what they want they don't just want it to run they want it to be able to collect information they want it to be able to sell you products and services that you may otherwise not have known about we call that bloatware over here at pocketnow.com and it's the bane of our lives we don't like it we like to remove it and hey since we're Android power users and we know how all this stuff fits together we can do that so since all of that is built and kind of cooked into the system image can we get in there and remove stuff and change stuff not easily unfortunately with the right tools and the right permissions superuser root we can go in and change system files we can remove system files bloatware unfortunately our system files blows me away that they make some NFL TV app that you can only watch for one season a system image that you can't remove but maybe I'm just odd let me know down in the comments if you would thanks great so what we can do is we can modify that system image with the right tools the right permissions or we can replace it altogether that's where we get into custom roms like CyanogenMod rom like a okp like you name it let us know your favorite rump down in the comments down below at pocketnow.com we can replace that whole thing it replaces the kernel it replaces the wallpaper it replaces the operating system it has more we're or less bloatware it has some apps that you need and some apps that you might not whatever you want to do depends on who cooked this ROM and put it all together for you and you can replace it that's what it is that's what it does that's where custom Rahming really comes into play and because Android is separated out into these separate images all we have to do is flash one file we can wipe out everything that was there before replace it with whatever you want boot back up and you have a brand new Android experience all thanks to the system image kind of a short topic for today but we do most of our work inside the system image we just didn't know about it so now you know when you're backing up stuff that's one of the important ones that you really want to backup so you don't lose all of your configurations otherwise you got to go back and reconfigure at all so if you have questions if you have comments if you want to answer any of the questions that we posed to you in this episode please head over to pocketnow.com I'll have a link right down there if you're watching this video on youtube so you can head over to the website and sew it there we'll kind of keep the discussion there that's where I'll be answering your questions we get you taken care of I hope so so give us a big thumbs up make sure if you haven't subscribed to our video channel that you do that I'll have a link for you at the end of this video as well for PocketNow talking about Android and helping us all understand the nuts and bolts of it I'm Joe Levi