Scene: an overly-long response, in which leutbneot attempts to explain his last post.
Now I've got two wholly different OS's on my phone
No, you don't. Running LauncherPro is... just running another app. It just happens to be another launcher. It's not another OS nor even another ROM.
all the apps and system data are shared between MIUI and LauncherPro's version of MIUI
That's because it's all the same MIUI ROM. There's no LauncherPro "version" of MIUI; it's all just MIUI.
You could download and install ADW Launcher, LauncherPro, GDE, Zeam, and Go launcher and set them all up and have your phone ask you which one you wanted to run whenever you hit the home button.
Lots of people run LauncherPro instead of the stock launcher. Many people run Chevy's kernel, or slayher's, or p3, or something else too. It's not any big deal, really.
*Again, sorry for the length of the post. Skip it if you want, it's basically just a response to Michael_Campbell's post above*
Well, it looks like someone forgot his happy juicebox this morning. I'm not a total idiot; I started programming when I was like ten years old, I know my way around UNIX and Linux and Windows and OSX and most of the major OS's and apps. I know my Android kernels (Chevy's are my favorite.) I rooted my D1 manually using exclusively UNIX in a Parallels emulation of Windows 95 - the crappiest version ever made of Windows ever made but the only one I had on me. Apparently rooting a D1 exclusively in a UNIX terminal environment apparently still doesn't work with OSX's Terminal for some reason. Anyway, getting off track here. The point is that I'm not a newbie at this stuff and my original post was designed to help non-nerd people with Androids (like my mother) who want to take the MIUI plunge but need a way out of they're scared away by the interface. That's all.
I *definitely* understand the difference between a ROM, a kernel, an OS, and an App; I thought my post made that pretty clear. Obviously, if you run LauncherPro on top of MIUI, you're still running the MIUI ROM because the D1 can't run two ROMs at the same time, but my point was that it FEELS like you have two (or three, with ADW, or four with GDE, etc) instantly changeable and almost instantly bootable OSs on one phone - after all, the launcher really is the OS (in that it dictates how you
Operate your
System), and the ROM and kernel are the things under the hood.
My MIUI Launcher, for instance, is set up in a totally different way than my LauncherPro setup, because they're both optimized for doing different things. I think it's pretty cool that you can hot-swap between these on the fly. I'm sorry if it doesn't pass your test for what can be considered cool and awesome about Android, but it definitely passes mine, which I why I posted in the first place. I had just installed MIUI when I wrote that earlier post, and the fact that it was working like gangbusters made me very ebullient. I had a very traumatic experience with MIUI a month or two ago, but now I've got this great new OS AND all the comforts of LauncherPro at my fingertips? SWEET. I just thought, "waiiiiit a minute, I can run these sequentially without restarting and use them both in their optimal capacity!" My mom would think this is super cool and it totally wouldn't freak her out because the other launcher you install, be it LauncherPro, ADW, etc, functions as a sort of psychological escape hatch. I think that's awesome.
LauncherPro was my default launcher of choice ever since it came out. I bought the D1 the day it was released, and I remember this because it came out on my birthday - and when I found LauncherPro a few days later I couldn't believe how one single programmer could make a launcher that was so much
better, in almost every way, than the one the team of superintelligent-space-rocket-monkey-super-scientists they have over at Google had shipped with the phone. And while I realize it's the MIUI ROM behind the scenes, it makes the phone FEEL more like it used to when I was running Simply Stunning or Bugless or Sapphire. And plus, you can stretch your widgets again :rockon:. I love stretching me some widgets, and I love LauncherPro's interface, options, and custom widgets much more than anything ADW or GDE or possibly even MIUI have to offer, and MIUI has quickly become my second favorite. The only thing ADW has going for it is themes and I'm sure LauncherPro will probably add support for them inside of six months.
Anyway, lighten up man (woman? Doubtful, but I digress.) I was just offering a suggestion to people that like MIUI but occasionally miss the way their phone USED to work and might not be tech-savvy enough to understand you can use as many launchers as you want, just like a Mac can run Windows or Linux or (god forbid) BeOS if you want it to.
(
sidebar:
whatever happened to BeOS? They were the "next big thing" for a good hot minute, they were on the cover of Wired, and I downloaded and used their public beta for a few weeks and thought it was pretty good.
It was unstable, even compared to some of the early beta builds we have here on the forums, but at least it had preemptive multitasking and multithreading, which is more than OS 9 could boast.
Anyway.)
My main point was this: this idea happens to work really well in practice and has improved my user experience dramatically. What's wrong with sharing that?
"It's no big deal, really", you say, and you're totally correct, but it's still fun and cool and that's what this is all about, right? Android rules because it's fun and there ARE NO RULES. It's like the Wild West out here in these forums. I can't even keep track of all the MIUI updates and the Chevy/Slahyer/Koush kernel updates because stuff changes all the time, which is great for the community. You can literally do
whatever you want with your Droid and so can I. No need for the snark and superiority. I was just trying to be nice.
Peace, brother? Let's all be
ANDROID SUPERFRIENDS together (the word "Superfriends" just seems like it requires a bigger font, am I wrong?) C'mon, I'll buy you a beer. You sound like you need to relax and have a few cold ones. I'd wish your team good luck in the Super Bowl, but I don't know you, who you root for, or if you're like I am and vastly prefer the graceful cat-and-mouse ballet of perfection that is baseball to the concussion-yielding, play stopping sport that is football. I'll take a stab anyway. Go... Steelers?
:beer2:
int:
PS- I just saw datsyuk's response. That's an interesting idea, I'll try it out when I have a spare hour or two. Cheers.
. im looking into why its not working, its very strange :-/