I wanted to install some third-party Android distribution over my LG operating system. My Optimus L7 has been lagging since day one and I've been waiting eagerly for my warranty to expire.
People recommend CM (cyanogenmod) so that's what I'm aiming at. The problem is that the all-mighty Google (oh, the irony!) provides so much information on ways of replacing vendor OS that I'm getting lost. Some methods require connection with PC, some just an SD card, people are booting from recovery or using installers.
Even cyanogenmod's official wiki has two articles:
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Build_for_p700
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_p700 !
What is the difference from building and installing, which recovery to use, do I do it manually or use some installer (if it supports my model) and what are the risks? I am really not willing to dive into this unprepared and brick my phone or something. The reason I'm trying this is I can't buy a new one, and I don't want to mess up the one I have.
Well first of all this is not the right place to ask. However you are talking about custom roms. CyanogenMod is one of the biggest distributions for Android roms. However you can see it like this:
Your factory phone and the software on it is stable; but gets slowly or totally not upgraded. The factories build exactly the same OS as CyanogenMod does: Android. However everything from Android is open source so you can change everything you want.
That's why we BUILD custom roms: it can run on any android device and we can change it to our needs. However you want to USE a rom instead of BUILDING one. That's why you need to install (also known as flash) a custom rom using a custom recovery. I also suggest you to flash a Gapps package after flashing the rom. That will be usefull if you still want to use Google Play Store and all those stuff.
However be carefull! If you are playing with your phone, there is always a risk of bricking it. You are playing with software which is not very smart to do without the proper knowledge. I suggest you to find more info on XDA-Developers. I think this forum is more for programming questions.
Happy flashing!