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Cognition is the project of an extremely dedicated and, many would agree, relentless developer from XDA. You probably know him as DesignGears, and you most likely are a fan of his work if you’re reading this – or you’re a first time user of his work and are curious to see what it can do for you.

So, how do you know if this ROM is right for you?

Performance
Do you want your phone to run the latest and greatest of the Captivate Lagfix developments? (Project Voodoo)
Do you want safe Overclocking\Undervolting? (Unhelpful’s Kernel)
Have you been disappointed by the speed and accuracy of your GPS? (CLShortFuse’s GPS Fix & NTP Server Tweaks)
Advertisements from apps cluttering your screen? (Ad Blocking via host file)
Tired of the AT&T and Samsung stuff you can’t remove? (ATT & Samsung bloat removed)
Want the latest Captivate Firmware? (Based on I897UCJH7 – latest OTA version)
Want to know the % of your battery available instead of just an image? (Stock Battery With %1-100)

Freedom
Wishing you had full control on YOUR device (Root access)? (SuperUser + Busybox)
Have the ability to install apps from more than just the Market? (SideLoading)

Tethering
Want to be able to share your phones data connection via Wifi to other Wifi Devices? (MobileAP)
Tether your device via USB to share internet access? (USB Tethering)

Built in Backup and Restore Capabilities
ROM Manager
Titanium Backup

If anything above appeals to you, or all of it does, then you’re definitely going to enjoy having Cognition on your Captivate.

*Default Disclaimer* If you follow this guide FULLY and in order, this will work – but I am not responsible, nor is DesignGears nor XDA responsible if your phone gets bricked if something goes wrong, or your house blows up, or you lose your job, or your significant other leaves you.

Now, the next step depends greatly on if you already are rooted and have ROM Manager installed. If you’re not already rooted and don’t have ROM Manager installed then continue below – if you are go ahead and jump to step 3.

Step 1: Rooting your Captivate

First things first – you’re going to need the USB Drivers for the Captivate. You can get them Here for x86 (32-bit Windows) or Here for 64-bit Windows. Once downloaded obviously install these. If you use Ubuntu or another Linux OS like me these drivers are not necessary.

Next, we need the file that actually does the rooting – you can download that file here. This file will need to be copied into the root of the internal sd card on our phone (Not the external sd card – if you have one installed you may want to remove it to keep this step simple). To copy the file to the desired location lets first make sure the phone is set properly. Hit your menu key (far left hard key on the bottom of the screen) and then Settings, Applications, USB Settings. You should see a screen like this (but with less options) – select what I have selected (Mass storage).

Now that the phone is set right, and the drivers are installed and we have our rooting file (update.zip) we’re ready to root.

Plug the USB connector from your computer into your phone. You should see something in your top bar on your phone – click and slide it down and you’ll see this:

Click it and you’ll see a Mount request like this, click Mount to continue.

Now on your computer you should be able to get to the newly mounted drive from your computer. Don’t go into any of the other directories, just copy the update.zip here. Then hold down the power button on your phone and click the Power Off option, wait a minute while the phone shuts down, then hold down your volume up and volume down buttons – while doing this also hold down the power button (For reference this is the “3-button method”). You should see the white AT&T screen – keep holding all three buttons down, the screen will go black then back to the AT&T screen again. On this second time of the AT&T screen showing let go of the power button, but keep holding the volume up and volume down buttons. When you see the Recovery Screen which looks like below (bad pic I know but you get the idea from it – it’s from my wifes iPhone) select “reinstall packages” to install the updates.zip to root your phone – to move up and down use the volume up and down buttons, then select them using the power button.

When it’s done, reboot the phone. The difference is, now you’re rooted (To double check, go into your Applications menu – you should see an app called “Superuser Permission”.

Step 2: Installing Clockwork Mod ROM Manager

Now that we’re rooted we’re ready to install ROM Manager.

You can search for it in the Marketplace, or if you’re like me and love QR codes you can scan the code to the right here.

Once Clockwork is installed you can find it in your applications menu listed as “ROM Manager”. Open it up and at the top you’ll see the option “Flash ClockworkMod Recovery”, click it and you’ll see a list of phones – select “Galaxy S Captivate” and you should see a “Successfully downloaded ClockworkMod recovery” message. Click ok.

Now, to play it safe – lets backup our current setup in case we need it to restore from. Scroll down in ROM Manager and find “Backup Current ROM”.

Give it a name, or leave it default, then click Ok. This will reboot your phone and take a full backup of your current setup – it may take awhile, but it’s worth it if you need to restore.

Step 3: Installing Cognition

For our next step you’re going to have to head over and download the latest and greatest Cognition from Designgears here at his download site.

Once the file is downloaded (at the time of this posting it should be Cognitionv2.1.3.zip) copy it to your internal sd card on your phone by mounting it like we did back in Step 1 to root the phone.

Now is where the Clockwork Mod Recovery comes into play make sure you clicked that top option “Flash ClockworkMod Recovery”.

Again, back in the ROM Manager App, this time we’re going to click “Install ROM from SD Card”.

Scroll down to the location of the .zip file you moved over and select it, then click Ok. For ROM Pre-installation I usually make sure to select “Wipe Data and Cache”, then click Ok.

Your phone should now reboot to install your new ROM after you click Ok. After the reboot you may see the recovery screen – if you do click “reinstall packages” this will put you into the ClockworkMod Recovery Menu. Use the volume down key to get to “install zip from sdcard” option and hit the power button on it. Next use the volume down button to select the “Cognitionv2.1.3.zip” file and hit the power button again. Now it wants a confirmation – use volume down to get to the “YES” option, then hit the power button to start the install.

After this part is complete scroll down to “*****Go Back*****” and hit the power button, then hit it again on “reboot system now”.

Once it’s done copying all the files and installing the new ROM the phone will reboot. You’ll hear a robot voice saying it’s converting the file system to EXT4 – let this go on, it may take awhile. After a long period of time the voice will say the conversion was successful. You should see the Samsung S after a bit, leave this going, don’t assume it’s hung, the first boot may take some time. After the phone comes back up it should look like this:

All done. Cognition is now installed on your phone. As a standard it’s not a bad idea a few minutes after your first boot into a new ROM to power off then power back on the phone just to make sure everything’s all set.

If you have any odd issues go back and make sure you did everything in order of this post. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy your Captivate with Cognition! If you enjoy it consider shooting a donation off to DesignGears!