Rooted Droid

[DaveZX6r]

I know there's a bunch of us here with the droid. Just wondering if anyone else has rooted there's. And if so what are you running for rom, theme, apps, etc? My droid has been rooted almost since I've had it, and while I've been a big fan of Pete and his bugless beast series of roms, the newest one turned out to be just about anything but. Right now I'm just running a rooted version of 2.2, overclocked to 800mhz with setcpu, and the normal wireless tether titanium backup, etc.

[snowborder]

lurking.... now that I can "upgrade" from my droid. Never rooted it yet due to concerns on bricking it.

[DaveZX6r]

Lol you shouldn't have waited. You can unbrick a droid using sbf files.

[DucDave]

Thanks. Good to know.
I'll bet...

[LuvDog]

I just rooted my evo today. no custom ROM yet because i'm not looking forward to loading all my apps again.

[DaveZX6r]

I just rooted my evo today. no custom ROM yet because i'm not looking forward to loading all my apps again.

Dunno if its gotten better yet but I use titanium backup to back all my apps up. It will backup everything even paid apps and force link your market links. My buddy has the evo and had to be replaced he said it didn't work for him but that was a while ago, and it gets update quite often. Download it from the market, its free and give it a test run before you wipe.

[DaveZX6r]

Thanks. Good to know.
I'll bet...

You know Dave I may just be being paranoid but it almost sounds like your being sarcastic

[DucDave]

You know Dave I may just be being paranoid but it almost sounds like your being sarcastic

Nah...self depreciating actually. I have no idea what they're talking about. I like most root vegatables though. (...not beets...)

[DaveZX6r]

Nah...self depreciating actually. I have no idea what they're talking about. I like most root vegatables though. (...not beets...)

Don't forget root beer.
Don't take it too hard. There aren't a lot of peoplr with rooted phones, its pretty niche. The it guy at my company knows what it is and that it exists but that's about it.
You get kind of jadded reading thephone hacking forums, it seems like 90 percent of the population has a hacked phone. I was trying to put it in perspective and and wondering just how many there were here.

[gadget]

SO I understand the process of rooting a phone and I did it to my Omnia back when Verizon locked the GPS antenna so you had to pay for VZNavigator.

Why are people bothering to root their Droids?
What, specifically, can you do with a rooted Droid?

[obsolete]

SO I understand the process of rooting a phone and I did it to my Omnia back when Verizon locked the GPS antenna so you had to pay for VZNavigator.

Why are people bothering to root their Droids?
What, specifically, can you do with a rooted Droid?

I know you can wireless tether and over clock it.

[NobodySpecific]

It also allows you to use Titanium Backup to modify or restore your apps and settings, and flash new ROMs (if you feel so inclined).

[DaveZX6r]

What they said also one of the most over lokked things is being able to fully backup your current phone state including all settings apps etc. I can go into my recovery and make a full backup at any time. If I need a new phone, or I download an app that messes mine up, I just apply one of the backups from my sd card and I'm golden. Also you can remove all the crapware that comes preinstalled from your provider, freeing up memory for things that you may acctually want. You can also apply themes to change the appearance of the OS.

[benVFR]

To a degree it's just a way for people to feel like they're super duper hackers. Be part of the club, root your phone to show you are super smart and know more about computers then the next guy.

I've spent a good amount of time writing code for Android (I've never felt the need to share it with anyone though), but I've never felt any need to root the phone.

I switched to iphone (although I still have the droid and plan on using it on wifi occasionally) and it's the same thing, little reason to "jailbreak" it (AKA rooting it) even though I definitely plan on writing something for the iphone as well.

Especially with Android.. there is a LOT you can do to the phone between downloading stuff and mucking with the phone through the development kit, without ever needing to root it.

Actually I will agree with the backup comment though.. It's a huge flaw that the phones don't have built in backup capabilities that do not require rooting.

[gadget]

Very cool.
thanks guys

sounds like I have a project this winter when I start getting cabin fever

[RyanNicholson]

I thought it... couldn't find a benefit that I cared enough about to bother. The only major things I liked were getting rid of the preinstalled crapware (which can probably be done some other way) and the wireless tether that I'd probably rarely (if ever) use.

I agree with benVFR.... it just kinda seems like a way to say "hey look how smart I am"

[LuvDog]

I mostly did it to get free wireless tethering and to install a better ROM for battery life.

[NobodySpecific]

The only major things I liked were getting rid of the preinstalled crapware (which can probably be done some other way) and the wireless tether that I'd probably rarely (if ever) use.

I agree with benVFR.... it just kinda seems like a way to say "hey look how smart I am"

On the Droid X there is no other way to remove the preinstalled apps like Blockbuster and Visual Voice Mail (and amazon mp3, skype, help center, etc). There is also no way to backup and restore all of your settings, in my case I wanted a Rom that got rid of Blur, and wireless tether is nice too. I did it to make the phone better, I don't give a shit if nobody knows that it's been rooted.

[DaveZX6r]

I originally did mine when I had to replace under warantee, so that I didn't have to reload everything and go thru all my settings all over again. Once I had it rooted I realized that it opened a lot more options, and installed a rom to save battery as well. As the new phones come out though they come with more and more crap installed. I was looking at the droid 2, but lost in terest after playing with it for 5 minutes, it was so full of crap. I couldn't care less what people think of my phone. I have it rooted because it gives me a lot more flexibility to make the phone what I want, and not be stuck with whatever they give me.

[SVRACER01]

Wirelessly posted (HTC EVO "DROID" : Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-us; Sprint APA9292KT Build/FRF91) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

I have no idea what you guys are talking about. I have an EVO and some guy with a Droid last week started talking to me about rooting and blah blah. I asked what it did and said it was so he could use free WiFi...I already get that. Then he said you could make it a hotspot...Yup, it already does that too.
I guess I don't understand. Anyone care to explain it to us non-nerds?

[gadget]

Rooting a phone gives you "admin" access.
You can then install different operating systems (i.e. ROM), deinstall applications that you do not need so you can use that space for other things, access functions that might be locked out, overclock the processor and generally muck about with the lower functional levels of the phone.

Normally, the phone company doesn't want you to do this because if you don't know what you are doing you could cause them a bunch of customer service costs so they limit the users to just being able to access basic setup functionality.

[SVRACER01]

Wirelessly posted (HTC EVO "DROID" : Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-us; Sprint APA9292KT Build/FRF91) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

Ok, now were getting somewhere.
-what's ROM?
-what's an operating system?
-overclock processor?
-what functions will this allow me access to?

[gadget]

Wirelessly posted (HTC EVO "DROID" : Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-us; Sprint APA9292KT Build/FRF91) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

Ok, now were getting somewhere.
-what's ROM?
-what's an operating system?
-overclock processor?
-what functions will this allow me access to?

ROM in this circumstance is the new modified code. Programmers release ROMs. This means that they have taken the Source Code, modified it and then compiled it in a form that can be loaded into your phones ROM (Read Only Memory...this is actually EPROM, "erasable programmable read only memory" but they shortened it).

Android is an operating system. It is open source which means that you can get the code from Google, modify it, compile it and use it. Microsoft Windows and Apple's iOS is closed code. They own the code and unless you steal it from them you can't modify it and use it.You have to use it in the form that they release it.

Overclocking a processor is what it sounds like. Processors are built to be able to run at a certain speed. In any batch of processors some can run faster than others due to quality. You can usually increase this speed but manufacturers slow them all down so that they are all reliable. Overclocking is just the process of increasing the speed of the CPU. Some of the drawbacks to overclocking is an increase of heat and decrease of battery life.

The functions that you can access depends on the ROM that you use.
This is an excellent source of information that you can read if you are interested in finding out more.
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/

[benVFR]

You really hit home the point how stupid it is that they call these "ROMS".

They ought to call them "images" or something.

Calling them ROMs makes you think they're opening the phone and pulling out the soldering iron.

Always keep in mind the reason Google is giving this crap away to you is because you are the product. The particular way they're playing the "Open" game is pretty f'n evil.

[NobodySpecific]

You really hit home the point how stupid it is that they call these "ROMS".

They ought to call them "images" or something.

Calling them ROMs makes you think they're opening the phone and pulling out the soldering iron.

Always keep in mind the reason Google is giving this crap away to you is because you are the product. The particular way they're playing the "Open" game is pretty f'n evil.

How exactly is it evil?