Thinking about Rooting

A

asyork

2[H]4U
Joined
Jan 3, 2002
Messages
2,059
I got my Evo back in December, and decided against rooting after reading about the RSA key issue. I was still interested though, so I kept checking up on things, and reading more since then. There are now many well-documented methods of preventing that, and I'm starting to get bored with the phone... There are a few things I haven't figured out yet though. I plan to use Unrevoked to root my phone.

1. Can apps that require root be installed on the stock OS?
2. If yes, then can I use the built in upgrading software while rooted?
3. Will I lose anything by flashing a new ROM (let's use CM for the example) to my phone? I understand that I will have to backup before hand, and then restore the pieces I want, but is anything lose in that? I'm mostly worried about things like call history, downloaded voicemail, etc.
 
asyork said:
1. Can apps that require root be installed on the stock OS?
2. If yes, then can I use the built in upgrading software while rooted?
3. Will I lose anything by flashing a new ROM (let's use CM for the example) to my phone? I understand that I will have to backup before hand, and then restore the pieces I want, but is anything lose in that? I'm mostly worried about things like call history, downloaded voicemail, etc.
Click to expand...

1. Yes, but they won't work, unless you are of course, rooted.
2. You mean getting OTA updates or official updates? Yes.
3. You will if you don't do a proper backup. Most people use the ClockWorkMod (CWM for short) recovery/Nandroid. In my experience this doesn't save the data related to the apps, so you will want to use Titanium Backup to save your data for your apps. data being any game saves you have, settings/configs, etc. Titanium Backup as far as I know can back up -everything-, but Nandroid makes it so everything loads back up as soon as you go back to a new ROM.
 
Thanks. I think I'll root it and stick with the stock OS for a little bit until I have a few days to mess around with it then.
 
asyork said:
Thanks. I think I'll root it and stick with the stock OS for a little bit until I have a few days to mess around with it then.
Click to expand...

Just a FYI. You MIGHT lose root on the Evo with an update via OTA, but don't quote me on it. As far as I know you can still grab updates. I've never tried it because I have an Epic and any hope of having an official release that doesn't suck is nil. I've been running custom and just updating as I need to via CWM3.
 
Rooting and stock updates just don't go together unless you're very very timid about messing around with your phone... Sure you can root your phone w/something like Unrevoked w/o having to install a custom ROM, keeping the stock software as is, but any official update will probably undo your root. It's USUALLY not hard to re-do it tho... But there's always the chance an official OTA could permanently break w/e exploit is being used for root access. If all you wanna be able to do is use the free WiFI Tether (which doesn't require software installation on the clients, unlike the tethering apps on market), then this could be an alternative.

If you're willing to get your hands a little dirty though, you could use Unrevoked or other simple root methods to then install a custom ROM and do some more advanced stuff. Truth be told I only rooted my EVO so I could use WiFi tether and Titanium Backup... But I'm quite glad I rooted as I've eked out some very neat tricks thru custom ROMs/kernels. Just the other day someone came out w/an app that enables you to use the HDMI out for true screen mirroring on your HDTV, games, apps, anything can be put on your TV... Not just photos and videos (stock behavior).

The power widget in my notification bar (ported from Cyanogen) is another very very neat tweak that I gained by using a custom ROM, it saves me home screen space and it actually makes a lot of sense since you often don't wanna tap away from an app just to turn WiFi or GPS on/off, having those toggles on the notification pane is just efficient (probably why manufacturers like LG/Samsung are doing it on their Android skins).

Custom ROMs/kernels can also improve battery life, or give you the ability to jump unto new Android versions before they're officially released as an update (they're often leaked, or built from scratch on open-source ROMs like Cyanogenmod). There's tons of tweaks, I'm using Fresh's ROM and it includes a lot of nice little things like a larger file size limit for MMS on the stock txt app, wired tetehring, the option to restore the stock Android lock screen (Fresh is still based on a Sense ROM, unlike CM), etc.

Being able to use Clockwork to make full phone backups is another good reason to root... It's pretty much like making an image backup of your PC, you can restore different ROMs w/all your apps and customizations already in place, in like two or three steps... So it's an easy way to try out different ROMs and such, then go back to an existing configuration w/o any fuss.

If you don't care for any of these customizations then just root your existing install and use root apps and be happpy... But if you wanna go a bit further then do some reading on XDA (actually, do plenty of reading) and jump in. You CAN backup stuff like call history and whatnot w/Titanium Backup then restore it after installing a custom ROM, though occasionally this can cause issues. You should be very selective in what you restore, don't restore app data if possible (except maybe games, generally pretty innocuous), or phone settings, etc.

Installing a custom ROM is like installing a new OS on your PC, you're starting from scratch... Difference being that you can backup/restore certain aspects a bit easier, but restoring too much crap from one ROM to another will just cause issues (just like in-place Windows installs were always a crapshoot of sorts). If you have any questions specific to the EVO lemme know, I've been following it pretty much from the start since I got it on launch date. I never had issues w/my RSA keys or Wimax access, but I did avoid Unrevoked when I first rooted it (they hadn't really perfected it back then, and the manual route wasn't hard to follow).

Seems it's much more streamlined these days tho, going s-off is another option that kinda gives you the best of both worlds (can install OTA updates w/o fear of losing root access permanently since NAND remains unlocked, IIRC, so you can still flash a different bootloader/ROM over stock even w/o root access in the OS).

After having all this freedom w/the EVO, I'm not sure I'd ever succumb to a more locked device like the recent Moto phones... The Atrix with it's big battery and dual cores would be tempting (if there were a Sprint alternative) but I'd probably hold out for something from HTC/LG. Hopefully Moto changes it's tunes regarding the locked bootloaders, they make some fine hardware and they actually release relatively timely updates just like HTC... Sprint/HTC have literally released over half a dozen OTA updates since the phone came out (compared to Samsung's 1, lol). Several of them were post-Froyo too, I think there's been two since the Froyo update (one about a month or two later to fix some bugs, one much later that added Swype, etc.).
 
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Everything above is true except for the part about using ClockWorkMod Recovery.

Recently alot of complaints have been coming out saying that CWM is not properly formatting the Cache partition and Dalvik Caches (If at all) and has caused me a number of issues when flashing new roms and kernels.

A good recovery I would go with would be Amon RA. You can grab it on the XDA forums.
 
I just read about Amon Ra last night. I didn't realize CWM had new issues, but Amon Ra had started backing up the WiMax RSA keys before CWM did, and that had me leaning towards using it.

I definitely want a custom ROM, but I don't think I have to time to mess with it right now. I need wireless tethering because I'm traveling this Saturday, and we'll have 3 laptops that need internet access. I'll see though. I'll probably root it, and then stay up until 4 am playing with custom ROMs anyway.
 
mongerer said:
Everything above is true except for the part about using ClockWorkMod Recovery.

Recently alot of complaints have been coming out saying that CWM is not properly formatting the Cache partition and Dalvik Caches (If at all) and has caused me a number of issues when flashing new roms and kernels.

A good recovery I would go with would be Amon RA. You can grab it on the XDA forums.
Click to expand...

Overall there are a number of good recoveries out there. Amon_Ra and CWM have already been mentioned so I'll add RaidZero to the list.

What device are you using that has issues with CWM? I've been using CWM for a long time with no issues for Droid and Droid Incredible and so have many friends. However, since I'm due to upgrade in about 4 months if there are issues with other phones I'll have to research it. Your mention about things not formatting is not something I've seen yet.

The complaints about CWM I have seen are because Koush doesn't always have the devices so he works with people who do to get it loaded, however this doesn't always mean bug free forever. For those new to rooting and recovery, CWM is Open Source so the idea is Koush gets it loaded, to the best of his ability without actually having the device, and then it is up to the developers of that device to fix future issues that arise.

A good example of this is the brouhaha that happened the other night on Twitter after Koush told Fascinate users to complain to their devs about CWM not working correctly and stop bothering him. From what I read I assume (and I could still be missing information which would change my assumption) that some update to the device broke a part of CWM. This led to some Fascinate devs correcting the CWM issues but they never merged the new code with Github, nor notified Koush, so that the fixes never made it into new CWM builds to go with ROM Manager. So people buying Fascinates were loading up ROM Manager, flashing CWM and having issues. In the end a few Fascinate devs worked with Koush and they got CWM sorted out and fixed after a lot of bashing on both sides.
 
I rooted for the first time today and installed Liberty ROM. Love it. Was not hard at all. I had trouble with CWM as it wouldn't boot into the bootstrapper and sucked ti up and bought the Droid X bootstrapper app for $2. Made my life easy.
 
I went ahead and rooted before I had a lot of time to do so because I couldn't wait :p

The good news is it all worked out.
The bad news is that I didn't realize that CWM was integrated into Unrevoked3.

Now I already have CWM, and in the process of switching it to Amon Ra, I had to install ROM Manager. ROM Manager seems pretty awesome, but it won't do anything for me after I use it to install Amon Ra :(

Do you have any links about the issues with CWM? I was pretty set on Amon Ra before you mentioned the new issues with CWM, but being able to use ROM Manager is starting to change my mind...

Edit: I know about the issues with the Fascinate. Was that the only recent issue? I have an Evo.
 
asyork said:
I went ahead and rooted before I had a lot of time to do so because I couldn't wait :p

The good news is it all worked out.
The bad news is that I didn't realize that CWM was integrated into Unrevoked3.

Now I already have CWM, and in the process of switching it to Amon Ra, I had to install ROM Manager. ROM Manager seems pretty awesome, but it won't do anything for me after I use it to install Amon Ra :(

Do you have any links about the issues with CWM? I was pretty set on Amon Ra before you mentioned the new issues with CWM, but being able to use ROM Manager is starting to change my mind...

Edit: I know about the issues with the Fascinate. Was that the only recent issue? I have an Evo.
Click to expand...

The sad thing is Amon_Ra could be supported by ROM Manager. Koush has published the needed hooks for other recoveries to be supported in RM. The issue is nobody adds them to their code base to have it integrated with RM.
 
mongerer said:
Everything above is true except for the part about using ClockWorkMod Recovery.

Recently alot of complaints have been coming out saying that CWM is not properly formatting the Cache partition and Dalvik Caches (If at all) and has caused me a number of issues when flashing new roms and kernels.

A good recovery I would go with would be Amon RA. You can grab it on the XDA forums.
Click to expand...

Those rumors aren't recent, they've been swirling around since shortly after the EVO launched... Frankly at this point I think people just keep repeating the same things over and over w/o actually testing it, taking it as gospel because someone said the same thing 6 months ago. Plenty of people are using CWM w/o issue...

That being said, just to be safe, I have been use AmonRA for wiping data and flashing ROMs... But I still use CWM to make full phone backups (they can be scheduled and stuff thru the app, which is very convenient). You can very easily switch between the two recoveries using the ROM Manager app (companion to CWM), right from within Android, takes like two taps, so it's no big deal to switch back to AmonRA when I'm gonna flash something new then to CWM to use all of ROM Manager's integrated maintenance features.
 
asyork said:
I went ahead and rooted before I had a lot of time to do so because I couldn't wait :p

The good news is it all worked out.
The bad news is that I didn't realize that CWM was integrated into Unrevoked3.

Now I already have CWM, and in the process of switching it to Amon Ra, I had to install ROM Manager. ROM Manager seems pretty awesome, but it won't do anything for me after I use it to install Amon Ra :(

Do you have any links about the issues with CWM? I was pretty set on Amon Ra before you mentioned the new issues with CWM, but being able to use ROM Manager is starting to change my mind...

Edit: I know about the issues with the Fascinate. Was that the only recent issue? I have an Evo.
Click to expand...

See my post above, you can easily swap from between the two right from within Android so it's not a big deal... If you're unsure or paranoid and want to flash w/AmonRA then swap over to it, if you wanna use ROM Manager features afterward then swap back over to CWM.
 
I guess I'll make a recovery with Amon Ra before I go and do anything stupid just to be safe. The features of ROM Recovery seem too good to pass up though.

Right now I'm still going through the process of backing everything up. Next I'll be uninstalling all the crap from Sprint that I don't want. Then I'll backup again, and start playing with ROMs.
 
I wouldn't bother uninstalling any of the Sprint stuff unless you're fairly confident you'll want to go back to the stock ROM shortly afterwards... Most custom ROMs strip all that stuff out so the moment you install a custom ROM it's all gone anyway. It can all be re-installed too if you actually want any of it; for instance, Fresh (the ROM I use) automatically creates a folder on your SD card w/all the removed apps so that you can easily re-install them, so you don't even have to go looking for them elsewhere.

After I rooted I just did a full NANDroid backup from AmonRA (it basically backs up everything) and then I started messing w/custom ROMs, didn't even bother w/Titanium at that point for individual app backups since I had only installed a handful of apps after buying it (and before rooting).

Fresh is just a very optimized very stable stock-looking ROM btw, he always bases his ROMs on the official releases so there's not really anything in the way of experimentation (like GB ROMs) or a lot of custom stuff (like an AOSP ROM, a la CM)... Although there's some nice tweaks like the notification pane toggles.
 
I've been using and customizing my phone for 3 months, which is why I am being through about backing up. I might skip uninstalling the sprint apps though.
 
Ahh, that makes sense, but yea... I just mentioned that in case you wanted to save some time before you figured out whether you wanted to migrate to a new ROM or not. Good luck and happy tinkering... ;)
 
honestly after you do it once or twice, flashing ROMs is like changing clothes. Hardest part is deciding what to wear.
 
I am running CM7 RC1. I should be able to test 4g tomorrow to make sure it still works. I had a few force closes of one of the pieces of google software while I was setting things up, but it didn't seem to do anything, and hasn't crashed again since.

More recently, I have noticed that it doesn't seem to like me toggling wifi from anything but the settings menu. If I try it, the phone slows down significantly and keeps vibrating randomly. It stays this way until a reboot, which takes a while to do since the phone is so slow. I hadn't really used wifi since flashing, so I don't know if it is a new issue or not.
 
Well, now I've really gotten my feet wet. I've played with three different ROMs tonight, though I'm flashing back to CM7 RC1 right now.

I went to Fresh for a little bit just to get the new PRL, but I played around with it a little bit, too. I learned the hard way that you have to wipe everything before flashing a totally different ROM though. I wasn't near my computer at the time, and I had to figure out what I did by trial and error.

Then I decided to try CM7 Nightly 13. I want to get one with 4G, but that one wasn't properly syncing my google account data, and GPS wasn't working at all. I'll probably try a few more tomorrow until I find one I like.

I need to find a working email app soon. The one in RC1 doesn't want to log into my IMAP account, and if I'm going to be bouncing around different ROMs, I'd like to have something that works in all of them and stays consistent. There don't seem to be many options on the market :/
 
Have you tried K9? Whenever I've read recommendations for email apps, that one seems to be at the top of the list most often... I haven't tried it but I've been meaning to, right now I'm using Gmail and Yahoo's own app for said respective emails but I wanna try using an independent app for Yahoo + my Windows Live student e-mail (I still wanna keep Gmail segregated, the Gmapil app is pretty darn solid anyway, unlike Yahoo's).

Don't forget to pick up those radio, Wimax and PRI/NV updates if you need 'em btw, depending on what root method you used and what OTA update you were on prior to rooting.
 
I got K9 and it is awesome. I put my google account on it, too. I just wish I could disable the unified folder it has, but it's not a big deal since it doesn't physically move emails into it. I had been searching for "email" on the market, which turned up very little. K9 mail only tuned up when I finally searched for IMAP a little after I had posted.

I guess I should have checked for all the updates, but I was fully updated on 3/3/11. I used unrevoked, so I should still have everything.
 
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