After being on a Droid X for about month, I felt something missing. Only after I went back to a Droid Incredible today did I realize it was the ability to flash kernels. I happily loaded up KingKlick’s BFS#5. With overclocking speeds built in, interactive governor, loads of speed increments, undervolting and a slew more options, it’s a phone nerds best friend. This is what I’ve been missing and it’s a damn shame this kind “openness” is disappearing it seems.
Nov 162010
If you are thinking about rooting your Droid Incredible, do not install the latest over the air (OTA) update. Reports are showing it stops the Unrevoked rooting method.
You can opt to root first, then install a custom rom that has the OTA update incorporated if you are itching to be updated.
Nov 092010
This is not really Droid related by any means, but it’s a testament to the drive some of these developers have in making their devices, theirs. Some folks were worried that the T-mobile G2 would be locked forever preventing a permanent root. There was the Visionary app which had a semi-permanent root where it re-rooted on every reboot for you. However, this morning permanent root was achieved.
As always, here’s the specific forum post over at XDA with the IRC log. Expect a how-to shortly once they get this perfected for the masses. Did the HTC source release help move this along? Either way, G2 users rejoice.
Sep 302010
Update (Nov-12-2010): A new 1-click root apk that can do all the below has been released that works on the Droid X!
If you recently updated to the OTA 2.2 Froyo update, you likely won’t be able to use the one click root apk that was floating around. There’s a method to root via ADB and a semi-one-click Windows batch file, but it seems quite a few people are having driver or ADB access problems.
I came across this root method that works on the Droid 2 and works on the Droid X.
First grab this zip file and empty the contents into the root of your /sdcard.
Then go to the market and download the Android Terminal.
- open up your favorite terminal emulator program
- cd /tmp
- cp /sdcard/rage*.bin /tmp/
- chmod 777 rage*.bin
- ./rage*.bin
- ignore it’s output, we are thinking outside of the box here, just wait for it to finish and return a $
- now go to settings -> applications -> manage applications -> running -> terminal and force close that girlie
- relaunch the terminal app and you should be greeted with the friendly # symbol. Toda you now have a root shell
- the rest is pretty much the same.
- mount -o rw,remount -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk1p21 /system
- cp /sdcard/Superuser.apk /system/app/Superuser.apk
- cp /sdcard/su /system/bin/su
- cp /sdcard/busybox /system/bin/busybox
- chmod 4755 /system/bin/su
- chmod 4755 /system/bin/busybox
- mount -o ro,remount -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk1p21 /system
- exit
Now try any app that requires root (ex: Titanium Backup) and it should prompt for root access.
If you need to revert back to non-root, it’s as simple as deleting the apks you copied over.
- open your trusty terminal app
- you should see a $ symbol, now do the following
- su
- now you should see a # symbol
- mount -o rw,remount -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk1p21 /system
- rm /system/app/Superuser.apk
- rm /system/bin/su
- rm /system/bin/busybox
- mount -o ro,remount -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk1p21 /system
- reboot your phone.
via [DroidForums]
Sep 082010
Droid Incredible users who want to use Adfree may have a tough time due to the app not being able to write to the correct hosts file. There are two ways around it and both steps require you to be root. From the thread over at the Incredible Forums:
- Search for Adfree Android on the market
- Install and run
- allow it to download and install new hosts file, it will copy it to your sdcard and try to replace /system/etc/hosts but fail (it should reboot the phone shortly)
- Phone may reboot, this is fine, don’t worry. if it doesn’t reboot, check your SD card for a file simply named “hosts”. if it’s there, then continue on.
- Power off the phone and hold Volume Down and power.
- Use volume down to select recovery
- In clockwork recovery volume down to “partitions menu” and hit the track pad to select
- Select “mount /system”, “mount /sdcard” and “mount /data”
- Plug in your usb cord and open a command line on your pc
- enter adb shell and type: cp /sdcard/hosts /data/data/hosts (This copies the AdFree hosts file from the SD Card to the /data partition, where it can be edited by AdFree)
- mv /system/etc/hosts /system/etc/hosts.bak (This renames the current hosts file, rather than deleting it, should you ever want to remove AdFree and return to the original hosts file)
- ln -s /data/data/hosts /system/etc/hosts (This creates a symbolic link, which allows AdFree to edit the hosts file stored in /data while allowing the OS to use the file as if it were stored in /system. You won’t need to reboot into recovery each time you want to update the hosts file!)
If this is a bit too much to handle, there’s an easier way. Head over to the Unrevoked page and install Unrevoked Forever. This will set your phone’s security level to S-OFF, which will allow Adfree to work. Enjoy!
Aug 142010
Our Droid rooting guide has been posted! Here’s the direct link or just click the menu link up top.
Aug 042010
After upgrading to CM6RC2, I noticed my SetCPU settings were not sticking after a reboot. It would revert back to the default CPU speed of the kernel and clear my Advanced settings (32000, 50, 0, 0). A simple tap on the speed bar in SetCPU and it’ll bounce right back up, but this was annoying for someone who flashes roms and reboots constantly.
To fix this, you’ll need flash su (superuser) from the supplied version 2.2 in the rom with version 2.1. After loading up your rom, download su 2.1 below and save it somewhere on your sdcard. Then reboot into recovery and install the zip via the update.zip method.
You’ll now just need to save your default speed in SetCPU one time and it’ll stick after a reboot.
su versions 2.1 – Login Required
Update – SetCPU version 2.0.2 appears to have fixed this problem!
Jul 222010
Without much difficulty, the Droid X has been rooted. Birdman has successfully done the previously unthinkable – rooting the e-fuse enabled handset. Although the whole e-fuse hoopla was about loading custom roms at the end of the day, rooting the Droid X is a great step towards the right direction.
Grab the needed exploit then follow these steps:
Step 1: Set up ADB
Step 2: Push exploid to /sqlite_stmt_journals “adb push exploid /sqlite_stmt_journals”
Step 3: type “adb shell”
Step 4: type “cd sqlite_stmt_journals”
Step 5: type “chmod 755 exploid”
Step 6: type “./exploid” and follow directions on screen
Step 7: type “rootshell”
Step 8: type in password “secretlol”
Step 9: your in root!
Step 10: mount your sdcard to pc and put Superuser.apk and su in the sdcard
Step 11: unmount sdcard
Step 12: in adb (make sure your still in root with the # sign) type in:
- cp /sdcard/Superuser.apk /system/app/Superuser.apk
- cp /sdcard/su /system/bin/su
- chmod 4755 /system/bin/su
Graciously lifted from the Droid X forums.
Jul 182010
After having ran Bugless Beast 0.4 for nearly 2 weeks on and off, I decided to try CyanogenMod’s latest Froyo (from source) rom, 6.0.0 RC1.
My steps on swapping roms:
- Titanium Backup all apps
- Nandroid backup current rom
- Download CyanogenMod via Rom Manager app
There’s a pre-requisite that you have to be rooted to perform the above. I’ll run through the root process in another update later on. Contrary to what everyone else suggests, I did not wipe data. I simply loaded CM over my previous BB rom. The process took roughly 15 minutes before I was back on my lock screen.
First impression is that its snappy and everything settled in quickly. CM comes with its own tweaking/settings section. My favorite by far is the ability to hide the clock in the status bar. I run Beautiful Widgets, so having two clocks looked weird.
Two tweaks I did was disabling dithering and changing VM size to 32MB. This seems to increase performance just so slightly without sacrificing the look and feel of the rom. I loaded up my current kernel of choice, ChevyNo1′s ultra low voltage 1.25Ghz 7 slot. Currently I’m running ondemand via SetCPU at 250/800Mhz.
I’m currently on hour 12 of running CM, I’ll need to update once I put this rom thru it’s paces over the week. So far, everything looks pretty good in CM land.
Update: so far so good, battery life with heavy 3G data and voice yeilded about 13 hours before needing a charge. One other neat setting is the ability to unlock the phone with just the menu key – VERY convenient.
Update: jdlfg has some updated kernels for CM6RC1 specifically. They’re at version 32.2.2, grab them here via his twitter feed. Supposedly these are battery life saving in nature.
Jul 162010
The time has finally come where a root exploit is available for early 2.1 leakers on the Droid Eris. wag3slav3 over at xda-developers has worked out a script to get even 2.1 leakers (v1 to v3) that sweet root access. This was made possible thru the same root method that Evo users had.
There are two versions of the script, one for Linux and one for Windows users. Reports are showing that it indeed does work correctly, albeit with users having to try 2-3 times before success.
Get your Evil Eris (or your custom rom of choice) ready!