aclark414

I am just getting into the Android kick. I keep seeing talk about the Samsung Moment being rooted. What does this mean?

LincKraker

android is linux based. linux has a "super user" account called root. rooting or rooted means that the user/owner has super user access on the phone.

jersezhustla

So how does one root their phone?

LincKraker

instructions for root can be found here. this is the website of the person who originally rooted the phone(zefie). it has instructions.

flu13

Another noob question: What is the benefit of rooting? I've inferred that by rooting your can rebuild the OS and reload it, but is there more than that? And what if you horribly mess up your phone?

LincKraker

There are a lot of apps that require root to work. The two most important in my opinion is Apps2SD which allows you to install apps to your SD card and run them from there. And wifi tether. Right now neither work.

if you horribly mess up your phone, flash it back to stock. flashing back to the stock image has fixed the worst bricking we've seen so far.

aclark414

Sounds like rooting is a rather complicated process, though a rather useful one. I know very little about linux so would probably do more damage than anything else!

numus

Rooting goes by many names (on iPhone it is called JailBreaking... On blackberry it is known as.. well there is no lock on blackberry and you can install hybrids right over stock with no hacking.. RIM's own apploader is all you need to do it)... Basically just allows you to access system files and resources usually locked out.. Only way you can mess up your phone so bad that you can't unbrick it would be if you messed up its ability to even boot into a recovery mode or flash mode (those are usually on independent chips that are activated by a key combination and they are usually nonwriteable)..

LincKraker

if you don't know much about Linux, right now there isn't a very good reason to root your phone unfortunately. most of the apps people want to use don't work and the only thing I've done with root is remove some of the sprint apps.

numus

Basically if you want to ROOT you have the wrong phone.. Switch to an HTC since they have a huge rooting group dedicated to those devices... Removing the sprint apps is very tempting but i dont think i will root until a donut or eclair rom is avalible... How much memory you getting without the sprint apps?

Flipper

Numus, I deleted some of the Sprint apps (Weather Channel, NASCAR, NFL, IM and Bejeweled demo).

Can't say that I've seen a memory "increase" per se (Settings>SD Card and Phone Storage) but I have seen fewer background applicatons starting without my permission and taking up valuable resources.

Additionally, my phone seems to have a bit more zip without those applications running in the background as well.

numus

Finally rooted mine last night and removed all the preloaded stuff (didn't get the widgets it seems.. have to reread where those are located)... I didn't do the persistant root just the temporary root access since i dont like the persistant method yet.. waiting for somethign like the droid root to be developed (will have to wait for first update for the phone to exploit the code)

ter67

yeh i was just gonna ask the same question `what is rooting`but i`m the same as ,aclark i`m not to clued up on linux and rooting and all this technical talk lol "thicko" ;0) so i`m better of just sticking to what i know but thanx guys .

shaolinx

Rooting basically gives you super user powers(change system files).