Root Altering /system after the fact

[Starfire-1]

Ok - so I've been successful in applying the "barebones" root process (via slow PNY card), installed Superuser.apk, installed root req apps, etc. Superuser asks for permission when needed, in terminals I can "su" - all very cool.

However, one of the "root" apps complained that busybox was not installed. Fair enough. TitaniumBackup will download 1.15.3 to a directory under /data/data and although I can execute it, it is not in my path. So I wanted to at least link it into /system/xbin.

In older threads the /system partition is mounted read-only (and also on the Incredible). So, from a terminal program as root, I remounted /system as read-write and tried to do the appropriate copying/linking. However, I received an "out of memory" error when trying to link in the xbin directory, even though the partition was ostensibly mounted r/w.

Another thread mentioned that you can only make changes to /system from adb recovery. I can get the Incredible back in this mode, but "adb shell" returns the good old "exec '/system/bin/sh' failed: No such file or directory (2) -" message.

So my question is: is there a way to make little "tweaks" to the /system partition using an already rooted phone and terminal programs or must you go through adb recovery and "re-update" just to get to the point where you can "adb shell" to a working devices?

Thanks in advance!

 

[paimon.soror]

you basically want to redo the recovery trick up to the payload push step. At the moment there is no way to tweak the system partition on the device due to a NAND lock, this is why apps like root explorer and su on adb in a booted phone will not retain changes. Unrevoked is currently working on trying to unlock the partition for use, but according to their twitter page, they managed to brick their incredible lol ... not sure if that means its not recoverable or what, but you probably want to keep an eye out on :

http://twitter.com/unrevoked