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Root Droid Newbie- Rooting the Droid....WHY?

Hello Guys ( and Gals ),

I am new to the forum and I know all about the "search feature". I have been browsing for days now and while I am certain I can "Root" my new droid phone I am still left with the desire to have someone " IN THE KNOW" explain to me why I might want to do it.

Now I understand that having "root" means you have complete access to your phone like you would as an ADMIN in your computer and so on but I am left with wanting to know these specific questions. I am sure others do also but since the topics can go all over the place I figured I would ask them here and just maybe ( my fingers are crossed ) someone in the "KNOW" will be able to answer them.

1.) I understand that my "NEW" Droid is limited to 256MB of space for APPS on the phone. I have always been a person who hates limitations and if I want a CRAP load of APPS....I want to only be limited by the storage card I choose to install so I have this question.....

Q: If you "ROOT" your Droid does that mean that when I download an APP from the Android Market, I can download it straight to the 16GB Storage Card "SD" versus keeping it on the phones storage itself?

2.) If you "ROOT" your phone while it has the software 2.0.1 installed, when the update 2.1 comes out...will it OTA update? If not, what would you have to do in order to get it back to the state where it will OTA update?

3.) I was in the local "Verizon" store and playing around with "their" droid I was able to get it to the Triangle and Reboot area so doing the actual "root" does not bother me and I don't worry about the "bricking" the phone issue.....I do worry about how to "UN-ROOT" the phone when needed just as easy as it was to ROOT it......is it JUST as easy?

4.) How come someone has not made an APP that has a ROOT and UN-ROOT button on it?

5.) I do tire or reading all the posts about " When will the 2.1 be coming out" since the only people who know that is Motorola....BUT what would be nice to know is that when 2.1 does arrive......those who have rooted the phones with 2.0.1 will easily be able to get the update either OTA or by simply un-installing the ROM that was added called "update.zip" and put the phone back to it's out of the BOX state....then get the OTA update....is this actually possible?


Thanks guys (and gals ) or understanding. I am a NEWBIE but reading everything is quite confusing...I would love to "overclock" the Droid and have it faster.....thats a plus...my main concern is the 256MB limited APP space on the phone itself.....I would like to have 16GB of APPS if I so choose....does that make sense????
 
Hello Guys ( and Gals ),

I am new to the forum and I know all about the "search feature". I have been browsing for days now and while I am certain I can "Root" my new droid phone I am still left with the desire to have someone " IN THE KNOW" explain to me why I might want to do it.

Now I understand that having "root" means you have complete access to your phone like you would as an ADMIN in your computer and so on but I am left with wanting to know these specific questions. I am sure others do also but since the topics can go all over the place I figured I would ask them here and just maybe ( my fingers are crossed ) someone in the "KNOW" will be able to answer them.

1.) I understand that my "NEW" Droid is limited to 256MB of space for APPS on the phone. I have always been a person who hates limitations and if I want a CRAP load of APPS....I want to only be limited by the storage card I choose to install so I have this question.....

Q: If you "ROOT" your Droid does that mean that when I download an APP from the Android Market, I can download it straight to the 16GB Storage Card "SD" versus keeping it on the phones storage itself?

I don't believe this is part of the custom ROMs yet.

2.) If you "ROOT" your phone while it has the software 2.0.1 installed, when the update 2.1 comes out...will it OTA update? If not, what would you have to do in order to get it back to the state where it will OTA update?

If you're just rooted, you can install the OTA update which will break your root. If you have a custom ROM installed, the OTA update will probably be blocked.

3.) I was in the local "Verizon" store and playing around with "their" droid I was able to get it to the Triangle and Reboot area so doing the actual "root" does not bother me and I don't worry about the "bricking" the phone issue.....I do worry about how to "UN-ROOT" the phone when needed just as easy as it was to ROOT it......is it JUST as easy?

Check out the one-step unroot thread in this forum. Unrooting is easy if that's what you want to do. SholesMod Updater is available to take care of this for you.

4.) How come someone has not made an APP that has a ROOT and UN-ROOT button on it?

Again, SholesMod Updater basically does it for you.

5.) I do tire or reading all the posts about " When will the 2.1 be coming out" since the only people who know that is Motorola....BUT what would be nice to know is that when 2.1 does arrive......those who have rooted the phones with 2.0.1 will easily be able to get the update either OTA or by simply un-installing the ROM that was added called "update.zip" and put the phone back to it's out of the BOX state....then get the OTA update....is this actually possible?

Removing all of the custom ROMs and root shouldn't take that long, and once you do that then the OTA update will be available to you.

Thanks guys (and gals ) or understanding. I am a NEWBIE but reading everything is quite confusing...I would love to "overclock" the Droid and have it faster.....thats a plus...my main concern is the 256MB limited APP space on the phone itself.....I would like to have 16GB of APPS if I so choose....does that make sense????[/quote]
 
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To add to what vince said, I know that we will be able to use our sd cards to store apps at some point in the future. When I was researching everything droid and android prior to the phone's release, there was some mention from google directly about incorporating this feature into future builds.

That said, I have no idea when this might happen. I will say, however, that I have not run into any problems with the 256mb of storage thus far. When we start seeing larger games and apps, I believe it will be an option for them to store data on the sd card that can be accessed while in the game.

Like I said, 256 mb sounds paultry, but in all practical use it hasn't been a problem.

If nothing else, you can use a astro to backup your infrequently used apps to your sd card if you run out of space.
 
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You seem to have read a great deal, so I will leave you with one simple thing to consider...


Instead of rooting and then asking what you can do (like so many people do... presumably just to be part of the "in" crowd), instead, ask what you want your phone to do that can't already be done. If you come up empty handed, then rooting isn't something you need. If you think of something, then you will have the answer to your "why".

Don't follow the sheep. If you root, do it because you need to.
 
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You seem to have read a great deal, so I will leave you with one simple thing to consider...


Instead of rooting and then asking what you can do (like so many people do... presumably just to be part of the "in" crowd), instead, ask what you want your phone to do that can't already be done. If you come up empty handed, then rooting isn't something you need. If you think of something, then you will have the answer to your "why".

Don't follow the sheep. If you root, do it because you need to.


You sound almost like the Merovingian heh.

"Soon the why and the reason are gone and all that matters is the feeling. This is the nature of the universe. We struggle against it, we fight to deny it; but it is of course a lie. Beneath our poised appearance we are completely out of control."

Anyway your reply was perfect, no need to root unless you feel you need to :)
 
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I can't say that I "needed" to have a 2.1 ROM that was faster and more stable than stock, but I was awfully tired of waiting for the OTA update. The best thing about doing it is that I can now see what a beautiful little beast the Droid is and I am full on in love with my phone again. :)

Isn't that enough of a reason?
 
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You seem to have read a great deal, so I will leave you with one simple thing to consider...


Instead of rooting and then asking what you can do (like so many people do... presumably just to be part of the "in" crowd), instead, ask what you want your phone to do that can't already be done. If you come up empty handed, then rooting isn't something you need. If you think of something, then you will have the answer to your "why".

Don't follow the sheep. If you root, do it because you need to.

I for one rooted because everyone else was doing it. I wanted to hang with the cool kids! :D

Seriously, Fadelight is right but it is not that serious of a decision. The main reasons that I think most people are rooting is because of the overclock (ironically is needed for most of the custom roms to work propertly but not really necessary for the stock 2.0.1 ROM in my opinion), and then to further customize the phone with themes or themed roms. I have Cyanogen's ROM on my droid with the Hexfusion theme... Aesthetics alone would be reason enough for me :D

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Best advice evar. This should be stickied

You seem to have read a great deal, so I will leave you with one simple thing to consider...


Instead of rooting and then asking what you can do (like so many people do... presumably just to be part of the "in" crowd), instead, ask what you want your phone to do that can't already be done. If you come up empty handed, then rooting isn't something you need. If you think of something, then you will have the answer to your "why".

Don't follow the sheep. If you root, do it because you need to.
 
Upvote 0

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