Root Motorola and their locked bootloader

[craigcrawford1988]

I am sick of trying to find a way past this bootloader on my MILESTONE.

I need it unlocked so I can overclock this thing because I notice it lagging behind purely because of the low 550MHz clock speed. I have seen people with their droids overclocked and theirs is as smooth as butter.

I will buy the Samsung Galaxy S and will never buy from Motorola again. I will even make a video of me destroying my working MILESTONE on YouTube and a message to Motorola on why I did it.

Expect that video in 1-2 months.

 

[grainysand]

I will buy the Samsung Galaxy S and will never buy from Motorola again.

Ahahaha.

You know that Samsung's always provided shitty/no post-sale support for their phones, right? Rarely any firmware updates unless pressed? Just go get a HTC phone, already, or buy a N1.

 

[craigcrawford1988]

Ahahaha.

You know that Samsung's always provided shitty/no post-sale support for their phones, right? Rarely any firmware updates unless pressed? Just go get a HTC phone, already, or buy a N1.

I am only after the hardware. I could easily load a custom ROM onto the Samsung if the bootloader is unlocked.

I wouldn't really care about the after-sale support as long as the hardware was working.

 

[grainysand]

I am only after the hardware. I could easily load a custom ROM onto the Samsung if the bootloader is unlocked.

That's assuming there will be an active development community for it. I don't know, Android Samsung phones just don't get half the attention HTC ones (or even the Droid) do.

The Milestone has been rooted, however, but I think you need to flash a different SPL over it.

 

[craigcrawford1988]

That's assuming there will be an active development community for it. I don't know, Android Samsung phones just don't get half the attention HTC ones (or even the Droid) do.

The Milestone has been rooted, however, but I think you need to flash a different SPL over it.

I have mine rooted, but we need the bootloader unlocked so we can load a custom ROM.

If that gets done I will keep the phone.

 

[fejker]

I also think you're better off with a HTC device. I'm loving my Milestone because of the hardware keyboard. Loading custom roms ... I can do without ... for now. As long as I can remove useless system apps using root explorer and replace the default launcher I'm happy.

 

[craigcrawford1988]

I also think you're better off with a HTC device. I'm loving my Milestone because of the hardware keyboard. Loading custom roms ... I can do without ... for now. As long as I can remove useless system apps using root explorer and replace the default launcher I'm happy.

The hardware keyboard is the only thing making me keep this device at the moment.

 

[fejker]

BTW, overclocking your Milestone would make such a small difference in the smoothness of the UI. The problem is the processor architecture and the actual launcher/application.
The snapdragon isn't fast just because of the 1 GHz clockspeed, it's fast because of the way the processor handles data/calculations etc.

We need improved software and the Milestone will run even smoother. I'm quite happy with the speed of a rooted Milestone but I do agree it could be even smoother at times - let's wait and see.

 

[ewok666]

BTW, overclocking your Milestone would make such a small difference in the smoothness of the UI. The problem is the processor architecture and the actual launcher/application.
The snapdragon isn't fast just because of the 1 GHz clockspeed, it's fast because of the way the processor handles data/calculations etc.

We need improved software and the Milestone will run even smoother. I'm quite happy with the speed of a rooted Milestone but I do agree it could be even smoother at times - let's wait and see.

I don't mean to generally disagree with the comments on architecture and software optimization BUT those video's on youtube of the overclocked Droids look pretty smooth to me!

I don't really want custom ROMs as such (I literally used hundreds on my HTC devices over the years) but I DO want a faster CPU clock. If it can do 800 then why not let us.

 

[craigcrawford1988]

BTW, overclocking your Milestone would make such a small difference in the smoothness of the UI. The problem is the processor architecture and the actual launcher/application.
The snapdragon isn't fast just because of the 1 GHz clockspeed, it's fast because of the way the processor handles data/calculations etc.

We need improved software and the Milestone will run even smoother. I'm quite happy with the speed of a rooted Milestone but I do agree it could be even smoother at times - let's wait and see.

Not entirely true. Although die architecture has an important role to play in relative performance, higher clock speed is hugely influential on how good that architecture actually performs.

Put it this way, 1GHz vs 500MHz clock speed is like a 100hp car vs the same car with only 50hp, although the performance won't be directly twice - it will improve drastically.

Take the i7 CPU for example, overclocking that results in phenominal performance increases.

 

[fejker]

... and phenomenal power consumption. The Milestone is smooth enough for me.

 

[ewok666]

... and phenomenal power consumption. The Milestone is smooth enough for me.

Well, that's your choice. My battery life is well long enough for me. And you do have the option to clock up on demand but atm 550MHz is the hardcoded ceiling and that's somewhat subpar to the 1GHz Snapdragon that a lot of other high end Androids have.

That said, the Milestone performs OK but I wouldn't mind a bit more smoothieness ;-)

 

[fejker]

Many of the videos online show a sluggish performance of the Milestone compared to newer Android devices but if you tweak the device you can get A LOT more out of it than stock performance. I should probably take a video of mine and put it on youtube just to show people you can have a pleasant UI experience on the Milestone.

You always have a choice.

 

[craigcrawford1988]

Many of the videos online show a sluggish performance of the Milestone compared to newer Android devices but if you tweak the device you can get A LOT more out of it than stock performance. I should probably take a video of mine and put it on youtube just to show people you can have a pleasant UI experience on the Milestone.

You always have a choice.

I did tweak mine, it made little difference compared to my Desire.

We shouldn't even HAVE to tweak it. I didn't have to tweak my Desire (chose that over the Galaxy S) to get an acceptable smooth UI.

 

[fejker]

A friend of mine has the Desire and keeps saying that my Motorola feels smoother than his Desire.

 

[CRPercodani]

You two.....lets keep things civil this time alright? If this happens again the thread will be closed.

 

[tekniqs]

I also think you're better off with a HTC device. I'm loving my Milestone because of the hardware keyboard. Loading custom roms ... I can do without ... for now. As long as I can remove useless system apps using root explorer and replace the default launcher I'm happy.

how do you go about doing this? i want to take off motonav and other stuff i don't use.

 

[fejker]

You need to root the device. craigcrawford1988 wrote a guide for that -> http://androidforums.com/motorola-milestone/75460-milestone-2-1-update-root-guide.html

Then you need to install RootExplorer on your device (google it or buy it from the market - if you can't find it send me a PM and I'll help). After that you navigate to system/app (using RootExplorer) and Mount that for R/W. Then you can use Menu - Multi-select and select multiple APKs you don't need (I can give you a list of the APKs I've removed, you can also find a nice list with explanations of what each APK is for if you google a bit) and MOVE them to your SD card or computer (for backup). The main objective is to get them off the phone internal memory. They won't get loaded into the system next time you boot but if you want to use any of them again you can copy or move them back to the system/app dir, reboot the device and they'll be back.
A good thing after doing that is to clear system cache and also go into the Application manager to remove the leftovers of the system apps.

One last thing. When you copy APKs back to the system/app dir be sure to check their permissions. It should be Read - All, Write - User. (rw-r--r--)
The same goes for any APK you wish to install as a system app. Just copy them into the system/app dir, set the permissions and install them.

 

[kwankenny]

hmm overclocking huh... what about loading custom roms using nandroid? will it work for ya overclockers?

How To: Load a Custom ROM on the Motorola Milestone (Using Nandroid) | The Unlockr

 

[ewok666]

hmm overclocking huh... what about loading custom roms using nandroid? will it work for ya overclockers?

How To: Load a Custom ROM on the Motorola Milestone (Using Nandroid) | The Unlockr

No. The kernel cannot be modified and it needs to be to enable overclocking. I couldn't care less about custom ROMs myself. All I want is a faster Milestone. But everyone is different.....

 

[Jermin]

I'm with the overclocking idea. I'm a overclocker.

 

[fejker]

For all you overclockers there is this thing with a funny name - milestone-overclock:
milestone-overclock - Project Hosting on Google Code

It's a kernel module for rooted 2.1 devices which allows overclocking. The developer says the phone is stable up to 1 GHz (tested and it's true) but the overclocking scale goes up to 1200 MHz for those of you feeling adventurous.

I tested this and benched with Linpack. The default score @ 550 MHz was 4.4 MFLOPS and after bumping the CPU to 1 GHz the score was 8.1 MFLOPS. Still nowhere near to what the Nexus One is getting with the 2.2 update (40 MFLOPS).

BTW, it's an APK which installs as any normal APK, just give it root access and run it from the menu.

I hope the Milestone benefits from Froyo 2.2 as much as the Nexus. Cheers to good code implementation.

Please do report on your experience after overclocking.

 

[craigcrawford1988]

Overclocked to 1.2GHz

9.878 MFLOPS

 

[fejker]

If you want better control over CPU scaling install SetCPU.

 

[craigcrawford1988]

I still prefer my HTC Desire though .