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Upgrading Original Droid to Jellybean Requires Rooting?

Well, if that the original Motorola Droid (circa November 2009, which fits your sign-up date :)), then this is likely a custom ROM for the Droid which implies that you'd need to at least be rooted to install said custom ROM.

From what I understand, rooting the OG Droid is/was very simple, but you'd have to dig into the http://androidforums.com/forums/root-motorola-droid.130/ threads for how-to's on that.

Was the place you saw this on XDA?
 
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Well, if that the original Motorola Droid (circa November 2009, which fits your sign-up date :)), then this is likely a custom ROM for the Droid which implies that you'd need to at least be rooted to install said custom ROM.

From what I understand, rooting the OG Droid is/was very simple, but you'd have to dig into the http://androidforums.com/forums/root-motorola-droid.130/ threads for how-to's on that.

Was the place you saw this on XDA?

Actually I saw mention of it in the Wikipedia entry for the phone. I found discussion of the update and a YouTube video of someone demonstrating the OS running on the phone. Some additional research identified the source for the update but the language I found surrounding it went over my head. I've never attempted to root a phone before. My Linux knowledge is limited. On the one hand, maybe someone with my level of knowledge has no business attempting to root his phone. OTOH, I would be starting with a phone I don't really use anymore, so a negative outcome wouldn't be devastating. Thanks for the response. I'll look into the link you posted. :)
 
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Cheers, @mcknigs :).

Rooting is typically / usually (but not absolutely always) a pre-requisite for installing a custom ROM (i.e., an alternate version of Android) since it takes special (i.e., root) permissions to re-write / write-over the /system (and other) partition(s) which are usually set to read-only.

There are a few devices that allow you do install custom / different ROMs without having root, but they often/usually go hand-in-hand.

:)
 
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