[International / GSM] Rooting and OTA's

[sequre]

One thing doesnt make much sense to me, please correct me if I'm wrong... I know that the Nexus devices are always the first to receive updates, but wouldn't rooting the device prevent the OTA from taking place? Or is it not like the others?

If this is the case, I could foresee alot of rooting, unrooting, applying update, re-rooting, etc as I plan to keep the stock ICS OS.

 

[scary alien]

One thing doesnt make much sense to me, please correct me if I'm wrong... I know that the Nexus devices are always the first to receive updates, but wouldn't rooting the device prevent the OTA from taking place? Or is it not like the others?

If this is the case, I could foresee alot of rooting, unrooting, applying update, re-rooting, etc as I plan to keep the stock ICS OS.

Rooting in and of itself typically just involves finding a way to get the su binary and the Superuser.apk (whitelist) app installed. The presence of these files does not necessarily keep and OTA from coming in and being applied (I've experienced this first-hand for both my Eris and my Droid X).

There are measures you can take to prevent OTAs from coming in, being looked for, or being applied while you are rooted.

Also, typically, custom ROMs already have this OTA-prevention baked-in or at least toggle-able.

Hope that helps .

 

[sequre]

Strange because I know when I had my incredible rooted with no custom ROMS it never took any of the updates because it had s-off.

 

[scary alien]

Strange because I know when I had my incredible rooted with no custom ROMS it never took any of the updates because it had s-off.

Well, on my HTC Droid Eris, you can get an S-OFF HBOOT (bootloader) without affecting any of the other partitions, etc. (i.e., you can be stock, un-rooted, but have the unsecured (S-OFF) HBOOT). For the Eris (and presumably other HTC phones, too), the installed recovery has a lot to do with whether or not an OTA can be installed (recovery is involved with that process, at least for the Eris).

I was being a little general in my reply above since there are many ways to achieve root (unsecured bootloaders, various root exploits, custom recoveries, etc.) and will be different for each Android device. In custom ROMs, the ROM devs usually disable the OTA update .apk (it varies from vendor to vendor which .apk).

Probably the best folks to ask or get an answer from regarding the Galaxy Nexus would be a current Nexus S rooter, since I've heard that the root environment will be similar to that device.

Cheers!

 

[rexdog1888]

I was wondering this too...I guess we'll known for sure on or right after the 21st(I'm sure we will get an ota right away, bugs always appear when something goes public)

 

[jboku]

I was wondering about this too. I didn't want to have to keep unrooting / rooting every couple of weeks.

 

[UKROB]

how often do you guys expect the galaxy nexus to receive OTA updates? I just got my first OTA on galaxy nexus and had to re-root with ADB but no big deal, took less than 3 mins.

 

[kuykendallc]

So what is the process for tomorrow? Get phone fastboot unlock, root, install 4.1 update? Or wait for 4.1 update and then fastboot unlock and root?

 

[jboku]

I am hoping i only have to unlock / root once. I dont plan on putting any custom roms. All I plan on doing it rooting to use apps like titanium backup and tethering. Hopefully that wont effect me receiving the latest and greatest from google. If it does and I end up having to wipe my phone and re-root every update I might hold off for a while.