So I bought a G1 on eBay and .......

[5tevie]

..... so far, it's all looking good (with just a couple of niggles)
It was fairly cheap at

 

[5tevie]

Hi again,
After looking around the "Setup" pages I found the following information.
Firmware version .....1.6
Baseband versin ..... 62.50S.20.17U_2.22.19.261
Kernel version ..... 2.6.29-00479-g3c7df37 android-build@apa26#19
Build number ..... DRC92

Does that tell anybody anything about the age of my phone and if I would be well advised to do any of this Jailbreaking stuff?
Cheers,
Steve

 

[Swizz]

The benefits of rooting have been discussed, posted and sticked all over the internet. The information is there.

You are currently running Donut, the final official firmware released for the G1. If you want Eclair, I suggest googleing "Cyanogen".

To get a free unlock code from Tmo you have to be a customer for 90 days, then you get the code. I can only vouch this information for TMO US.

 

[5tevie]

Please accept my apologies for posting a question on this forum.
I thought this was where a newb could ask questions about a newly acquired Mobile phone. It's obvious now that what I should have done is spend a week or so searching on the web for words that I didn't even know existed in relation to a G1 mobile phone.
I'll know better in future.
Cheers and thanks for helping a new guy understand the rules of the forum.
Steve

 

[Swizz]

If you feel it appropriate to take offence to my response, then that is your call. I feel that I answered your questions about 95%. I left the final 5% up to you, as I really didn't have the time to type out the pages and pages of reasons, advantages and drawbacks to rooting.

Cyanogen's website will overload you will all information root.

 

[5tevie]

All sarcasm aside, I realise that it isn't your job to be nice. However, I think you could have got your message across in a much less "Stop wasting our precious time, you stupid little man" kind of way. For instance, put yourself in my shoes for a minute. Imagine that you have just received a new mobile phone with a new operating system and you are trying to get some info. As a newbie, you have no real idea about what it can do and what any of these new words like Rooting, Jailbreaking and Cupcake can do how how they might add to your experience as a user.
So you ask on a forum and the reply is basically, "Don't ask us. Do your own search on the Internet".
That's fine if you know what to search for but if you don't, the internet is a big place to stumble around looking for the correct info based on the smallest amount of real info that is known about the phone.

I would have been delighted if, instead of your first paragraph which was ...
The benefits of rooting have been discussed, posted and sticked all over the internet. The information is there.
.... you had written ..... The information has been posted on the internet many times. Just do a search on Google for "Insert proper suggestion"
I could have taken it from there and thanked you for your suggestion.
Like I said, it isn't your job to be nice.
Have a good day.
Steve