Root Android Device
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Most Android phones are carrier locked (at least in the US) so you can't just install Ubuntu unless you root the phone so you can unlock the phone, which then allows you to flash a new OS on the device.
That should have been stated when asked, then.
I find that statement almost laughable. I consider that knowledge kinda a given for anyone who is working on rooting/replacing as OS on an Android device.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Most Android phones are carrier locked (at least in the US) so you can't just install Ubuntu unless you root the phone so you can unlock the phone, which then allows you to flash a new OS on the device.
That should have been stated when asked, then.
I find that statement almost laughable. I consider that knowledge kinda a given for anyone who is working on rooting/replacing as OS on an Android device.
Which aspect?
Remember that replacing the OS and rooting are unrelated. If you have to unlock a locked device via a rooting process, that's different. At a high level, this is unrelated. Many Android devices do not require this, but many people confuse rooting and installing and that means that clarity around intention is critical.
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Really? Many Android devices don't require rooting to replace the OS? I guess my limited exposure to US devices has biased me.
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@Dashrender said:
Really? Many Android devices don't require rooting to replace the OS? I guess my limited exposure to US devices has biased me.
Many do, of course, but many do not. Most of the world does not use locked devices. In many places they are not even legal. Remember that most of the world does not have phones from their carriers, so carrier locking is pretty rare. Therefore there really isn't any drive to lock the OS either.
Don't know how often it happens, but quite often it does not.
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I need to root my device first after that only i can install the OS in my device.
I have verified the details -
@scottalanmiller said:
Many do, of course, but many do not. Most of the world does not use locked devices.
You are talking about two distinct things.
Rooting a phone is required to replace the OS.
Carrier locking of phones has little tondo with rooting other than people rooting phones to get around carrier locks.
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@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Many do, of course, but many do not. Most of the world does not use locked devices.
You are talking about two distinct things.
Rooting a phone is required to replace the OS.
Carrier locking of phones has little tondo with rooting other than people rooting phones to get around carrier locks.
Yeah I thought I was over complicating it.
thanks
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@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Many do, of course, but many do not. Most of the world does not use locked devices.
You are talking about two distinct things.
Rooting a phone is required to replace the OS.
Carrier locking of phones has little tondo with rooting other than people rooting phones to get around carrier locks.
There aren't any phones that allow you to flash them externally without needing to have root access to the existing OS first? I thought that a lot of phone makers were offering that feature. Not something I look for, I could be totally wrong.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Many do, of course, but many do not. Most of the world does not use locked devices.
You are talking about two distinct things.
Rooting a phone is required to replace the OS.
Carrier locking of phones has little tondo with rooting other than people rooting phones to get around carrier locks.
There aren't any phones that allow you to flash them externally without needing to have root access to the existing OS first? I thought that a lot of phone makers were offering that feature. Not something I look for, I could be totally wrong.
I don't think so. In order to flash, you have to have root. Having root on the phone allows malware to do even worse things if it's unchecked.
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@Dashrender said:
I don't think so. In order to flash, you have to have root. Having root on the phone allows malware to do even worse things if it's unchecked.
Of course, but similar devices (not phones just all sorts of devices) you normally can flash externally. What happens if the phone gets damaged and the OS does not work (e.g. there is no root), what do you do? On my iPhone I can flash it without being rooted (and I have and my dad did this week too.)
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@Dashrender said:
I don't think so. In order to flash, you have to have root. Having root on the phone allows malware to do even worse things if it's unchecked.
You don't 'have root' on the phone. All phone have the ability to be booted with root access. Using root to remove or change that bad does not imply giving root access to applications once rebooted normally.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I don't think so. In order to flash, you have to have root. Having root on the phone allows malware to do even worse things if it's unchecked.
Of course, but similar devices (not phones just all sorts of devices) you normally can flash externally. What happens if the phone gets damaged and the OS does not work (e.g. there is no root), what do you do? On my iPhone I can flash it without being rooted (and I have and my dad did this week too.)
Rooting a phone is specifically an android term. The matching term for iOS is jail breaking
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@JaredBusch said:
Rooting a phone is specifically an android term. The matching term for iOS is jail breaking
Yes, I know that they call it jailbreaking. Rooting is not an Android term, though, it's been an industry standard term for getting root level access when you were not supposed to have it (or a device tried to keep you from it) for a very long time, definitely back to my college years in the early 1990s. It simply means getting root level access (even for systems where that is not called root.)
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@JaredBusch said:
@Dashrender said:
I don't think so. In order to flash, you have to have root. Having root on the phone allows malware to do even worse things if it's unchecked.
You don't 'have root' on the phone. All phone have the ability to be booted with root access. Using root to remove or change that bad does not imply giving root access to applications once rebooted normally.
Understood, but if he installs his own OS to the device by flashing it, he can bypass needing root access to the system he is blowing away. The new system will be Ubuntu so root should be available to him, if not he can worry about rooting that. My question is... is there no way to flash physically and only from inside of the existing OS?
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Some phones have a special recovery mode... that recovery mode (that allows you to reflash your phone if it is bricked, like an iPhone) will check signatures on the updates that you are trying to install. If the signatures don't match, then it won't install.
In the Android world, the first thing you do is generally root the phone, then the next step is to install a custom boot loader that doesn't enforce the signature checking.
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In case that was worded confusingly, I mean there are two basic means of flashing a small device:
- log into the device and run an application (as root) that has access to flash the firmware.
- connect the device to something external, normally USB, and flash it "offline" simply overwriting the firmware, no root access needed
The second is what we do to the iPhones and iPads (sadly only through iTunes so not like we can install any firmware that they do not approve.) But no root access or even a booting system needed.
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@dafyre said:
Some phones have a special recovery mode... that recovery mode (that allows you to reflash your phone if it is bricked, like an iPhone) will check signatures on the updates that you are trying to install. If the signatures don't match, then it won't install.
In the Android world, the first thing you do is generally root the phone, then the next step is to install a custom boot loader that doesn't enforce the signature checking.
I see, so the functionality IS there, but there is a bootloader that cannot be updated in that way that blocks it outside of iOS-like signed updates. I guess that makes sense.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
Rooting a phone is specifically an android term. The matching term for iOS is jail breaking
Yes, I know that they call it jailbreaking. Rooting is not an Android term, though, it's been an industry standard term for getting root level access when you were not supposed to have it (or a device tried to keep you from it) for a very long time, definitely back to my college years in the early 1990s. It simply means getting root level access (even for systems where that is not called root.)
Yes that is a broad definition of root. Good for you.
That is not relevant to the discussion. Rooting a phone is specifically an android term.
If we were talking about something else, then of course the more general definition could apply.
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@JaredBusch said:
That is not relevant to the discussion. Rooting a phone is specifically an android term.
I was unaware that the Android community had taking an industry standard term and was using it to mean something else. But the term seems to mean the same thing, does it not? What's different in the Android world? Are you saying that Android users are using the term to mean something other than gaining root access to a device?
If this is so, it is extra confusing because some Android devices DO use rooting exactly as I describe. If you build your own Android device, for example. It can't be specific to Android as a platform. It has to be specific to something else. Like specific phones models.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@dafyre said:
Some phones have a special recovery mode... that recovery mode (that allows you to reflash your phone if it is bricked, like an iPhone) will check signatures on the updates that you are trying to install. If the signatures don't match, then it won't install.
In the Android world, the first thing you do is generally root the phone, then the next step is to install a custom boot loader that doesn't enforce the signature checking.
I see, so the functionality IS there, but there is a bootloader that cannot be updated in that way that blocks it outside of iOS-like signed updates. I guess that makes sense.
Correct, exactly like iOS devices - only signed OSs can be installed so long as the bootloader is locked. This is common for almost every phone out there, and the mass majority of tablets as well.
The super cheap $100 Android tablets might not lock the bootloader, but then those companies don't care about customer satisfaction anyway.
