Root Any reason to root anymore?

[VMX]

Thank you. I have been on the fence with this whole rooting thing. I have no complaints the phone besides the dumb stock apps I cant remove, storing all apps on my sd card and I also want 720p recording. I know I have the root to achieve this, and I know how great the phone can be if I root. The thing is, I dont care for any of the extra stuff, yeah I cant lie and say I dont want the phone to be better, but its overkill to me. The phone does for me what I want it to, so I never felt the need to root. Now with this one click rooting, its becoming more and more tempting. With unrooting be just as easy?

EDIT: I dont need to unroot to go back to stock rom, correct? Rooting even without unlocking the bootloader(the new way) doesnt mean I can still use the stock rom right?

 

[Teknologic]

I don't get what you all mean by unrooting..
@VMX I rooted without unlocking the bootloader and just stayed on stock rom.

 

[cigar3tte]

I don't get what you all mean by unrooting..
@VMX I rooted without unlocking the bootloader and just stayed on stock rom.

Basically giving up root access, as if the phone is how you got it. No access /system.

 

[Teknologic]

So how would one accomplish that, just delete the SU app?

 

[cigar3tte]

So how would one accomplish that, just delete the SU app?

SU app works with root, it is not root itself.

Never been interested in unrooting, but I think this thread would unroot.
[ROM] Original Shipping - Tutorial - xda-developers

 

[Teknologic]

Oh ok, thanks for clearing that up. So all I'd need to do is remove the system files I pushed and I'd be completely 'unrooted' at this point.
I won't either though, just out of general interest

 

[VMX]

I don't get what you all mean by unrooting..
@VMX I rooted without unlocking the bootloader and just stayed on stock rom.

I'm thinking about doing that. Did it speed up your phone at all? What apps did you get since the root? Can you still get ota updates?

 

[Teknologic]

I'm thinking about doing that. Did it speed up your phone at all?

I think so, slightly. Nothing like Froyo compared to Eclair anyway. But it does free up even more RAM.

What apps did you get since the root?

actual apps (apart from superuser, busybox and other needed tools): Titanium backup, Root explorer, setCPU, Shoot Me, Autostarts,..

Can you still get ota updates?

Well there hasn't been any so I can't be sure.
But the rules goes: stock ROM = OTA so I'll say yes

 

[VMX]

actual apps (apart from superuser, busybox and other needed tools): Titanium backup, Root explorer, setCPU, Shoot Me, Autostarts,..

Can you tell me what these apps do? I looked up shootme and thats easy to figure out but superuser gives no real explaination on what it does, same with busybox.

 

[Talderon]

Let's see if I can clear up the air here.

Rooting: All this does is give you root or "super user" access to your underlying OS. Lets you do things you normally would not be able to do.

Rooting with Unlocking the Boot Loader:

You will void your warranty - That has pretty much been the norm, people know this.

If you flash a new recovery and ROM, you will NOT get OTA's.

If you just apply Root hacks and apps, but keep stock recovery and ROM, you will get OTA's.

Rooting without Unlocking the Boot Loader:

You will void your warranty - That has pretty much been the norm, people know this. HOWEVER, it's harder for them to tell you rooted without actually looking at your OS/ROM and verifying this. Chances are, they won't look closely.

If you flash a new recovery and ROM, you will NOT get OTA's.

If you just apply Root hacks and apps, but keep stock recovery and ROM, you will get OTA's.

EITHER WAY:

In order for you to do things like Black Status Bar, Change Battery Icon and the like, you will need to flash a custom ROM that has been Deodexed and for MetaMorphs, you will need to have BusyBox installed and working (BusyBox and stuff is normally installed during the root process).

If you are going to root to just remove some apps and whatnot, then cool, but if you want to change the look/feel of your ROM, you have to go custom.

 

[Roze]

Talderon, thank's for the dummy explanation While we are on this, I see posts asking how to 'unroot' one's rooted phone. I thought that once rooted...you can't 'unroot'. Flashing your phone with the stock Recovery ROM doesn't seem like 'unrooting'. So can you unroot a rooted phone?

 

[cigar3tte]

Talderon, thank's for the dummy explanation While we are on this, I see posts asking how to 'unroot' one's rooted phone. I thought that once rooted...you can't 'unroot'. Flashing your phone with the stock Recovery ROM doesn't seem like 'unrooting'. So can you unroot a rooted phone?

You can "unroot", but you can't lock the bootloader once it's been unlocked.

 

[Roze]

You can "unroot", but you can't lock the bootloader once it's been unlocked.

How do you 'unroot'? So if you root without unlocking the bootloader...when you 'unroot', your phone will be just as it was before you rooted it?

 

[cigar3tte]

How do you 'unroot'? So if you root without unlocking the bootloader...when you 'unroot', your phone will be just as it was before you rooted it?

I think I posted a link to xda on this same thread regarding that. I didn't look too deep into it.

 

[Talderon]

Talderon, thank's for the dummy explanation While we are on this, I see posts asking how to 'unroot' one's rooted phone. I thought that once rooted...you can't 'unroot'. Flashing your phone with the stock Recovery ROM doesn't seem like 'unrooting'. So can you unroot a rooted phone?

You can "unroot", but you can't lock the bootloader once it's been unlocked.

How do you 'unroot'? So if you root without unlocking the bootloader...when you 'unroot', your phone will be just as it was before you rooted it?

OK, I guess I should have put this in the explanation above.

Simply, what is Rooting and Unlocking the Boot Loader? Same?

Simply put, NO.

Unlocking the Boot Loader is NOT ROOTING.

Unlocking this means you are removing the security check that validates the recovery image installed and also keeps you from flashing anything that is not signed with a Google Key.

Rooting:

Android is a LINUX based operating system. Which means if you are Linux savvy, you would understand some of these terms and what they mean/imply.

ROOT is the administrator/god account that allows you to do pretty much anything to your operating system. Everything from removing stuff, adding stuff and of course, screwing stuff up.

This is also known as SU or Super User level access.

Some commands/operations that allow you to access/modify core system files or what the OS Dev locked down as system/core files and commands, you cannot modify in any way unless you have Root/SU access.

I hope this clears the air some more.

To answer your questions:

How do you Unroot?

You just re-flash the stock ROM. Nothing more complicated than that.

Can you re-flash the stock recovery?

Yes, but I won't get into that on this post. Let me know if you want to know how.

Can you re-lock the boot loader?

At this time, no. The ONLY way you can is if you happen to be lucky and have the holiday nexus one with the S-OFF option in the boot loader (which 95% of us don't have).