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Root New Desire.. need advice on how to proceed

S

smokinmonkey

Newbie
Hi everybody, I just bought a HTC Desire from The Carphone Warehouse on the O2 network.

I've taken it home, inserted my simcard, turned it on and put it on charge. I've flicked through the little introduction screens and then connected to my home WiFi.

I have been reading this and other forums for a while. I want to now root the phone and install a custom ROM.

Before I download any apps or do anything should I first root the phone as soon as possible and install the custom ROM of my choice?

The phone came with a 4GB memory card. I of course want to upgrade this to a bigger card. Should I buy and insert the new memory card before rooting and installing a ROM as I have read about people having problems with installing new memory cards.

Removing the back of the phone scared the life out of me. I thought it was going to snap. I don't fancy doing that too often!

Sorry about the long winded thread but any help would be appreciated.
 
First thing to ask yourself is why do you want to root? Having just got the phone I would play around with it, install a few apps etc before you root. Unless you're already familiar with android and Sense in which case there are loads of guides in the Root subforum. You can see a link at the top of the Desire forum index.
 
I rooted & then upgraded to a 16gb sd card after & had no problems with the card.
Rooting should only be done if you really want to use your phones full potential & not just on a whim.
 
So you guys would suggest not rooting the phone yet? I want to be able to save apps to the sd card etc.

As soon as I connected to my home WiFi network the phone asked did I want to download the 2.2 update. I selected no as I was planning on rooting and installing a custom ROM straight away. But do you think I should install the update if I am not going to root the phone yet?
 
It's a bit of a gamble. Someone will correct me if I am wrong but I don't think anyone has worked out how to root official 2.2 yet. Chances are they will - they have in the past, but there are no guarantees. So if you update you will have 2.2 (including the app 2 sd bit and much faster OS), but you are taking a slight gamble.
 
anoniemouse said:
I rooted & then upgraded to a 16gb sd card after & had no problems with the card.
Rooting should only be done if you really want to use your phones full potential & not just on a whim.
Click to expand...

When you got your 16GB card did you just transfer from your old card onto it? Or did you have to download an app to format it in a certain way for the phone?
 
smokinmonkey said:
When you got your 16GB card did you just transfer from your old card onto it? Or did you have to download an app to format it in a certain way for the phone?
Click to expand...

No - just copy all your data from your old card to your new and away you go. You may want to format your new card first.

I bought an 8GB card last week and changed it over with no problems.
 
I am in the same boat, though I don't have the option for 2.2 yet. I'm thinking that eventually I will be wanting to install a custom ROM, as I need to have the phone for 2-3 years and by that time we will probably be on android 4.0, or atleast well into 3.x. No way will HTC support the software for that long. It seems like applying the 2.2 update when it comes out will make rooting more complicated, especially considering I will have the SLCD screen, though screen issues seem to be being resolved.

To root now or root later, that is the question......
 
This is the first phone I really would like to have, can anyone guide me to the best cash price to buy one sim free in the Uk ... I've been searching and 400+ seems to be all I can find and yet i hear of others getting them for under 350
tia
;)
 
are you guys kidding? Don't advise him not to root. Rooting is possibly the single best thing you could ever do with your phone. Seriously.

smokinmonkey, rooting straight away is best, because you won't have to backup and restore anything, makes the whole process much simpler.

You will want to use the old A2SD+ method for storing apps to sdcard. This means partitioning your sdcard, so again, it will be more straight forward if you have your sdcard with you already, but depends on if you want to wait till you get it, either way is fine.
 
lekky said:
are you guys kidding? Don't advise him not to root. Rooting is possibly the single best thing you could ever do with your phone. Seriously.

smokinmonkey, rooting straight away is best, because you won't have to backup and restore anything, makes the whole process much simpler.

You will want to use the old A2SD+ method for storing apps to sdcard. This means partitioning your sdcard, so again, it will be more straight forward if you have your sdcard with you already, but depends on if you want to wait till you get it, either way is fine.
Click to expand...

Not advising him not to root, i said if he wants to use the full potential of his phone to root.
Just advising against doing it on a whim, as it seems to me the majority who do it this way seem to be the ones wanting to unroot after a little while.


smokinmonkey said:
When you got your 16GB card did you just transfer from your old card onto it? Or did you have to download an app to format it in a certain way for the phone?
Click to expand...

You can format the card in the phone settings/sd & phone storage/unmount sd card/format sd card
 
So if I get my phone tonight and root it, I should hold of on A2SD+ untill I buy a new card or is the stock one fast enough? Seems if I wait for the official A2SD in 2.2 it should be fast enough for that right?
 
ajanu said:
So if I get my phone tonight and root it, I should hold of on A2SD+ untill I buy a new card or is the stock one fast enough? Seems if I wait for the official A2SD in 2.2 it should be fast enough for that right?
Click to expand...

I used the stock one with no problem, some of the roms have the apps2sd+ included in the rom, just install rom manager once you are rooted & installed your chosen rom as that is how you partition your sd card.
When you partition set your ext 512mb swap 0mb
 
It is possible to swap SD cards, even with A2SD+, but it's more of a hassle than without.
What I did when I got my 16GB card was to first make a Titanium backup, and then copy the entire contents of my SD to the computer.
Then I put the new SD in the phone, partitioned and formatted it, moved the stuff from the computer back, and restored the Titanium backup.

Possibly you can do it with Nandroid instead, but I'm not sure.
 
lekky said:
are you guys kidding? Don't advise him not to root. Rooting is possibly the single best thing you could ever do with your phone. Seriously.

smokinmonkey, rooting straight away is best, because you won't have to backup and restore anything, makes the whole process much simpler.

You will want to use the old A2SD+ method for storing apps to sdcard. This means partitioning your sdcard, so again, it will be more straight forward if you have your sdcard with you already, but depends on if you want to wait till you get it, either way is fine.
Click to expand...


Thats what I was thinking root straight away so I can just put apps on the sdcard from the start without all the messing about later on.

@anoniemous: my phone is unbranded already as Carphone Warehouse handsets are open to any network. No bloatware!

I charged my handset for about 3 1/2 hours today before using it. It has been off charge now for nearly 5 hours. It has been connected to WiFi for the past 2 hours and I have been downloading apps and browsing Facebook a little bit. I also messed around with the Barcode reader and Google Shopper apps. And I used the Google Sky Map app (the stars one, can't think of the name) for about 5 minutes.

Battery is sitting on 86% ... I think for pretty good of all the usage I've been doing... so much for the poor battery life.

Also I have a question about Task Managers / Killers: Whenever I exit from an app or program (press back button) it doesn't shut down. Market for example. Or even the Google Shopper, Barcode Reader or Maps. I go into Manage Applications, filter to running apps and close these.

I read on this forum that Android actively managers the apps itself. If I didn't close them the way I have been doing would they end up shutting down automatically? Is this why a Task Manager is not needed? Or would they run until the phone has been switched off?

"Closing" programs / apps confuses me on this phone because pressing the back button doesn't actually shut them down.
 
smokinmonkey said:
Thats what I was thinking root straight away so I can just put apps on the sdcard from the start without all the messing about later on.

@anoniemous: my phone is unbranded already as Carphone Warehouse handsets are open to any network. No bloatware!

I charged my handset for about 3 1/2 hours today before using it. It has been off charge now for nearly 5 hours. It has been connected to WiFi for the past 2 hours and I have been downloading apps and browsing Facebook a little bit. I also messed around with the Barcode reader and Google Shopper apps. And I used the Google Sky Map app (the stars one, can't think of the name) for about 5 minutes.

Battery is sitting on 86% ... I think for pretty good of all the usage I've been doing... so much for the poor battery life.
Click to expand...

Wait till you try the smae thing on 3G instead of wifi, you won't have that much battery left i promise :p

smokinmonkey said:
Also I have a question about Task Managers / Killers: Whenever I exit from an app or program (press back button) it doesn't shut down. Market for example. Or even the Google Shopper, Barcode Reader or Maps. I go into Manage Applications, filter to running apps and close these.

I read on this forum that Android actively managers the apps itself. If I didn't close them the way I have been doing would they end up shutting down automatically? Is this why a Task Manager is not needed? Or would they run until the phone has been switched off?

"Closing" programs / apps confuses me on this phone because pressing the back button doesn't actually shut them down.
Click to expand...

Task managers are not only not needed, they are disruptive and malicious. I treat them the same way i'd treat a virus.

Android does actively manage applications and its free memory. Thats why a task killer was not really included in the system (yes there is manage apps, but this is to allow access to kill apps that are not behaving, not for normal use.)

Apps won't shut down, but beign in the background isn't bad. I like to say they have a footprint in memory. They may not actually be donig anything at all, but the footprint allows them to do something if they wish.

so just use the phone, and press home or back when u want to leave an app, don't worry if its still there in some form.

EDIT: gone into more detail here: http://droid-den.com/android-guides/android-guide-3-must-have-apps-when-rooted

Also, once rooted, get the following 3 apps:

1: Autokiller - Set preset to strict
This ensures android will never slow down. It increases the minimum kill levels natively used by the system.

2: Autostarts - your ally against poorly coded apps
This lets you see every type of event in the android ecosystem, and which apps will automatically start when those events happen. For instance, why the hell would a music app start up when you receive an sms. Poorly coded is why. This app lets you block apps from opening when they shouldn't be.

3: SetCpu - underclock baby
This dynamically underclocks the cpu depending on the amount of processing power required to do a task. You don't need much cpu to send an sms, so this app will underclock when doing that. Less power == less battery. You can also force it to mega underclocl when the screen is off. What happens when screen is off? apps/widgets update, when your not using the phone, they don't have to happen in an instant. Big battery saver again.
 
Nodders said:
It's a bit of a gamble. Someone will correct me if I am wrong but I don't think anyone has worked out how to root official 2.2 yet. Chances are they will - they have in the past, but there are no guarantees. So if you update you will have 2.2 (including the app 2 sd bit and much faster OS), but you are taking a slight gamble.
Click to expand...

The problem for me was the bootloader. I did take the OTA for 2.2 via Orange but managed to install PB99IMG.zip ROM, move back to bootloader 0.80, then install and use the unrEVOked software. Then I had to reinstall the radio, then a customer ROM. All turned out to be quite easy actually. Followed something on youtube.
 
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