ROOTING :D:D:D (not for sony / sony ericsson phones)

so rooting. what does rooting do?
Well I'll use the normal linux way of saying it first
Normally, the developers, to protect the computer/phone from idiots cocking up the whole computer
but if you aren't an idiot, what you'll do on the linux command line is
sudo (etc.)
sudo is basically like an upgrade of permission
so it's like being the master of everything

now, on phones, since it's EASIER to cock up phones than computers
you usually require some root.zip to be installed through clockworkmod
the root.zip is sometimes provided by the company itself on the developers page of their website.
If it isn't there, head over to forum.xda-developers.com and find your phone. There's usually a rooting guide there.

but what exactly does rooting do?
Rooting gives you elevated permissions for your phone, so you can now change the NAND, overclock, overvolt, odex/deodex (for making themes), zipalign, custom kernel, etc.etc.
basically with rooting you can do almost everything with your phone (provided your hardware doesn't fail)
Rooting usually is best used for low-end or mid-end android phones (ARM v6 or v7, max at 1.2GHZ, max Qualcomm Adreno Libs 205 (GPU), 512MB RAM).
so that you can improve it
It's not really necessary for the really light user who only uses it to text his parents and call his girlfriend throughout the night.
But if you're like have a mid-end android phone (like me, Galaxy Mini II) and want to play those super graphics intensive games like shadowgun, dead trigger, modern combat 4 zero hour etc., rooting usually lets you do that (through overclocking, more on that on the next post). There's also a bunch of handy apps out there on the google play store that requires rooting (like chainfire 3D, SetCPU, blade buddy)

and even if you don't really use your phone a lot, I usually suggest rooting it so that when your phone DOES cock up like 1 year later, you know you can fix it. (I still wonder why most non-rooted android phones on Stock ROM usually die at 1 year mark, is it some business trick?)

But i had better warn you beforehand, if you are an idiot and you try to root your phone, this is one of the few things that could happen
soft-brick your phone (bootloop, usually solved through re-flashing rom)
hard-brick your phone (won't turn on, won't charge, just won't fucking respond. You can do 3 things now, get a JTAG RIFF box and fix it, repair your phone/buy a new one, or use it as a weapon for throwing)
remove your phone's kernel (bootloop too, I have no idea how this can happen but it did to my father :P)




For sony / sony ericsson phones. There is a tool out there called superoneclick which supposedly promises to root all phones and tablets. I seriously doubt it works for all phones and tablets, but I DO KNOW it works for the X8, W8, X10, X10 mini, X10 pro, Arc, Arc S, and the Samsung captivate. All the other phones I'm not sure, they claim it works but until someone experiments, I don't know.