Droid X Gets Rooted 97
An anonymous reader writes "The Droid X forums have posted a procedure to root the new Motorola Droid X, putting to rest Andoid fans' fears that they would never gain access to the device's secrets due to a reported eFuse that would brick the phone if certain boot files were tampered with. Rooting the phone is the first step in gaining complete control over the device."
Re:Why support companies that pull crap like this? (Score:5, Informative)
Try a headline that conveys useful information. (Score:5, Informative)
It's funny that the summary for this article has the text "putting to rest Andoid fans' fears that they would never gain access to the device's secrets due to a reported eFuse that would brick the phone" and links to a Slashdot story titled "Droid X Self-Destructs If You Try To Mod". So Slashdot posts a story with a bogus headline, and then later has another story saying how fear was created when it was "reported" that the phones would be bricked. Never stopping for a second to reflect on the fact that Slashdot itself was the one doing the bad "reporting".
While gaining root access is good news this particular exploit is one that has been around for a while and is ported from another version of Android on another phone. Not to dismiss the work that has been done here but the biggest problem for this device is and has always been the bootloader.
Re:Why support companies that pull crap like this? (Score:3, Informative)
Except you don't need to root to tether an Android phone. There are many programs in the Market that will do that for you without needing root in any way.
So your completely ignorant point is completely worthless. Good thing you're a Coward.
Root has nothing to do with the eFuse (Score:4, Informative)
Root is available, but not new rom images. Root is just a small first step. It will not really help in getting around the signed bootloader.
Re:Was there ever FUD? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rooted == jailbreak? (Score:3, Informative)
Android the OS comes open but most of the phone makers lock down their hardware (likely due to pressure from carriers like Verizon and ATT). It has legitimate purposes such as making it hard for luzers to accidently do bad things to their phone. Rooting is pretty much the same thing as jailbreaking, I think there are some subtle differences.
Once you've got root you can usually (not in the Droid X or Milestone's case) run custom ROMs based upon the actual Android source (AOSP) or pretty much any other hardware too. It lets you add features to the phones such as overclocking, setting up wifi tethering, and adding newer wizz bangs to older phones that the maker no longer deems worth updating.
Re:Was there ever FUD? (Score:4, Informative)
Not everyone is sure that the bootloader can be cracked. It's fully encrypted, Trusted Computing style. Some UK hackers have had a go on a similar phone and haven't made it happen. We're hoping that since the Droid X has a much broader base that the extra talent workign on it will finally break it.
Basically, as usual, the summary was horribly wrong. Everyone thought Rooting would be simple and done within a week or two (and it was). Everyone was and still is worried about the bootloader, and how you might brick your phone or just not be able to find a weak spot. Messing with the bootloader is what could trigger the eFuse if it was enabled, but Motorola has specifically said that they have not turned it on. The only thing keeping everyone out of the bootloader is the encryption right now.
Linus Torvalds kept GPL2 for this reason. (Score:5, Informative)
Motorola are clearly assholes (Score:5, Informative)
Motorola are now "deciding" whether to push out Android 2.2 (with, you know, the Flash support *promised on the box*) to the device at all
For me - I've "decided" that they aren't getting more of my business - as far as I am concerned, they can go f*** themselves.
From James King, Motorola Marketing Director:
Next European Milestone and 2.2 (Froyo). I have expressed over the last few days that the decision is pending. The team here has been collating key pieces of information and views from this community in the last month and providing input to relevant teams in Motorola so they are aware. I am pushing for that decision to be made as quickly as possible, and we can then all go from there. Some others ask why the decisions on upgrades take so long, and why does implementation then take much longer still. What I can say and have stated recently is that upgrades are not a walk in the park. Sure there are short cuts that people can take, but when you have to integrate software to a specific hardware, then test it and integrate with third party applications, let alone any innovation from ourselves, plus then get approvals to make this all official and safe its is a big undertaking that requires planning and resource and third party coordination to see this all through. As I say, once we have decision, we will inform. JK