I know Android is still a new thing in our country. Users who bought Android because they are either geeks, Linux gurus, adventurers, and explorers has passed. Now, Android is reaching a state where new users are following rather than doing their researches first. Credit goes to these people from the first group for making Android a known device and pull lots and lots of new members out of the iPoison and showed them a new adventure.


Now the new friends of ours try to speak the same language that we are speaking here. What we need to remember is, we had a tough journey in the beginning too - learning all the process and everything. If you say you rooted your device and it made your device look cool, they will start to immagine things. Things that you didn't even explain. Its a fact. I get these questions everyday. No joke.


To those who still don't have a clear picture, ROOT in our actual language means seniors, ancestors, or the point where everything starts. Without roots, plants will not grow, humans will not have kids, a system will not have an organization. That said, root is the top level of anything that has an organization. In Android, root is the top level of the directory. From root, the organization grows larger and you have folders, subfolders and files. Then what is ROOTING itself? Simple. Rooting refers to the process of obtaining the access to the root level. In Android, root level is not provided by default. There are many reasons for doing this. Among the most important reason is to block access to the paid applications directory. This prevents illegal distribution of the paid applications. That is why the controversy of whether root access should be granted by default or not is still being heavily discussed. However, in protecting root, we miss a whole lot of interesting stuff that can be done if we have root level directory. Once root access is obtained, the user can flash a custom recovery and even a custom ROM if the user knows how to compile one. This gives ultimate flexibility to the user to customize his device according to how he wants it to be. Obtaining root access has nothing to do with your device's performance and what not. It only gives you access to everywhere in the device.


In order to obtain ROOT, you need SUPERUSER permissions. Superuser, in a way, is the god of the device. He has permissions to do EVERYTHING to the device - even brick it. To obtain superuser is the real challenge which our Android gurus Cyanogen, PaulOBrien, koush and others spend endless hours to obtain it. Once superuser is obtained, you have the ultimate power of root and hence are able to literally do ANYTHING with the device. Superuser is the permission that allows root access. Once again, this has NOTHING to do with your phone's performance and what not.


FLASHING CUSTOM SOFTWARE is what most of the newbies are seeking for. This is what actually improves the performance of your phone. Custom software includes the Operating System, kernel and the ROM. Each of these are complimentary to one another and require each other to execute the commands and operate the device. If you were building a house, kernel would be its base, Operating system would be its pillars and ROM would be the roof. How solid is your base, pillar and roof determines how well your house will be built. The amount of current supplied, the frequency of the CPU, the governors available, total free RAM, overclocking, undervolting, optimization, bloatwares, modules, and a huge bunch of parameters determines the overall performance of the phone. THIS is the actual thing that you may want to adventure when playing in the Android hacking scene.


Then why do everyone keep saying "I root my device" instead of "I flashed a custom software on my device"?
Simple. Because you need to have root access before you can flash the custom software.


It is important to at least understand these basic terms before you start exploring the Android further. Hope this will clear up much of the confusion that is hovering around the Android community.

For further reading:
Rooting Explained + Top 5 Benefits Of Rooting Your Android Phone
Custom ROMs For Android Explained And Why You Want Them
credits to wiind for the links.


Regards,
-shahz-


Note: This article was self written by me initially for LegenDroid Community. I am sharing it here to help the newbies better understand the exact terminologies in exploring Android. You may use any part of this article as guidance and use it as reference for the newbies.

This post has been edited by shahz: May 26 2010, 02:28 PM

Thanks faridaizuddin I was getting PMs with wrong questions and incorrect terms used everyday. In fact, sometimes twice a day. I was explaining the same thing over and over to different people, so I thought I'd just compile this in one page.

From now on, if people step into Android the first day, they can always refer to this thread first before asking questions.

Perfect. I think we have provided enough sources for the noobs already. I hope they at least take this initiative of reading before asking questions

Sure, I'll post up the links to the first post. The first post was not referred from anywhere. Its my own knowledge and I wrote every word of it

Thats why, to save all the trouble for you guys, bookmark this link. I don't think there are moderators around Android forum and I don't expect this thread to be stickied. If any noob just drops by with a noob question, show him this I've also linked it inside the ultimate package thread which is sticky.

Glad you find it useful To everyone who is worried about rooting, bear in mind, different companies have different policies against rooting your phone.

Motorola is strictly against rooting. If you root your phone, they don't want to see your face ever again. lol. Just an expression. Thats how tough their bootloader is locked

HTC is averagely fine. I've sent rooted sets and they have accepted it without much problems since the problem wasn't related to the rooting.

ASUS? Its my favorite at the moment. They themselves asked me to root their device!

Like I said, rooting has a whole lot of advantages, but it carries disadvantages too. Some companies just don't accept disadvantages at all. Others dare to take the challenge

Not a problem bro Good luck. Do share with us if you get stuck anywhere

Don't worry about that..How many times have you taken your phone for a warranty claim before?