I'd like to root my Android phone (Samsung Charge), but I am afraid and have many concerns. Please help!

December 6, 2011 2:48 PM

I'd like to root my Android phone (Samsung Charge), but I am afraid and have many concerns. Please help!

I got my Samsung Charge back in June of this year, and it's been a great phone to me, and I'd like to root it. However, I've never rooted a phone before, and I'm afraid of doing so - mostly that I might brick the thing, either in the process of rooting it or by installing/uninstalling things after rooting it. I'm hoping that some of you who've done this before can help walk me through it a bit, tell me the major things to avoid when doing this, point me to resources that are clear and to-the-point in getting this done, and help me unlock the full potential of my phone in the process.

So, here's my list of questions:

1) How exactly do I go about rooting the phone? I know with the iPhone, there's like a one-step jailbreak process or something, but what is the process for my phone? (As stated above, Samsung Charge, bought in June-ish of 2011.)

1a) I'm a little concerned about what happens if/when Verizon releases an update for my phone - it's a big grey area to me. For example, Verizon just released some

kind of update over their network like a week ago that I downloaded to my phone. Do accepting these updates screw up my ability to root my phone (i.e., do I have to wait for a "new" way to root my phone now, now that I accepted this last update)? What happens if they release another update - do I just ignore it and go on my merry way? Will I not get notifications for those updates anymore? Are these updates only for the stock OS that's installed on my phone, and not for the hardware at all, and can therefore be safely ignored? Like I said, a big grey area that I don't know anything about.

2) What can I delete off the phone once I root it that won't brick my phone? Example: there's this program that came with the phone called "Let's Golf 2". Every time I

try to uninstall it, it somehow gets back on there. I want root access so I can remove the bloatware off my phone, but I don't know what I can uninstall safely.

3) Once I root the phone, what can I do to optimize it - make it run faster, save battery power, etc.? What is this "flashing firmware" thing that I've heard of? How

can I get rid of this CarrierIQ thing I've heard about? How can I make sure nothing like that gets on my phone again?

4) How can I go about tethering after I've rooted the phone?

5) If I need further help with this question, what are some good websites online that I can post to or people I can find to interact with (ex., forums, IRC, etc.) to ask more of my questions?

Thanks in advance, everyone!

posted by Ephilation to technology (12 answers total)

XDA
posted by Burhanistan at 3:09 PM on December 6, 2011

I've found RootzWiki to be a great resource for my Thunderbolt. Here's their howto entry on rooting for the charge.

http://rootzwiki.com/forum/58-droid-charge/
http://rootzwiki.com/topic/4847-guide-new-users-guide-everything-how-to-root-rom-kernels-radios-cwm/

People are pretty friendly to newbies. Just don't create new threads in the "Developer" subforum (unless you've created a new ROM :-).
posted by rouftop at 3:15 PM on December 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

There are two levels of "rooting":
* There's hacking the existing firmware (OS) on your phone so that you can run things at root level, allowing you to delete the undelete-able, modify settings you normally can't, install things that require root access (like a tethering app), etc. As a general rule, think of this like modifying a file or two on your phone: if Verizon updates it over the air, your changes may get over-written. I don't have a ton of experience with this because I've always purchased bootloader-unlocked phones and done option #2:
* There's replacing the entire existing firmware with a new one. See: cyangogenmod. At that level, you're replacing the customized Verizon build of Android with one built from the Android sources (plus some additional functionality), customized for your phone type. At that point, you might no longer think of your phone as a "Verizon" phone and start thinking of it as a "phone that happens to have service on the Verizon network." It also means that your phone user interface experience might change: the new cyanogenmod might night use the same launcher ("desktop") as the Verizon-customized one that might've come with your phone. Some people like this, some people don't. I personally generally loathe the carrier-customized stuff when compared to the cyanogen builds.

The XDA forums above are a good resource, but are sometimes very very deep to wade through for little bits of info. I generally point people to the cyanogenmod main page / wiki and tell them to follow the links from there.

So to answer your questions for the #2 case:
1. read the cyanogenmod wiki; generally involves some step to unlock the bootloader, possibly installing a ROM manager app, then copying some files to your SD card. Boot while holding down a certain button combination, pick option to flash the phone from those files you copied. Voila, shiny new phone firmware. Go reinstall all your apps (or, before you start things, run Titanium Backup and backup all the apps first, then restore when done).
1a. if you nuke the phone down to bare metal with a custom firmware (cyanogenmod, etc.), I don't think there's any way for Verizon to even push builds to your phone over the air. I could be wrong on that, but it seems highly unlikely the custom firmware would accept them. You're responsible for updating your own phone whenever you want to.
2. the phone will come with only google apps and some basic developer tools. No cruftware.
3. the tools that come with the new firmware will let you monkey with things, but you'll find that the cyanogenmod-type builds are generally well-optimized. I usually upgrade my wife's phones to them around 6 months into their life: they start acting like a newer, faster phone.
4. cyanogenmod and the rest generally come with tethering features built-in. Just go into the Wireless settings menu and pick USB or WiFi tethering. Be warned that many carriers watch data traffic for evidence of tethering and will force you to upgrade to the (usually-most-expensive) tethering plan they sell if you're caught. YMMV with Verizon.
5. start with the cyanogenmod people and, by extension, the XDA forums. Prepare to do your homework, though, since a lot of the fora don't always tolerate questions that are answered in the official re-flashing guides, etc.
posted by introp at 3:26 PM on December 6, 2011 [3 favorites]

Root will usually break from a carrier pushed update.

Having root will not necessarily mean you can go into settings and remove carrier installed programs, you may have to manually delete files follow other steps that could temporarily 'break' your phone.

I would suggest against custom roms unless you really want to spend the time and tinker with your phone. Most custom roms aren't perfect and will have bugs.
posted by wongcorgi at 3:31 PM on December 6, 2011

(I'd like to note that the custom ROMs, cyanogen in this case, for all three phones in our house have been far, far less buggy than the stock builds. The phones in question are the HTC Dream (Google Phone 1), HTC Passion (Nexus One), and LG Star (T-Mobile G2x). Again, YMMV, and probably largely depends on how many developers actually own your type of phone. If they do, all the bugs seem to get ironed out very quickly.)
posted by introp at 3:59 PM on December 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Was going to reccomend SdX-Developers, since they host a lot of good Samsung-specific builds - But they mainly cover the CDMA phones. The second rootz page posted by rouftop looks really good.
posted by Orb2069 at 6:14 PM on December 6, 2011

A Charge is my primary phone.

Read everything in this thread. (Linked above.)

At the moment, your best bet (IMHO) would be to install imnuts' Infinity. It is based off of the latest Verizon update. Alternatively, you can just stop at the rooted version of the Verizon firmaware, and delete bloatware yourself.

Important lesson: With this phone, I know of two ways to actually brick your phone to such a degree that you, personally, cannot fix it:

1. When using ODIN, use the "phone" button instead of the "PDA" button.
2. Flash firmware intended for another phone.

Anything other mistakes will, at worst, result in a "soft brick." A "soft brick" is always recoverable.

First, your questions, assuming Infinity is the choice you make.

1) How exactly do I go about rooting the phone?
You will put your phone in "download mode" and use ODIN software to flash a rooted version of the Verizon firmware. You will then use ODIN to flash a custom recovery image. Finally, you will use this recovery image to flash a customized version of the firmware (Infinity) and imoseyon's kernal. (Which is a repackaged version of the Verizon kernal.)

1a) I'm a little concerned about what happens if/when Verizon releases an update for my phone
Nothing will happen if you are on Infinity. If you're on Verizon's firmware, rooted, it's entirely possible that if/when an update comes, your phone will attempt to apply the update, and it will result in a soft brick. Soft bricks are always recoverable, but if you're not near a computer with ODIN when it happens, there's nothing you can do until you get to that computer.

2) What can I delete off the phone once I root it that won't brick my phone?
Pretty much anything you would think of deleting, and then some. Again, no way to truly brick it here. Worst case, you can always restore. Pretty much anything that doesn't look like a vital system component can be deleted. If you go with Infinity, this will all be taken out for you.

3) Once I root the phone, what can I do to optimize it - make it run faster, save battery power, etc.? What is this "flashing firmware" thing that I've heard of? How can I get rid of this CarrierIQ thing I've heard about? How can I make sure nothing like that gets on my phone again?
Way more than is worth getting into here. Cart before horse. "Flashing firmware" is writing your /system image using either ODIN or the Clockwork Mod Recovery Image (CWM). You don't have Carrier IQ, because Verizon phones don't have them. If you are on a custom rom, nothing will ever be installed without your knowledge.

4) How can I go about tethering after I've rooted the phone?
This guy. Beware: Verizon cracks down on this in fits and starts.

5) If I need further help with this question, what are some good websites online that I can post to or people I can find to interact with (ex., forums, IRC, etc.) to ask more of my questions?
RootzWiki is the only place worth going to for this phone. You should also feel free to MeMail me.

I will now give you a short step-by-step guide on what you need to do. I'm not going to provide 100% of the details/links, because you should make sure you're comfortable filling in the gaps based on your close reading of the thread above, and any others that look interesting on RootzWiki. Again, please feel free to MeMail me.

1. Find ways to backup things that you want to keep. Everything on your SD card will be saved, everything else will not unless you find a way to back it up.
2. Shut down phone.
3. Using the ODIN instructions linked above, flash the rooted EP4D package.
4. Before rebooting your phone, flash Clockwork mod. Make sure you shut down ODIN and unplug your phone between flashes. If you get a FAIL here, don't panic. You have a temporary soft brick. Restart your computer and try again. It will work eventually, and you'll be fine.
5. Boot your phone.
6. Boot into Clockwork Mod.
7. Flash Infinity.
8. Flash the Imoseyon kernal.

Good luck! It's a fairly steep learning curve, but once you get comfortable doing everything, it's a lot of fun, and your phone will perform much, much better than you'd ever expect.
posted by SpiffyRob at 8:42 PM on December 7, 2011

Oh, totally forgot: The #charge IRC channel is another great place for support.
posted by SpiffyRob at 8:43 PM on December 7, 2011

Thanks for your answers, everyone. I'm planning on doing this in the next week.
posted by Ephilation at 6:32 PM on December 16, 2011

Good luck! The Charge is a pretty great phone once you break free of the bloat.

One thing I want to state just to be clear: ALWAYS use the "PDA" button when you use ODIN.
posted by SpiffyRob at 9:12 PM on December 16, 2011

Quick question -- after rooting your phone and putting in a new mod, do all of your downloaded apps and settings reappear on the phone? I wonder because one time I did a hard reset of my DROID and was pleased to see that basically everything on my phone was restored after a few minutes, and I'm hoping that would happen if I did the mod thing.
posted by Deathalicious at 6:14 AM on February 14

It depends on the Rom and the phone, but in general, yes, so long as you select "Back Up Data to my Google Account" when you first sign in to the phone (before the rooting.)

I do believe it's controlled at the application level whether or not data should be backed up in this way, so if you want to be sure, ideally you'd get Root first, then install something like Titanium Backup to backup any application data you want to make sure you preserve. THEN you could flash a new firmware without worry. Also: This really only applies to anything stored in internal memory, which in most cases is just Applications and Data. Anything on the SD card (Music, Movies, Downloads, Photos, etc.) will be left in tact regardless.
posted by SpiffyRob at 8:47 AM on February 14