[EVO 4G General] knowledge561:
I had to explain rooting for you some friends on facebook and made a quick summary and I thought that I'd share it here also. Some things may be wrong. I'm not a rooting genius myself, I'm pretty retarded when it comes to this stuff. Please feel free to correct me where I am wrong. Spelling and grammar is NOT a factor here. GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND!!!

Simple Rooting

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What is Rooting? As Wikipedia states: Rooting is a process that allows users of cellphones, and other devices, running the Android operating system to attain privileged control (known as "root access") within Android's Linux subsystem, similar to jailbreaking on Apple devices running the iOS operating system, overcoming limitations that the carriers and manufacturers put on such phones. This is sort of similar to gaining administrative access on your pc where your allowed extra options that were previously locked down.

Why do you want to Root? Well that's easy, because your able to control and customize your device. Maybe you just want superuser access. Maybe you want to overclock or underclock your cpu. It's all upto at this point.

Preliminary Rooting Actions: Depending on your device, their are a certain number of steps to be taken to prepare your device. There are simple programs that can root your device for you. There are programs do this but you need to install drivers before running the programs. Theres doing it through adb in android-sdk. It's all in preference. The first thing we usually want to do is install hboot drivers onto your pc. The hboot drivers will prepare your device for the running process since it will be booting you into recovery and what not. Think of it as a BIOS of some sort. Hboot will allow you to load custom Roms and Recoveries that you choose. You can't flash anything without Hboot. The Hboot drivers that you install on your pc will prep your bootloader and allow it to do these actions. Backup your sdcard and contacts IF you want to BUT note that it is best that we wipe your sdcard and factory your phone so the Rooting process doesnt undergo any hiccups. Make sure usb-debugging mode is on. You can usually find this option in your settings under the applications tab>development tab IF your phone has those options. Once you've done all of these steps you should be ready to ROOT!!!

Rooting: Android-sdk - This is for more experienced PC Users who are familiar with command-prompt, but even if your not experienced it shouldnt be hard because all you do is type in the line they want you to type. With this process there are files that need to be downloaded and loaded into your tools folder which is under your android-sdk folder. You will typing in codes that will move the files to your phone which will root your device. This may take upto 2 hours. Unrevoked - Unrevoked is a one button rooting app that you run on your pc. This is a cake walk. All you will do is run the app and follow the directions it gives you as it moves on. This may take anywhere from 2-5 minutes. Other methods - As I stated they're are other programs that you can download on your phone which will do the rooting process for you.

Post-Rooting: The first thing we do is boot into hboot mode and make sure that we have S-OFF! If so, Success you are rooted. You can also boot your phone and check to see if you have the "Superuser" app. If so, SUCCESS you are rooted!

Nandroid/Recovery: Now we get to the fun part. What is recovery? Exactly what it sounds like. Recovery gives you the option to backup your device AS IS. This means that if something were to happen, you can restore a backup that you earlier created and your phone will be exactly in the state it was of the backup. Usually when phones are Rooted, the Clockworkmod Recovery is automatically installed. Many people use this but if you love more options then there are alternatives. One for example is Amon_RA Recovery. Amon_RA is popular among the Rooting crowd since many options are implemented. 2 ways to install this will be through Rom Manager, an app in the app market. Once the program loads you can scroll to the bottom and choose "Flash Alternate Recovery." Another way would be through Flashing. You can pick up a custom .zip file that contains the Reocvery and update it through hboot. Nandroid is basically when one has Recovery options that allows them to COMPLETELY backup/restore your device.

Choosing what to backup! If you have an Evo4G like me then you would probably want to know what to backup and save. Once your device is prepped boot into recovery and select backup and choose the items you will want to backup. If your phone is a 4G/WIMAX is VERY IMPORTANT that you backup the wimax.img or whatever 4g.img file your phone contains everytime. If somethign was to happen to your phone and your wimax/4g keys were gone, THATS IT, no more 4g for your phone EVER AGAIN!!! Is it also smart to extract the wimax/4g.img file from your backup that you created and move it to your computer just to make sure. This way you will always have it. If your using a custom a2sd(apps 2 sdcard) program, then you shoul backup your sd-ext folder as well in the options, otherwise you wont have apps when you boot your phone on.

Flashing!!! What is flashing? Flashing is loading a custom file onto your device through Recovery. You flash many .zip files that range from Roms/Kernels/Boot Animations/Scripts/Radios/A2SD/etc.... Flashing is highly addictive as well. Just ask me how many Roms I've went through.

How do we boot into Recovery? Easy. The way I do it is through an app called "Quick Boot." It allows you to Power Off, Hot Reboot, Boot into Recovery, Restart the device, etc... Another way would be to hold down the Power Button and Volume Down Button(Depends on the Device). That would bring you to the hboot screen. Then you would scroll to Recovery and select it, then Bingo you're in Recovery. That should also teach you how to boot into hboot.

ROMS: What are Roms? Think of a Rom as the base program of your phone. It would be like Windows XP or Vista, or MAC OSX and Linux on your pc. There are many different Roms to choose from for your device. There is AOSP(Android Open Source Project) Roms which is a complete stock version of Android without the add-ons that each manufacturer throw on for glossiness #inside joke. These do not-include bloatware. You have the oh-so popular Cyanogenmod Rom that a very talented team put together. You have MIUI which was built from the groundup and is very userfriendly. You have OMGB, OMFGB, Ultimate-Droid. You have customized versions of Sense, Touchwiz, or whatever your device runs. These are not AOSP version Roms. Roms are flashed in Recovery.

Kernels: Kernel is the brain of your phone. It controls the cpu and hz output for services your running, the drivers and hardware. Custom kernels allow you to underclock/overclock your cpu and select better hz management which can help save battery life. You select different governors that your kernel will run as. You can use Powersave/Performance/OnDemand/Smartass/Interactive/InteractiveX/Conservative.

Powersave tries to save as much battery as possible by reducing the amount of power your phone uses. Performance focuses on how snappy the phone should respond. It doesn't really focus on battery life but much more the performance of the phone. On Demand focuses on using power when the device needs it, basically when its being used. Conservative tries to conserve the battery life without hurting the performance of your phone too much. Smartass is conservative with a screenoff profile off 128mhz min/384mhz max. Basically its saves battery life as the screen is off, and saves battery life without reducing performance drastically when the screen is on and the phone is in use.

Min/Max controls the mhz of you phone(underclock/overclock). The max can be risen higher or lower then the set default to underclock/overclock your device. The min can be risen also: This usually helps with the phone awakening faster.

Different types of kernels: Sbc/non-sbc/havs-more/havs-less/static undervolting/etc...

SBC is very popular. It charges your phone with trickle-charging technology and keeps your phone at 100% by slowly reducing the amount of mV being driven into the phone until it reaches a steady 2mV/4mV/6mV. This is better for overnight charging. Please research SBC since their are some risks.

Non-sbc is normal charging.

HAVS I believe controls how to voltages in your phone correspond to the amount of work your phone is putting in. Sorry if I CANT explain it any better.

A2SD: Very popular. A2SD is Apps 2 SDCard. Moving apps to the sdcard saves internal storage on your phone, but here's the thing, NOT all apps can be moved to the sdcard because of legacy apps and whatnot. Their are versions of A2SD that can be flashed which moved the apps to a sd-ext folder on a partition you create on your sdcard when prepping for this. You can also move the dalvik-cache to your sdcard also and both of these save a ton of internal storage.