[Optimus One, P500, V General] shankesh:
What Is Rooting?

First, for the newbies, let me clarify what rooting is. Getting root or rooting your phone is the process of modifying the operating system on your device to grant you complete control over it.

This means you can overcome limitations that the carriers and manufacturers put on your phone, extend system functionality, and even upgrade it to a custom flavor of Android.

The name root comes from the Linux operating system world, where the most privileged user on the system (otherwise known as Administrator on Windows) is called root.

Now, I’d like to take a moment to dispel a common misconception and clarify one thing: rooting does *not* mean installing a custom ROM (a ROM is a modified, "aftermarket" OS).

Installing a ROM may require rooting first, but just rooting can be done in only a few minutes, keeping your stock OS otherwise completely intact.

Usually rooting is fairly simple – in most cases you can find several videos and articles on the web that explain how to do it on your specific phone model – just Google "YOURPHONEMODEL root".

Rooting is not something manufacturers or carriers approve of but they can’t really prevent it from happening because the rooting process usually exploits a vulnerability in the operating system code or device drivers and allows the "hacker" to upload a special program called "su" to the phone. This program, not present or requiring a password by default, is the one that provides root access to programs that request it.

Now an obligatory warning: rooting your phone does run the risk of potentially bricking it (i.e. your phone could become nonfunctional) – so do your homework before attempting anything, unless you’re a fan of $500 paper weights.

Benefits Of Rooting

Let’s check out some of the benefits of rooting your Android phone.

Full Control Over Android

You have access to alter any system files, use themes, change boot images, delete annoying stock apps, such as Sprint’s NFL Mobile live and Nascar Sprint Cup Mobile, and other various native applications that might drive you crazy (Footprints, Voice Dialer, etc).

There is plenty of information on the web on how to accomplish this. Here is one example with instructions and some apps you can remove safely.

Back Up The System

On most rooted Android devices, you can back up your entire system to an SD card, much in the same way you can image a hard drive. This is great if you’d like to try a new ROM, as you can back up your phone, wipe it completely, flash the new ROM, and if you don’t like it, you can just restore from your backup and your phone will be exactly how it was before you wiped it.

The easiest way to do this at the moment is by using ‘Rom Manager’ (easily installable from the Android Market), developed by famed Android developer Koush.

Rom Manager allows you to easily flash a custom recovery image which is what you will need in order to backup and restore your phone. The recovery image is a special program that can be booted into outside of the phone’s main operating system, sort of like the BIOS on a PC. By default, the recovery image on most Android phones only gives you a few options, mainly related to wiping the phone. Custom recovery images expand upon these options and usually include scripts that can do things like fix your file permissions, or allow you to flash custom ROM’s that the normal recovery image would otherwise reject.

Normally, flashing a custom recovery image requires some command line work, either on your PC, or on a terminal emulator directly on the phone, but Koush’s Rom Manager should automatically flash his custom recovery image (known as ClockworkMod Recovery) for you, provided you’re on one of the phones listed below.

In order to use Rom Manager, you’ll need to make sure you’re using one of the supported devices, and that it is already rooted. Here is the list, as of today:

HTC Droid Eris (CDMA), AKA: Verizon Droid Eris

HTC Hero (GSM)

HTC Hero (CDMA), AKA: Sprint Hero

HTC Dream, AKA: T-Mobile G1

HTC Passion, AKA: Google Nexus One

HTC Magic (Sapphire 32A)

HTC MyTouch/Ion (Sapphire 32B)

Motorola Droid/Milestone

Using Rom Manager is pretty simple. Download and install the application from the market, fire it up, and you’ll be prompted with a disclaimer. If you’re feeling brave, go ahead and hit continue. You’ll be prompted to allow the application superuser permissions during this process – make sure you allow it access.

The first thing you’ll need to do is flash the ClockworkMod recovery image that I mentioned earlier, which can be done right in the app (it’s the first option). Rom Manager should automatically find the latest version of the right image for your phone, download, and install it – the whole process is seamless.

After that is done, you can simply use the ‘Manage and Restore Backups’, and ‘Backup current ROM’ options to, well, backup your current ROM or restore from an existing backup. It’s that simple!

At Android Police, we always encourage supporting developers, so please check out Rom Manager Premium if you enjoyed the free version!

Save Space On Your Phone

Move cache data to SD card

Moving cache data makes for a speedy system. Rooting allows you to save things like browser cache to your SD card to free up space. Its not too complicated a process, but does take a bit of skill. XDA Developer’s have instructions posted on their forum if you want to tackle the task, it is definitely worth it.

Move installed applications to SD card

Moving and storing apps on internal memory can significantly slow your device down. If you root, you can avoid that completely.

The easiest way to move applications to your SD card would be to flash a custom ROM that just does it for you (using an app called Apps2SD) – Cyanogen ROM is always a good choice.