[Nook Color General] bobstro:
Not a problem, votinh. You've got more hours here than I. I'm just trying to pass on some wisdom for bachon to incorporate into his tutorial. Thanks for your valuable input!

IMO: On one level, they are incorrect in that they loaded alternate firmware. On another, they've loaded firmware that

is

, in fact, rooted.

Perhaps. Again, I don't want to make people's eyes glaze over by going into tech minutiae. What's really important is they understand the distinction

before

undertaking this process since it will have a huge impact on how they can use their device.

If they just root the stock firmware, they (generally) maintain all the functionality that B&N provides that is not available in CM:

Read to me (mostly children's books)

Enhanced content (e.g. Conde Nast magazines such as Wired, New Yorker, though some of these are becoming available via 3rd party sources.)

Newpaper or magazine subscriptions (auto-update)

B&N Free in-store reading

Support from friends with stock Nooks or B&N (conditional upon being rooted)

The B&N reader experience and shell. The B&N Android Nook app is not the same thing as their firmware experience, at least not yet. Someday, they may update the B&N Nook Android app, but it is pretty poor right now. If you want to read B&N stuff, then 1.4.1 is a big deal.

If you don't care about these features, or B&N content in general, there's really little reason to stick with B&N firmware. However, if you

do

care, proceed with caution. There's one pissed off grannie over on the B&N forums who's getting ready to tell her grandson who wants to "improve" her NOOK with what sounds like an over-write with CM to take a hike. She

wants

that B&N stuff, and will be very pissed off to lose it.

I find myself unexpectedly preferring the B&N firmware on my NOOK. There's something of a "less is more" reader-focused Zen to it that I'm liking. I am rooted, however, so can escape the Walled Garden at will.

Ach, who knows? For the same reason non-techie folks adopt and misuse terminology in general, I suppose. Just ask the old-school Hackers who've had their proud name associated forever with script kiddies and wannabes by the press and ill-informed.

As Votinh notes, you'll be hard pressed to find alternate firmware that isn't already rooted.

There's actually one more level of functionality to be aware of, even if you don't put it in your guide: Market access, or access to 3rd party apps. You do not have to necessarily root an Android device in order to load 3rd party apps. Many (most) allow access to the Android Market. B&N consider that competition, so they don't provide access, but until recently, you could sideload apps on the NOOK tablet without rooting. I don't think you ever could on the NC without root. In any case, the bean counters at B&N took over and with the latest releases, they've gone out of their way to block such functionality, and pissing off a lot of users in the process.

The reason I think this is important is that B&N always make the case that they're doing this "for our own safety". They don't realize, or simply don't care that loading/sideloading 3rd party apps does not, in general, require root access. Their argument is tripe. There's one B&N store clerk (so he claims) over on the B&N forums that tries to make the case that we all owe them for providing such a low cost device, so should be happy. This is one of the reasons I think there's such an ongoing interest in rooting these days, despite the fact that B&N have declared it "bad".

You definitely should touch on OTA update blocking, lest anybody go to all this effort, only to have it stomped on by B&N one night.