[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] epic_task:
I just got one of these lately and found how quickly I could root it. I shy away from automatic tools like those magic-one-click-root applications; I do things the manual way. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I use Linux.

My DL701Q is still at the stock build number (A86V_v003; custom build 1411098861). I read about the dire results that come from accepting the update, so I did not apply it. All the same, the manual technique I used might turn out to be able to root an upgraded DL701Q.

I found what I should have done first by trial and error. A lot of this process follows the same steps that Koush's Superuser recovery-mode installer (superuser.zip) uses in its own installation script. ClockworkMod recovery is not available on this device, but now we make that not matter so much. Here are the basic steps I would follow if doing this with a fresh unit. There is no need to get into recovery mode or the boot loader: all of this with the device powered up the normal way.

1. Be sure you have a way in. All of this works because adb shell gives you root access. If that is still true with the upgraded device, you should be in luck.

a. Be sure that you have the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) installed and the proper USB drivers for the SDK. (On Linux, there is no need to install separate drivers.)

b. Allow USB debugging. If you don't already have the developer options enabled on the phone, go to settings, select About Tablet at the end of the menu, look for the Build number entry, and tap it seven times. Yeah, really. You should see a message indicating that the developer options are enabled. Now press the back button and press the Developer options entry that is now visible. Enable USB debugging on this menu (about 40% down the menu).

c. Plug in the USB cable between the device and your computer. At a command prompt, enter the command

adb shell

You'll likely get a message like "Please check the confirmation dialog on your device." Yes, look for that dialog and press OK. Now run the adb shell command again.

d. You should now get a prompt that looks like this:

root@DL701Q:/ #

If that's what you see (especially with a # instead of a $), you're good. If the prompt ends in a dollar sign, you'll have to look for another way to get rooted.

2. Download a fresh version of Busybox. I *really* try to stay away from random download sites, so I'm glad to see it's easy to get Busybox directly from the source. Look to

http://busybox.net/downloads/binaries/latest/

for a listing of Busybox binaries (pardon the lack of clickability of the URL; the policy of this bulletin board is less than reasonable). Select the one you need. For the Digiland DL701Q, that one is busybox-armv7l. (If you're reading this and you have some other device, enter this command at the adb shell prompt:

cat /proc/cpuinfo

and look for the line labelled Processor. The version of Busybox you download should correspond to your processor.)

3. Make the system partition writable. Type in this command at the adb prompt:

mount -o remount,rw /system

4. Put Busybox onto the phone. In a second command prompt window, change to the directory where you downloaded Busybox and run this command:

adb push busybox-armv7l /system/xbin/busybox

5. In the first command prompt (where you have the adb shell running), run these three commands. These get busybox set up on your device:

cd /system/xbin

chmod 755 busybox

busybox --install -s /system/xbin

6. Get the latest superuser.zip directly from the ClockworkMod web site. This is the URL:

http://download.clockworkmod.com/superuser/superuser.zip

7. Using your second command-prompt window, unzip the superuser.zip file into some convenient working directory (preferably empty). I don't know what kind of hoops you might have to go through on your OS, but in Linux this command would do it:

unzip superuser.zip -d some/empty/directory

8. In the second command-prompt window, switch to the armeabi subdirectory of whereever you unzipped superuser.zip. This directory contains the su binary for the Digilink device. Run this command to copy it to the device:

adb push su /system/xbin

9. In the first command-prompt window (with the adb shell prompt), run these commands to be sure that su will work properly:

chown 0:0 /system/xbin/su

chmod 6755 /system/xbin/su

chattr -i /system/xbin/su

10. Set up the script that starts the su daemon that Superuser needs.

a. Run these commands in the second command-prompt window (where the files from superuser.zip are):

cd ..

adb push install-recovery.sh /system/etc/install-recovery.sh

b. Run these commands in the first command-prompt window (the adb shell):

chmod 755 /system/etc/install-recovery.sh

touch /system/etc/.installed_su_daemon

11. You're almost done. Install Superuser.apk (the main Superuser application). There are two ways to do this. Do only one of these:

a. The normal installation way. Enable Installation from Unknown Sources (under the Security item in the Settings menu) and then run this command at the second command prompt:

adb install Superuser.apk

b. This is the cheat method that superuser.zip uses without needing Unknown Sources. At the second command prompt, run this command to copy Superuser.apk to the device:

adb push Superuser.apk /system/app/

Then in the first command-prompt window run this command:

chmod 644 /system/app/Superuser.apk

12. Now restart your tablet and look for the magic. When it comes back up, Superuser should start and be happy and applications needing root access should be able to get it.

I'm dying to know if this will work with the firmware upgrade that's getting pushed.