Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase “to root your phone.” If not, keep reading.
Rooting your phone has nothing to do with burying it at the foot of a tree, though that seems like a good proposition at times.
The root for rooting a phone refers to control, specifically the root-level account that’s used to gain access to all the phone’s features.
Phones powered by the Android operating system — such as the Droid X, Droid 2, HTC Incredible, and so on — are basically customized, mobile Linux computers. As such, they have different types of user accounts.
As a phone user, you have only limited access to the operating system. That’s a good thing. For years, Windows let you have full access to the OS, which led to a bunch of viruses and malware and grief. Linux, however, protected vital OS features by restricting access to the root user.
Basically, the root user has access to all the software features.
By rooting a phone, you’re giving yourself full access to all features, full root access. That’s where the term rooting comes from.
For a casual user, there is no reason to root a phone. After all, you don’t need root level access to make a call, send email, browse the web, or play a game. If you need to tether the phone (turn it into a cellular modem for your laptop), try out another ROM, or otherwise mess with the thing, you need root access.
To root your phone, you need to run a special file that you copy over to the phone’s memory card from your desktop computer. Once there, you either run the file manually or, depending on the file’s name, it may start itself when you first turn on the phone.
Now I’ve only done this root operation once. It worked fairly well, but I really boned up on the methods of undoing everything before I even started. For me, there was no advantage to rooting the phone; it offered no features that I really pined for.
I was going to write about rooting the phone in my Droid X For Dummies and (upcoming) Droid 2 For Dummies books. I opted not to, first because of space reasons, but second because rooting the phone doesn’t really have a place in a beginner’s book. Also, I didn’t want to have to answer technical questions for people who rooted and regretted.
If you’d like to root your Android phone, then there’s plenty of reading material on the Internet for you. A good starting place is the Android Wiki. Other links are found all over, at the dozens and dozens of Android support sites, places where the phone nerds hang out.
