All,
Thanks for the warm welcome and sage advice!
-Weston
On 1/5/15, JP <jp@jptechnical.com> wrote:
> Welcome Weston.
>
> I have to say, you got off easier than most. Rooting and romming an Android
> is a many many hour affair often enough, and this is even more so with less
> common devices sold to ACS and GCI. Your linux skills saved you at least an
> hour getting a development environment in Windows and wading through tons
> of drivers that don't seem to actually do what they say they will.
>
> When messing with an android phone, it is best to find howtos for that
> specific device, read through the ridiculously long forum post to see where
> people break down, and then go back to the first post of the thread and
> follow the (usually) updated info. The real fun of playing with android
> phones is putting in more feature-rich roms, like CyanogenMod, or the dozen
> others that are available for a typical device. Just beware that flashing
> things that affect the radios in the phone can be dangerous and people
> brick their phones all the time. Always always always read the forums and
> check your versions. And always expect some stability issues with new roms.
>
> I haven't had to root an android for a while. I have a Nexus 6 now and
> haven't found the need to tweak it in the slightest. Up until 3 years ago I
> have rooted (or jailbroken) every smartphone I have owned before making the
> first call... especially on iPhones of which I had the originals. Then, an
> original Android G1 jail-broke me from the iPhone culture and mind control
> and I have never been happier. I still have an iPad, gotta have an Apple
> device for when my clients need help, and until Android 5 comes out on
> mainstream tablets, the iOS is the better tablet OS IMO.
>
> Have fun and welcome.
>
>
> _____ _____
> /\___ \/\ __`\
> \/__/\ \ \ \_\ \
> _\ \ \ \ ,__/
> /\ \_\ \ \ \/
> \ \____/\ \_\
> \/___/ \/_/
>
> 907-748-2200JP Technical
> <http://www.jptechnical.com/>helpdesk@jptechnical.com
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 7:51 AM, WestonandSuzy Howard <
> westonandsuzyhoward@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Greetings to the AKLUG from the new guy!
>> While speaking with my brother about my recent cell phone escapade,
>> he recommended that I join and pass this along to your group. I can
>> only imagine the collective level of competence and intelligence here,
>> so I apologize for cluttering up your in-boxes with my simpleton
>> thoughts and ways, but here it goes. (Remember, new guy, don't hate,
>> be nice.)
>>
>> Exposition:
>> So for the entirety of my life as an adult, I've only used dumb cell
>> phones, as apposed to smart ones. This was not a problem until all of
>> my friends and most of my relatives started texting. So then I was
>> forced to get a cell phone with a keyboard so I could respond
>> intelligently. Recently, I've become fed up with paying for minutes
>> and data, so I decided to change to a plan that was unlimited, and
>> also purchased a neat little (okay, really cheap) smart phone, the
>> Motorola Flipside, unlocked. Don't knock it, I needed a keyboard and
>> thought I'd try a smart phone, albeit an older one. Did I mention it
>> was really cheap?
>> But alas, while it was great in some ways, it seemed restrictive, as
>> it would not download and use this particular app that I wanted to put
>> on it. Thus started my rooting adventure.
>>
>> Rising Action:
>> So I needed a way in. After a little research, I found that I could
>> use Android Development Bridging Tools (adb) from the command line.
>> You guys and gals are probably very technical, and way smarter than
>> me, so please don't laugh too hard, but I will share all the gory
>> details.
>> Using Debian Wheezy, I found that there is no support for adb from
>> the main repository, so I added Wheezy-Backports to my sources.list
>> file:
>>
>> # echo "deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-backports main" >>
>> /etc/apt/sources.list
>> # echo "deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-backports
>> main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
>>
>> Of course:
>>
>> # aptitude update
>> # aptitude search android |grep adb
>>
>> i android-tools-adb - Android Debug Bridge CLI tool
>>
>> # aptitude install android-tools-adb
>>
>> Now that I had the tools, I went ahead and read the --help, and tried
>> to use it, after plugging in the USB cable to my phone:
>>
>> # adb devices
>> List of devices attached - but it was blank!
>>
>> Hmm....
>>
>> # lsusb
>> -other stuff-
>> Bus 001 Device 004: ID 22b8:41da Motorola PCS
>>
>> After some research, I realized that I needed some rules for this
>> device, and found that one guy did something similar for his nook. I
>> stole what he did, but changed it for my phone.
>>
>> # touch /etc/udev/rules.d/99-android.rules
>> To create the file.
>> # echo "SUBSYSTEM==usb, ATTR{idVendor}==22b8, MODE=0666, OWNER=user #
>> motorola" >> /etc/udev/rules.d/99-android.rules
>> # service udev restart
>>
>> Now it shows up:
>> # adb devices
>> List of devices attached
>> 040140601001801A device
>>
>> Whoo-hoo! I knew I was cooking now!
>> I set the phone for debugging with Application > Development > USB
>> debugging. I read online that this would allow me to use the adb
>> program to "push" things onto the phone.
>>
>> Climax:
>> I then researched a suitable rooter for my phone. Turns out it was
>> well supported by Z4Root.apk and all I needed to do was get it onto
>> the phone. So I downloaded it. Went to that directory and:
>>
>> # adb install Z4Root.apk
>> blah-blah KB/s
>> pkg: /data/local/tmp/Z4Root.apk
>> Success
>>
>> Nice! So, I disconnect the USB cable, and ran z4root by clicking on
>> the app icon. Ran for about 2 minutes, rebooted, and then said I was
>> rooted! Very simple, very nice, but then I thought, how do I use it?
>>
>> Falling action:
>> I then used adb to install busybox installer, an app that lets me
>> choose which version of busybox to install, and as most of you know
>> (shoot, you guys and gals probably wrote it) allows me to have many
>> more Linux commands and attributes on my phone.
>> Upon first try, I tried the latest and greatest that was available
>> from the app, 1.22, but it failed to install, so I chose 1.20, and it
>> installed successfully.
>> I also got the Superuser app, I say got, because it simply appeared,
>> probably comes from the z4root process, which allows me to set su
>> permissions for apps on the phone.
>> I then used the android market app to download terminal app.
>> Now, when I open the terminal app, I can type su and it pops up a
>> dialog stating terminal app has super user permissions. I now have
>> access to the entire system files and many use full tools and
>> commands.
>>
>> Denouement:
>> You are very patient for having stuck through this rambling thread so
>> long, but I promise, it is almost over.
>> I then was able to search through the files and found the
>> /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settigs.db is a
>> database file with the settings in it.
>> # cp /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settigs.db
>> /sdcard/settings.db
>> To grab the file, then, after moving it to the computer:
>> # sqlite3 settings.db
>> .tables
>> .dump security
>> update security set value=1 where name='install_non_market_apps';
>> update security set value=0 where name='force_only_market_apps';
>> exit
>>
>> Viola, then I put it back. Then I had many errors when trying to
>> download from the internet. Then it would fail when parsing an apk
>> file.
>> Hmm...
>> Ah.... Some online searching revealed that I needed to also update
>> these files in a similar manner (albeit they are plain text, very easy
>> to edit):
>> /system/etc/motorola/com.android.providers.settings/system.mkitso
>> /system/etc/motorola/com.android.providers.settings/secure.mkitso
>>
>> /system/etc/motorola/com.motorola.android.providers.settings/settings.mkitso
>>
>> While changing lines like:
>> install_non_market_apps from 0 to 1
>> and
>> force_only_market_apps from 1 to 0
>>
>> And there we have it! Unfortunately, the app I originally wanted to
>> install was made for a newer build of Android, so it didn't work
>> anyways, with a code of:
>>
>> # adb install com.foxfi-APK4Fun.com.apk
>> 2230 KB/s (210759 bytes in 0.092s)
>> pkg: /data/local/tmp/com.foxfi-APK4Fun.com.apk
>> Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_OLDER_SDK]
>>
>> But that is an obstacle for another post, another time. That is,
>> unless you guys and gals boot me off for clogging up your in-boxes.
>>
>> Happy New Year!
>> -Weston Howard
>> ---------
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>> with 'unsubscribe' in the message body.
>>
>>
>
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Received on Tue Jan 6 09:31:33 2015
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Tue Jan 06 2015 - 09:31:34 AKST