Rooting question?

[zelphos]

Alright, every post I see that has to do with rooting and OTA updates everyone seems to talk about ROMS. My question is, if I root my phone, for the basic purpose of being able to use apps that require root will I still get the over the air updates, I do not plan on putting any ROMS on my phone, or deleting bloatware, I'm keeping everything the way it is for the time being, I rather root my phone, get to know how to do things better before I go that far without much knowledge. I rather take baby steps instead of jumping straight in. I know I will probably loose my root, if so I'm sure someone will come out with a way to root it again, that doesn't bother me, I just simply want to know if I keep everything stock, the way I got it, just with root, will I still be able to update my phone normally without something screwing up? Also what is stock recovery? I've seen people mention that quite a bit also.

Thanks.

 

[epidenimus]

Welcome!

I appreciate your skepticism and thoroughness; we always recommend that to new rooters because we get sick of troubleshooting their read/apply failures.

To answer your questions:

If you root and keep the stock ROM, yes, you will still get the OTA update notifcations/updates. There is a tenant in the rooted community that states, "Never accept an OTA update." This is because we like to upgrade on our terms, knowing that we can root the new stock ROM and replace it if we so desire.

Recovery is like recovery mode or safe mode on your PC: It is a separate boot option that allows you to better manipulate partitions of the OS which would normally be mounted. Every Android device comes with a very limited Recovery that can be accessed with certain commands or a key combination. Stock recovery is very limited, but generally has one feature that customs lack: it can change the radio/baseband of the device. While custom recoveries can not do this task, they can erase and format certain partitions, create backup images of your entire system for future contingent restoration, and apply (flash) patches to the existing system. I highly recommend using a custom recovery and doing a nandroid backup of your system, even if you keep your stock Android ROM installed. If you hose anything up, you can restore to where you were before you decided to remove something or apply a new mod.