Rooting, Roms, Kernals, Hacks...Huh?

[Matthew Anders]

I'm pretty new to the world of android. I've been using the Straight Talk Galaxy Precedent for a little over a year, running 2.2. Never messed with doing anything to it....apparently the hardware isn't even capable of running 2.3 from what I've been told....

My nexus 4 should be on its way any day now, I've seen all sorts of posts on kernals and roms and I've heard of people rooting their phones and such. Just curious if anyone could explain or point me to a good thread explaining all this stuff. What exactly is rooting, what are kernals and roms, what do they do? Why would one want to do that, when there is risk involved. I've always built my own PC's so I'm not a techno , I just don't know much about android devices. It seems like android type devices are going to be a big part of the future(and the now), and I like being in the know. So any help or direction towards help is appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Paul627g]

Little explanation of rooting...

Rooting - is it for me? Some Q&A | Android Central

 

[Matthew Anders]

Little explanation of rooting...

Rooting - is it for me? Some Q&A | Android Central

Great start! Thanks.

 

[bristolmrd]

the other thing matthew is the risk involved that you might brick , but then you read about some of the awesome roms that some of these groups do . i dont have mine yet and might wait until my warranty is dead or if i get another smart phone and then play .

 

[Matthew Anders]

the other thing matthew is the risk involved that you might brick , but then you read about some of the awesome roms that some of these groups do . i dont have mine yet and might wait until my warranty is dead or if i get another smart phone and then play .

That article that was linked really helped and I did a bit of search on rom vs kernel. I at least have a cursory knowledge now. Enough to know, its probably not worth messing with for me, at least not at first.

This will be the ONLY phone I have for quit some time...so maybe if i get "bored" it might be something I look into much later on. I guess unless i just come across something i just feel like i HAVE to have and i needed to root for that. But...coming from 2.2 to 4.2 probably all my beefs with android will disappear overnight.