Here's a question from a beginner.

[MSK01]

What is Rooting? I'm not completely new to smartphones (my brother gave me his old HTC Touch to use for a few months until I got my Hero) but I have very little idea of most of the tech mumbo jumbo.

 

[pbrennan42]

Ok, here is the basic lowdown, kid...

Android is basically a Linux OS, which means it has Root and User accounts in order to help protect it from virii and from idiots messing around with it. The secure account that has the most power over the system is the Root account. Like in any other Linux OS the user is on the User account.

Rooting the phone just means gaining Root or Superuser access to the system, giving you full administrative powers. This is useful for messing around with the guts of your phone, but is not without its own set of risks.

Phil.

 

[MSK01]

Ah. That clears it up. Thanks!

 

[NM08SRT8#AC]

Also (I'm new to this too, but got a good analogy)

Going off the above, think of Rooting and user accounts as Administrator and User accounts on windows.

User accounts give you limited access to parts of the computer. You can't really go in depth in Windows, can't install much with out admin permission.


Rooting would be like giving your User account, Administrator access, thus a "Admin account". Allowing you to have total access of the internals, Command prompts, exploring other files, etc etc.