Newbie needs to learn this: ROM and Rooting?

[Golfdriver97]

View attachment 138673

The kernel version you have breaks towelroot. That is why its failing.

 

[MamaBear2014]

Anything else I can do?

 

[Golfdriver97]

Try this: http://galaxys5root.com

 

[MamaBear2014]

That page just refers me back to towelroot.

Is anyone in touch with the author of towelroot, about a possible update for this kernel?

Did Verizon specifically attempt to block towelroot with this latest one?

Hmm, now I gotta investigate THIS: http://techbeasts.com/2014/09/25/ho...5-on-android-4-4-4-kit-kat-official-firmware/

 

[wizzrah]

That page just refers me back to towelroot.

Is anyone in touch with the author of towelroot, about a possible update for this kernel?

Did Verizon specifically attempt to block towelroot with this latest one?

Hmm, now I gotta investigate THIS: http://techbeasts.com/2014/09/25/ho...5-on-android-4-4-4-kit-kat-official-firmware/

I don't think they specifically targeted towelroot, it's just that it might have patched up the holes towelroot took advantage of.

Sent from my nifty 2 year old AT&T HTC One XL

 

[Ramer84015]

I use this app from the playstore on the Sprint S5. Have no idea if it will work on Verizon, but it doesn't require root and it comes with a 2 week free trial to test it.

 

[MamaBear2014]

Looks like the ACR that I had installed.

 

[dohlo]

I don't mean to (kind of) hijack this thread, but I'm coming from iOS and I'm really familiar with jail breaking the software and have successfully been able to enter the phones file system and delete/add/change code to enable/disable tweaks and change UI elements with the software/phone so I feel pretty confident about being able to successfully root my AT&T S5, would y'all think the same? I am trying to hold off during my 14-day return policy in case I decide to return the phone, but I'm also tempted to try it anyway. Performance of the phone is great, but if it can be better why not

Again sorry to hijack the thread from the OP but there seems to be some good info being passed around from knowledgable folks so I thought I'd ask here

Cheers

 

[MamaBear2014]

Hey guys, as it turns out, I uninstalled ACR ( Automatic Call Recorder ) and installed Total Recall and it works, without rooting! SO thanks for all your efforts, but apparently this phone cant be rooted anyway, and now that the recorder works, I'm not sure why I'd need it rooted. ( OK, it was a little intriguing, especially since the powers that be went to such lengths, to prevent it. ) Thanks!

 

[CKR83]

I don't mean to (kind of) hijack this thread, but I'm coming from iOS and I'm really familiar with jail breaking the software and have successfully been able to enter the phones file system and delete/add/change code to enable/disable tweaks and change UI elements with the software/phone so I feel pretty confident about being able to successfully root my AT&T S5, would y'all think the same? I am trying to hold off during my 14-day return policy in case I decide to return the phone, but I'm also tempted to try it anyway. Performance of the phone is great, but if it can be better why not

Again sorry to hijack the thread from the OP but there seems to be some good info being passed around from knowledgable folks so I thought I'd ask here

Cheers

I too just came from iOS and got an AT&T S5. I've used a Galaxy Note 8 tablet for almost a year, and loved it, which was why I decided to try a phone. Well, that and because my wife loves her android.

Anyway, for me, there is one major reason why I want to root the phone: SD card access.

On my tablet, I have an old version of Android (because AT&T won't update, which turned out to be a good thing), and I love the fact that any of my apps can read and WRITE to the SD card. On the S5, you can put up to a 128GB card in it. However, thanks to KitKat, it's basically just ROM. So very many of the excellent apps that I depend on (encryption apps, file management, photo management) have been disabled by Kitkat. I was so furious I almost returned the phone in the first 24 hours.

Then I discovered that the new AT&T ROM COULDN'T be rooted. That return idea because very firm.

Eventually though, I realized that the Android community was large, and someone would figure out how to root the thing so I could regain the functionality that Google stole in the name of "Security" (Total BS, by the way, there were a bunch of ways they could have handled this, and they decided to screw us instead.).

So the short answers is, if you want your SD card to be more useful than a piece of plastic, root the phone. Once you do, you'll also be able to get rid of a bunch of bloatware. And, thanks to another thread in this forum, I was pointed to this URL which seems to describe how to get around the idiocy that is the newest "security" crap that AT&T pushed out (to keep people from rooting their phones...)
That's this one:
[How-To] Root G900AUCU2ANG3 | AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 5 | XDA Forums (I think the op provided this.)

I have not tried this, although I did download all the software to do it. I'll need time to work through all the instructions and I generally don't have that during the week.

Anyway, if you can root the thing, I'd say do it. At least until Android 'L' comes out. But honestly, AT&T's record of releasing new software is abysmal, so you might end up BUYING your next phone with the new OS, rather than ever being able to update this one.

 

[dohlo]

I too just came from iOS and got an AT&T S5. I've used a Galaxy Note 8 tablet for almost a year, and loved it, which was why I decided to try a phone. Well, that and because my wife loves her android.

Anyway, for me, there is one major reason why I want to root the phone: SD card access.

On my tablet, I have an old version of Android (because AT&T won't update, which turned out to be a good thing), and I love the fact that any of my apps can read and WRITE to the SD card. On the S5, you can put up to a 128GB card in it. However, thanks to KitKat, it's basically just ROM. So very many of the excellent apps that I depend on (encryption apps, file management, photo management) have been disabled by Kitkat. I was so furious I almost returned the phone in the first 24 hours.

Then I discovered that the new AT&T ROM COULDN'T be rooted. That return idea because very firm.

Eventually though, I realized that the Android community was large, and someone would figure out how to root the thing so I could regain the functionality that Google stole in the name of "Security" (Total BS, by the way, there were a bunch of ways they could have handled this, and they decided to screw us instead.).

So the short answers is, if you want your SD card to be more useful than a piece of plastic, root the phone. Once you do, you'll also be able to get rid of a bunch of bloatware. And, thanks to another thread in this forum, I was pointed to this URL which seems to describe how to get around the idiocy that is the newest "security" crap that AT&T pushed out (to keep people from rooting their phones...)


I have not tried this, although I did download all the software to do it. I'll need time to work through all the instructions and I generally don't have that during the week.

Anyway, if you can root the thing, I'd say do it. At least until Android 'L' comes out. But honestly, AT&T's record of releasing new software is abysmal, so you might end up BUYING your next phone with the new OS, rather than ever being able to update this one.

That's great to know you can have greater use of the SD card via rooting, as I was under the impression I was going to be able to walk out of AT&T with a 32gb S5, little did I know I wouldn't be able to the tech at Best Buy told me he thought I wouldn't need 32gb, but I told him I would want the 32gb that I *thought* was available because I wanted a larger drive for the phone to work off of and not slow it down. Although now that I have the 16, I've been keeping track of what memory I use (it hasn't even be a week with the phone though lol) and as long as I don't download the useless apps I never deleted in my iPhone, I think I'll be OK. But aside from that I can see the many advantages of rooting and the doors it opens, just as jail breaking my iPhone did.

Then I saw on these forums that the AT&T S5 was almost impossible to root, and also had already heard about the KNOX chip issue. I'm still debating if I want to try it on this phone yet, as I don't want to take chances during the return period although I'm feeling pretty confident I'll keep the phone. There's lots of things I'm still getting used to on Android OS and features I like about iOS but if I spend the time researching what I would like to have/see on this device, I could probably do what I need. My phone is mainly used for music/messaging/pictures/Internet so improving the overall functionality and fluidity of the device is what I'm after. Which, already, I can do plenty of straight out of the box compared to having to wait months on end for a jail break release for new apple software.

 

[CKR83]

That's great to know you can have greater use of the SD card via rooting, as I was under the impression I was going to be able to walk out of AT&T with a 32gb S5, little did I know I wouldn't be able to the tech at Best Buy told me he thought I wouldn't need 32gb, but I told him I would want the 32gb that I *thought* was available because I wanted a larger drive for the phone to work off of and not slow it down. Although now that I have the 16, I've been keeping track of what memory I use (it hasn't even be a week with the phone though lol) and as long as I don't download the useless apps I never deleted in my iPhone, I think I'll be OK. But aside from that I can see the many advantages of rooting and the doors it opens, just as jail breaking my iPhone did.

Then I saw on these forums that the AT&T S5 was almost impossible to root, and also had already heard about the KNOX chip issue. I'm still debating if I want to try it on this phone yet, as I don't want to take chances during the return period although I'm feeling pretty confident I'll keep the phone. There's lots of things I'm still getting used to on Android OS and features I like about iOS but if I spend the time researching what I would like to have/see on this device, I could probably do what I need. My phone is mainly used for music/messaging/pictures/Internet so improving the overall functionality and fluidity of the device is what I'm after. Which, already, I can do plenty of straight out of the box compared to having to wait months on end for a jail break release for new apple software.

Well, I have a 32gig SD chip in the thing already, and I'll be upgrading to 64, maaaybe 128. I'll have to see.

For music, pictures and video, having a large, high speed chip in the phone is a good plan. Unlike an apple device, if you plug your S5 into your computer, you'll be able to easily put things on that chip. So, for instance, that 30 gigs of music that won't fit on your phone will fit on the chip. Using a app called Double Twist and it's attendant software (which is good software, but the PC version that you get for free when you buy Double Twist contains crapware that's difficult to remove, and fairly invasive -- but the player for the phone is quite good), you can move all your playlists to your android from iTunes. Now... I don't know how that works with KitKat, but I suspect that because it's a program that you run on your computer, that it should work to write to the SD card. Likewise, you can set the camera app to put your pictures on the SD card. There are a lot of good programs that will allow you to encrypt and arrange your pictures, but again, the crippleware trashed those. Still, there's no reason why you can't keep your pics on the SD card -- plus, unlike Apple, it's easy to move them off the card. Well... Apple got a lot better, but still.

Also, you CAN move some apps to the SD card. I haven't done that yet because I haven't upgraded the card yet. Those apps that run from the card will -- supposedly -- have access to their own directories on the card, thus saving that precious 16 gig that Google apparently forgot we were limited to when they created the Kitkat crippleware.

There is a way around KNOX -- I think. But since I haven't rooted yet, I don't know how well it works.

Sorry if I sound a bit sarcastic about some of this stuff, but the fact is, I'm really tired of big companies (like Google, AT&T, Microsoft, Apple etc) deciding what I'm allowed to do with a device I'm paying a lot of money for. And it *IS* a lot of money. I could get a decent laptop for what I paid for this phone. I have exactly zero patience with corporate greed trying to lock in into their product.

 

[dohlo]

I used a program called Easy Phone Tunes to get my music onto my phone, required a desktop download as well and it took a little while to get 1500 songs on, but every last song and playlist got transferred just as it is on my iPhone so that made me happy. Although I'm going to continue using the iPhone as my music player for a bit, the sound quality streaming Bluetooth audio is better in my cars.

For photos I used a program called iExplorer, well I used it for backing up everything on my iOS devices because it's night and day over iTunes and let's me transfer everything by choice and what stays and what goes. I couldn't figure out the whole contacts synching so I input them with this program before uploading them to my google account. I've been playing with the phone and finding where caches are hidden and how memory is partitioned and I have seen not all apps go to the phones memory and some are on the sd card, which is nice to see.

As for the KNOX chip, me and another customer were geeking out with the Samsung rep at best buy and when the KNOX issue came up, the rep mentioned the average employee of wherever you're going to take your phone in if it's under warranty and wiped clean, won't bother to see if the phone has been rooted previously as the KNOX chip supposedly will remember this and void the warranty if they check?

 

[AppleCultApostate]

That page just refers me back to towelroot.

Is anyone in touch with the author of towelroot, about a possible update for this kernel?

Did Verizon specifically attempt to block towelroot with this latest one?

Hmm, now I gotta investigate THIS: How To Root Verizon Galaxy S5 on Android 4.4.4 Kit-Kat Official Firmware | Techbeasts

I did a similar thing in your link on an AT&T phone where the latest update blocked towel root. While your phone is in the old kernel it may act a little weird so you might want to use towel root and reboot multiple times and make sure you have root with any app that requires it to work. (Usually apps that require root say require root in the Google Play description) Then once those apps work, then go back to the latest kernel again and you should be all set.