Hey guys,
I'm extremely nervous about rooting since I can't really afford to replace my phone with anything at the moment.
The reason I really want to root is for screenshots and a full hdmi mirroring without the dumb 60 dollar dock.
I've read all the threads about rooting on and etc, but I'm still confused.
If possible, can someone give me a simple answer of which way of rooting is best for me, possible side effects, and what I can do with it?
I'm pretty tech savvy, thing is, is that I've never had an android phone, and really want to make sure I don't kill such a nice phone
Sorry about this, I just REALLY don't want my phone to get bricked.
Phone Information: Bell Motorola Atrix
System Version: Blur_Version.0.37.23.MB860.BellMobility.en.CA
Model Number: MB860
Android Version: 2.2.2
Baseband version: n_01.77.15p
Motorola webtop version:OSHWT_U1_5.32.13
Kernel Version: 2.6.32.9
I think that's all that could matter.
I have not tried to mod the phone as of yet. Only things I've done is install snes and psx emulators
Any help is GREATLY appreciated.
shaimedio said:
Hey guys,
I'm extremely nervous about rooting since I can't really afford to replace my phone with anything at the moment.
The reason I really want to root is for screenshots and a full hdmi mirroring without the dumb 60 dollar dock.
I've read all the threads about rooting on and etc, but I'm still confused.
If possible, can someone give me a simple answer of which way of rooting is best for me, possible side effects, and what I can do with it?
I'm pretty tech savvy, thing is, is that I've never had an android phone, and really want to make sure I don't kill such a nice phone
Sorry about this, I just REALLY don't want my phone to get bricked.
Phone Information: Bell Motorola Atrix
System Version: Blur_Version.0.37.23.MB860.BellMobility.en.CA
Model Number: MB860
Android Version: 2.2.2
Baseband version: n_01.77.15p
Motorola webtop version:OSHWT_U1_5.32.13
Kernel Version: 2.6.32.9
I think that's all that could matter.
I have not tried to mod the phone as of yet. Only things I've done is install snes and psx emulators
Any help is GREATLY appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you search for gingerbreak, its a downloadable apk file that you install on your phone. Make sure you have an sd card installed, and then just open the application and click root. It's very simple, i've used that program many times on my bell atrix. I will see if i can find the link
You can find the app here
Will I need to reformat my SD card?
Also, is there some sort of backup I can make just in case it fails or something?
Not entirely sure what my options are in case it fails.
Same situation as OP. Really new to this Android stuff! Been doing tons of reading on this forum before I attempt anything and I have to say all this weird naming convention and such is throwing me off lol (whats with pudding and fruitcakes??).
Anyways thanks nate for the link! I've read about Gingerbreak but there is also GladRoot. Any differences b/w the two? Pro's/Con's?
Also to OP or any new people to android just in case you haven't seen this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1154600. Its really helpful. Answers your question about what root allows you to do briefly and some of the problems you may run into.
edit: Just re-read the GladRoot thread and it looks like that method is a no go for Bell users after the OTA (0.37.23).
@Bump: Can someone help me in regards to my second post?
Thanks again!
Best way is to download the Gingerbreak apk like the first guy said and just push that to your phone, or if you're a lazy bum (like me!) and you have a PC, then use this. Also, I've run this on my phone with no problems to any of my SD cards (both internal and external), but since it does touch that area, BACK UP BOTH. If anything, it's a bit more time but so much more worth it. Besides, don't you want a backup of those embarrassing videos you took of your friends? *cough cough* >.>
Also, know that if it doesn't work or something, pull the battery and try again. It took me a few tries, but i finally got it to work. =] Let me know how it goes.
Happy rooting!
~jojojohnson7410~
"When attempting this on my bell phone
(same stats as shaimedio) I get the error from gingerbreak "could not extract assets !" this is a freshly purchased phone.
I've followed steps from various threads on how to do this (being I've managed to use adb and get gingerbreak onto my phone i figured that was a start.) Any tips?"
Fixed my own problem
"adb shell rm /data/local/tmp/*
adb shell rmdir /data/local/tmp
adb shell mkdir /data/local/tmp"
Looks like the temp cache prevented access
+1 for the gingerbreak. I've used it a few times without any issues.
I always plug my phone in, mount my internal memory and copy it over to the computer, then take out my SD card. Install & run gingerbreak, then put the sd card back in and copy all my data back over to the phone from the computer.
Can't really say what your options are if it fails as I've never had that happen with mine the 3-4 times I've used it.
Hope that helps a bit.
Below,I will list the steps I do to setup my webtop,I am using webtop2sd on a 32GB PNY Class 10 card, and used a 2GB Transcend (not sure on class,im sure its old) card to test with, same results with both pretty much,so I think something im doing is causing it to stop working.
What happends when it stops, is it just wont come up anymore. When I plug the phone into my lapdock, I either get a bluebox with an HDMI not found error (I'm assuming from the dock itself), or the red moto logo that just moves around. I would try resetting the phone, and reinstalling the executable through the webtop2sd app, and it still wont launch. This has happened about 5 times so far, I would get it setup how I would want it to be,then it stops working.
So here is what I would do (there is a phone reboot between each step pretty much)
1. Use my PC to partiton the SD card, ~22 GB FAT32 followed by an ~8GB ext3
2. Use webtop2sd to create the webtop, default settings, aside from the missing dock fix, which I only used 2-3 out of the 5 times I ran it
3. Once I am in the new webtop, I would install terminal and synaptic,then reboot.
4. Then I would run the webtop scripts, version 1.4, hitting yes to everything, then a reboot
5. I would check to see if synaptic is installed, the last time i did this, I had to use aptitude to install it.
6. Once I got synaptic up,I would use it to install the xfce4 package. Just about everytime I would go to install it,I would get an error on the "tzdata" package, the only way I could get past it,would be to uninstall tzdata, then most of the time,whatever I would go to install would reinstall it anyway. This does concern me, because when I remove tzdata, it appears to be tied to a critical package, which may be the source of my problem,but I am not sure.
7. Once I would get xfce4 installed,I would add xfdesktop and xfce-panel to the startup list (those may not be the exact package names,there is another thread I reference for that, can't remember atm, nor can I remember the exact name of that startup file, but its on this forum somewhere). I would also comment out the awmdock one and the webtop desktop one as well.
8. I would reboot,and it would actually boot up xfce4 just fine, the only gripe I have,is that I would usually get an error on the trash service needing thunar, when it is already installed. The one time,I was able to install open office, and test out some youtube videos.
9. At about this time, I would reboot my phone to see if it still works, then I would get the "bouncing moto logo of death" on my lapdock screen, and would have to start over.
One other unrelated note,about every other time I would reboot my phone, it would come up saying SIM card not installed, so I would reboot it again to fix the problem. So there were normally 2 reboots when a reboot is required.
So,I guess I would ask a few direct questions about my problem
1. Has anyone else had a problem with the tzdata package? Is there a way around it without uninstalling it?
2. Could the full xfce4 package be breaking the webtop? Do I only need certain packages out of it?
3. Even though I tested this on 2 different SD cards, could my problem be that the files are just getting corrupted on the card? Its pretty consistant though, I canpretty much say "Look,my awesome webtop is now setup how I want it to be, now watch me reboot my phone to see it not work anymore" everytime I go to set it up.
Info on my phone:
Stock firmware, unlocked bootloader, cwm installed (I thought I needed it,but not for webtop2sd) and rooted running latest webtop2sd. I havent messed with the stock webtop on the phone itself, i rather not since I like having it as a backup.
Btw, I am a bit of a linux n00b, I've pretty much just been reading what other people have been doing. Any help would be appreciated, thanx
You sure like to mod the webtop. Lol jk.
I have no issues and I have webtop with the Lapdock with the Ninja ROM. My phone is bootloader unlocked and rooted. I personally think you modded too much if that's possible. If I were you, I would start over and try webtop with stock firmware or a ROM with a fresh sd card. That way you can know if your phone has a hardware issue or if you modded too much. Hope this helps.
Sent from my Atrix XDA Premium App
I can assure you that your phone is more modded than mine is, since im running stock firmware. What I'm doing is really not that much modding, I'm just trying to get a better interface running on the webtop, which people have posted saying they have the same one working on theirs. Its also not that I can't get it working, its really not hard, just time consuming, I just need to know why it keeps breaking on phone reboots...
teeth_03 said:
I can assure you that your phone is more modded than mine is, since im running stock firmware. What I'm doing is really not that much modding, I'm just trying to get a better interface running on the webtop, which people have posted saying they have the same one working on theirs. Its also not that I can't get it working, its really not hard, just time consuming, I just need to know why it keeps breaking on phone reboots...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I honestly think you should try some of my suggestions. I think starting fresh is your best option. When something doesn't wok right or something goes wrong. Starting fresh can fix your issues.
Sent from my Atrix XDA Premium App
I've formatted the SD card about 6-8 times nowsince I got my lapdock 3 days ago
teeth_03 said:
I've formatted the SD card about 6-8 times nowsince I got my lapdock 3 days ago
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried reflashing the phone yet with new firmwares or ROMS?
Sent from my Atrix XDA Premium App
why would I do that when the issue has something to do with the files on the SD card?
webtop2sd copies the webtop files from the phone, to the SD card,so the files on the phone are basically out of the equation at that point. So its not a problem with android,but with the other linux files from webtop on the SD card
Oh ok. Well have you tried an all new sd card yet?
Sent from my Atrix XDA Premium App
teeth_03 said:
Below,I will list the steps I do to setup my webtop,I am using webtop2sd on a 32GB PNY Class 10 card, and used a 2GB Transcend (not sure on class,im sure its old) card to test with, same results with both pretty much,so I think something im doing is causing it to stop working.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah......
I think I fixed it. by finding this little piece of info
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=18465066&postcount=3
I believe tzdata has been my problem for he past like 3 days I've been messing with this
It has been running great for the past day. XFCE4 is a large improvement over the standard webtop.
Of course, I ran into another snag, I need to access windows network shares, and Samba doesn't seem to be functioning, specifically, the samba-common package wont install correctly.
This user was able to fix it:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=19132707&postcount=19
But I have no idea how to fix the read/sym links. Can any linux gurus here explain how that is fixed? Thanx guys!
teeth_03 said:
It has been running great for the past day. XFCE4 is a large improvement over the standard webtop.
Of course, I ran into another snag, I need to access windows network shares, and Samba doesn't seem to be functioning, specifically, the samba-common package wont install correctly.
This user was able to fix it:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=19132707&postcount=19
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah his post was kind of light on the details.
What it looks like is that when the /var/lib/dpkg/samba-common.postinst script is run by dpkg --configure -a it calls a program named ucf that in turn wants to run the symbolic link of "readlink" located in /usr/bin.
This is where i got stuck. I am by no means a linux guru.
I tried deleting the symlink to force ucf to use the "readlink" in the path, tried setting the symlink to point to the "readlink" located in /system/bin and in /system/xbin, and set the symlink to the busybox in /system/bin and to the custom busybox webtop2sd uses in /system/etc/webtop2sd but it did not help.
The output of dpkg changed slightly depending on which "readlink" ucf used but still the same error, "readlink: invalid option", and no samba-common.
Btw my busybox is 1.19.3
2.3.5 webtop on sdcard with fixed dependencies
A little help would be appreciated.
I was told on IRC that the actual problem is that the stock kernel does not include CIPs support, which is what is required for connectivity
but I still dont like the fact that samba package is still broken...
I'm using faux123's 0.2.3 kernel though, which might have CIPs support. Its hard to tell from the changelog and features listed in his kernel thread. Btw the 0.2.3 kernel fixes the broken top panel.
Hey, apparently I can't post in the dev forums yet so here is my question. I have after a week of experimentation gotten webtop2sd to work with a few different set ups on my Atrix with lapdock. However, here is the issue:
I have the latest and greatest Aura ROM Debloated version installed on my (obviously) rooted and unlocked Atrix. I have the webtopmod installed. I have busybox in the correct location. I have a working webtop with working configurator and lxterminal and all that goodness. Problem is when I run the webtop2sd program so I can move the image to the sdcard, the program does the partition part just fine, but consistently fails the file copy portion of the process and aborts. I have no idea what to do. Is it possible to manually copy the webtop image to the section of the sdcard set up for it and if so how?
Thanks ahead guys. Oh and Kudos to Sogarth for making this possible!
well the problem seems to have fixed itself. Though I have no idea why. I kept rebooting and trying and eventually the copying worked. Now have an unlocked jauntu desktop Thanks so much to everyone who posts in this forum regularly. now off to figure out the next part...
I recently bought a lapdock, and I've been fighting and moving through to try and get the mod to work, but now I've hit a dead end that I can't beat.
I'm on the latest "lite" version of the WetDream ROM and I'm using the webtop that was preinstalled with it. I've got a 2gb partition set up on webtop2sd. My problem is that I can't get LXterminal to launch. Webtop configurator successfully installed Synaptic; firefox and AWN manager work fine as well, but I am at a dead end without a terminal. I tried installing others from synaptic, but even the simplest one (xvt) had a single, unfulfilled dependency. I've tried everything that I know how to try, including multiple installs of the ROM and of Webtop2sd.
Can anyone lend a hand?
EDIT: I also tried flashing the webtop-mod from this thread: [WEBTOP] 2.3.4 webtop fixed image [CWM Install] V1 . It gives me the same problem with lxterminal.
(Note, I would have posted here but I don't have enough posts.)
Thanks.
Please excuse the double post; I'm not intentionally bumping my thread.
I have found a "solution." I'm in the process of repairing my webtop now. My situation seems to be very unique, but I'd like to document it in case anyone comes along and has it again.
The trick I used was completely external to my Atrix, though. Without a terminal, I couldn't access tar or bash, but I could run single commands by making a custom entry on the modified AWN. So, here we go.
For anyone who has tried repeatedly to use Webtop2sd but has always lacked terminal access, here's my method.
Requirements: Access to a linux system, rudimentary knowledge of the terminal, or any other method of mounting your webtop2sd partition on a system with access to tar and permission changing methods.
****WORKING Awn Manager in webtop
Download the Dependency fixing scripts.
Mount your Webtop2sd partition and manually extract the scripts to their location in /usr/share/WebTopScripts/
Boot your device to webtop and setup a custom entry in Awn Manager with the following command:
"sudo bash /usr/Share/WebTopScripts/fix-apt-get.sh" (This should work with most versions of the script; also, no quotes in the actual command.)
That was enough to get Lxterminal working and gives me access to all the other mod methods on the forum that assume you have access to a working terminal. It's not really very helpful for Windows or Mac users, but it's the only thing that I could manage.
Feel free to close the thread, mods.
You gotta make sure to install LXTerminal from the Webtop Configuration applet where you installed Synaptic.
Sometimes it refuses to install at first so you have to try several times until it budges.
Try closing and opening the configuration window until you see both synaptic and LXTerminal buttons greyed out.
Sent from my Atrix 4G using Tapatalk
I'm almost certain that it was installed before (it was marked as present in synaptic), but just refusing to launch.
However, I broke my webtop just before getting it how I wanted it, so when I have time to give it another try, I'll see if being a little more persistent with it this time will work.
EDIT: Wow, the next 2 times that I had to install webtop, lxterminal worked just fine. Now I just have to get the scripts to actually fix all the dependencies and not end up with a broken webtop after installing software.
I could use some guidance. I am running stock rom on my Vibrant (2.2, FROYO.UVKB5 to be specific) and it is rooted. I am trying to run Cisco AnyConnect, but have no built-in tun/tap driver (of course). I have used tun.ko installer and it worked for about 5 days. Now, anytime I run tun.ko installer, my phone reboots. I have trashed any programs that I had installed since tun.ko installer and even uninstalled and reinstalled the installer.
I am at a loss as to even where to begin troubleshooting this issue. Would someone please help this humble novice learn more about his problem?
Thank you.
Tun.ko is a Linux kernel module. You could try changing your kernel, or running a terminal and manually installing the module via modprobe and seeing if the phone stays up long enough for you to run a dmesg to look for error messages. I don't know how you can see the panic message as the kernel crashes on a phone, but maybe there is a way. An adb shell might last a little longer than an on-phone terminal in the event of a panic.
I actually went the easy route and am trying to use the Tun.ko installed app from VPN Droid, and getting the reboot issue. It seems to be rebooting when it is doing a check to see if the Tun/Tap module is installed, which it isn't right now. I don't currently have a linux box to build a tun.ko module for my Vibrant kernel to be able to manually install it or I would do that and just forget about the tun.ko installer.
Has anyone else seen this behavior at all? It's not like I have crazy custom ware installed or anything else nuts. I'm a little more advanced than an average user and haven't even jumped past the OEM ROM with ADW launcher. Not really the Dev type, but I'm not exactly afraid to go in and do what needs to be done. I just don't know what to do off hand. XDA-Developers and Google have been my best friends when working with my phone. I've just come to a brick wall on this one.
Flashing a kernel like Bali for 2.2 roms would help. It includes a tun.ko module. More info here...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1043947
Yeah, I think I'm going to have to suck it up and get into flashing my ROM. I've just been hesitant because even though I have Titanium backup, I know I'll have to go through some downtime to do the flash. When I upgrade, though, I'll keep this to have a device to fall back on during maintenance and flashes.