Hi all, ultimately I’d like to experiment with a whole new os, but I gotta save up a little to buy a pixel. I’m currently working with a galaxy s21 ultra.

I never quite understood the reason to root and so I never really researched it. But now that I’m venturing more into the foss world and learning a bit more about tech, I’m realizing it might be useful for utilizing certain apps that require root and possibly helping to get rid of google and such services for good, but again idk the extent of what root offers and I also read it can be dangerous, so I’m lost to say the least.

My recent interest in rooting is purely because I have some foss apps that require root for me to use the full capabilities that I want. I also heard about adb and that it may be similiar to rooting but without actually rooting?

I’m just quite not sure how I should approach this and what things I should be aware of or NOT to do, to ensure I don’t end up bricking the thing lol

Thanks for reading

  • sirfancy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    91·
    1 year ago

    What apps require root that you want? I would highly advise against rooting if you can help it, because especially if you don’t know what you’re doing, there is very high potential to brick your device or open up security issues. I would recommend learning what root actually means and what it entails, and learning everything that happens when you root so you can decide for yourself if that’s something that is necessary. Rooting modern hardware just to run an app is not really all that important nowadays. You might as well buy an android that has a custom OS already installed centered around privacy if that’s your thing.

    Additionally, to actually answer your question, adb is not root. It is just a development bridge that lets your PC talk to your phone, so you can push apps or do other development related stuff. It just happens to be a part of the toolset when rooting.

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      One correction, you don’t use adb to flash custom ROMs, it’s just for interacting with a working Android device.

      For flashing you use other tools which can write partition images to the phone’s partitions and know the format that the vendor packages those images and the partition structure on the phone. fastboot is a standard tool for that but some manufacturers don’t follow standards and there are other tools made specifically for them.

      Also, TWRP is not a bootloader, it’s a recovery. The recovery is sort of a cross between a PC BIOS and a rescue disc, it’s a mini-OS you can boot into and perform maintenance operations. Phones already come with a recovery built-in but it’s super-basic so most people prefer a TWRP-made recovery because it has much more features.

  • jacktherippah@lemdro.idEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    If you’re considering rooting, I’d say don’t. Rooting is like blowing a hole in the wall of a castle. It breaks the Android security model. A rooted device is insecure and cannot be made secure no matter how many Magisk modules you flash. Do not root a device you do anything important on.

  • mrvictory1@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    My recent interest in rooting is purely because I have some foss apps that require root for me to use the full capabilities that I want.

    Example? I personally just deleted unnecessary apps with adb and went on. Google Play services are still running but that is really it. After rooting getting updates will be difficult so you will want a custom ROM. Decide if that is what you want to do.