All Things Android - Apps, Phones, Tablets - Discussion

I started to take a look into rooting, and according to what I've read about rooting the Intercept, it causes all kinds of issues with audio, WiFi, and a bunch of other stuff I'd rather not have to deal with. Any idea why that happens? Is it just this particular phone, or is that a universal thing with rooting?

 

I rooted my Defy and it caused zero issues.

It's the Android equivalent of logging into Windows with Admin permissions.

 

Theres some issues with specific ROMs, but you just have to look at a ROM's bug list to see what problems it has.

Rooting itself doesnt cause any issues. Custom ROM's might but most have no or little issues.

I've rooted every android phone ive had/used including my family members (~5 different phone models, 7 different actual phones) and have never had a problem. its well worth it

 

Could well be the lack of developers/ment for the device.

 

Exactly, or if you've ever run Fedora or Ubuntu... sudo or gksudo. All root does is actually enable sudo. Out of the box OEM Android installation's have locked out sudo access. Root itself should never interfere with any system service like audio or WiFi. If it does the root author found and exploited a vulnerability in one of those services, and enabling root is interfering with their normal operation.

Usually when there are problems with audio or WiFi, it's on custom ROM's. The kernel handles all audio and WiFi, with the correct libs and firmwares. Though even on most custom ROM's, unless they're Cyanogen or AOSP, the libs/firmwares/so files aren't messed with.

 

Okay, so how do I root my Intercept? I'm not interested in installing a custom ROM or recovery or anything like that...at least, not yet. I'm fine with the stock VM FroYo I have, but I would like to do some things that require root access (for instance, WiFi tethering and screenshots).

 

Just download SuperOneClick and run it. If you don't have the SDK installed, you'll want the one with drivers, as that includes the app and ADB.

EDIT: You'll also want to enable Debug Mode on your phone. Settings-->Applications-->Development.

 

http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/how-to-root-samsung-intercept-step-by-step-guide/


EDIT: Nevermind, SuperOneClick is much easier i didn't know the Intercept was supported.

 

I'll try this out first. I already have USB Debugging enabled, as PDAnet requires that for USB tethering.

Just for clarification, these drivers that I'm downloading are different from the driver that my computer uses to connect to the phone as it is?

Hopefully I won't have to resort to that, since it involves flashing custom files. What's the difference between a kernel (like the "inxane" kernel required for this method) and a ROM?

 

You wont have to with Superoneclick

A kernel isn't a ROM it just has to do with certain parts of the phone. In this situation it also roots the phone apparently. You'd have to ask HAL im sure he knows the specifics

 

"Drivers" are what they call them, but it's just ADB. It needs ADB to be able to 'converse' with Android over a debug connection. If you're already using ADB, your ADB driver from Samsung is already installed.

 

Okay, that didn't work...I plugged in the Intercept with Debugging enabled and all that, and clicked "root"...it did a bunch of stuff and now there's an app called Superuser in my app drawer, and the program ran a "SU test", which was apparently successful, and told me to reboot. I rebooted and launched Barnacle WiFi Tether, but it still says I don't have root permission >:/

So I ran SuperOneClick and rooted again, but didn't reboot this time...same thing, I don't have root permission, even though the SU test was successful.

Do I have to do it manually with ahl's link, or is there something stupidly obvious I failed to do?

 

Try downloading an app from the market called "screenshot" no spaces, no caps. Run it and see if it asks you for permissions.

 

screenshot says "only for rooted phones" when I launch it, and "error on fb0" when I try to take a screenshot.

EDIT - got it rooted! Somebody made a one-click root specifically for the Intercept running FroYo. How convenient

It's a pretty plain batch file, but hey...it works where SuperOneClick did not. I'm currently posting this from my netbook tethered via WiFi

http://androidforums.com/sprint-int...7-one-click-root-froyo-intercept-windows.html

 

Nice! Very nice! Have fun with Root!

 

CM7 for the nexus one really is amazing. I can easily squeeze out 2 days without charging with moderate usage.... pretty awesome.

That being said, the wait for the galaxy s2 is killing me. I need some SAMOLED+ in my life

 

Haha thanks. Realistically, I'm not going to have too much fun, though. I really just wanted to get WiFi tethering working, and maybe take screenshots. Maybe when my warranty's up I'll look into custom ROMs and stuff like that

 

Hate to break it to you but...technically you've already voided your phone's warranty.

I say technically because there are ways to unroot most phones.

 

Homescreen
Single page, scrolling dock


[click to embiggen]

Wallpaper - Final Curtain by ~inkrypted
LauncherPro Plus with custom icons
Minimalistic Text and Circle Battery widgets

---

Lockscreen


[click to embiggen]

Wallpaper - Final Curtain by ~inkrypted
WidgetLocker with custom theme adapted from HoneycombGlow by sian1/2 with additional thanks to G4rcU
Minimalistic Text widget

 

Does anyone know how well CM7 scales with lower display densities? I'm thinking of lowering mine to about 200 or so. It's set at 240 right now...

 

I'm having a bit of trouble with the screenshot app...I'm rooted, but whenever I try to take a screenshot, it says "Pixel format error: only 16bpp and 32bpp are supported". What does that even mean?

 

BBP= bits per pixel.

I'm guessing your LCD panel only supports 16-bit color, but it really shouldn't matter. Which screenshot app are you trying to use?

 

The one you had me download yesterday, "screenshot". Should I try a different app?

Also, for those of you simply trying to confirm whether or not your root was successful, there's a free app called "Root Checker" that literally does just that. It will tell you whether you have root access, and if you want, whether or not you have Busybox installed. It's a bit easier than installing another app that requires root just to see if you're rooted.

 

^ Try Drocap 2

 

Couldn't find that in the Market...I'm downloading ShootMe, we'll see if that works.

EDIT - guess not...first it failed to see that I had root access twice, but worked the third time...then when I shook the phone to take a screenshot, it froze for a few seconds and rebooted, except it skipped the first half of the reboot...normally when you turn the phone on it shows the Samsung logo with a progress bar, a Virgin Mobile animation, and then a glowing Samsung logo for about 4 minutes. It just skipped right to the glowing logo. :/

More edit - now it's telling me I have to activate my phone! What the hell?

 

wth? lol

here...
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.gmail.nagamatu.drocap2&feature=search_result

 

False alarm...I rebooted again and it's not telling me to activate anymore.

As for the Market, I don't know. I searched "drocap" without the 2, maybe that screwed it up. Anyway, I don't think I'm going to mess with screenshots anymore. Clearly this phone doesn't want to do them I think I'll try the DDMS method with the Android SDK.

EDIT - never mind, I guess. Apparently I can't even install the SDK because the installer doesn't detect that I have the JDK installed, when I clearly do. >_<

 

You might get bugs here and there, but 190dpi ok here in CM7 final.

 

Okay, I got the SDK to install after a billion tries. Now it's downloading updates, at 15KB/s. Should be done within 3 hours >_<

 

Nice! I'm going to try it then.

Ouch. 15KB/s! That'll sure take a hot minute or two...

 

Hmm. I guess it didn't need as much time as it thought.

Anyway, here's my home screen, for those who care

This is on stock FroYo, with Launcher Pro. The red clock icon is a minutes checker app for Virgin Mobile, since by default the only way to check your account balance on your phone is logging into their full website via the browser. This app just logs in for you and tells you how many minutes you've used, your cash balance, and when your bill is due. Pretty neat.

 

^ Pretty nice! i like it

What clock is that?

 

Fancy Widget. The free version includes just that clock/weather widget. There's also a paid version that has more skins, but I haven't gotten that.

I bought Beautiful Widgets, but I actually like the Fancy Widget clock more...maybe I just don't have the right wallpaper

EDIT - yeah, the Beautiful Widgets clock looks way better with the original HTC wallpaper...go figure, since the clock is almost pixel-for-pixel copied from the HTC Sense clock And I imagine it would look better on a device with a higher resolution anyway.

 

Lol just saw this (not mine) in the XDA widget locker thread. :laugh:

 

I installed an app called "QR Droid" to scan barcodes and QR codes and stuff...when I tried to launch it, the icon glowed, and everything completely froze. I couldn't hit back, home, or do anything. So after about 10 minutes of waiting, I yanked the battery and put it back in...booted up and uninstalled that app, but now I have no 3G. I tried rebooting, enabling/disabling Airplane mode, but I just can't get a 3G connection now. I have a 3G switch on my widget, but enabling it does nothing.

What the hell >_<

 

I like that! I bought Beautiful Widgets a while back, but it didn't stick with me through ROM flashes. I need to re-install it, because the superclock looks really good.

ROFL!! Bacon n' Eggs.

Hmm... IDK? If it were me with your phone, I'd back up all my stuff and just factory reset it. Like NAND flash type reset... all the way. You're having way too many software issues that you shouldn't be having.

Also, it's been my longstanding belief that when moving to Froyo, everything should be wiped. Upgrading to Froyo from Eclair is like upgrading (not wiping) from WinXP to Vista. It's ugly. Files get corrupted, things aren't where they're supposed to be, and things are just in a state of disarray at the file system level. Since you upgraded to 2.2, did you clear out your cache or dalvik cache? I know that helps with many problems... without having to delete user data.

 

Just use Goggles from Google, it is stable and useful!
Downloaded Fancy Widgets, +rep for the idea, it's great!

 

How exactly do I go about doing that? Will wiping everything and doing a factory reset bring it back to 2.1, since that's what the phone originally came with? How should I back up my contacts? What is a dalvik cache and how do I clear it out?

Sorry for the wall of noob questions

EDIT - looking at the VM Facebook page, I'm seeing a million comments about 3G being down today, so I guess I just had sufficiently poor timing to reboot my phone just as the 3G went down. But either way, a complete wipe and fresh software install is something I would like to do; I do it periodically with my computers and I did a clean install when I went from XP to Vista, and from Vista to 7.

MOAR EDIT - yep, looks like it was a very poorly-timed network issue. My 3G is back up and running.

 

My Sprint 3g was spotty yesterday evening, if that makes you feel any better.
=/

 

Mine was gone entirely for about 8 hours

Seriously, though, VM uses the Sprint network, so one would think the same things would be working/not working at the same time.

 

+1 Saw the same thing in the afternoon. Only 1X and horribly slow/unusable.

 

I didn't even have 1X. No data at all, the icon completely disappeared from my phone.

According to the Virgin Mobile rep on the phone, they were "upgrading" the system.

 

Cuz that sounds better than "our system was down"

 

My phone has Worms...

 

This looks as though it could be adapted into a neat Android homescreen/launcher.

 

Apple is suing Samsung for the Samsung Galaxy S 4G / Samsung Vibrant looking too much like the iPhone.

What the hell? they dont have enough money already?

 

Lawsuit seems to be a bit much. That being said, many elements of the old touchwiz and the hardware design of the galaxy s (except for the captivate) are pretty damn similar to the iphone. You would have to be a fanboy not to see it.

 

Oh yeah i know it definetly looks alot like it.

But all the recent smartphones look very similar. I'm sure other companies could get away with suing others over the same thing too.

As for touchwiz idk, i hate it to begin with and take it off but i believe it.

 

Yes many smartphones look similar due to the slab design, but from the front the galaxy S looked almost identical. The nexus S has its own unique design... but the vibrant/ fascinate from the front, the shape, chrome ring etc are pretty damn similar.

HTC has their own design language, as does motorola. None of their flagship devices look anything like the iPhone imo-- they have a clear design direction. Samsung on the other hand (at least with the galaxy S) really did not do much in terms of design imo.

I honestly don't think touchwiz is too bad other than the apple-ish icons. There are some genuinely useful additions in touchwiz.

 

Agreed with pretty much everything. The Galaxy S 2, and some of the US variants of the original vary more from the iPhone design physically but the original i9000 definetly has a iPhone inspired vibe to it.

As for TouchWiz, I feel the lawsuit's pretty unfounded, there's plenty of other phone UI's with four icons along the bottom and a horizontal app launcher. Actually, LG had this first before Apple even came along.

TouchWiz is one of my favorite manufacturer created UI overlays. It's relatively clean and adds to the user experience. Sense gets on my nerves. Sorry but it's true for me. I hate how "rigid" the Sense experience is, how you can't change those three buttons on the bottom (Why have a unchangable giant phone button in the middle, and a personalize button on the right that you'll only use once or twice) and how it's becoming more of "it's own OS" than just some selected user interface enhancements. At least with TouchWiz you can tell right away that there's Android there.

Sense goes all out to cover it up, even replacing the pop up tap and hold menus with full screen black and white menus that slide up...

I also think that homescreen management on TouchWiz is among the best out there. Bar none.