bootloader - 9/9 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Feb

This Changes Everything: Motorola XOOM's Bootloader Will Be "Unlockable/Relockable"

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Development, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless, XOOM

Sure, the first part of that title might sound like a Steve Jobs quote, but Motorola's latest tweet merits the expression:

That's right - unlike almost all other Motorola devices in recent memory, the XOOM will ship with an unlocked (or at least "unlockable/relockable") bootloader. That means modders will be free to create custom ROMs and kernels for the tablet - not as surprising as it would be were the XOOM not a flagship Google device, but still very reassuring.

Now, Motorola, about your other devices' bootloaders...

Source: Motorola (Twitter)

Feb

Motorola Atrix 4G Rooted Before Release, Bootloader Confirmed To Be Signed

Posted by Josue Alamo in AT&T, Atrix 4G (Olympus), Development, Motorola, News

Last Updated: February 22nd, 2011

AT&T users, rejoice! Brief Mobile has been informed that user DesignGears, along with Getaphixx, has rooted the Motorola Atrix before its official release.

AT&T is notorious for restricting its users to only Market apps. Through rooting, however, non-Market apps can run via sideloading. These privileges also provide an easy way to free users of the bloated social-networking service MOTOBLUR and disable many other unnecessary applications.

Full instructions follow:

What you’ll need first:

.NET Framework 2.0 or Mono v1.2.6 (more information on Linux) (Windows XP: Download .NET Framework 2.0)
Windows Vista

Windows 7

Ubuntu Hardy (8.04 LTS)

Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04)

Ubuntu Karmic (9.10)

Ubuntu Lucid (10.04 LTS)

Ubuntu Maverick (10.10)

Debian Lenny (5.0)

Debian Squeeze (testing)

Debian Sid (unstable)

Debian Experimental

Install Motorola drivers on your computer
Mount the device for Media Sync.

Feb

HTC Thunderbolt Rooted With S-OFF, Successfully Running ClockworkMod Recovery

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, HTC, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), Verizon Wireless

The gang at AndIRC - lead by Jamzelle and TheEndGame7 - has already managed to completely root the HTC Thunderbolt, and with Koush's help, has ClockworkMod Recovery up and running on the device. Apparently, it was a surprisingly easy task in just about every way.

The team started with a pre-production, unbranded Thunderbolt running a January 3rd ROM. What they found was that the phone had a bootloader with S-OFF, although they note that it's not an engineering bootloader, and that it's likely a different one than production models will ship with. Even more surprisingly, the phone had no write protection.

Feb

Half-Baked Port Of Cyanogen Mod 7 Hits Galaxy Tab - Why This Is Hurting Android

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Development, Editorials

There's been exciting news floating around the blogosphere today of a "working" beta of CyanogenMod 7 for the Galaxy Tab being released. Just one caveat - it isn't really CyanogenMod 7.

Before I go onward with this rant, I want to make it crystal clear that I have nothing personally against the developer who ported CyanogenMod 7 to the Galaxy Tab, people like him (or her, of course) are part of the reason I love Android. But they're also part of the reason I have become increasingly frustrated with the custom ROM community's professionalism and ethical standards at large. Let me explain.

Jan

Motorola Working On A Developer-Friendly "Bootloader Solution" After YouTube Comment Debacle

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Development, Motorola, News

Oh, boy... what a mess this is. Earlier this week, a Motorola employee with access to the company's official YouTube account replied to a (now deleted) comment about their locked bootloaders with "if you want to do custom roms, then buy elsewhere, we’ll continue with our strategy that is working thanks." Issues about eFuse aside, that's a pretty poor thing to say from a customer service perspective. Apparently, Motorola recognized that fact after somebody posted on their Facebook page they'd be taking that advice:

Does this mean they're doing away with eFuse? Maybe... maybe not. But at least we know they're exploring the possibility, and that a more modder-friendly Moto isn't completely out of the question.

Dec

Android Devs To Manufacturers and Carriers: It's Not Rooting, It's Openness

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Editorials, News

The Android dev team has generally been assumed to have a passive stance on rooting and unlocking Android devices. That is, do it if you want - we won't stop you. And there's certainly evidence abound supporting this - Google's Nexus One could be unlocked via a simple ADB (Android Device Bridge) command: fastboot oem unlock. The same is true of the Nexus S.

Of course, it only makes sense - Google doesn't want to put any unnecessary barriers between Android developers and the open source OS, especially on developer phones.

But a new post on the official Android Developers Blog shows that team Android is a little more concerned with how their operating system is being used than some of us may have previously assumed.

Dec

Logitech Revue, Meet Recovery Mode

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Development, Google TV, Logitech, News, Revue

Last Updated: December 4th, 2010

While Android hackers figured out how to boot Sony's Google TVs into recovery mode sometime ago, the Logitech Revue has been waiting for something similar. But now the wait is over, thanks to @Stericson, who took no more than a day to accomplish the task on his Revue unit, sent to him by Google.

While we are now one small baby step closer to having root access, I feel obligated to remind you that Sony's Google TVs have yet to see any real attempts at root or software mods of any kind, despite having had access to recovery mode for over a month now.

Aug

Clockwork Recovery Successfully Loaded Onto DROID X, Custom ROMs On The Way?

Posted by David Ruddock in Development, Droid X (Shadow), News

We don't have a whole lot of info on this, but apparently Clockwork Recovery (a custom recovery image) has been loaded onto the DROID X. This could imply custom ROMs based specifically on Motorola's ROM may be finding their way to the DROID X. Also, this means if your phone "softbricks" (ie, bootloader not corrupted), you can makes a nandroid backup, and then restore it.

To be clear, this doesn't mean the DROID X has been unlocked, nor has the encrypted bootloader been circumvented, it just potentially allows flashing custom software to the system partition (ROM).

Source: @koush

Jul

Verizon’s Motorola Droid X Uses Same Bootloader Encryption As The Yet-To-Be-Defeated Milestone. Translation: Good Luck Unlocking

Posted by David Ruddock in Droid X (Shadow), Motorola, News

According to two separate sources on the XDA forums, the Droid X is loaded with the now-infamous locked bootloader present in the Milestone. If you’re unfamiliar, this site explains the current methods being deployed to defeat the Milestone, but none have managed to succeed without killing the phone functionality. Motorola locks the bootloader using a proprietary encrypted private key scheme, and without access to Motorola’s encryption method, the hope for unlocking lies in exploits. Currently, an exploit known as the “kexec” method ranks highest in terms of hopes of success.

What does this mean for Droid X users? Custom ROMs and recovery images may be a pipe dream, unless a serious vulnerability is discovered.