Start Here
All this “Rooting” and “Hacking” of the Droid can be confusing and overwhelming for someone just starting out. If the only experience you have with the Droid is turning it on and using the phone functions, you may think you’re the furthest from capable of opening up the system and modifying its components for your benefit. The fact is, with a little help, this stuff is relatively easy to pick up; even for someone with zero experience!
Sure, the guides are set up to walk you through every step of the way… but where do you start? It may be confusing the with amount of available guides; especially since many rely on each other. Think of this as a guide for the guides; it will show you a logical progression from the base levels to the advanced. I will also use this as a chance to bring everyone up to speed on some of the unique formatting found inside the guides.
What you need to know first:
Before you go crazy and hack your Droid, you need to understand some very basic information. Basic information like: what is Root? Well, it might be nice to know what it is and what the benefits are before you actually go through with the procedure. I tell everyone to first read this:
You also need to know what NOT to do. Sometimes if you make an error or do something wrong, it can lead to a bricked phone (almost always reversible). For this reason, it’s a very good idea to read the Avoid Bricking Your Phone guide and learn about the brickability scale.
Once you have a basic understanding of what you’re dealing with, you’re now ready to begin learning how to hack. But before we get in too deep…
Preliminary Skills:
Many of the guides require “sub-guides” which are required to carry out some of the steps. These preliminary skills are a very good thing to learn thoroughly before you even attempt your first hack. Just like in school where addition and subtraction were taught before calculus, there needs to be a base knowledge before moving on. The following are preliminary skills which will be seen on most guides at this site:
- USB Debugging – Enable USB Debugging to transfer files between PC and Droid.
- MicroSD Mounting – Mount the MicroSD for placing files onto the Droid.
- Android Debug Bridge – Command line-based bridge between Android SDK and the Droid.
- Unix Commands – Basic commands used within the Android Debug Bridge.
- USB Debugging Drivers – Required PC drivers for the Droid.
- Installing Unsigned Apps – Installing apps not found on the market.
