Metauser

Rooting my G2x from Ubuntu

June 9, 2011 Posted by mitch | android, G2x, root-android, ubuntu | 0 Comments

Since my only desktop is my work Lenovo ThinkPad running Ubuntu 11.04, and the bulk of the articles out there reference Windows... I did find a few articles articulating how to root the T-Mobile G2x, but I thought I'd do a full write up here over what exactly I did to root my G2x and will do a followup with flashing a CyanogenMod Nightly to it as well.

First, I downloaded the latest Android SDK from Google

I extracted the tarball and renamed it to androidsdk in my home directory:

$ tar -zxvf Downloads/android-sdk_r11-linux_x86.tgz
$ mv android-sdk-linux_x86 androidsdk

I then added the following to my .bashrc file and load it into your environment variables

$ export PATH=${PATH}:$HOME/androidsdk/tools:$HOME/androidsdk/platform-tools
$ source .bashrc

The directory, platform-tools, will not exist yet, and you will need to download the Android SDK Platform-tools. To do this, you will run the command

$ android

This will startup a GUI, click Available packages -> Android Repository -> Android SDK Platform-tools, revision 5 (Revision may be updated... this was the version when I did this)

Click Install Selected wait till finished and close.

Now, we need to update udev to setup the proper device permissions for when we connect our phone.

$ sudo echo 'SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="1004", MODE="0666"' >> /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules

the idVendor string is unique per manufacturer, there is a list of them on Android Development here, But I've used the LG one here, since they're the maker of the G2x.

Then you need to restart udev

$ sudo service udev restart

Now... we're almost done. I first attempted to use the SuperOneClick root... which wasn't working for me. I then found a shell script that was a simple root to... thought I'd give it a go, and it worked easily, which can be downloaded on xda

I will note that... at this point, you should be able to connect your phone via USB, turn on USB Debug Mode. Settings -> Applications -> Development -> USB Debugging. Then run: adb devices. Should return this... or something similar at least... not sure what the hex number is... serial#?

$ adb devices
List of devices attached 
02884207417fe4d7	device

After Downloading the G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5.zip and unzipping it.

mitch@kraven:~$ mkdir g2xroot
mitch@kraven:~$ cd g2xroot/
mitch@kraven:~/g2xroot$ unzip ../Downloads/G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5.zip 
Archive:  ../Downloads/G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5.zip
   creating: G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5/
   creating: G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5/files/
  inflating: G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5/files/adb_linux  
  inflating: G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5/files/adb_mac  
  inflating: G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5/files/busybox  
  inflating: G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5/files/psneuter  
  inflating: G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5/files/shared.sh  
  inflating: G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5/files/su  
  inflating: G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5/files/Superuser.apk  
  inflating: G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5/Readme.txt  
  inflating: G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5/root.command  
  inflating: G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5/unroot.command  
mitch@kraven:~/g2xroot$ ls
G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5
mitch@kraven:~/g2xroot$ cd G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5/
mitch@kraven:~/g2xroot/G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5$ ls
files  Readme.txt  root.command  unroot.command
mitch@kraven:~/g2xroot/G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5$ less Readme.txt 
mitch@kraven:~/g2xroot/G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5$ ./root.command 


Checking for connected device...
Pushing temporary root exploint (psneuter) to device...
1262 KB/s (585731 bytes in 0.453s)
Running psneuter on device...
property service neutered.
killing adbd. (should restart in a second or two)
Waiting for device...
Remounting /system read/write...
remount succeeded
Pushing su to /system/bin/su...
635 KB/s (26324 bytes in 0.040s)
Pushing busybox to /system/bin/busybox...
1253 KB/s (1062992 bytes in 0.827s)
Installing Superuser.apk android application...
1283 KB/s (196521 bytes in 0.149s)
Removing psneuter from device...

Rebooting device...

Once device has rebooted you should be rooted.
Press Enter when you're ready to quit:  
mitch@kraven:~/g2xroot/G2xRootMacLinux_v0.5$

And that was it. Phone is rooted.

Many Thanks to jnichols959 for the scripts!

Next up CyanogenMod Nightly