Rooting your Pre - AKA Jailbreak

[milominderbinder]

Before you consider, Rooting Your Pre, take a look at the dozens of new apps for your Pre: Homebrew Forum.

Rooting or "Jailbreaking" in the case of the Pre is really gaining access to the Linux operating system. Rooting is not for someone who is new to programming or Linux. Rooting can "brick" your Pre so that is cannot be fixed. But by rooting the pre, developers have shown that you can add many important missing features or modify exiting applications.

Here are the Accessing Linux: Rooting your Pre and Installing the SDK on Windows webOSdev Palm.

- Craig

[stashu11]

I am a programmer dummy. I know nothing at all about Linux, or any of that stuff. That being said, I'm not afraid to learn (sometimes even the hard way, bricking a phone if need be). I can't believe it's that hard to get into the system and paste some new code in there. I've just seen a few very nice changes I'd like to make to my Pre too. I went to the "Accessing Linux: Rooting your Pre" web site and downloaded the software required. This is where I get stuck. I click and get an emulator. OK, how does that have anything to do with entering the code? I am pretty familiar with the old DOS, and it sounds like they want me to open a DOS session and do things from there. If that's true, I can do that... The directions leave out the part about that. Do I open the emulator and then a DOS session, or am I way off base? I've put my Pre in the DevMode enabled mode. Obviously, at some point I would have to plug in the Pre. I haven't found those directions on the net either. I've watched a youtube video on rooting a Pre, but it sounds like I don't need to do that with the emulator. Maybe I do? I know I'm being REAL basic right now, but if I can get beyond a few points, I think I have a shot at this. The Windows registry never intimidated me. I know bad stuff can happen with "messing" with it too, but I've had no problems. I've made plenty of changes to my Palm 800W within the registry.
I have the program to install apps, but these "patches" are something different. Does anyone think they will come up with a program soon that can do the "patches"? I know a lot of questions. I would appreciate any advice other then quitting because I'm over my head, or taking classes.

[cheapd3lirio]

I upgraded to 1.1 and did the git update to reapply the patches. i was not able to import it said that the patch already existed and to use -f. I used -f and it said update succesfull. when i run quilt push it says I need to refresh the top most patch or something like that. need to know how to refresh or plain ol erase the old patch to import the new one so i can reapply them to my phone. some help please i do miss the three patches i was using, browser dl, landscape email and, fwd message.

[cajunlibra]

I followed the directions to be able to install via the SDK. I'd like to be able to get tethering working if I need it but at this point I beleive that we still need root access. Can I follow the directions for rooting and skip over the steps I've already completed or do I need to start from scratch and reset my phone?

Thanks

PS. I'm running Ubuntu Jaunty on a dualboot system with XP SP2 so I am familiar with linux. I got bluetooth set up back when it was automatic.

[docbeezer]

I'm rooted...
Thanks

[Surfrock66]

I use Ubuntu Linux, and I found all the instructions very disjointed, so I wrote a post on my blog documenting all of the steps I took to get set up from start to finish.

EDIT: I can't post links, but if a mod thinks this is worthwhile, they can either link to it or just lift it and bring it here, I don't care about the traffic.

www dot surfrock66 dot com/?p=600

[pa05]

i have no idea wut any of this is or means but im downloading it anywat for the hell of it. I need more games on my phone too! Thanks tho!

[roitmanm]

so what does bricking the pre actually mean? i think i screwed something up but my phone seems to be working fine except i can no longer install homebrew aps. any help would be greatly appreaciated

[rwhitby]

Originally Posted by Milominderbinder

Rooting or "Jailbreaking" in the case of the Pre is really gaining access to the Linux operating system. Rooting is not for someone who is new to programming or Linux. Rooting can "brick" your Pre so that is cannot be fixed.

Please read http://forums.precentral.net/web-os-...-your-pre.html

"Rooting" *cannot* brick your Pre. It can always be recovered using the webOS Doctor.

-- Rod

[cajunlibra]

I have the leaked SDK, do I need to uninstall it before adding ht new one? Can I just install over the old one?

Thanks

EDIT: Nevermind. Palm has instructions here.

[cajunlibra]

Ok. I'm missing something. I have completed the given steps on the PreDevWiki(new) site and clicked on Next steps but dont' knwo where to go next.

I know there are commands that need to be put in, but WHERE?????

Putty? NovaTerm? I have the emulator running now. I need to get into my phone so that I can get root access. I know before there were VERY clear step-by-step directions but I'm sorry I can't find them.

I'm new-ish to linux but I've been actively dual-booting w/ Ubuntu since Breezy Badger.

EDIT: Ok. I was able to log in using novaterm but while setting up an unprivileged user, i entered in a password that apparently was too weak so I entered a new one, not realizing that the comment was not an error message. Novaterm does not allow me to scroll back up to see anything earlier. I tried to switch to this unpriveleged user to change the password. It wont' let me change the password for this user nor can I get back to root. I keep getting the message "must be suid to work properly" during each attempt to use passwd or su. What am I doing wrong? sudo doesn't work either.

[roitmanm]

Originally Posted by rwhitby

Please read http://forums.precentral.net/web-os-...-your-pre.html

"Rooting" *cannot* brick your Pre. It can always be recovered using the webOS Doctor.

-- Rod

ok so i tried apply a patch and failed and now i cant install homebrew apps via the easy installer or through the terminal. i tried to download the webos doctor but it just showed up as text edit. any advice?

[pa05]

ok... i followed all of the instructions on how to root the pre but now when i got to putty and copy and paste a code for whatever i want, it says permission denied! wut is this all about??

[Mpre]

Im a tard but somehow I got homebrew to work.

Im going to try rooting now only because I want my dailer theme to be black.

[Surfrock66]

Originally Posted by cajunlibra

EDIT: Ok. I was able to log in using novaterm but while setting up an unprivileged user, i entered in a password that apparently was too weak so I entered a new one, not realizing that the comment was not an error message. Novaterm does not allow me to scroll back up to see anything earlier. I tried to switch to this unpriveleged user to change the password. It wont' let me change the password for this user nor can I get back to root. I keep getting the message "must be suid to work properly" during each attempt to use passwd or su. What am I doing wrong? sudo doesn't work either.

I did the same thing, and the first password I entered worked. Just try them both, you'll see which one works. Then, type "sudo passwd" to change your root password, and "sudo passwd *username*" and you can change your user password.

[spenzalii]

I seem to be having a problem with getting this rooting thing to work. I followed the download instructions, installed Optware and Quilt, but I can't use putty. If I use Novacom from the command line, I get the root access without them asking for a password. Same if I use Novaterm (which I can't seem to copy and paste, forcing me back to the command line thing). Wonder if I missed something. Using the command line access I was able to mount the pre for read/write access and change my dialer theme, but I'm sure setting up SFTP would have been quicker.

Any clue what may be going wrong? Or am I just an idiot?

[wardbro]

I am not a programmer and it took me three days and reading many posts, error problems and more three different methods of rooting before I could do it. Once in the system, I couldn't understand what was so hard about it. Then I couldn't get back in.

[wardbro]

Oh, I did get back in and have changed a lot on the pre now. I am a programmer in learning by the school of hard knocks. So far I am still on my first PRE! I love this thing!

[cajunlibra]

I've read somewhere that if you root your pre and then make changes that you have to change everything back before you run an update. Is this true? I thought that it was just as simple as rooting the pre, making changes, possibly having to redo those changes after an update. Can someone correct me on this before I do any hacking? I've already rooted, I beleive.

[rwhitby]

Originally Posted by cajunlibra

I've read somewhere that if you root your pre and then make changes that you have to change everything back before you run an update. Is this true? I thought that it was just as simple as rooting the pre, making changes, possibly having to redo those changes after an update. Can someone correct me on this before I do any hacking? I've already rooted, I beleive.

Accessing Linux on the Pre does not affect updates.

Installing an ssh daemon on the Pre does not affect updates.

Installing homebrew apps on the Pre does not affect updates.

Patching built-in applications *will* affect updates, in the case that the update changes one of the files in the application that you have patched, but does not change another file in the same application that you have also patched.

That's why the WebOS Internals group recommends using the 'quilt' utility to apply these patches, because then you can 'quilt pop -a' to remove all the modifications before you accept the OTA update.

-- Rod