By the way, I had a quick look at Samsung's official warranty information, and it says nothing about it being voided by rooting or other unauthorized modifications. Of course, it exempts "defects or damage resulting from improper testing, operation, maintenance, installation, service, or adjustment not furnished or approved by SAMSUNG", but that's only applicable when the damage results from rooting.

Of course, Sprint does have the authority to cut off one's service for rooting (or for any other thing they see fit).

Originally Posted by arpruss

Does the jig work to reset flash count on 2.3.6? One site that sells jigs says it only does that on 2.3.4 and below.

Has nothing to do with Android ROM version. It has to do with your bootloader version. If your phone came with EK02 or EL29, jig will not reset stats, but will get you to ODIN download mode. You'll need to flash EG30/31 bootloader to restore functionality. Look in the wiki if you need it.

Originally Posted by sfhub

Has nothing to do with Android ROM version. It has to do with your bootloader version. If your phone came with EK02 or EL29, jig will not reset stats, but will get you to ODIN download mode. You'll need to flash EG30/31 bootloader to restore functionality. Look in the wiki if you need it.

Ah, but that then runs into my pickiness about copyright, because presumably the bootloader is copyrighted by Samsung, and is not under the GPL. :(

Well, maybe I just need to take my risk about warranty.

There can be a difference between what the warranty says (or what is enforceable) and what your real-life experience is.

That is why I said most of the time no problem, but sometimes yes. The people you communicate with are humans and they don't always interpret the same set of rules the same way.

What is written is theoretically what you would eventually end up with, either right from the beginning or after some amount of back-and-forth.

This is just to let you have the information so you can make your own informed decision.

Originally Posted by sfhub

There can be a difference between what the warranty says (or what is enforceable) and what your real-life experience is.

How true.

Has anybody had their service with Sprint cut off over rooting?

Originally Posted by arpruss

How true.

Has anybody had their service with Sprint cut off over rooting?

I have personally never once heard of this actually happening, not over rooting alone. (over things that are achieved through rooting, like excessive tethering/data usage/forced roaming, yes)
And in fact, I've very rarely heard of sprint enforcing warr issues over it either, as long as one is smart.

(edit) I'm actually curious about your aversion to copyright issues and using custom ROMs?
(more edit) ah, didn't read your "ps". never mind, even though I'm still fascinated.

Sent from my calculator watch.

After further investigation, it looks like I can't find a fully legal and safe way to root.

I thought that installing an insecure kernel would do the job. But unfortunately the initramfs inside the zImage includes, in addition to the GPL Linux kernel itself, Samsung-copyrighted non-GPL code, such as redbend_ua, various Samsung-copyrighted image files and customized .rc scripts. So it looks like I can't legally download an insecure kernel.

I could build one myself, copying the files that will go into initramfs from my phone, and modifying to make it insecure.

But the problem is that this is unsafe, as I will have no way of restoring the stock kernel if I screw up in building the kernel, since there does not appear to be any legally available download of the stock kernel anywhere. (Check FUS doesn't seem capable of downloading EL29, but in any case in the US there are legal issues--DMCA--with Check FUS's decryption.) And without root, I cannot simply dump the kernel from the device using dd--if I could, that would solve the problem.

So, here's my question: Does anyone know any legal way of restoring the stock EL29 kernel (i.e., without downloading the stock firmware from an unauthorized location)?

This is really frustrating. I am not a lawyer, but it looks like one needs to be one to figure out how to root a device properly. Of course, I expect people think I am nitpicking. (But then again, I am a professional nitpicker in my day job.)

May i ask what is the reason for wanting to go through all this hassle to root your phone "legally"?

Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

Originally Posted by arpruss

After further investigation, it looks like I can't find a fully legal and safe way to root.

I thought that installing an insecure kernel would do the job. But unfortunately the initramfs inside the zImage includes, in addition to the GPL Linux kernel itself, Samsung-copyrighted non-GPL code, such as redbend_ua, various Samsung-copyrighted image files and customized .rc scripts. So it looks like I can't legally download an insecure kernel.

I could build one myself, copying the files that will go into initramfs from my phone, and modifying to make it insecure.

But the problem is that this is unsafe, as I will have no way of restoring the stock kernel if I screw up in building the kernel, since there does not appear to be any legally available download of the stock kernel anywhere. (Check FUS doesn't seem capable of downloading EL29, but in any case in the US there are legal issues--DMCA--with Check FUS's decryption.) And without root, I cannot simply dump the kernel from the device using dd--if I could, that would solve the problem.

So, here's my question: Does anyone know any legal way of restoring the stock EL29 kernel (i.e., without downloading the stock firmware from an unauthorized location)?

This is really frustrating. I am not a lawyer, but it looks like one needs to be one to figure out how to root a device properly. Of course, I expect people think I am nitpicking. (But then again, I am a professional nitpicker in my day job.)

Yes download it strait from Samsung as they have to post the firmware online as its open source...
https://opensource.samsung.com/index...669F0AC57CBFC8
Scroll down to sph-d710 there you can get it from them but technically everything in Android is OPEn source except the drivers....
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

I don't know why I find this thread so interesting.

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