[Q] LG Optimus T unlocking?

[match417]

Hi, i've had my phone for about 6 months and I'm running out of space on the internal memory. It's not an optimus one, but it looks identical to it. It doesn't have much internal memory to begin with. My question is how to unlock it, or how do I delete the locked stuff that clutters it up when I first get it. Diner dash and the stupid little games take up the space that I need.

 

[N00b-un-2]

the simple answer is you need to root. See here for how to. I've had good luck with z4root. When I got my first P509, I rooted but was scared to flash a recovery and rom for fear of bricking my shiny new phone. The fact is though, the only thing that has ever bricked my phone has been KDZ which is an official LG tool.
Once you root, there are many ways that you can go about removing unnecessary bloat. Probably the most popular way is to use Titanium backup which can be downloaded from the market which allows you to uninstall any application on your phone once you grant TiBackup root access.
You could also use Root Explorer (also on the market) which requires that you know a little bit about the phone system itself but will get the job done, if you know what you're doing. Personally I dislike both methods because I don't 'manage' my phone from my phone, too many things can go wrong. Plus, both Titanium Backup and Root Explorer are paid apps. I prefer to use the ADB, but that requires the use of command line which is a big road block for some people.
Should you choose to go the adb route (which assumes that you have installed the Java Development kit available here and the Android Software Development Kit (or SDK) found here
Once you have installed the Android SDK, you can execute the adb (which is in the platform tools folder) from the command line. And no, there is no GUI version, the ADB is strictly a command line tool. To access and modify contents of your phone you will need to gain root access via adb shell. Oh yeah, and don't forget, you need to enable USB debugging on your phone!!!

adb shell
su

the prompt should change to a pound sign once you have granted "unknown" root access on your phone. once you've gained root access, execute the following command to gain read and write privileges for the phone's system

mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock1 /system

Once you've done this you can delete things from your phone's system, but be EXTREMELY careful because you can mess your phone up pretty bad if you don't know what you're doing.

first, change directory (the command is literally cd) into /system/app which is where all non removable apps are stored on your phone

cd /system/app

then you can bring up a list of all the files in the folder with

ls

then you can delete the unnecessary apps with

rm -rf

I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH!!!! Be extremely careful about what you delete in here. it is highly recommended that you use the absolute path to the file you are deleting as to minimize accidental cases of

rm -rf /*

which will probably brick your phone.

 

[N00b-un-2]

in all reality though you're not going to be able to free up much space by removing the games that come with the phone. Plus it is actually safer to simply flash a custom recovery, do a nandroid backup and then flash a custom ROM. The process is simpler, easy to undo and there is very little risk of breaking the system. Modifying the contents of the stock ROM while it may actually seem less extreme than flashing a custom firmware is far more dangerous, simply because you don't have the added security of a good backup to flash back to in case you mess something up. Not only that, but by rooting your phone and removing stock apps already void your warranty so you may as well go ahead and get your money's worth out of the phone.
Once you have installed a custom ROM, you can always use app2sd which is a feature that allows you to install applications to your SD card instead of your phone's internal memory. I don't personally use it because I keep my phone pretty lean, outside of the Android system and default Google apps, I only have maybe 10 or so apps installed; easysms, facebook, twitter, XBMC remote, my bank's app and of course Angry Birds.

 

[mar11974]

mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock1 /system

I have this phone and use:

mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

to mount the system partition

***read up on using android sdk (adb)***

attached are the references I keep for working on my Optimus T:
1. List of /system/app files (says 10L, but 10S is the same)
2. List of files I always remove (change to suit your taste)

PS: Once you take care of removing the crapware, let all the built in apps update through the market, then go back and replace the old versions with the new versions (no need for two versions of the same app, it's a waste of space).

 

[mar11974]

Remove file:
rm {filename}
rm AppPack.apk

Replace old version with new version (or make user app a system app):
cat /data/app/{update filename} > /system/app/{original filename}
cat /data/app/com.google.android.maps-1.apk > /system/app/Maps.apk
**remember to use the EXACT same name as shown in the list (Caps make a difference)

I always factory reset after making the changes to clean up.

 

[mar11974]

Enable root access with adb:

C:\android-sdk\tools\adb devices

C:\android-sdk\tools\adb shell
echo 1 > /data/local/lge_adb.conf

*****MANUALLY REBOOT DEVICE*****

Works with P509 V10s

 

[N00b-un-2]

I have this phone and use:

mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

to mount the system partition

Maybe different versions of Optimus handle the file system differently. Also, are you mounting via ADB with the phone in recovery? I don't think I've ever mounted anything except mtdblock1 for /system. Interesting, and to be honest from what I understand about the way the filesystem is supposed to work block 3 should be where /system is, but I've never had any success in gaining r/w privilege by mounting anything but block 1.

 

[N00b-un-2]

Enable root access with adb:

C:\android-sdk\tools\adb devices

C:\android-sdk\tools\adb shell
echo 1 > /data/local/lge_adb.conf

*****MANUALLY REBOOT DEVICE*****

Works with P509 V10s

I've tried rooting the manual way before always without success. Being a Linux hacker, I'm not afraid of the command line and using a tool like z4root always felt like a cop out. But hey, root is root.
Literally to gain root access you are adding a 1 (an on switch if I'm not mistaken) to the a file called lge_adb.conf? That's crazy!

 

[Explore3]

If all you want to do is root, use gingerbreak. Worked on 2 Optimus T phones. It takes maybe 5 minutes.

After rooting, you can download Titanium backup from the market. It can freeze those unwanted apps. If you suddenly find that you need them, you can defrost the apps.

You should consider using a custom ROM. You can use any Optimus T OR Optimus One ROM. Do not use ROMs for the other flavors of Optimus. If you decide to move your app folder to the SD, you can have an almost unlimited # of apps.

Good Luck

 

[mar11974]

I've tried rooting the manual way before always without success. Being a Linux hacker, I'm not afraid of the command line and using a tool like z4root always felt like a cop out. But hey, root is root.
Literally to gain root access you are adding a 1 (an on switch if I'm not mistaken) to the a file called lge_adb.conf? That's crazy!

The leaked 2.3.3 thread mentioned the method, checked system.mbn file for V10s and the code is there also. This isn't a "hack", it is built into the rom by the manufacturer.

lge_adb.conf doesn't exist in the rom, so it actually is creating a file lge_adb.conf that contains a 1. The system looks for the file on reboot and sets the root status accordingly.

 

[mar11974]

Maybe different versions of Optimus handle the file system differently. Also, are you mounting via ADB with the phone in recovery? I don't think I've ever mounted anything except mtdblock1 for /system. Interesting, and to be honest from what I understand about the way the filesystem is supposed to work block 3 should be where /system is, but I've never had any success in gaining r/w privilege by mounting anything but block 1.

You may be right, I have been using mtdblock3 from searches trying to remove the crapware, but it works? When using mtdblock1, if you factory restore your phone (HOME + VOL -) do the removed apps return (changes lost)?

 

[doktornotor]

You may be right, I have been using mtdblock3 from searches trying to remove the crapware, but it works?

If you want to find out what is where on your phone, just run:

$ cat /proc/mtd
dev:    size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00440000 00020000 "boot"
mtd1: 0be00000 00020000 "system"
mtd2: 00500000 00020000 "recovery"
mtd3: 002c0000 00020000 "lgdrm"
mtd4: 00100000 00020000 "splash"
mtd5: 00180000 00020000 "FOTABIN"
mtd6: 005c0000 00020000 "FOTA"
mtd7: 00040000 00020000 "misc"
mtd8: 04000000 00020000 "cache"
mtd9: 0c780000 00020000 "userdata"

 

[N00b-un-2]

As far as apps returning once they've been removed I wouldn't imagine so. Once you delete them, they're gone. It's not like the Android system has redundancy built into it. If it did, I would imagine that hacking our phones would be considerably more difficult if every time we rebooted the system returned to stock.
Interesting thought though, because I have a bit of experience installing custom firmware on PSPs before I ever started hacking Android and the similarities between the two are striking, but the PSP firmware is designed with redundancy in mind in order to prevent permanent changes being made to the system like flashing custom firmware, and typically the changes made to the system are stored in volatile memory. I had a PSP-3000, and in order to "hack" it so I could play games from the memory stick, it was like a 5 step process involving a ram disk exploit and any time the system suffered a crash or hard reboot, I would have to repeat the whole process, which was often hit or miss. It would usually take me 2-3 attempts to run the exploit enabling custom firmware. Too bad PSP doesn't have an ADB like tool!

 

[mar11974]

If you want to find out what is where on your phone, just run:

$ cat /proc/mtd
dev:    size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00440000 00020000 "boot"
mtd1: 0be00000 00020000 "system"
mtd2: 00500000 00020000 "recovery"
mtd3: 002c0000 00020000 "lgdrm"
mtd4: 00100000 00020000 "splash"
mtd5: 00180000 00020000 "FOTABIN"
mtd6: 005c0000 00020000 "FOTA"
mtd7: 00040000 00020000 "misc"
mtd8: 04000000 00020000 "cache"
mtd9: 0c780000 00020000 "userdata"

Exactly what mine shows, but mounting mtdblock3 command has always worked for me. WHY???

 

[N00b-un-2]

The only thing I can imagine is that since Android is a variant of Linux, there are both a physical address where data is stored and there also exists a virtual file system. Kind of like how you can access the contents of a mounted disk in Linux at /dev/sdb1 or at /media/your-thumb-drive or /mnt/your-thumb-drive, etc. for example. Perhaps this is not the most apt description of this perceived behavior, but I would venture to guess that I'm not too far off. Maybe the virtual location of the particular block is not necessarily important. It certainly leaves one to wonder

 

[crashff]

Remove file:
rm {filename}
rm AppPack.apk

Replace old version with new version (or make user app a system app):
cat /data/app/{update filename} > /system/app/{original filename}
cat /data/app/com.google.android.maps-1.apk > /system/app/Maps.apk
**remember to use the EXACT same name as shown in the list (Caps make a difference)

I always factory reset after making the changes to clean up.

The problem with this on a T-Mobile Optimus T is that all the JUNK games and apps and stuff already in the system apps directory, which is why they cant be uninstalled normally.

You can download SuperManager from the market for FREE and remove them from the system/app directory as well, instead of payign for Root Explorer.

If you factory restore the phone, they all come back.

There's a fairly large list of apps you can delete from the TMo optimus T. the primary ones I recommend are the games and telenav GPS. Dont forget to delete the ODEX file as well if you remove the apk!

 

[crashff]

Here's a list of all the prinstalled junk I've removed off my Optimus T:

AnalogClockWidget.apk
androidERSEmail.apk
AppPack.apk
BookmarksWidget.apk
Calculator.apk <- Redownload from market for different calc app
CalendarWidget.apk
CarHome.apk
CarHomeLauncher.apk
ClockWeatherWidget.apk
ConnectionManagerWidget.apk
DeskClock.apk
DigitalAlarmWidget.apk
DinerDash.apk
DoodleJump.apk
DriveSmart.apk
DriveSmartHelper.apk
DualClockWidget.apk
Email.apk
Facebook.apk <- Redownload from market for current (removable) app
GenieWidget.apk
Gmail.apk <- Redownload from market for current app
GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk
Maps.apk <- Google Maps, Redownload from market for current app
MemoWidget.apk
MessageWidget.apk
MoviePlayer.apk
Music.apk
PacMan.apk
PhotoWidget.apk
PicoTts.apk
Protips.apk
SelfHelp.apk
SoundRecorder.apk
Street.apk
SwypeTips.apk (left swype, just removed the annoying tips part)
Talk.apk
Telenav.apk
thinkdroid.apk
TtsService.apk
Twitter.apk
VisualizationWallpapers.apk
VisualVoicemail.apk <- Redownload from market for current t-mobile app
VoiceDialer.apk
VoiceSearch.apk
Web2goHome.apk
YouTube.apk <- Redownload from market for current (removable) app

 

[BlackRose 22]

Z4Root is the one I used...all you need to do is go to the market .download 4shared .open it and they should be a link there that would allow you to download the app ..if you want to..now search z4root.apk.the latest version should be on top download it ...turn your phone off after that..back on again. enable debugging..go to the app use what you want there's two option ..you can read no need for me to tell you the two options ..click which one you want. then out runs the process and be alarm if your phone reboots....it needs to ....now if you go back to the app you have a choice of un rooting....if you want..there is a app in the market that will check of you have root access..search ..root checker....oh yea you have a new app called super user....that'd what allows root apps to run.do don't uninstall it ..that goes for z4root to ..also..you can use 4shared to get free apps...just search and there you go..

Sent from my LG-P509 using XDA App