Sunday, June 07, 2009

G-1 Root and Tether: Help

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my online exchanges with T-Mobile support imply that T-Mobile does not object to my tethering my G-1, although they don't support it. I'm not sure if that's really the corporate view of the matter, but having been told so by two levels of their tech support I think I am entitled to try it.

So I did. The first step is to get root access, taking advantage of a bug in the original version of the OS. I successfully downgraded my OS to the original version (CR29), and I believe I got root access--at least, the attention symbol in the Terminal window is # rather than $.

I have been unable, however, either to make Android-WiFi-Tether work under CR29 or to install the upgrade that is supposed to take the OS back up to a more recent version while preserving root access.

Is there any kind soul among my readers with suitable expertise who would like to advise?

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I used a program by June Fabrics, Inc., called PdaNet, to tether my G1 without having to 'root' it. It does have a few interesting limitations (I can't seem to get it to work with FileZilla for FTP transfers), but overall, the current (free) version is reasonably stable and useful. I never heard of June Fabrics before I learned about PdaNet, and the first few revisions of PdaNet had numerous problems, but they have done a good job of fixing the problems. Maybe the FTP access is going to be a feature of a future paid version(?), but I did not see a lot of information on what sorts of things they plan for future version of PdaNet on the website.

For (a small amount of) information on PdaNet, see http://www.junefabrics.com/android/index.php

Anonymous said...

I use PDAnet also with no problems.

GregSJ said...

While I have no experience with the G1, the forums over at XDA have been very helpful for me and my WinMo phone. They appear to have a very active G1 forum: http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=446

Kim Mosley said...

The new iphone, announced today, has tether capability. Maybe you should leave the other world and return to Apple?

David Friedman said...

1. Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I eventually got the WiFi version to work. I may want to install PDA net as a backup in case more problems arise.

2. I haven't so far found anything from apple saying that the new iPhone can tether--am I missing it somewhere?

Andrew said...

The new iPhone officially supports tethering but AT&T (the only official provider currently) does not yet have a plan that supports tethering.

I use tethering all the time on my blackberry (sprint), but that's because the phone is nearly unusable for anything but email.

David Friedman said...

One minor detail ... . PDAnet is for Windows machines only. I've installed it on my netbook, but it's no use on my MacBook unless I choose to run Windows on it.