Motorola XOOM Rooted

xoomroot

Since it’s another Google experience device, and ships with fastboot support (albeit, limited), it really does come rooted out of the box. Just needed to figure out the board kernel base, and compile up a new kernel.

Unfortunately the kernel was not available in the Android repositories. At first, I tried using the Harmony kernel, since they are both tegra 2 250 chips. That turned out to be major fail. As soon as I was about to give up, I noticed that AOSP had updated their tegra kernel repository with some new tasty branches for stingray. Kudos to these guys for being so on the ball! I was able to compile that up and get a working recovery to obtain root, and then get Superuser on the device.

I also built up a recovery, but due to a nonfunctional SD card slot (until they release a firmware update that enables the slot), nothing really works. That will come later.

Here are the instructions to root your device (this assumes you have adb and fastboot installed on your computer):

  1. # Download the XOOM root zip.
  2. # Unzip the package.
  3. # Put your junk in the box.
  4. adb reboot bootloader (skip the next 3 steps if you have already unlocked via fastboot)
  5. fastboot oem unlock
  6. # wait for reboot
  7. adb reboot bootloader
  8. fastboot flash boot rootboot.img
  9. fastboot reboot
  10. # wait for reboot
  11. adb remount
  12. adb push su /system/bin/
  13. adb shell ln –s /system/bin/su /system/xbin/su
  14. adb shell chmod 4755 /system/bin/su
  15. adb push Superuser.apk /system/app/

Yep, that should do it.

As I mentioned, I have a working recovery, but will not be releasing it until Google or I get the SD card working.

ROM Manager support will come as soon as that happens. But feel free to buy a Premium copy in advance. Winking smile

And hit me up on Twitter @koush!

PS. Stock boot image for XOOM.

35 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is awesome!

coggy9 said...

Limited fastboot? Don't have a xoom yet,mind explaining a bit more? Perhaps in a new post so your response won't get lost?

J said...

Jesus christ. Koush, you're nuts.

NH V-rodder said...

You are the man Koush.

t.crawford714 said...

DAAAYYYYUUUUMMM Koush, you are the man!!!

Unknown said...

Koush for president!!

Unknown said...

I think the real question is once the bootloader is unlocked and system rooted, will unrooting and re-locking the bootloader be detected by motorola when sending it in for the 4glte upgrade???

Rich said...

awesome.

I ran into some trouble on the step that creates the symlink, so I just copied su to xbin outright.

is this bad?

Aside from that, it went mostly without a hitch.

http://studentsites.expression.edu/~rericksen/rooted_xoom.jpg

hooray! <3

Anonymous said...

I actually did the same thing. Pushed SU into both the folders, as i couldn't get it to link.

Anonymous said...

Sorry I am total n00b, what does it mean by rooted, and why would you want to do this?

Thanks,

Tech interested noob, willing2learn

UnixSA said...

Nice!!! Now can you do something about the price? hehehehe.



P.S. Who else caught the Lonely Island reference :D

Eric Richardson said...

Koush. I think I love you br0.

Anonymous said...

Posting this from my xoom now. Koush you sir are amazing and deserve a very big cookie for this.

Unknown said...

i followed all the instructions as this is usually a cake walk to me and when i get to oem unlock and then select volume up i get "device unlock aborted." Any idea what i did wrong?

HarshReality said...

Got to be some form of record for getting this one.

Rich said...

je2345:

By default, the selection is set to "cancel" so you're hitting "OK, CANCEL" by hitting vol up. You need to hit Vol Down once to change your choice to "ACCEPT" then hit vol up to do it.

Unknown said...

Koush; YOU ROCK!!

Johnny Ray said...

worked like a charm!

Patrick L. said...

Is the process for relocking the bootloader as simple as this: Fastboot boot stockboot.img, then after that fastboot oem lock. Obviously other steps are involved in between just making sure about flashing the stockboot image.

Daen said...

Thank you, works a treat!

Prices India said...

nice blog..
Price India

Anonymous said...

Now all we have to do is make it do phone calls. :)

Unknown said...

Total awesomeness. Followed every step and got this done in 5 min. Thanks man!

Unknown said...

What is this jailbreak good for?? I am planning to buy a Xoom this weekend. Can i theme and mod the xoom just like the iphone??

Anonymous said...

Hey everyone apologies if this sounds stupid but trying to enter bootloader pressing vol down and power I get fastboot protocol support with red M logo but it is stuck there. I'm lost haha. Thanks in advance for you're guys/gals help

Stan

Anonymous said...

you forgot "Make her open the box" lol

james said...

Hi all, I have successfully rooted my Xoom here in Australia. I was under the impression that it would hence be unlocked for use with another phone network however have been unable to connect to 3G internet services. What am I doing wrong? Thanks, James

Anonymous said...

have you played with Acer A500 yet ? will xoom hack work on A500 ?

Unknown said...

I just got an Iconia A500. Since the hardware is pretty much the same as Xoom, would your img file also work on the A500?

Anonymous said...

cannot even boot to bootloader using:
fastboot reboot bootloader

tablet reboots without indication of "support for fastboot"

Anonymous said...

There's an app written by some kid that is absolutely amazing for rooting the motorola droids; I believe it is called Zroot.apk

Mago said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Looking forward to being able to have a rom on my Xoom! I love having CM on my droid 1. :) You rock Koush!!!! Thank you for all the hard work, oh and Rom Manager 4 is sweet!

Unknown said...

download link doesn't appear to work, is there anywhere else i can get the download.

Cheers

olsofty said...

download link is broken need another please