Rooting and Tethering the A500 and a Garminfone

[greg]

I've been somewhat afraid of rooting my phone. I didn't really have a reason to do it until I bought the Acer A500 tablet. The Garminfone would USB tether with my laptop just fine using the stock Android Internet Sharing setup. The 3.0.1 version of Android that is on the tablet, however, doesn't support using the USB port that way, so I needed to come up with another solution. After reading three million posts on the web, I concluded rooting both devices was going to be my best bet. Here's what I did to get Wifi tethering going between the two:

1. Download Gingerbreak-v1.20.apk for the Acer from here.
2. Follow the instructions from the same page. I'll repeat them here:

• make sure usb debugging is turned on and unknown sources is selected
  
• have a micro sd card inserted and turn the tablet on portrait and lock it with the switch to fix it in portrait
  
• download and execute the attached apk. (i had to download from my comp and transfer to the tablet for it to work)
  
• once the apk is installed run the root procedure within the app which was installed
  
• wait and you will receive full root access

3. Downloaded and installed Root Explorer using QR Code from this page.
4. Set up the A500 to see and link with Ad-Hoc Wifi devices. It is blind to them out of the box.

• Downloaded the replacement wpa_supplicant bin from here.
  
• After unzipping the contents of the .zip file, I performed these steps:

- use Root Explorer to navigate to the /system/bin folder
- make sure you have rw (read/write) access (mounted rw, not ro)
- rename the existing wpa_supplicant file to wpa_supplicant.old
- copy the new wpa_supplicant to the /system/bin folder
- long-press and change the permissions of the new file to 755. Owner rwx, group r x, others r x.
- exit and reboot the A500.

Now we turn our attention to the much-maligned Garminfone. I'm running the updated OS (2.1).
[Note these things only apply to the phone]

1. Download z4root.1.3.0.apk from here.
2. Copy it to the phone if you didn't use the phone to download it.
3. Run the .apk file to install it. (I used Ghost Commander to find and select it, but it really doesn't matter what file manager you use, I think.)
4. I selected Permanent Root from the two options. I don't know why I wouldn't.
5. After the phone rebooted I installed Root Explorer on it, too.
6. Next, I installed Open Garden Wifi Tether WAP Mesh Client. Get the QR Code by pressing the big green Install button.
7. Set up the app the way you want it, WEP security is available, but turned off by default.

Make sure your Wifi on the phone is turned off before you try to actually use Open Garden.

You may need to reboot again before it works right.

If all went well, you should see your phone's SSID (that you configured) as a Wifi device on the A500.

Who knows how long this will work. All I know is it feels good to have things set up in a way that is useful to me. After all, that's why I paid the money for the hardware, and it's why I pay for the services. I don't think it's too much to ask.

(Obviously all I've done is used information that other people have discovered and uncovered. Thanks to all the freakin' geniuses out there!)

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[bignasty407]

gingerbreak works on froyo devices aswell just a heads up! thank you for the post and instructions. will be needing this very soon

[greg]

Good luck! Let me know how it goes. :-)

[teaMJPx]

Dont forget you MUST BE IN PORTRAIT MODE on the ACER A500 or it WILL force close!!! jejeje

[Garemlin]

Dont forget you MUST BE IN PORTRAIT MODE on the ACER A500 or it WILL force close!!! jejeje

Yeah I was cussing up a storm when I tried to unroot because I forgot to lock it in portrait mode. Definitely a doh' moment.

[micheleacudoc]

uh oh, I have rooted my Acer 500 just fine, but screwed up during the replacing wpa_supplicant part. I left out the . before old. Now, the old version is gone. And it didn't work. Now I have no internet access! Anyone have any idea how I can find the old file to start over. Help

[micheleacudoc]

Question: was open garden installed on the phone or the acer tablet or both??

[greg]

Question: was open garden installed on the phone or the acer tablet or both??

Just the phone.

[sele]

uh oh, I have rooted my Acer 500 just fine, but screwed up during the replacing wpa_supplicant part. I left out the . before old. Now, the old version is gone. And it didn't work. Now I have no internet access! Anyone have any idea how I can find the old file to start over. Help

If you still need it I can put mine in my dropbox tomorrow, just pm me. You may want to try the downloaded one though because it worked like a charm on mine. I'm now able to use barnacle.

Also make sure permissions are set correctly. Make sure file system is r/w long press file, choose permission, check all boxes in first 2 columns and first 2 boxes in 3rd column, press ok. - oh and WiFi has to be turned off while replacing file and setting permissions.
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

[greg]

If you still need it I can put mine in my dropbox tomorrow, just pm me. You may want to try the downloaded one though because it worked like a charm on mine. I'm now able to use barnacle.

Also make sure permissions are set correctly. Make sure file system is r/w long press file, choose permission, check all boxes in first 2 columns and first 2 boxes in 3rd column, press ok. - oh and WiFi has to be turned off while replacing file and setting permissions.
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

I was going to mention permissions. Thanks.

g