Ever since Android 4.3 was launched with SELinux incorporated, a conversation began on the internet about root and whether it was still necessary or not. I tried every possible combination, stock Android with and without root and CyanogenMOD which comes pre-rooted. I found out that I can live perfectly in any of those scenarios, even without root although I do miss some things, I’m a bit of a tinkerer when it comes to personalizing my phone. However, many people can’t live without root to fulfill all of their tinkering and developer needs. If that sounds like you, then you’re in luck, root access is already available for the newly announced Nexus 5.
Of course it had to be Chainfire the one to root the Nexus 5 first. Yes, less than 24 hours after it was launched the Nexus 5 already has root access. As Chainfire said on his Google+ post, he was able to achieve this within 10 minutes of him receiving the phone in the mail. I guess this means that Android 4.4 KitKat wasn’t that much of a problem like Android 4.3 was. Android 4.3 introduced a whole new set of security measures that made rooting really difficult, evidently, KitKat works on the same base and all the work done by Chainfire already works perfectly.
The process is very simple thanks to the CF-Auto-Root which is designed for beginners.
Here’s the instruction set directly from the XDA post:
- Download the ZIP file
- Extract the ZIP file
- Boot your device in bootloader/fastboot mode. Usually this can be done by turning your device off, then holding VolUp+VolDown+Power to turn it on.
- Connect your device to your computer using USB
- Windows:
- Run root-windows.bat
- Linux
- chmod +x root-linux.sh
- Run root-linux.sh
- Mac OS X
- chmod +x root-mac.sh
- Run root-mac.sh
I won’t link to any files here because this is so new that they might change soon so go ahead and grab them from this link to the original XDA thread by Chainfire. After you complete the process you’ll see the SuperSU app on your drawer and that’s it, you’re done.
Don’t forget that your bootloader has to be unlocked in order to do this, if it’s not already, you’ll have to unlock it and it will wipe your data. As always, don’t forget to backup just in case something goes wrong and happy rooting!