can someone explain this to me in some detail? bootloader question

[evilsock]

id like to think im pretty savvy with android, hacking , dev stuff. but i am lost on this whole bootloader thing.
how can we have root access, and not be able to swap out a kernal?
i cant find anything that looks like a kernal on any of my explorations through this phone. yet on my droid 1 its so much different.
can someone please break down the bootloader and how it differs from the d1.
maybe even tell me if there is anything else hiding where the kernal is.
thanks a bunch

 

[mx371]

From my understanding, the bootloader checks to make sure that the files being installed on the X are legit from Google, and if not it wont install them. Can anyone confirm/elaborate a bit?

 

[evilsock]

theres ways to trick it, but i cant even find the kernal at all

 

[Eschy]

we cant access the boot.img yet, this is where the kernel is located. None of the system dumps have it because it is separate from the /system files. If you look at a zip file from a custom rom they have the boot.img in there but because the bootloader is locked there is no access to this file. Correct me if im wrong but this is what i have gathered from this whole thing.

 

[ultima]

im a little lost on this too...is kernel flashing the only thing D1 does that D2 cant?

 

[Redflea]

im a little lost on this too...is kernel flashing the only thing D1 does that D2 cant?

That's correct...we have root and custom recovery, but no kernel access yet.

All we can't do is flash a custom kernel to allow overclocking. Given we have a 1GHz CPU, not a biggie for me....

 

[czerdrill]

im a little lost on this too...is kernel flashing the only thing D1 does that D2 cant?

That's correct...we have root and custom recovery, but no kernel access yet.

All we can't do is flash a custom kernel to allow overclocking. Given we have a 1GHz CPU, not a biggie for me....

Not exactly. With a locked bootloader you are limited to whatever kernel motorola wants to give you. So if verizon decides to end support for the x and motorola releases no new kernels development for the x ends. In other words If motorola doesn't release a gingerbread kernel for example you're stuck on froyo forever. The d1 you can put gingerbread on regardless of whether motorola releases it or not by building it from source. So right now it may not matter but the x won't have a great a shelf life as say the g1 which is still being developed for.

Also it'll suck waiting for motorola to release gingerbread when d1 owners will be running it months in advance kind of like how you have to wait for froyo right now if you didn't install the leak (also from motorola).

Locked bootloaders suck is the underlying theme lol