Easily Root a MetroPCS LG LGMS769 Optimus L9 phone

I upgraded to an LG LGMS769 Optimus L9 phone (also called P769 in forums) yesterday and the first thing I wanted to do was root it.

I actually thought about this and, really, there is often not a need for my phone to be rooted. But still, its just the principle of having full control over the devices I own which is so important to me.

This also gave me a chance to reflect on the balance between companies wanting to make good products for their customers vs. companies wanting to exploit or manipulate their customers, to force things on them, invade their privacy, manipulate them, etc. Companies which pull that kind of BS cause a lot of damage because they destroy people’s ability to trust any company and make people suspect everything.

Yes, we live in a capitalistic society (supposedly, but from what I know that’s actually complete bullshit because its far from a fair playing field) but then where is the line drawn? At what point do people stand up and say “This is bullshit. We do not accept this.”?

On the one hand, everything with technology is new and people are trying to work out paradigms which will be successful and sustainable. On the other hand, there are actually a lot of grubby, disgusting motherfuckers that just want to make money and don’t give a shit. Then there are also a lot of people who are kind of like Nazi collaborators, people who occupy a grey area in between the extremes who frequently will engage in acts which betray and fuckover people, but then will cross back across the line and try to be good.

Getting a new phone with the factory image on it and using it and setting it up for the first time makes me think of all this. As I said, its really sad how people cannot trust companies anymore and just basically have to assume that everything is shit because that’s just the way it is.

But actually I thought that this LG phone seems pretty reasonable. While I may not use a music service like Rhapsody, there are people who will get a phone and want to be able to download music and probably not have a clue about how to do that. The company is providing them with a way to listen to and purchase music.

There are other apps pre-installed which are similar which I will probably not use but which I can definitely see how the company would want to provide the features to customers.

I have to realize that not everyone is like me. Not everyone can whiz through this stuff and know all these things. Somehow there has to be a way for everyone to be happy, for companies to be able to make customers happy but do so with integrity.

There are also what I believe are some very deep problems because of very fucked up paradigms which are currently dominant but which must be completely overthrown for the sake of the future. Companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and others are definitely on the wrong side. They are trying to capitalize of “niches” which are really things which should be open, free standards. People should be in the mode of paying for service – like a fee to a hosting company for their connection – but using open protocols to conduct information logos – that is, the creation, transmission, archival, etc. of information.

The way it is now, there are all these companies offering “free” services and the actual reality is that things are far from free. They are very fucked up.

Also, perhaps the most significant wrong is that of the content providers and carriers – from cable companies to broadcast network companies to mobile phone companies. All these companies are fucked and we, the public, should own the airwaves and communication infrastructure which our money has paid for dearly many times over.

I was going to write a post about rooting the MetroPCS Optimus L9. It actually turned out to be really, really easy. There is a company called Mgyun and they have an app called Vroot. This app claims to be able to root 8,000 different Android devices. All I did was install it and connect my phone and that was pretty much it!

After it rooted my phone I immediately went to Play Store and installed SuperSU. When SuperSU runs for the first time it will detect that there is already another root app on the phone and will ask to disable it which I did.

I then went into Titanium Backup Pro – pretty much the first app I install on any new device – and, at the very end of the list of apps under the Backup/Restore tab there’s an app with Chinese characters which I first made a backup of and then uninstalled.

That was it. Phone rooted!