I’ve written this blog post about moving from rooted Samsung to a Pixel running GrapheneOS. It’s a list of every root tool that I used, with a note on whether I’ll miss it. I wrote it as a checklist for myself initially, and decided to add links and more comments and publish it. Turns out I don’t really need root, which truly surprised me.
Do you have any apps or tools that hold you back from leaving root?
But you have to compile it again on every update, right?
You don’t have to compile GrapheneOS from source thanks to avbroot which can take a release zip, patch it with root and sign it using a custom avb key. This lets you root while keeping the bootloader locked.
The rooted-graphene project automates this completely using GitHub actions. It even lets you do OTA updates like normal GrapheneOS.
Wait, what? That’s a pretty big deal!
It should be noted that while you can do this, it can increase your attack surface, defeating a lot of the point of Graphene. Before I started using Graphene, I was a huge fan of rooting and getting full control of my device, so I definitely understand the appeal. But I don’t think I would root Graphene myself, automated or otherwise.