Dell Streak 5: Root Gingerbread Android 2.3.3 ROM

UPDATE 16th Jan 2012: This is not a Gingerbread ROM update tutorial. This is a tutorial to gain root access to already updated Dell Streak 5. Please follow my previous post if you want to update from Froyo to Gingerbread. 

Dell Streak 5: How to Install Official Gingerbread ROM (Android 2.3.3)
http://techienetizen.blogspot.com/2011/12/install-gingerbread-233-on-dell-streak.html

The usual disclaimer: Please read the disclaimer on the footer of this page before you attempt anything based on this post.
 
Requirements:

• You should have your Dell Streak drivers installed on your PC. It's available from Dell support site. http://ftp1.us.dell.com/Handheld/R288920.exe
  
• You need fastboot/ADB toolshttp://mirror2.streakdroid.com/manii/Tools/Fastboot+ADB.zip
  Unzip to a folder; say C:\Fastboot+ADB

• StreakMod recovery:Download the file recovery-v0.3.2.8-beta.zip (3.57 MB)http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=840326
  Unzip and copy ‘recovery.img’  to fastboot tools directory
  (i.e. C:\Fastboot+ADB\Win32\recovery.img)

• Superuser.zip archive from http://mirror2.streakdroid.com/manii/Tools/Superuser.zip
  
• Copy the superuser.zip to Dell Streak SD card and rename it as ‘update.zip’

Process overview:
A) Enter fastboot mode and flash to the streakmod custom recovery
B) Reboot to the streakmod recovery and select ‘update from update.zip’ to select superuser apps. Now your DS should get rooted.

A) Enter fastboot mode and flash to the streakmod custom recovery

• Connect  your DS to PC (You already installed drivers to it) and copy superuser.zip to the DS SD card and rename it as update.zip. (i.e. /sdcard/update.zip)
• Stop USB connection and power down DS (DS is still physically connected to the PC through the cable)
• Press and hold down the camera button and then press the power button. Release the button when you see a white screen
• Select Fast boot mode on the top right on your mobile (DS display will show FASTBOOT_MODE)
• Now it’s time to do some DOS commands from your PC to communicate with DS through the connected USB cable.
• On your PC, navigate to the path where you unzipped the fastboot tools.(C:\Fastboot+ADB). You have already copied the streakmod recovery (C:\Fastboot+ADB\recovery.img) to this folder. (see requirements)
• Press Shift key and from right click menu open a DOS command window on that folder
• Type  'fastboot -i 0x413c flash recovery recovery.img' without the quotes and hit enter. You can see that your DS screen shows the response.(By the way, you can copy paste the commands to the DOS prompt. Right click on DOS command and paste.)
• Type 'fastboot -i 0x413c reboot' without the quotes and hit enter.  

B) Reboot to the streakmod recovery and select ‘update from update.zip’ to select superuser apps.

• On reboot, immediately go in recovery mode (hold both volume buttons while powering on). Don’t let it go to full system boot yet.
• Select option 2: Update from update.pkg on sdcard. Now this would go to be the custom streakmod recovery. (See version number at lower bottom in yellow font. If not, you are not on StreakMod and you can't proceed) Select update.zip and proceed instructions to root
• Now the rooting process will start and finish. You should see the messages. On rebooting, your DS will be rooted. 
• Before rebooting your system again, you may need to do one more thing (optional). read on...

I found later that the official Dell ROM over wrote custom recovery. This post was helpful and you may want to follow that.

Custom Recovery – Prevent Overwriting on Dell Streak
http://www.rdtk.net/2011/06/14/custom-recovery-prevent-overwriting-on-dell-streak/

So before rebooting your system again, I did this one more thing; disabled install-recovery.sh script in /system/etc to prevent recovery overwriting.

You have many ways to do it. But this is the way I did it. 

• Enable USB debugging. (settings>applications>development).  
• Go to the DOS command again (C:\Fastboot+ADB\) and type these commands.

> adb devices
You should see some numbers. This is optional and just to check

> adb shell
Now you entered the remote shell; which is actually running in your DS

$ su
(Command to run as root. A pop up will come on DS screen asking for su permission and you should allow it. Now the prompt will change to #. If you see 'Permission denied", your rooting did not work and you cannot proceed )

# busybox mount -o rw,remount /system
(Mount the system with read-write permission.)

# cd /system/etc
(Change path to the location of the file. If you type ‘ls’ now, you can see a file named ‘install-recovery.sh’. The aim is to disable it by renaming)

# chmod 777 install-recovery.sh
(Change permission for renaming)

# mv install-recovery.sh install-recovery.sh.backup
(Rename the file. Now it’s done)

You may reboot the DS now. But if you want to batch install all the saved app collection back to new ROM, you can do it by a single command. Say, you have 50 apk files stored in /sdcard/backup/apps/

# cd /sdcard/backup/apps/
# for x in *.apk; do pm install -r $x; done

 This will install all the apps one by one. The app file names should not have any space in it.
 
Thanks to the smart guys at XDA forum for guides, how-tos, and for sharing all the required files.Check the forum link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=840326 for more details and discussions.