Rooting my Archos 101 with Urukdroid 1.5

"Storage Space is critically low"
A strange problem manifested itself in November. For some strange reason, the free System Storage Space on my Archos 101 tablet kept going down and down and down. For several months, I had it hovering around the 30 MB threshold (the moment free System Storage Space drops below 30 MB, the Archos will display an annoying message in the notification bar that "storage space is critically low" - one that irks me to no end). Previously, I had danced around this problem by deleting web browser caches, clearing cache data, and even uninstalling apps. But this time, all this tricks were to no avail. Even when I had uninstalled practically all miscellaneous apps, leaving only the absolutely critical ones that I needed on my tablet to serve as an e-reader, the free System Storage Space just kept dropping and dropping and dropping...

And then on 25 November, the free System Storage Space dropped to 0 MB. No program could be launched in this state. I had to reboot the device to free up some System Storage Space so that I could use the device.

I knew then that I had no choice. I would have to reformat my Archos, or alternatively, "root" it.


Rooting
If I were to reformat the tablet with the original Archos firmware, I knew that I would encounter the low System Storage Space problem sooner or later. Due to a poor design decision on Archos part, they have actually partitioned the Archos 101 with a meagre 300 MB of space for System Storage out of the 8 GB of storage available. A more rational design would have been to allocate at least 1 GB or more for the System Storage partition. Thus, reformatting the device with Archos firmware was not on my radar. I needed to go with the more dangerous fix of "rooting" my Archos tablet.

I am not a fan of "rooting". I think consumers should not have to do such technical gymnastics on an appliance - which is what I consider the Archos tablet to be - for the appliance to perform satisfactorily and to work reasonably. I am adept enough to follow technical instructions carefully to carry out this operation on the tablet. I am sure most common folks, who are even less technically knowledgeable than me, may not even attempt "rooting". They are more likely to just junk the device, and buy something more friendly like the iPad. Besides, every one knows that Android is much harder to use than the consumer-friendly iPad. It has often been remarked that Android tablets (and Linux systems) often require rocket-science expertise to use the damn things properly.

On the Archos forums, Urukdroid 1.5 is very favorably reviewed as the best package for rooting the Archos 101. After reading all the materials I could lay my hands on about installing Urukdroid, I took the plunge on the night of 25 November (a Friday) and proceeded to root my Archos.

I was very pleased that I was outright successful on my very first attempt. When I checked on the Settings > Storage page, my jaw dropped on seeing that Urukdroid provided a massive 700 MB of free System Storage Space!

Even today, two weeks later, I still have
554 MB of free System Storage Space
after installing a whole bunch of apps
and live wall papers into my "rooted" Archos.

Gotchas
However, I suddenly realised that the multimedia content on my 16GB MicroSD card had been entirely erased (I had backup my SD card, so it was alright). For some reason, Urukdroid was installed on my MicroSD card, and not on the internal 8 GB storage space of the Archos.

I thought I had made a mistake. I didn't want to install Urukdroid on the external MicroSD card. I wanted to install Urukdroid on the internal 8 GB space, so that I have the flexibility of swapping out different SD cards.

I removed the external MicroSD card from the tablet, and repeated the Urukdroid installation. Unfortunately, I was not mistaken. The Urukdroid installation process - I chose the "Easy Installation" mode - insisted on my inserting a MicroSD card into the MicroSD card slot. Urukdroid 1.5 - if you choose "Easy Installation" - can only be installed on the external MicroSD card.

I believe it should be possible to install the operating system on the internal storage space if I had chosen to go with "manual/advanced installation". However, I am no Linux expert, and I wasn't brave enough to venture down that route. I rationalised to myself: "Hey, I didn't brick the tablet. It is working fine, and I now have a whopping 700 MB of free System Storage Space to install apps. Don't press your luck!!!!"

And that's the extent of my experience with "rooting" my Archos.


Freedom
With so much free System Storage Space, I need no longer restrict myself with installing just the critical apps that I had been putting myself up with over the past few weeks. I installed lots and lots and lots of apps - far more than I could with the original Archos firmware. Without having to worry about the nagging "Storage space is critically low" message, the apps-loaded tablet felt all anew - as if it was a brand new purchase and not one-year old equipment! The happiness I felt was exhilarating.

Now that I could afford to, I also re-downloaded lots and lots of Live Wallpapers. I am currently using the one called "Sun Rise Free Live Wallpaper" as my default wallpaper.

Adobe Flash 11.1 can finally be installed.

I can now install Google+ and Facebook and Skype without issues.

I also realised that with so much System Storage Space, there was no longer any need for me to move apps from "System Storage" to "Internal Memory". I had to do this previously under the Archos firmware because of its limitations, and I was peeved that apps like Adobe Flash or the Google Pinyin IME could only be installed in "System Storage" and could not be moved to "Internal Memory". These issues are now non-events. Also, because I now left the apps in "System Storage", I could also install widgets that invoke these apps (like the Go Weather widget and the News Republic widget). Widgets can only be added to the home screen if the associated app is installed on "System Storage". This was a no-no previously. What was once impossible has now become practicable.


Limitations
However, despite the great increase of System Storage Space and the new freedom this afforded with regard to the number of apps that I can now install without impunity, the Archos 101 is still saddled by its scrawny 256 MB of RAM.

Whenever the system runs low on memory, the resource-heavy Sun Rise Live Wallpaper will suddenly disappear and be replaced by the less resource hungry Grass Live Wallpaper.

Pulse Reader will suddenly restart itself whenever it encounters a low memory condition.

And low memory causes Live Wallpapers to behave sluggishly. The User Interface is non responsive to finger swipes if the Live Wallpaper is busily animating lots of movement.

Yes, "rooting" has resolved my big bug-bear problem of low System Storage Space. However, it doesn't resolve the other hardware limitation of too little RAM. 256 MB of RAM is really not sufficient for a tablet.

(I think 1 GB of RAM would have been ideal.)

But that can wait till the purchase of a new tablet with the hardware firepower to run Android 4.0 smoothly. For the moment, I am very glad that I got my Archos tablet working again, souped up tremendously no less, thanks to Urukdroid 1.5.


Urukdroid Installation Links
1. To install Urukdroid, it is first necessary to install the Special Developer Edition firmware from Archos. See this post.

2. Instructions for installing Urukdroid. Although the documentation is for Urukdroid 0.7, the EasyInstall instructions are still applicable to Urukdroid 1.5. Link

3. Description of Urukdroid 1.5. Link