Ah, root. It’s a sort of coming-of-age test for an Android device, in that brief (and sometimes nonexistent) gap between a phone’s retail release and the point at which the modder community beats it into software submission. The time has come for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, the mild refresh to one of the most successful 10-inch Android tablets out there. Thanks to the folks at XDA, you can now get both root permissions and a custom recovery on your shiny new tablet.

Like many of Samsung’s devices, this exploit comes through the proprietary Odin desktop flashing software. It’s pretty straightforward as far as rooting goes: turn off your tablet, reboot into download mode, connect it to a Windows PC (proper drivers are necessary) and flash the ClockworkMod recovery image and the Superuser files. Reboot into recovery, flash a small ZIP, and you’re done.

There are no custom ROMs available just yet, but they’ll be coming soon for sure. And since the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 did so well on the modder circuit (indeed, continues to do well) I’m sure there will be plenty of clean and TouchWiz ROMs available in the coming weeks. Unlike certain other companies I could name, Samsung releases source code in a timely manner and doesn’t present barriers to those who want to run alternative software on the hardware that they own.

[device id=2388] [via Liliputing]