New droid user in Alaska - Needs advice.

[akguanja]

First of all I would like to say Hello from the AK.

I'm not new to forums in general at all actually a moderator on a couple of other forums but I am new the the DRIOD. I recently (today) purchesed a milestone that will be used on a local (GCI.NET) service provider.

First off im new to cell phones settings/networking in general so im sure im about to lean a whole bunch of information.

Of course being techy and the inability to leave anything technology alone I am on here for the first time reading through articles on rooting/upgrading the ROM to what i believe i want to use is Cyanogen mod but am not 100% done looking through possibilities yet.

i have a few questions to ask of the DRIOD community here.

1. From what I have found Driod2Root seems to be the most used/safest method on a Motorola A854(Milestone) to root the device am I correct?
2. Recovery - What exactly does this do is it like a standard PC backup?
3. Backing up the device before upgrading the ROM to Cyanogen, Do I need to do this and can someone explain what all is backed up and the process of it being restored or maybe point me to a certain post on the forum that can answer this in depth.
4. User Settings/Data settings etc. Will rooting/Installing a different ROM the phone remove any of the settings/data information that is put in by my service provider? I can probably take my phone into my service provider to re-do the settings if i had too but i would prefer not to.
5. Any more information or personal experience for a 'newb' would be greatly appreciated.

- Tre