[sclug] Android ROMs

[Derek M Jones]

David,

> Some people last night expressed an interest in installing a non-vendor
> ROM on Android phones...
>
> These guys produce superb ROMs, complete with root access and lots of
> nice features that the vendor ROMs don't have:
>
> http://www.cyanogenmod.com/

That looks interesting.

The xda forum is a good place to find this sort of stuff:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/

I have rooted my phone but not got around to installing a
new ROM yet:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=773997

>
> The documentation's a bit messy and scattered throughout a wiki, but the
> executive summary is:
>
> Back up your device:
>
> - enable development mode
> - plug into PC
> - use 'adb shell' on the PC to log into the phone
> - use dd on the phone to back up all your partitions
>
> Upgrade recovery partition, if you haven't done it already:
>
> - boot phone into FASTBOOT mode by powering on by certain keys pressed
> (varies per device)
> - plug into PC
> - use 'fastboot' on the PC to write a new recovery partition (normally
> ClockworkMod) onto the phone
>
> Install new system ROM:
>
> - copy ROM image onto SD card
> - boot phone into recovery partition by powering on by certain different
> keys pressed (varies per device)
> - pick 'install ROM' from the menu on the screen
>
> Here, for example, are the instructions for the HTC Desire:
>
>    http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/HTC_Desire_(GSM):_Full_Update_Guide
>
> Life is a bit trickier on the Desire because you have to break HTC's
> boot loader locks (trivially easy), but it's the same process.
>
>
> If your phone is already rooted, then there's a tool on the market (ROM
> Manager) that will automate all this for you; rooting the phone is
> trivial but fiddly. The SuperOneClick tool is a Windows app that does it
> for you:
>
>    http://shortfuse.org/?page_id=2
>
> Conveniently, the tool also contains the Linux stuff you need to do it
> manually. But using fastboot is so easy I normally don't bother. (And of
> course once you've installed Cyanogen you get root access.)
>

-- 
Derek M. Jones                         tel: +44 (0) 1252 520 667
Knowledge Software Ltd                 mailto:derek at knosof.co.uk
Source code analysis                   http://www.knosof.co.uk