Rooting My HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1

So I lasted a week (barely)....steps to reroot my G1 below. These steps are taken from a multitude of sights, see list of references at end.

1. Make sure SD Card is format Fat32, if not, reformat to Fat32 (note you will loose everything on the SD Card)

2. Downgrade to RC29 (Running Cupcake 1.5, at the start of this process I was running the latest official Donut ROM from T-Mobile)

• Download the file DREAIMG-RC29.zip 
• Unzip the file DREAIMG.nbh and copy it to your SD card home directory,
• Power off your phone first and then hold down the camera button while powering it back on.
• When prompted, press the power button to begin the downgrade. Wait for it to finish and display the rainbow screen. Press Talk+Menu+Power to reboot your phone (or just pop your battery out once the downgrade has finished)

3. Upgrade to Android 1.5 CRC1

• Download the files signed-kila-ota-148830.de6a94ca.zip and signed-kila-CRC1-from-CRB43-FIX.7ca4a1d7.zip
• Rename the first file to update.zip
• Reboot your phone into recovery mode. Power off the phone first and then hold down the Home key while powering it back on.
• flash update
• The recovery mode is finished loading when you see the ! mark inside the triangle.
• Press Alt+L  to display the list of options.
• Press Alt+S to flash the file update.zip.
• Rename the second file to update.zip
• Reboot your phone into recovery mode. Power off the phone first and then hold down the Home key while powering it back on.
• flash update
• The recovery mode is finished loading when you see the ! mark inside the triangle.
• Press Alt+L  to display the list of options.
• Press Alt+S to flash the file update.zip.

4. (optional) at this point you have the option of going through the entire setup process or just skipping it and installing flashrec. You do need to 'Sign In' but that is all you need to do at this time, since when you install a rooted image, you will wipe your system.

5. root using flashrec
you should now be running 1.5 CRC1 next step download and install flashrec.apk found at Zen Thought or RyeBlog

• under "System Settings" "Application Setting" check "Unknown Sources"
• using favorite FileManager install 
• open "recovery flasher" application
• press "Backup Recovery Image"
• when complete press "Flash Cyanogen Recovery 1.4"

From this point you can install any rooted rom of choice. My choice for this 'experiment' Enomther's 'official' T-Mobile ROM. I've used Cyanogen and Super-D in the past, and before going back to the unrooted ROM I was running OpenEclair. I decided to go with Enomther's since it is basically the same as the official with the added benefits of ROOT and such. I may eventually go back to Cyanogen, but for now and the rest of the month, Enomther it is.

6. Download desired ROM and flash.

I personally prefer Amon_RA's or ClockworkMod so while installing a recovery image is not rocket science Clockwork's ROM Mananger App makes it even simpler.  Using ROM Manager I installed Amon_RA's latest.

Reference Links (no order):

• http://androidandme.com/2009/08/news/how-to-root-a-t-mobile-g1-and-mytouch-3g-android-phone/
• http://androidandme.com/2009/10/beginners/guides/how-to-manually-install-the-official-t-mobile-android-1-6-on-your-g1/
• http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=538456
• http://theunlockr.com/2009/10/15/how-to-root-a-donut-phone-android-1-6/
• http://theunlockr.com/2009/07/05/how-to-unroot-your-t-mobile-g1/

Unrooting my Android based T-Mobile G1

So if you know me or have been following this blog one of my favorite hobbies is messing with my Android G1. I purchased the phone the day it was announced and had it in hand before it was in stores. And shortly after Google and T-Mobile decided to lock us out of root access... I rooted by phone with JesusFreke's Mod and then Cyanogen's.... anyways over the last month or so I've been playing with lots of different ROMS.I've tried the SuperROMS, KingKlick's, Enomther's, and OpenEclair. So after all that my phone is a bit 'fragged' (not technically, but emotionally) when I went to return to Cyanogen's latest ROM...nothing seemed to work. So I decided to give the standard unrooted version a shot for a week.

First task unroot phone. Thanks to AndroidandMe.com and this howto:
http://androidandme.com/2009/10/beginners/guides/how-to-manually-install-the-official-t-mobile-android-1-6-on-your-g1/
A few updates later... I was running the official T-Mobile G1 version of Android 1.6.

Next step reload all the software and enjoy.

So that has been the hard part.While the experience has been smooth, the 'lost' features are getting hard to be without. So what I miss...

• Apps2SD: The T-Mobile G1 is pretty limited when it comes to space for applications, without this mod I have to really think about which apps I want and need.
• wired tethering: while I haven't really needed it since I unrooted, but I know I will.
• backlight control: this is really not a problem for most G1's but the keyboard on the Bronze G1 (the one I have) can be difficult to read in the light when the backlight is on. With root and 'Backlight Off' this problem is solved.
• more than 3 screens: while really this is not a big issue, it just sometimes helps to have more screen real-estate.

Now some other comments:

• Feels a bit slower than the modded ROMS... but that makes sense since most of ROMS also include some sort of overclocking and efficiency improvements.
• Market has a tab for 'T-Mobile Picks'
• In terms of force closes... they seem to be about the same, which leads me to believe that the issues are related to the apps themselves and not the OS.
• battery life seems to be slightly worse... but then again I may have used my phone a bit more today.

So overall after only 2 days experience with the same version of Android that the bulk of users I can see why everyone hasn't rooted their phones.... The experience is simple and smooth. This all said I don't think I'll make it a week.

update: 5 days and I'm done...I'm tired of having to uninstall apps since their isn't enough room on the internal memory...now to decide between Cyanogen or Super-D (sticking with 1.6, I'll wait on Eclair till they get proper drivers)

OpenEclair on my G1 and liking it!

So Eclair (Android 2.0) has been out for some time now, but unfortunately not for the G1. There are a number of roms out there that attempt to port eclair to the G1. I initially selected WG-OpenEclair, but it has bluetooth issues so I upgraded to the OpenEclair-DietEclair rom.... which unfortunately also has bluetooth issues with 1.2.2 which are fixed but won't be release till 1.2.3. So currently I'm reading and learning how to compile my own rom so that I can always see the latest and greatest benefits from OpenEclair. So anyways some notes on OpenEclair:

• initally felt quick, but many apps occasionally start with a slight delay, still quick though
• video camera fails (known issue when I started)
• metamorph fails (I don't use it, so I really don't care)
• live background kick ass (but don't know it they are necessary)
• sound issues with media audio (phone and speakerphone okay, possibly a hardware issue on my end)
• video playback issue including youtube and the weather channel (but also a known issue)
• bluetooth doesn't work (also known issue and has been fixed and will be release with next version)
• reboot to recovery, nice (most roms will schedule a reboot by holding the power button, this one also provides access to reboot to the recovery system, really a nice touch in my mind and should be in all roms)

So overall I'm very happy with OpenEclair. I was skeptical initially since I knew there were suppose to be hardware issues (I don't know what  the driver status is from HTC), but the community has done some seriously good work. Like I said above I'm learning the ropes to build my own rom so hopefully in the near future I will be a helping part of that community. While I wait for the next update, I'll probably give Kingklick92's Espresso Rom a try. I also want to go back and give the latest Super-D [1.9.4] release a try when it is ready, but not sure if I'll like if after playing with Eclair.

ps: don't expect me to start producing roms for mass distribution... really I only will building roms in an attempt to help solve bugs associated with the G1.

WG-OpenEclair

So I installed @wesgarner's OpenEclair rom based on ASOP1.6 tonight... while I can't really comment on its performance, I didn't want to comment on the process. Since I've been flashing my G1 regularly to try new roms I'm getting pretty quick at it, but this was by far the fasttest....

process:

1. download update.zip (http://db.androidspin.com/android_developer_display.asp?developerid=63)
2. preform full backup of data and apps with MyBackupPro (or other).
3. reboot into recovery (I use Amon_Ra's) and perform complete nandroid+ext backup (always good to have a full backup with Nandroid to return your device to its previous state).
4. preform the various wipes: sd:ext, dalvik-cache, data/factory 
5. flash [any] zip from SD
6. wait.......watch with 'adb logcat' if you have adb installed and are curious.

well that is the installation process....

some timing notes:

• started flash at: 10:24pm
• rebooted at 10:28pm
• g1 splash screen over at 10:29pm (now on 'android' screen)
• installation done: 10:30pm
• setup complete: 10:33pm
• initial sync complete: 10:38pm (i have lots of stuff)
• phone rebooted: 10:41pm (habit)
• reboot complete: 10:42pm (quick)

I had all my apps reinstalled and data restored by: 11:15 (thanks to MyBackupPro)


Some other quick comments:

• the system wicked quick, and reboots quick too (only takes abit more than a minute)
• new features:
• back up settings to google account
• 2.x goodies like facebook account and new lock screen
• comes with Astro preinstalled

So those are my quick notes.. I'll see how it behaves over the weekend and let everybody know what I think.

G1 Experience: CM 4.2.15.1

So last week I tried Super-D. After I gave enomther's rom a quick try (a real quick try, about 15minutes). So then I loaded the current CyanogenMod 4.2.15.1.  So like expected, smooth as can be. everything seem to work smoothly. No unusual 'force closes' or other crashes. I don't know why, but it doesn't seem as smooth as Super-D. Probably just the fact that I loaded the version with the Nexus Launcher. So I've decided to give one of the Eclair versions a try. Don't get me wrong, if you want to root your phone I'd recommend giving CM a try, or Super-D... but basically they are all almost built upon Cyanogen's source anyways, so you might as well start with CM.

Enomther on my G1

So yesterday I wrote about my experience.  My plan was today to flash my G1 with the @enomther's rom. So this evening I did. I was really looking forward to it, but then I realized that I really have gotten use to the updates that @cyanogen had added and that were also in Super-D. So while enomther's rom was smooth and quick, I've reflashed my rom, this time with cyanogen's latest.

Super-D: a new Rom for my G1

There are many reviews of Android roms out there and many with much better details than this one here.  If you are really interested in rooted roms for your G1 or other Android device check out: AndroidSpin and XDA forums. Once Google 'closed' Android on their T-Mobile devices (the developer versions are never locked), the 'hackers' started spinning root versions almost immediately. I started initially using JesusFreke's, then as he called it quits moved to Cyanogen's. While I can definitely say that I've been quite happy with CM, I recently decided to give others a try.

So last week with help of the Android community, I installed the DangerSPL. Installing DangerSPL provided the ability to try other Roms. So I decided to try Super-D by Ben Buchacher. Super-D is another rom for G1 devices. It uses a lot of the improvements Cyanogen has provided and adds a few others including various Eclair updates like the Launcher.


Like I said, I've been very happy with Cyanogen's mods and only decided to try others for the fun of it. Since I'm not an app developer of rom spinner, this review is largely based on plain average use. With CM most everything works, and since for the most part Super-D is based on CM, well you get the same stability. What Super-D adds is more.... As an every  day user, I've not had any problems with Super-D. It is quick and I've had very few Force Closes than before. Battery life has also been good. A while back CM added wired-tethering, but I was never able to get it to work, but with Super-D it works great.

Overall I've been very happy with Super-D. If you are considering rooting your G1, give Super-D a try. As for me... now  off to try the latest Cyanogen... or maybe KingKlick's.... or maybe OpenEclair. I'll post my feelings about other  roms as I try them.

update: I decided to go with enomther's rom for my next trial. (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=538456)

Latest updates to my G1: moved from CyanogenModd 4.1.11 to CyanogenMod 4.1.999

A little over a month and half or so ago I wrote about switching from the JesusFreke Android Mods to the CyanogenMod (previous post). Shortly after that the Android community had its first scuffle with Google. When I initially switched to the CyanogenMod, I opted to stay with the 'stable' build, but as soon as I heard that Cyanogen was going to include Donut(1.6) in his experimental builds I had to switch to see what it was like. Unfortunately while all of us out there loved the fact that cyanogen was including 1.6, Google didn't like the fact that he was bundling 'closed-source' applications, and thus the scuffle began, and the community was in an uproar about Google not being as open as they claimed...

I made a few comments on Reddit and various blogs and news stories, but I never took the time to comment on my blog... well basically because I for the most part agreed with Google, there were other things that bothered me. As a developer I fully agree with the nature that some projects are and should be closed source applications while others should be open source. Android is an open source Operating System, not an open source bundle of applications... anyways so besides the slow-down to cyanogens mods, what bothered me with the whole situation was that the apps in question have all been available to other phones and devices for free for years, why couldn't Google just say "sorry modders, you can't include our closed sources apps with your builds, but we'll put the on Market or another location so your users can install them manually like they can on other smartphones and devices". Well from what I know they didn't, but thankfully Cyanogen stood up for what he wanted to do and work out a solution with Google where us users simply have to preserve the apps that are already on our devices and then install his updates and therefore he no longer has to include closed-source apps in his builds.

So with the solution at hand, cyanogen began work on the workaround and sure enough a short time later he had it up and working... only downside was that for the initial upgrade there were some significant additional steps. Between the following links, I'm sure you can figure them out... I did... well after a few tries... first the links then my issues with the process:
http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/10/04/how-to-install-cyanogenmod-4-1-99-on-your-g1-android-phone/
http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/10/06/how-to-update-cyanogenmod-from-4-1-99-to-4-1-999/
http://www.cyanogenmod.com/rom/cyanogenmod-4-1-999

So last week i upgraded... so some notes on my trials... well my first assumption was that I could skip the 4.1.99 build, and I probably could of... but my first attempt didn't work, so I tried again this time starting with the 4.1.99 build and as it turned out I didn't need to d the 4.1.99 build, but really we are only talking a few extra minutes (well maybe 15-20). So anyways my first mistake was that I decided to skip the initial 'WIPE' step... I figured whats the worse that can happen... well your phone will never finish the reboot that is what happened... well so I rebooted into the recovery system and restored from my nandroid backup (oh yes like I stated last time... NANDROID is your best friend when it comes to working with modded images).


So my next try... I WIPED my phone but this time I messed up again... I rebooted between the install of the HTC image and he cyanogen 4.1.99 image... I've read that it shouldn't make any difference, but in my case I was sure that was my next problem. But again it was not....

So again I restored from Nandroid... and this time I followed every step to the letter.. or so I thought... still had an issue... so I decided to connect my phone to my computer and lauch 'adb logcat' and sure enough, I finally saw my issue... while I thought I was wiping my phone... it turns out I was not. Turns out that the wipe feature on the cyanogen recovery images only blanks the built-in memory portion, not the portion moved to the sdcard's ext partition. So off to Google to research how to blank the ext partition...well I found many helpful sites even a youtube video.. and well none of  them worked for me... my solution just like last time... LINUX to the rescue. I popped out my card, stuck it in an SD adapter and into my computer, launched Gparted and reformatted the partition... I even upgraded it to ext3 from ext2 (probably could of selected ext4, but I didn't, if anyone has any suggestion or reason why I should, please share). I popped the card back into my G1 and ran through the update process again and yep everything worked...

So the moral of the story... WIPE WIPE WIPE before switching from Cyanogen 4.1.11 to 4.1.999

Updates to my G1: Cyanogen Mod and Apps to SD

Well everybody knows my favorite gadget is my G1. I ordered it back in September, about 1hr after the release event. I was blogging about it almost immediately: http://palmaddict.typepad.com/palmaddicts/2008/10/day-15-with-my.html . I've been twittering about it and from it too. So if you've been following my latest twits... for the last few days I've been looking at modding my G1 (again). When the G1 with Android first came out, it gave all of us users 'root' access (for those of you who don't know what this means... then you don't want it, but for those of us who do....) shortly after, Google closed the door with and with the following release 1.1, root was gone :-(. Well it only took a matter of time (which we all knew) before some one had hacked it. JesusFreke was the first that I know of and I quickly installed.

When the official Cupcake release came out, we were off to India, and regardless, I needed to wait for JF to release his update so that I could continue to have root which also came out shortly after we arrived in India. So I waited till I got back to the states... but yes as soon as I got back, I updated... Anyways... the update worked fine, things looked great but I had a few more force closes and such... some apps weren't happy, but what do you expect...

The next thing I wanted to do was move my apps to the SD card, why, well the one major drawback of the G1 is the limited storage space. Yes you can use an SD card, so that gives you lots of space for media and documents... but that is about it, all your apps are locked to the built-in storage. With root access I moved all my cache files to the SD card that almost doubled the space for apps but still not enough, so the solution was to move the apps to the SD. There are lots of methods and such and a simple google search reveals them. Then I saw this post: http://jf.andblogs.net/2009/08/20/calling-it-quits/ and well that was sad news... but he nicely enough point us all at a replacement rom, cyanogen's.

So 2 nights ago, while my wife and a friend were watching True Blood on HBO, I decided to move forward. I first finally did a Nandroid backup, something highly recommend before making changes (one thing I've never done in the past). Then I downloaded and updated my rom. Well the first go around... bad... the phone never booted back up... but I had access via the adb shell... and was able to find the issue and google an answer (which was to remove the dalvik-cache). So shortly after, my phone was back up and running... sort of. All my apps were complaining and force closing... so next step... the dreaded wipe of the system, thankfully that fixed everything and after about an hour of downloading and installing apps, I was back where I 'started', but not the new rom took up more space on the internal memory and I definitely had to to the apps to sd move.

This is where my new troubles began... (first off I didn't do another Nandroid backup like I should have, and still haven't). I read that I was not suppose to run and additional apps2sd hacks on top of the cyanogen mod, but I assumed that it meant the apps to control the mod, not the process to perform the mod... big misunderstanding... I tried on instruction set and all went to hell...the partition didn't take but the mod still moved over my 'data' directory and then the phone was 'fried'. I had to remove the card and then copy the update image to it, and then go through the whole update process again, hence why you should always backup via nandroid before any changes. ... So after giving life to my phone again and rebuilding the data on my card I decided that I'd just try gparted on my ubuntu box (and for those of you know... my desktop died last december... and my new box was literally only setup days before I started this mission, so the fact that I had a desktop with ubuntu was something... and while I have ubuntu on my netbook, the netbook was booted into winxp while I was performing all these changes on my G1 and I couldn't reboot it in the middle).

So Gparted came to the rescue... my plan was to simply partition the card and figure out the move later... the funny part was, that as soon as I stuck the card in, the cyanogen mod instantly took over and moved my apps to the card... so had I realized that before... I would of saved a few hours and a good headache...

So now I have a working G1 again, still with Root and not my apps are on the SD so I have plenty of space.... future updates.... bring it on...

but in summary... ALWAYS RUN A NANDROID BACKUP FIRST

and I should probably run one of those now ;-)