Android "How to:" guide

[vylle]

*Please make this a STICKY!!*

its so good to see the android market growing here in Jamaica, however it seems many people dont know how to do certain things for their phone. well i will be showing you guys how to do a couple stuff like activate your phone, rooting and loading up custom roms. these settings will work for G1 and Magic

by rooting your phone, you have essentially unlocked super user status of your phone, which gives you ability 2 do stuff like loading custom roms, overclocking the CPU, boosting audio, improving overall phone performance, updating firmware, and metamorphing (for the advanced users)

first thing's first to all you new users, there is a few computer stuff you will need. the Android SDK which is the drivers and software to facilitate usb transfer between phone and PC and also droid explorer, which is a GUI interface for the phone (needs to be rooted first)

• Android SDK
• Droid Explorer

now lets begin:- ROOTING

I. Downgrade to Cupcake

1. For G1, download the Original DreaIMG.nbh and the Original Cupcake:
G1 DreaIMG
G1 Cupcake OS

For Magic, download the Original Sappimg
SAPPIMG

2. Plug the phone into your computer via USB. Select Mount by pulling down on the notification bar at the top of the phone’s screen and selecting the USB notification. You should now be able to access the sd card in your phone on your computer.

3. Now, put the File(s) (do NOT extract the .zip file, leave it as a .zip file) that you just downloaded on the root of the SD card (NOT in any folder, just on the sdcard itself).

4. Unplug the phone and turn it off.

5. For G1, Turn on the phone by holding the Camera button and the End key until the bootloader screen comes up. For Magic, Turn on the phone by holding the Volume Down button and the End key until the bootloader screen comes up.

6. Hit the End key to start the update. DO NOT INTERUPT THIS PROCESS.

7. Once it is done, hit the trackball to restart the phone. You now are on the stock firmware RC29. (the following steps are now for G1, Magic users are done for now)

8. Then turn off your phone and turn it back on by holding down Home and Power and keep holding until you get to recovery mode (the ! screen).

9. In recovery mode, slide out the keyboard and hit Alt L to bring up the menu, then hit Alt S to Apply the update.

10. Once the phone reboots, go through the normal setup process to get to the home screen. you will need to activate your phone here so enter your APN settings read the next post for the various settings from diff networks

III. Flash a Custom Recovery Image

1. On your phone, goto Settings, Applications, and make sure Unknown source is checked ON.

2. On your phone, goto Settings, SD card and phone storage, and click Unmount SD card.

3. Then click Format SD card (it should automatically remount after this).

4. Plug the phone into the compuer via USB, then pull down the notification bar and click on the SD card notification. Then click mount.

5. Download this APK and the recovery image and save it to your computer:

FlashRec.apk

Amon Ra’s Recovery Image

6. Once they are saved to your computer, copy them both to your SD card (do NOT put them inside any folders on the SD card, just put them on the SD card itself).

7. Unplug the phone from the computer once they are downloaded to the SD card.

8. Goto the Market and download Linda File Manager or any file manager program if you do not already have one.

9. Open the file manager and goto SDCard and then find the FlashRec apk file and click it. If asked tell it to use Package Installer to open it. It should automatically install the apk.

10. Open the FlashRec program and click on Backup Recovery Image and wait for it to finish.

11. Once done, click on the empty text box in the FlashRec program and type: "/sdcard/recovery.img"

Then click on the Flash Custom Recovery Image button and wait for it to finish.

12. Turn off the phone and turn it on into Recovery mode by holding down Home and Power to turn it on (keep holding until the recovery screen comes up has a bunch of text on a black background). So long as that screen comes up, LEAVE IT ON THAT SCREEN, once done you can now move on to loading up a custom rom


IV. Partition Your Memory Card for ROMs, Swap, and Apps2SD
N.B - you need to do this so that your phone has extra memory from the memcard to run apps and the rom.

1. With your phone STILL in recovery mode from the How To Root procedure, click on Partition SD Card > Partition SD (this will erase everything off of your memory card).

2. When it asks you, select 96mbs for Swap, 512mbs for ext2 and fat32 for the remainder

3. Once it is done partitioning the memory card, click on Partition SD Card > SD: ext2 to ext3

V. Load the Latest Radio, SPL for G1

1. Download the custom Radio and SPL (you can change your ROM after this to whatever one you want, but load this one first as we need to load it to keep the recovery image flashed on the G1):

Radio
SPL

2. In the recovery screen on the phone (that the phone is still in from the first section), select USB-MS toggle to allow the memory card to be mounted.

3. Plug in your phone via usb cable and you should be able to access your memory card on the computer.

4. Save the G1 Radio, the G1 SPL onto the root of the SD card (NOT in any folder, just on the memory card itself).

5. Once they are done transferring to the memory card, unplug the phone from the computer and click the home button on the phone to disable USB-MS toggle mode and get back to the recovery screen.

7. Once the recovery screen menu is up, click on Flash Zip on SDCard and select the RADIO .zip file (do NOT select ANY OTHER ONE, we need to flash the radio first!).

8. Once it is done, click Reboot System Now.

9. Once the device reboots, you should be back at the recovery screen. Click on Flash Zip from SDCard and now select the SPL .zip file (do NOT select ANY OTHER ONE, we need to flash the SPL second!).

10. Once it is done, click Reboot System Now. then go back into recovery mode again. in the next step, we will load up CM on your phone but if you wish to check the field then first visit here:
Android Spin's G1/Magic Roms
make sure to read the supported device area for each ROM for compatibility and please perform a full wipe (factory +delvik wipe) BEFORE installing each new ROM

i recommend that before you do that you follow the next step though to load up your first ROM

VI.Loading CyanogenMod ROM (the hero of Android)

1. Download any one of these 2 roms. the first one is cyanogenmod's latest 2.1 (eclair) ROM, it features adhoc connectivity and is all around nice. the second is cyanogenmod's first release of froyo. CHOOSE ONLY ONE!! CHOOSE YOUR DESTINY!!

CM5.0.8-Android 2.1 (eclair)
CM6_RC1-Android 2.2 (froyo)

2. Select USB-MS Toggle.

3. Plug your phone into the computer via USB

4. Unplug the phone from the computer once it is done transferring.

5. Click the Home button on the phone to disable USB-MS Toggle.

6. Select Wipe > Wipe Data / Factory Reset and wait for it to finish.

7. Next, select Flash Zip from SDCard and select the new ROM’s .zip file. restart and load up your new rom

NOTES

UPDATING
If you install CM5.0.8 then you may update to CM6 at a later date without wiping your phone. just put it on your SD Card then go back into recovery mode then flash it from there. You will be updated without loss of apps/data

GOOGLE APPS
Whichever one you install take note that after installation you INITIALLY will not need to activate your phone because GAPPS comes separately. In case you are wondering, YES - GAPPS is the reason why you need to sign in each time you wipe your phone. dont stay without it too long though because you will need GAPPS eventually if you wish to use the google market. so when the time comes for you to install GAPPS, insure you have some credit because you WILL need to activate it.

1. Download the GAPPS below depending on which ver. you got
CM5.0.8 GAPPS
CM6 GAPPS

2. reboot into recovery mode and flash it (you do not nor should not need to wipe)

3. reboot the phone, after the boot anim is finished you will need 2 sign in.

now you will have a fully rooted phone. congrats!!

This completes my rooting tutorial, if you need any help PM me and i will try to help out. take note that this process MAY brick your phone if not done properly. Please follow instructions carefully cuz i wont be taking responsibility for any errors caused on your part.

LOOK OUT FOR MORE HOW TOS!!!

[Anubis]

So rooting is basically Androids version of Hacking your phone, the whole possibility of bricking my phone is a huge turn off so I'll leave that to you adventurous ones.

[zerodeth]

you don't need to have credit on ur phone to activate just make sure you have a wifi connection nearby, it will try to find the apn info but after awhile will ask to connect to wifi at least on cyanogen

[Anubis]

Well that may the case for Cyanogen Zero but that is not the case for the stock version I think its called RC29 and I think that it is not the case for Android 1.6 either it needs the use of your APN or you won't be getting anywhere.

[zerodeth]

well stock sucks root and mod for the win

[vylle]

HOW TO ENABLE APN SETTINGS

APN is supposed to be the primary means of data transfer for your android phone. for now unfortunately, its capabilities are limited to WAP/GPRS in jamaica

enter the "Access Point Names", then press menu then "ADD APN"

Digicel
Name: "ANY NAME YOU WANT"
APN: web.digiceljamaica.com
User Name: wapuser
Password: wap03jam

CLARO
Name: "ANY NAME YOU WANT"
APN: internet.ideasclaro.com
Server: 190.80.147.118
Port: 9701/8080

LIME
Name: "ANY NAME YOU WANT"
APN: ppinternet
Port : 9201

after entering this information, just save and then exit to the main APN menu, your APN will now be there, just tick it to enable it then boom your online

LOOK OUT FOR MORE HOW TO's!!

[zerodeth]

its also good to note tht once the phone is up and running there are several apps that you can get tht can disable apn settings to that apps and syncing doesnt burn off your crdit without you knowing

[vylle]

HOW TO ENABLE AD-HOC WIFI NETWORKING ON G1 & MAGIC 1.0

This guide will help you to connect your G1 to laptop's Ad-hoc wireless network. this works on rooted phones not running CM5.0.8 (because its already pre-configured on that ROM)

Requirements:
1. Rooted G1 phone.
2. Terminal emulator.
3. Busybox

Steps:
1. Install Terminal emulator
I assume that most of you guys already have this since it is essential for root access.
For those who don't have this installed you will have to make sure that you have root access first.
The easyest way to install this application is to download it from Android market, but if you don't have access to internet from your phone, you could install it over ADB or some other way.
2. Install busybox for android
Open Terminal emulator and type following commands:
Become super user:

SU

Make new directory for busybox and navigate to it:

mkdir /data/busybox
cd /data/busybox

Now you should copy your downloaded busybox file to this new directory. You could do this simply by connecting your phone to the computer over usb cable and copy file to the sdcard or you could push it using ADB service directly to our directory. If you wish to do this over ADB you should do the following.

a) ADB is part of Android SDK and you can freely download it for Windows, Linux or even Mac, just google it. Your downloaded busybox file must be in the same folder with adb or you can specify the different path in adb command if you have it somewhere else. To push the file to the phone using ADB you could type the following command on your computer (offcourse you must first navigate to the folder in which is your Android SDK and then to the subfolder tools):

adb push busybox /data/busybox/busybox

b) The other way is to copy the file to your sdcard and then move it to our folder with cat command, since we don't have cp command to copy the file. To do this you must type the following commands on your phone assuming we didn't leave Terminal emulator and we are still in /data/busybox/ directory.

cat /sdcard/busybox > ./busybox

Now that you have it in your folder you should do the following:
Make busybox binary executable

chmod 755 ./busybox

Execute following command to install busybox:

./busybox --install

Make all the installed tools in folder executable like you did with the first one:

chmod 755 *

Last step is to export it to PATH to make it usable at all time.

export PATH=/data/busybox:$PATH

3. Now you can modify two important files to make your phone able to connect to Ad-hoc
First gain root access with su command like before:

Remount /system partition as read-write with the following command:

mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

Navigate to /system/etc/wifi/

cd /system/etc/wifi

Now you must edit tiwlan.ini file in current directory. I did this with VI editor which is part of busybox. You must know some basic things about VI editor befor you do this. VI operates in two modes. When you open editor you are in command mode and you can't edit your file yet.
To edit file type:

vi tiwlan.ini

First you must navigate trough file with your trackball. Find the following line:

WiFiAdhoc = 0

This is the line we need to edit. To enter edit mode press A on your phone's keyboard. Now move the cursor with trackball to the end off this line. Replace 0 with 1. You must add two more lines in order this to work. To add new line press enter key and then type:

dot11DesiredSSID = HTCG1
dot11DesiredBSSType = 0

Replace HTCG1 with whatever you like. This is SSID of your wireless Ad-hoc network.
Now you must exit back again to command mode. This is done with escape key, and since our keyboard doesn't have escape key we must click down trackball and simultaniously press 1. This is the same as you pressed escape on regular computer keyboard. In command mode again we can't edit the file but we can type commands. Command for saving file is 'w' and for exiting editor is 'q'. Every command is typed after ':' so our command to save file and exit editor will be:

:wq

The next file we need to edit is /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf
Edit it the same way as previous file and add these lines:

network={
ssid="HTCG1"
key_mgmt=NONE
mode=1
}

Save and exit
'mode = 1' indicate that this is Ad-hoc network, you can also add "ap_scan=2" at the top to help wifi pickup

4. Make Ad-hoc network on your laptop or computer.
I assume you know how to do that and I won't explain it because you can google it. Only thing to know when you do this is that you have to set SSID for the network same as the SSID in two files you edited and that you must make open network without wep or other security. Yet if you decide to have protected network you must also edit wpa_supplicant.conf file and modify it. after creating it, configure its IPv4:

IP:192.168.0.1
Subnet:255.255.255.0
Gateway:192.168.0.1
DNS: 192.168.0.1
ADNS: 192.168.1.1

similarly on your device, go to wifi settings then click menu then advance, scroll down and enable static IP address then enter

IP:192.168.0.2
Subnet:255.255.255.0
Gateway:192.168.0.1
DNS: 192.168.0.1
ADNS: 192.168.1.1

5. Finally connect

If you configured correctly your computer wireless network and selected it to connect, you should then disable and enable wireless in your mobile phone settings. If SSID is broadcasted you should see your network and signal strenght in network list. Connect.

LOOK OUT FOR MORE HOW TO'S!!!

[vylle]

HOW TO INSTALL APPS WITHOUT MARKET

in order to do this i assume that you have installed the google SDK and also DROID EXPLORER, if not then look at the first post at the top.

1. install all the SDK onto your computer in program files.

2. follow the following sites to get apps then download:

• Android Apps
• Panda Apps
• GetAndStuff

some apps are outdated and are trial verions so when you get the chance get the full / LEGIT versions of these apps

now that is done, there are 3 main methods you can use to install apps on your android phone.

DROID EXPLORER (For rooted phones)

2. install droid explorer. by doing so, you wont need to use command prompt or ADB manually.

3. plug in your phone via USB (you dont need to mount)

4. Navigate to tools -> manage packages -> install package. then search for the folder lockation then install


ANDROID SDK (For unrooted phones)
if you have not rooted your phone (for some unexplainable reason) then you have to use ADB.

1. move the application you wish to install to the folder named tools withinin android SDK folder

2. Open the start -> run then type CMD

3. when the command prompt window opens, type

CD C:\Program Files\Android-SDK-Windows\tools

to move to the directory of the application

4. type in

ADB install the name of your app .apk

wait for it to load and then your done

ANDROID FILE MANAGER (install from the phone)
in order to do this, you will need to intall a file manager from the SDK method above, i suggest getting "ASTRO file manger" but any will do.

1. plug in and mount your SDCard

2. Make a folder on the root of the SD Called "My Apps"

3. Copy the file from its current location on your computer to "My Apps" on the SDCard

4. Eject and turn off SD Mounting.

5. Open the file manager app and then navigate to the "My Apps" Folder,

6. you should now see the apk file that you had earlier copied onto the SDcard, click on it and install

there you are done.. hope this information is helpful

LOOK OUT FOR MORE HOW TO'S

[Virus]

The apn for lime is "internet". You don't need the IP addresses either.. its auto configured.

I have just installed frf91 after hours of trial and error, what's so hot about cm6? Is it a lighter version of the stock