Android Community

LazyGenius · #1 05-12-2009, 01:26 PM

Why hello there! I have been listening to what some people have been saying and from the sounds of things people think that the AC needs a FAQ. I have been here for a while and made a lot of posts but I don’t really feel like to I have contributed that much to the community. So here it is, Lazy’s attempt at a contribution.

I have compiled a list of, what I believe, everything you need to get started, and, hopefully, eliminate the need to ask any questions (or at least the most commonly asked ones) MODS feel free to move, modify, sticky, delete, or do what ever you want to this thread if you feel like this is good enough to become the official FAQ.

THE BEGINNING: So you just got home and you found a package on your doorstep. Your heart begins to race because you already know what it is. It’s your brand new T Mobile G1! You quickly run inside, package in your arms, and you go to the kitchen. You place the box on the table and begin frantically ripping paper and card board away until finally you see the T Mobile G1 logo. Your first thoughts are, “cool box!” You look for a sharp object to cut the packaging sticker with. It has some “legal blah blah” written on it but who cares… lets see that phone! You open up the box and there it is. She is so beautiful. You pick here up and immediately see how she feels in your hand. You slide the keyboard out and just start button mashing. You look through the rest of the accessories to find the battery and pop it in. You pop that bad boy in and power it on. As your power it on, you stare at the screen like a caveman who has just seen T.V. for the first time. You sign in and start playing around with it some more. For the next couple of hours no one can disturb you….

THE CURIOSITY: So about 2 weeks have gone by and you have done everything. You have been to the market, tested out the camera, the browser, the messaging, the maps, street view, played Pac Man, and you even went to the store and scanned a couple of barcodes… You think to yourself, “This is cool and all… but what else can this thing do?” So you do a Google Search (no pun intended) and you find a website called “Androidcommunity.com” You find an entire community of people talking about doing all sorts of amazing stuff with there phone, like multi-touch, themes, tethering, different ROMS, and so on.
At first it seems overwhelming because you thought you knew it all and it turns out you don’t know that much. You first inclination is to start a new thread with all of your inquiries, but slow down there newcomer! LazyGenius has put together this thread so that this whole process is a lot easier and you aren’t making threads where your only response is, “have you tried this thing called SEARCH??”

I will try to do this in the order I believe this process should be done. So that way as you mature and grow you can just follow this thread and pick up where you last left off and continue to make you phone better and better. My hope is that this thread can always be used as a reference. I will also give credit to every person I mention. (Or at least try to. If I refer to some of your work and don’t give you credit, I’m sorry. You can send me a PM and I will fix it immediately.)

So I believe the first step to making your phone better is to obtain root. Everything that follows in this thread requires root. I believe root opens the doors to all opportunities and that you should at least try it.

ROOT.
So you are asking yourself, “What is root?” Well I think my man Geo411 has said it best,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Geo411m

Well, rooting your phone allows you to have administrator access to your phone and thus due thing not normally possible on standard android. With it you can have all your apps and caches run from your SD card, apply themes, tether your phone, enable auto rotation and the list goes on. Here's a few links of interest to help you get the most out of your rooted phone.

So there you have it. Interested? Well here is the best process I have found to root. I myself have done it twice and both times I did it in less than 10 minutes!

Rooting Made Easy; Geo411 (AC)
http://androidcommunity.com/forums/f12/rooting-your-g1-made-easy-11825/

Another Root Process (it’s always nice to have optionsJ). Koush (XDA)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=442480

THEMES.
So you just rooted and it doesn’t really seem that different. Why don’t you start with a custom theme!
**make sure that the theme you download is compatible with you specific ROM. If your on jf 1.41 rc33 then you need that compatible theme***(Thanks CrazyThunder(AC))

In general most themes can be applied like this:
· Download your theme.
· Rename the theme to “update.zip” (it is not necessary to type “.zip” just make sure that it is a “.zip” file.)
· copy the newly renamed file to the ROOT of your SD card
· Power the phone off.
· Power the phone on while holding down the “home button.”
· You will see a bunch of text flying down the screen, don’t panic, and when it finishes you can do one of two things.
7A. Wipe by pressing ALT+W. (wiping is the same thing as doing a factory reset. It will clear off all of your apps and settings. Make sure you check to see if your theme requires a wipe. Some do, some don’t.) Then apply the theme by pressing ALT+S.
7B. if your theme doesn’t require a wipe just press ALT+S.
8. Press HOME+BACK to reboot.

Themes can be found here: (XDA)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=450

CACHES TO SD.
So you have rooted and themed and now your feeling bold. You want to tackle something a bit more difficult. You realize that your phone doesn’t have that much room. And you wonder how many apps you could download if you moved all your caches to your SD card. It’s not that hard nowadays because Birdman has come up with a way to make the entire process a snap.

Moving caches to SD: Birdman (AC)
http://androidcommunity.com/forums/f28/moving-caches-made-easy-12424/

APPS TO SD.

Caches to SD wasn’t that hard so heck! Why not move all your apps to your SD card! Then you will never have to worry about space! Well there are A LOT of different ways, so I will include as many as I can so that way you can choose the one that seems the easiest for you.

Before you move your apps to SD you will have to partition your SD card. (No matter which tutorial you use)
To partition your card try Kaysesoze’s tutorial with Paragon Partition Manager.

Partition: Kaysesoze (AC)
http://androidcommunity.com/forums/f28/step-by-step-partitioning-with-paragon-partition-manager-9-0-windows-version-17250/

Just to leave you some options I included Stryder’s method with Ubuntu as well.
Partition: Stryder (AC)
http://androidcommunity.com/forums/f9/how-to-create-ext2-partition-14232/

More Options: MartinFick (XDA)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=500387

Now for the Apps to SD methods. There are a lot of ways, so just choose the one you’re most comfortable with…

LucidREM’s apps to SD (XDA)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=480582

Haykur0’s apps to SD (XDA)
http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=Haykuro_Apps_to_SD

Just as a side note, there is an app in the Market to move all of your apps to your SD card for you. It’s only a buck, and trust me it is the easiest process yet. You press a button and boom done. (Results may vary.) Search for “Apps to SD.”

NANDROID BACKUP.
Messed up somewhere along the line? Try a Nandroid Backup!

Nandroid backup: Infernix (XDA)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=459830

So you have done it all, you think, and you want more. You have heard something about some "Cupcake builds" and you want to try those out. But which one? There are pro’s and con’s to all of them and I believe it’s a matter of preference. People will debate why one it better than the other but I believe you should choose the one you believe is the best.

CUPCAKE/ RADIO.
There are 3 main cupcake builds out as of right now.(5.12.09) (And no I’m not listing them in order from best to worst, just how I found the links lol…)

TheDudeOfLife’s build (XDA)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=507151

JesusFreke’s Build/ and blog (XDA)
http://jf.andblogs.net/

Haykur0’s Build/ and blog (XDA)
http://haykuro.theiphoneproject.org/

Most of these can be applied by:
· Download a ROM from one the links above.
· Rename the file to update.zip, and copy it to the root of your SD card.
· Power the phone off.
· Power phone on while holding the home button.
· perform a wipe( ALT+W)
· apply the ROM (ALT+S)
· Reboot (HOME+BACK)
You should also try to keep up with the latest radio. To see if you are on the latest radio, on your phone, go to;
Menu>settings> about phone> and under baseband version it should end with _2.22.19.26I. If it doesn’t say that then download the latest radio here.
http://sapphire-port-dream.googlecode.com/files/ota-radio-2_22_19_26I.zip
To apply the radio it is similar to applying the rom. (just skip STEP 5.)

MISC. This is the section where I couldn’t really find a place for stuff but still felt like it was important. This section may be changed over time.

ACTIVATE W/O DATA PLAN.
Activate G1 without a data plan; JesusFreke (XDA)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=452316

Tethering (just to make Konzern happy lol )
I suggest aNetShare
http://android.a0soft.com/?url=aNetShare.htm
^^^ when you download it will be an .apk file. for all .apk files you install them like this:
1. copy the .apk file to your sd card.
2. now either using ASTRO or Linda File Manager (I suggest linda) navigate through your sd card and find your .apk file.
3. click on it and it should give you an option to "Install via Package Manager"
4. if this is your first time installing it will give you a prompt stating that you need to change a setting to allow downloads from unknown sources. follow the prompts and click on the box to allow you to install from unknown sources.
5. click back and it should let you continue your install of the .apk (not sure about ASTRO but i know linda does this thats why i suggested it.)
6.enjoy.

Here is another method for tethering without root. provided to me by Konzern(AC)
http://www.junefabrics.com/android/index.php

THE CONCLUSION: If any one has any suggestions please tell me and I will add them. Hopefully this thread will eliminate duplicate threads about the same topic. I have enjoyed my time here at the AC and I hope that my contribution is worth something… ThanksJ

LazyGenius · #2 05-12-2009, 01:26 PM

***reserved for furture modifications***

alright. this section is going to be for people out of their noob phase. you know alot about rooting, applying themes, and other "not so basic stuff." this section will most likely be updated to stay with "todays" times.

first their is the latest radio which can be found here:http://android-roms.googlecode.com/f..._22_19_26I.zip
current radio ends in: 26I

then there is the latest SPL. for instructions on how to apply it try here: (thanks CrazyThunder)
http://androidcommunity.com/forums/s...720#post215720

Andrea · #3 05-12-2009, 01:29 PM

Awesome FAQ. Bookmarked. You might wanna up the font size a bit.

JetsHERO · #4 05-12-2009, 01:33 PM

Awesome write up, submitted thread for sticky status.

DaYuMu6ft7 · #5 05-12-2009, 01:38 PM

LG!!!

Ummm... When did you find the time to type this up Sir!

I just talked about this amongst the other staff members

sticky!

LazyGenius · #6 05-12-2009, 01:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JetsG1

Awesome write up, submitted thread for sticky status.

thank you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaYuMu6ft7

LG!!!

Ummm... When did you find the time to type this up Sir!

I just talked about this amongst the other staff members

sticky!

lol it didnt take as long as you think... i have been saving a word document with a list of links to important stuff for myself... i figured i could share that list with everyone and all i had to do was organize the list lol...