| 1 |
On Friday 13 November 2009 18:29:49 James wrote: |
| 2 |
> Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon <at> gmail.com> writes: |
| 3 |
> > It's not an iPhone and Apple's psychosis doesn't enter the picture, I can |
| 4 |
> > install any user-space app I feel like. The warranty is already invalid |
| 5 |
> > though, for a different reason - I flashed it with an OS and firmware |
| 6 |
> > that's far superior to the one my carrier thinks I should have |
| 7 |
> |
| 8 |
> OH BOY, |
| 9 |
> |
| 10 |
> My son wants a droid phone. I'm pushing him towards the HTC droid |
| 11 |
> as I think we can customize it, if not eventually run embedded |
| 12 |
> Gentoo on this phone. |
| 13 |
|
| 14 |
Do you mean "droid" as a synonym for Android? |
| 15 |
|
| 16 |
Motorola are soon releasing a phone called Droid, you might want to look at |
| 17 |
it. It will ship with Android 2.0, has a *huge* screen and overall very |
| 18 |
positive reviews. |
| 19 |
|
| 20 |
HTC has the Dream (swing out screen with physical keyboard) also known as the |
| 21 |
G1; plus the Tattoo and Hero (also known as Magic) - these two are touch |
| 22 |
screen only |
| 23 |
|
| 24 |
> I'd be most interested in the details of the exact model you purchased |
| 25 |
> and what resources and howtos you are following, so I can customize |
| 26 |
> this phone for him, aka linux style... |
| 27 |
|
| 28 |
I got the G1 Dream as a physical keyboard is a must for me. Virtual keyboards |
| 29 |
are a nice extra but I just can't get to grips with only that. |
| 30 |
|
| 31 |
Flashing it is quite easy. The kernel is very recent Linux with the Android |
| 32 |
user-space APIs as developed (mostly) by Google and a very light-weight Java |
| 33 |
VM for apps. Google supplies a full SDK free as in freedom plus free as in |
| 34 |
beer. Anyone familiar with embedded devices will feel right at home. |
| 35 |
|
| 36 |
To flash it you need root privileges which is a trivial hack; carrier-provided |
| 37 |
phones usually have this disabled but this too has been hacked around. Then |
| 38 |
followed Google and HTC's own docs on the flash procedure :-) |
| 39 |
|
| 40 |
Two sites provide everything you need: |
| 41 |
|
| 42 |
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=HTC_Dream |
| 43 |
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php/Main_Page |
| 44 |
|
| 45 |
HTC images available at http://developer.htc.com/adp.html |
| 46 |
|
| 47 |
This page describes how to install Debian so gentoo will also be possible: |
| 48 |
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=507291 |
| 49 |
|
| 50 |
|
| 51 |
> You are using Verizon as your cellular service? I'm stuck with Verizon |
| 52 |
> for a variety of reasons.... |
| 53 |
|
| 54 |
I'm in South Africa, where Verizon is something we used to have :-) |
| 55 |
|
| 56 |
Business rules are different here so very little of the rules here will be |
| 57 |
applicable in the US |
| 58 |
|
| 59 |
-- |
| 60 |
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com |
Archives