Install Android 2.2 on a T-Mobile G1 (Dream)

A friend was kind enough to give me an Android phone so I could start building apps. Trouble was it was a T-Mobile G1 which runs Android 1.6. This is a good OS but a lot of things aren’t possible on 1.6 these include but are not limited to some items which I needed for development:

• Dual touch.
• Installing apps on the SD card, preserving the phone’s limited internal memory.

There are many pages about upgrading on the web but I found the wiki at wiki.cyanogen.com provided the best information on how to proceed:

1. Prepare the phone for upgrade: you have to downgrade it first.
2. Install Danger SPL NB: reboot but stay in recovery.
3. Upgrade to 2.2 NB: follow directions in “Wipe” section after install.

I’m not going to repeat their work here but some additional notes I needed were:

1. Backup before you start:
   • Gmail, Calendar, Contacts: ensure set to sync
   • Apps: Using Astro File Manager, press Menu, select Tools, App manager/Backup, select all and press backup.
   • Bookmarks: in Astro press Home, Up, select etc and then copy the bookmarks folder to the sd card.
   • SMS: SMS Backup and restore from the Marketplace
   • A ‘Nandroid’ backup from the Recovery Menu (turn on with Home and Power keys pressed) will allow you (in theory) to return to factory settings.
2. When formatting the SD card ensure its FAT32: under Windows 7 it defaults to FAT16 and results in ‘no image file’ when you try to flash.
3. After ‘Rooting the phone’ I needed to re-enter my carrier’s APN settings in order to sign in: once you get to the Android and ‘Touch here to begin’ press Menu, APN settings, Menu and ‘Add’, then enter the details of your carrier. For Orange this is:
   Name: Orange Internet
   APN: orangeinternet
   MCC: 234
   MNC: 33
   APN Type: default
4. After the final upgrade it takes AGES to load, so don’t panic, be patient! If it gets stuck on the flash screen as above then you probably need to Wipe it (see above).

With thanks to the people who make the CyanogenMod and the other utilities mentioned here, you are making my tech life run much more smoothly!