Experimental Pantology

By now everyone should have Android 1.6 (Donut) on their G1. It seems like a downgrade in performance even though they claim it’s more stable and snappier because of the UI tweaks. I don’t see it, I needed another option. I decided to root my G1 and run a modified version of Android 1.5 (Cupcake) called JACMan xROM. It took me a while to actually look for all the instructions and the files necessary for the mod so I’m going to compile the info I got from the web and do a step by step walk through on how to upgrade to JACMan xROM v1.5r4. Any files mentioned in this blog entry are not hosted on this server and are presented as links to other sites who host them. Check out this demo of the modified OS ROM in action:

After installing JACMan xROM v1.5r4 on my G1 everything runs faster and since the phone is rooted, and the SD card partitioned properly all the downloaded apps will run on the SD card instead of the internal memory. My SD card is partitioned to allow 512MB of apps stored. The other 2 partitions are for the Fat32 storage and Linux swap file for the phone. Also, tethering is now possible making your phone a WiFi access point using your 3G connection on the phone to serve internet to whatever laptop is connected to it.

PLEASE ATTEMPT THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR ACTIONS. THERE IS A POSSIBILITY THAT YOU WILL RENDER YOUR PHONE UNUSABLE AND PERMANENTLY BROKEN!!! USING UNSUPPORTED ROMS IS NOT ENDORSED OR SUPPORTED BY T-MOBILE or HTC, READ YOUR PHONE’S WARRANTY INFORMATION AS WELL AS YOUR PROVIDER’S TERMS OF SERVICE. THANK YOU.

Also note that you will have to wipe your existing phone settings and configuration and reset it to factory, as well as wipe the contents of your G1’s SD Card. Please follow the steps in the exact order specified…

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