Don’t be content with a slow or limited
device – you can spin $148.5 hardware into gold
Have you been left with a feeling of
buyer’s remorse after an impulse tablet purchase? Fear not – we’re here to show
you how to turn what may seem like a run-of-the-mill device into something
wonderful. Well, perhaps just workable, but let’s reach for the stars.
The beauty of Android is that it enables
any number of companies to produce affordable Android devices for us all to buy
and delight in. the bad side of Android is that it enables any number of
companies to produce poorly devised or implemented devices for us all to
despise.
In between the two extremes lies a myriad
of devices that just require a little tweaking to take them from mediocre to
marvelous. This can be something as basic as adding a new theme or tweaking the
interface to make it more useful. A slightly more advanced option would be
adding the Google Android Market, which many device manufacturers leave off
either for legal reasons, or in an attempt to cash in with their own Market
alternatives. The extreme end of things is to entirely replace the existing
installation of Android with your own build from one of the many possible
alternatives, such as Cyanogen Mod. Any of these hacks can take a weak tablet
and transform it into something you’ll want to use, but the addition of the
real Android Market is a particularly handy one, especially if you already own
apps on it, because you’ll gain access to your purchases among the 300,000-plus
other Android apps the full Market provides.
As useful and fun as these are, it’s the
last and most complex option that we’re going to explore. If community spirited
hackers have managed to gain the correct root-access exploits for your tablet
and someone has created a suitable build of Android for the device, then you
can use a system such as Cyanogen Mod, which comes with a host of high-level
features to transform it into something amazing, with features and overclocking
waiting to be exploited.
Tempt me
Before you can get your hands on these
tempting features, it’s first necessary to find out if your device has a
suitable Android port available, has one in development, or hasn’t anything of
the sort. Typically, a good working port will include three vital items: a way
to inject the OS on to the system, a boot loader and the replacement operating
system itself. As usual, Google is your best friend and searching for your
device’s name along with the term ‘root’ or ‘Android build’ can help you
discover solutions or blogs that will link to the right sources.
Besides this scattergun approach, reliable
sources for community projects include www.cyanogenmod.com
itself, because it has both an active forum and lists many in-progress builds
alongside completed ones. More general sites include www.xda-developers.com and www.rootzwiki.com, which host forums for
avid mobile fans dedicated to creating builds of Android for specific devices.
These gals and guys have created an armory of tools that people can then easily
reuse for a host of devices, be they phones or tablet.
Getting the new OS on to the device via the
injection stage usually involves hijacking the manufacturer’s own built-in
firmware upgrade or recovery process. While most devices provide a low-level
recovery mode that requires you to hold down a combination of hard buttons as
it’s turned on, devices such as the iPhone can have this initiated via the
software itself. The exact process varies from device to device, so you’ll have
to read up on your own model. Often your PC will require a special version of
the device driver (but not always), along with a terminal command to push over
the correct files.
One
alternative build for the Archos tablet is Uruk Droid. It offers a 1.2 GHz
overclocking kernel and gives the device Linux functionality
The build of Android itself doesn’t have to
be a complete one. As with Windows, a missing driver doesn’t necessarily break
a device, but renders that part useless – the GPS or Wi-Fi, for example.
In other cases, it could be
semi-functioning, often working but lacking power-saving features. If you use a
part-finished build, you’ll often come across issues like these. Lastly, the
boot loader kicks the whole thing off. For many systems, multi-OS boot loaders
are available – this enables you to keep the native install alongside the
custom port that’s installed either on the internal storage or on an SD card.
It’s very useful to keep the original OS, largely as it’s an emergency fallback
position to rescue the device, but also because experimental builds may not be
usable.
Tackling a tablet
The spirit of this
guide is to take a cheap tablet, ideally under the magic $150 mark, and turn it
into something that works far better than that price tag would indicate. To
keep things practical, we’ve chosen to work with the Archos 70 Internet Tablet.
The recommended retail price is $298.5, but places such as Carphone Warehouse
sell it for a bargain-pitched $150. It’s perfectly placed as a cheap tablet
with a 7-inch 800 x 480 capacitive touchscreen, 8GB of storage and Android 2.2.
this older operating system is far from ideal and doesn’t come with Google
Play, so it’s missing out on a vast catalogue of Android apps.
One solution that can
be applied to the Archos and many other devices is to simply install Google
Play APK file, but as with any system, doing so requires root access to the
system. You’ll also need a suitable version of the APK file that will work on
the rooted device.
The holy grail for us
it to be able to install our own custom build of Android OS. Archos is slightly
different to other manufactures in that it embraces molding of its devices to a
certain degree, for example, the Archos 101 comes with a dual-boot system, and
the Archos alternative OS called Angstrom is a Linux-based distribution. As
part of this, Archos extends the boot-loader to its other devices, with the
proviso that installing it avoids any warranty on the device.
HP never thought it would be treated
like this, with Tux shoving it to one side
This does help with
one job, and that’s getting the operating system injected on to the device. The
Archos comes with a combined boot-loader and recovery system that’s accessed by
holding down the volume button when it’s first turned on. Using this, it’s far
easier to copy over the required files and get them flashed. Other devices can
have an assault course of driver installs, command line sequences and more to
achieve the same result.
The last stumbling
block is that minor issue of an operating system. We tend to favor Cyanogen
Mod. To say it’s better than other options is a bit black and white, but as
it’s a mature distribution, if it’s used as the basis for a fresh port, it
saves having to reinvent the wheel for many of the features you’d want. A handy
page on XDA Developers at www.bit.ly/tR4f2Q
has a complete rundown of the available Archos alternative operating systems,
from the stock Archos Android build to Uruk Droid and the Gingerbread 2.3 open
AOS Cyanogen Mod 7 release that we’re going to use. There are also Linux and
Ubuntu options among others, so as far as choice goes, you’re pretty spoilt
with an Archos device.
Finally, where do you
install this new operating system? Your device has various forms of storage:
its internal memory, its interval storage, any additional expansion (usually
via an SD card) and its own firmware. Most option will repartition the internal
storage to contain a swap file and OS storage, while the generic remaining
storage space will remain untouched to store any files you might have,
remaining accessible to both operating systems. Internal storage is often
preferable to SD cards as it avoids potential speeds issues with slower cards,
and write errors that are more likely with an older SD card. Having said that,
a spare high-speed SD card, say Class 10 or better, will provide enough throughput
to be perfectly usable and is a good way of testing out a custom ROM.
