Motorola Droid - bibanon/android-development-codex GitHub Wiki
The Motorola Droid was the first successful Android phone, Verizon's answer to the iPhone. This was nothing near the electronic plastic junk that we were all used to; It felt nice and heavy, built of steel, and with a professional, even military design, and this image was reinforced by the great marketing Motorola made for the device. It was even built to showcase the full ability of Android 2.0, without the impediments of the interfaces and bloatware that would later plague most other Android phones. It was a developer's dream at the time.
The idea of the Google Experience began at this point, with vanilla Android, unlocked bootloader, and top-of-the-line hardware, leading to the development of Google's Nexus One.
SuperOneClick is a universal Android rooting program that roots your phone, installs Superuser.apk, and adds busybox. It works for 2.2.3 and below.
You can get it here:
For reference, this is the manual method of rooting.
Root Droid regardless of version
Recovery images allow your phone to backup/restore your system, install custom ROMs and zip-packaged mods, and recover from ROM problems.
The time-tested, commonly used recovery image. CWM is the standard nowadays for most Android devices.
After you have got it rooted, install ROM Manager and flash Clockworkmod Recovery. When you're done flashing, turn off the phone, open the keyboard, and boot into recovery by pressing the power button while holding "X" on the keyboard. [Power+X]
You can use the D-Pad on the keyboard to scroll and select.
Before installing anything of any kind, it's recommended to make a Nandroid backup, so you can go straight back if you have any problems. Go to "Backup and Restore", choose "Backup", and if your SDCard has enough space, it will begin the process. To restore at any time, just press the following option, "Restore".
If you want to install a new ROM, you MUST select "wipe data/factory reset". This deletes everything except your SDCard, and is required for new ROMs to boot correctly. After that, select "Install ZIP from SDCard", pick "enter SDCard", and choose your ROM.
If you want to update an existing ROM, you usually don't need to wipe your data unless the developer explicitly says so. It's still recommended to start anew, to reduce the risk of problems.
With the release of the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon, most modders for the Droid have long since moved on to the newer, more open platform. However, a few holdouts continue making updated Gingerbread builds for the good ol' Droid.
The last constantly updated ROM built for the OG Droid.
Another good Gingerbread build, though a bit more bloated than the other.
Though no longer maintained, it's still a great system by itself.
Since the Motorola Droid has a keyboard, has an unlocked bootloader, and shares a similar CPU with the Nokia N900 and OpenPandora (but is many times cheaper at $30), running Native Linux on it is a tantalizing prospect.
Although it might seem crazy to try and use a desktop mouse on a touchscreen, it's actually pretty easy once you set up relative input, where the touchscreen is not absolute, but a touchpad. The KEGS Apple ][GS emulator for Android is a good example. So no more resistive touchscreens, please.
- XDA-Developers - gTan64's Native Linux on Droid
- XDA-Developers - Kernel Modifications for Native Linux
The Motorola Droid was the most popular device among Android devs for a while. Unfortunately, Motorola put the rest of the
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Get into Recovery - Hold the X button while turning on the Droid.
- Turn off the phone completely, and press the power button while holding "X" on the keyboard.
- Clockworkmod Controls - D-Pad (on keyboard) OR Volume buttons to scroll & Power to select