The Most (self-declared) Complete, Easy and Confirm-working Tutorial : Installing Android on N900

Ok lets try to make it short.

1) Install your MicroSD card into your N900. Personally I think 4GB, 8GB or greater is better.

2) Make sure you have added extras-devel repo to your list (not yet? refer here http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras-devel)

3) Install nitdroid-installer

sudo gainroot
apt-get install nitdroid-installer

4) During my installation, the latest version of nitdroid-installer in the repo is not latest version according to the Nitdroid website, so you may check for the latest version in .DEB format here http://downloads.nitdroid.com/nitinstaller/

5) Don’t straight away run the installer. Usually you’ll get stuck in the partitioning/formatting process. So partition it manually:

sudo gainroot
umount /dev/mmcblk1p1

Carefully look at your MicroSD’s size and choose new partition size before you proceed with the following command:

32GB MicroSD = 30100MB
16GB MicroSD = 14100MB
8GB MicroSD = 6100MB
4GB MicroSD = 2100MB

sfdisk -uM /dev/mmcblk1 << EOF
,<YOUR NUMBER IN MB>,C
,,L
,,
,,
EOF

6) Since you’ve partitioned and format your MicroSD manually, so we need to modify the installation script. With root privilege (sudo gainroot) and your favorite text editor, modify /usr/bin/notdroid-installer from the following lines:

...
# Options
FDISK_MMC='TRUE'
FORMAT_VFAT='TRUE'
FORMAT_ROOT='TRUE'
PURGE_KERNELS='TRUE'
...

into these lines:

...
# Options
FDISK_MMC='FALSE'
FORMAT_VFAT='TRUE'
FORMAT_ROOT='TRUE'
PURGE_KERNELS='TRUE'
...

Save and exit!

7) Make sure you have internet connection connected. If you have AutoDisconnect installed, I prefer you to disable it for a while 🙂

8 ) Run the automagic installer

sudo gainroot
sudo nitdroid-installer

Basically you are done! BUT is you are a Kernel Power user, proceed with these:

9) Install Multiboot that has kernel power support

sudo gainroot
apt-get install multiboot-kernel-power kernel-power-bootimg

Power off you device, slide out your keyboard, and power it on again 😀

Thanks 🙂

Credits:

• http://wiki.nitdroid.com/index.php?title=N900-Autoinstaller
• http://wiki.nitdroid.com/index.php?title=N900-install#Step_1:_Partitioning