Following several other popular articles from CyanogenMod 7 series, today we’ll go in detail and provide a step by step tutorial to install the popular Android CyanogenMod 7.1 on the super cheap HP TouchPad tablet that many of us scored some time ago. Before we actually proceed with the tutorial, I need to say that none of the information described here is new, but picked up from various forums. For the software, my thanks and the full recognition goes to the amazing CyanogenMod team that spent their time and effort to provide us with excellent software for free. I did go through the steps myself while installing the CyanogenMod onto my two TouchPads, and went also through my share of hurdles and mistakes. The result? A very functional Android CyanogenMod 7 TouchPad with applications like Netflix, Hulu Plus, Facebook, Android Market, Amazon App Market, games, news, YouTube, eBook reader, etc. I almost forgot, overclocked perfectly stable to 1.8Ghz as well, which gave me a quadrant score of 2753. And that is only the beginning considering that the hardware acceleration is incomplete and the version is still a very young Alpha one.
That being said, the standard disclaimer here: This process changes your devices at a very low level. Proceed only if you know what you are doing. While a complete brick is highly unlikely, it is certainly possible. You have been warned! This version of CyanogenMod 7 is Alpha, so expect crashes and other issues.
And now, let’s proceed with the tutorial! Eventually, the end result should be something like this:
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Update 2: CM7 Alpha 3 is out and can be downloaded here (original thread)
or directly here: (md5: 3b7d774ae2833722c9883e77a0e86024)
The CM7 Alpha 3 fixes the following issues:
- The “sleep of death” or SOD – when the tablet wouldn’t wake up after a deep sleep
- support for the HP TouchPad 4G.
- better WiFi (coold, this is actually the only issue that I personally experienced)
http://goo-inside.me/roms/cmtouchpad/alpha3/update-cm-7.1.0-tenderloin-a3-fullofbugs-signed.zip
Update CM7 Alpha 2.1 is out and can be downloaded here: (original thread)
or directly here: (md5: 43e811fc10da37696a6fce20d6118bb2)
http://mirror.dal.tdrevolution.net/kmobs/update-cm-7.1.0-tenderloin-a2.1-fullofbugs.zip
http://goo-inside.me/roms/cmtouchpad/alpha2/update-cm-7.1.0-tenderloin-a2.1-fullofbugs.zip
The new ACME installer is located also in the original thread or here:
http://goo-inside.me/roms/cmtouchpad/alpha2/ACMEInstaller.zip
If you installed the previous alpha 1 version, installing the alpha 2.1 version is trivial. Boot in recovery, select install a zip file from SD card and point to the place you downloaded the new image. After the initial longer boot, everything will start nicely with a much more stable build. Among the changes, there is the WiFi issue fixed, one kind of sleep of death fixed, headphones sound / speaker sound fixed, etc. Same if you upgrade from Alpha 2.1 to 3. Just boot in recovery, select install a zip file from SD card and point to the new update-cm-7.1.0-tenderloin-a3-fullofbugs-signed.zip file.
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Step 1: Download Prerequisites
1. PC Side
- You will need Novacom drivers installed on your PC/MAC/Linux machine so you can connect to the TouchPad in terminal mode and be able to send commands to it. The Novacom drivers are located in here, just scroll down to the bottom of the page and install the drivers on your platform (be careful with 32/64 bit for Windows). On my system I used novacom-win-64.tgz. When you install them on a PC, you might want to run the installer as an Administrator (right click on the installer and choose the “Run as administrator” option).
- You will also need the ACME Installer (name ACMEInstaller.zip)
2. TouchPad side
You will need to download a number of packages (via RootzWiki)
- The actual CyanogenMod 7 image (name update-cm-7.1.0-tenderloin-a3-fullofbugs-signed.zip)
- ClockWork Recovery (name update-cwm_tenderloin-1012.zip)
- Moboot – for multiple boot (WebOS, CM7, recovery, etc) (currently version 0.34 – moboot_0.3.4.zip)
A bit later, you’ll also need:
- Google Apps (Market and all that stuff). You normally get them from CyanogenMod website, but I couldn’t do it unfortunately, their website seems to have some issues at the time of writing. An alternative mirror for the latest Google Apps is here.
- Market filter fix – by default, you’ll notice that Android Market installed on the TouchPad filters a number of apps including Netflix and FaceBook. We’ll get to this later.
Step 2: Prepare the TouchPad for the initial CyanogenMod install
- In order to prepare TouchPad for installing the CyanogenMod, you’ll need to connect it via USB (as an USB drive), and once you can explore it as a drive, create a folder called cminstall in the root.
- Inside the cminstall folder, copy the three files downloaded for the TouchPad – the Moboot, the ClockWork Recovery and obviously the CyangenMod 7 image. The cminstall folder should contain these 3 files: moboot_0.3.4.zip, update-cm-7.1.0-tenderloin-a3-fullofbugs-signed.zip and update-cwm_tenderloin-1012.zip. As newer versions will be released, the names will change. I’ll try to keep you updated when this happens.
- Once you copied the files, eject your TouchPad and reboot it.
- Very important! Immediately after reboot, press and hold the Volume up button. The TouchPad will enter in a special mode where you can connect to it using a terminal window. If you successfully entered in this mode, you’ll see an USB bright white symbol on the TouchPad screen, and nothing else. You need a full reboot (via power down completely your TouchPad followed by powering it on while holding the Volume Up button, not just a Luna restart)
Step 3: The CyanogenMod installation:
- Uncompress ACMEInstaller somewhere on your computer, ideally in the same folder where your Palm Novacom was installed. On my system, the location was C:\Program Files\Palm, Inc
- Start Command Line Prompt typing cmd in the Search (Windows Start) or from Start->All Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt. Navigate to the folder where you uncompressed the ACMEInstaller using the DOS CD command. For C:\Program Files\Palm, Inc folder, use cd C:\Program Files\Palm, Inc
- Once you are in the right folder, type the following command -
- novacom boot mem:// < ACMEInstaller
- followed by pressing Enter.
- This step make take a long time, anywhere between 5 and 10 minutes without any progress notification. I wasn’t patient enough initially and I thought the process was hung up, but hopefully you will learn from my experience.
- If nothing happens (or you get Unknown Command), make sure that you are actually in the right folder when you type the novacom command
Step 4: The Grand Result!
Once the CyanogenMod 7 will be installed, TouchPad will reboot automatically and you will be greeted with a multi-boot menu (if everything went fine, that is).
Step 5: Install Google’s Android Marketplace
To install Google Android Marketplace, you’ll need to install Google Apps first. In case you didn’t download the file during step one, here is the link again. Once downloaded, do not unzip, but copy the file the way it is somewhere on your TouchPad. I usually use Download folder for this. After you copied the file, reboot and at the multi-boot menu choose ClockworkMod option. The Recovery mode will start.Inside the recovery mode, you’ll be able to navigate with the Volume buttons and you will use Home button as OK.
- choose install zip from SD card option
- navigate to the download folder and select either gapps-gb-20110828-signed.zip or gapps-gb-20111012-signed.zip depending which file you downloaded.
- the Google Marketplace installation will start
- when the installation is finished, reboot
- proceed with creating an account if you don’t already have, or log-in using your existing one. Right at the beginning, you’ll need to wait until the installer figures out that you don’t have a data connection available and falls back to wireless.
Once the Marketplace is installed, you might figure out that some apps are filtered. Fortunately there is a patch for that called update-cm-7.1.0-tenderloin-marketfix-Flemmard.zip. Just download the patch from here and install it the same way you installed the Marketplace (boot into Clockwork Mod, select install zip from SD card option and point to the downloaded patch). Upon restart, all the applications will be visible in the marketplace including Facebook, Netflix ,Realtor.com, etc.
Step 6: Install Amazon Android App Market
You can also install Amazon Android App Market and it works well. You can download the apk file from here (not the last one, but after the installation it will prompt you automatically to install the latest and the greatest). After the installation, sign in with the Amazon account and you are good to go for those free app of the day deals. To enable apk install directly from the Amazon App store, go to (home) Settings->Applications->Unknown sources and enable the option.
Step 7: Overclock
I used CPU Master with very good results. In my case, I was able to overclock up to almost 1.8Ghz and although the CyanogenMod 7 for TouchPad Alpha version is not completely optimized, I got a good Quadrant 2753 score. I can’t wait to see what the next versions will bring to the table.
It is a good idea to play for a while without setting the overclock option on boot, just to see if everything is stable. In my case I have zero crashes after a day of intensive use, so everything is peachy.
Issues
- Wireless might not come back after sleep (setting it to never sleep by going into Settings->Wireless & networks->WiFi Settings-> (push settings button again from the status bar to reveal Advanced panel)->Wi-Fi sleep policy) but it will kill your battery faster
- occasionally TouchPad will fail to wake up from sleep, so you’ll need to restart it. Press Power + Home buttons for 20+ seconds and it will restart. One possible solution is to set the minimum frequency from 192 to 384 Mhz. It was reported that this trick fixes the sleep of death for some, but others are still experiencing SOD (sleep of death).
- The hardware acceleration is not completely implemented, Hulu Plus playback is somewhat choppy.
- For those that are trying to use Facebook and get a force close, try installing a fake location service like Fake GPS from the market (free). After you set a location, Facebook won’t crash anymore. You’ll have to start Fake GPS every time you restart your tablet though.
- The sound keeps coming out of the speaker, even with the headphones connected.
CyanogenMod TouchPad Tips & Tricks:
- You can take screenshots easily by pressing long pressing Power button and choosing Screenshot from the menu.
- if you enjoyed this article, we just published another Android related article – a hands on review of Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket, the new AT&T LTE phone and also another review for HTC Vivid.
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