Building for devices

This page complements the main page about Building with information that is specific to individual devices.

The supported devices with the current release are the Galaxy Nexus, Motorola Xoom, and Nexus S.

Galaxy Nexus is supported only in GSM/HSPA+ configuration “maguro” and only if it was originally sold with a “yakju” operating system.

The Motorola Xoom is supported in the Wi-fi configuration “wingray” sold in the USA.

Nexus S is supported in the GSM configuration “crespo”.

In addition, PandaBoard a.k.a. “panda” is supported in the master branch only, but is currently considered experimental. The specific details to use a PandaBoard with the Android Open-Source Project are in the file device/ti/panda/README in the source tree.

Nexus One a.k.a. “passion” is obsolete, was experimental in gingerbread and unsupported, and can't be used with newer versions of the Android Open-Source Project.

Android Developer Phones (ADP1 and ADP2, a.k.a. “dream” and “sapphire”) are obsolete, were experimental and unsupported in froyo, and can't be used with newer versions of the Android Open-Source Project.

No CDMA devices are supported in the Android Open-Source Project.

Building fastboot and adb

If you don't already have those tools, fastboot and adb can be built with the regular build system. Follow the instructions on the page about building, and replace the main make command with

$ make fastboot adb

Booting into fastboot mode

During a cold boot, the following key combinations can be used to boot into fastboot mode, which is a mode in the bootloader that can be used to flash the devices:

DeviceKeys
maguroPress and hold both Volume Up and Volume Down, then press and hold Power
pandaPress and hold Input, then press Power
wingrayPress and hold Volume Down, then press and hold Power
crespoPress and hold Volume Up, then press and hold Power
passionPress and hold the trackball, then press Power
sapphirePress and hold Back, then press Power
dreamPress and hold Back, then press Power

Also, on devices running froyo or later where adb is enabled, the command adb reboot bootloader can be used to reboot from Android directly into the bootloader with no key combinations.

Unlocking the bootloader

It's only possible to flash a custom system if the bootloader allows it.

This is the default setup on ADP1 and ADP2.

On Nexus One, Nexus S, Xoom, and Galaxy Nexus, the bootloader is locked by default. With the device in fastboot mode, the bootloader is unlocked with

$ fastboot oem unlock

The procedure must be confirmed on-screen, and deletes the user data for privacy reasons. It only needs to be run once.

Note that on the Nexus S, Motorola Xoom and on Galaxy Nexus, all data on the phone is erased, i.e. both the applications' private data and the shared data that is accessible over USB, including photos and movies. Be sure to make a backup of any precious files you have before unlocking the bootloader.

On Nexus One, the operation voids the warranty and is irreversible.

On Nexus S, Xoom, and Galaxy Nexus, the bootloader can be locked back with

$ fastboot oem lock

Note that this erases user data on Xoom (including the shared USB data).

Obtaining proprietary binaries

Starting with IceCreamSandwich, the Android Open-Source Project can't be used from pure source code only, and requires additional hardware-related proprietary libraries to run, specifically for hardware graphics acceleration.

Official binaries for Nexus S, Galaxy Nexus, and PandaBoard can be downloaded from Google's Nexus driver page, which add access to additional hardware capabilities with non-Open-Source code.

There are no official binaries for Nexus One, ADP2 or ADP1.

Extracting the proprietary binaries

Each set of binaries comes as a self-extracting script in a compressed archive. After uncompressing each archive, run the included self-extracting script from the root of the source tree, confirm that you agree to the terms of the enclosed license agreement, and the binaries and their matching makefiles will get installed in the vendor/ hierarchy of the source tree.

Cleaning up when adding proprietary binaries

In order to make sure that the newly installed binaries are properly taken into account after being extracted, the existing output of any previous build needs to be deleted with

$ make clobber

Picking and building the configuration that matches a device

The steps to configure and build the Android Open-Source Project are described in the page about Building.

The recommended builds for the various devices are available through the lunch menu, accessed when running the lunch command with no arguments:

DeviceBranchBuild configuration
maguroandroid-4.0.4_r1.1full_maguro-userdebug
pandamasterfull_panda-userdebug
wingrayandroid-4.0.4_r1.1full_wingray-userdebug
crespoandroid-4.0.4_r1.1full_crespo-userdebug
passionandroid-2.3.7_r1full_passion-userdebug
sapphireandroid-2.2.3_r1full_sapphire-userdebug
dreamandroid-2.2.3_r1full_dream-userdebug

Flashing a device

Set the device in fastboot mode if necessary (see above).

Because user data is typically incompatible between builds of Android, it's typically better to delete it when flashing a new system.

$ fastboot erase cache
$ fastboot erase userdata

An entire Android system can be flashed in a single command: this writes the boot, recovery and system partitions together after verifying that the system being flashed is compatible with the installed bootloader and radio, and reboots the system.

$ fastboot flashall

On all devices except passion, the commands above can be replaced with a single command

$ fastboot -w flashall

Note that filesystems created via fastboot on Motorola Xoom aren't working optimally, and it is strongly recommended to re-create them through recovery

$ adb reboot recovery

Once in recovery, open the menu (press Power + Volume Up), wipe the cache partition, then wipe data.

Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus Bootloader and Cell Radio compatibility

On Nexus S, and Galaxy Nexus, each version of Android has only been thoroughly tested with on specific version of the underlying bootloader and cell radio software. However, no compatibility issues are expected when running newer systems with older bootloaders and radio images according to the following tables.

Nexus S (worldwide version “XX”):

Android VersionPreferred BootloaderPreferred RadioAlso possible
2.3 (GRH55)I9020XXJK1I9020XXJK8
2.3.1 (GRH78)I9020XXJK1I9020XXJK8
2.3.2 (GRH78C)I9020XXJK1I9020XXJK8
2.3.3 (GRI40)I9020XXKA3I9020XXKB1All previous versions
2.3.4 (GRJ22)I9020XXKA3I9020XXKD1All previous versions
2.3.5 (GRJ90)I9020XXKA3I9020XXKF1All previous versions
2.3.6 (GRK39F)I9020XXKA3I9020XXKF1All previous versions
4.0.3 (IML74K)I9020XXKL1I9020XXKI1All previous versions
4.0.4 (IMM76D)I9020XXKL1I9020XXKI1

Nexus S (850MHz version “UC”):

Android VersionPreferred BootloaderPreferred RadioAlso possible
2.3.3 (GRI54)I9020XXKA3I9020UCKB2
2.3.4 (GRJ22)I9020XXKA3I9020UCKD1All previous versions
2.3.5 (GRJ90)I9020XXKA3I9020UCKF1All previous versions
2.3.6 (GRK39C)I9020XXKA3I9020UCKF1All previous versions
2.3.6 (GRK39F)I9020XXKA3I9020UCKF1All previous versions
4.0.3 (IML74K)I9020XXKL1I9020UCKF1All previous versions
4.0.4 (IMM76D)I9020XXKL1I9020UCKJ1All previous versions

Nexus S (Korea version “KR”):

Android VersionPreferred BootloaderPreferred RadioAlso possible
2.3.3 (GRI54)I9020XXKA3I9020KRKB3
2.3.4 (GRJ22)I9020XXKA3M200KRKC1All previous versions
2.3.5 (GRJ90)I9020XXKA3M200KRKC1All previous versions
2.3.6 (GRK39F)I9020XXKA3M200KRKC1All previous versions
4.0.3 (IML74K)I9020XXKL1M200KRKC1All previous versions
4.0.4 (IMM76D)I9020XXKL1M200KRKC1All previous versions

Galaxy Nexus (GSM/HSPA+):

Android VersionPreferred BootloaderPreferred RadioAlso possible
4.0.1 (ITL41D)PRIMEKJ10I9250XXKK1
4.0.2 (ICL53F)PRIMEKK15I9250XXKK6All previous versions
4.0.3 (IML74K)PRIMEKL01I9250XXKK6All previous versions
4.0.4 (IMM76D)PRIMEKL03I9250XXLA02Versions from 4.0.2

If you're building a new version of Android, if your Nexus S or Galaxy Nexus has an older bootloader and radio image that is marked as being also possible in the table above but is not recognized by fastboot, you can locally delete the version-bootloader and version-baseband lines in device/samsung/crespo/board-info.txt or device/samsung/maguro/board-info.txt

Restoring a device to its original factory state

Factory images for Galaxy Nexus (GSM/HSPA+ “yakju” and CDMA/LTE “mysid”) and for Nexus S (all variants) are available from Google's factory image page.

Factory images for the Motorola Xoom are distributed directly by Motorola.

No factory images are available for Nexus One.