Installing Android on HP Touchpad

 

Cyanogen Mod 7.1 is released in an alpha version which you can install on the HP Touchpad. It’s a ported version of android gingerbread. The procedure will take you about 15-20 minutes overall. There are some issues with the alpha such as instable wifi, but I already like it much better than the WebOS.

 

What you need

• Cyanogen Files
• Installer
• CM7
• Clockwork Recovery
• Moboot
• Novacom
• Download the SDK/PDK only
• Google Apps
• Download gapps-gb-full…

 

Install Novacom

Run the setup of the SDK/PDK you downloaded. Select only the commandline interface tools

 

Copy the files to the Touchpad

1. Connect the touchpad via USB. Tap the device notification on the touchpad to mount a drive in windows.
2. Create a new folder called “cminstall” in the root directory of the tochpad.
3. Copy the moboot, update-cm… and update-cwm_tenderloin… zipfiles into the folder
4. Unmount the drive and unplug the USB for the touchpad to go back to normal operation mode

 

 

Start the installer

1. Replug the USB cable, don’t connect as drive this time
2. Reset the touchpad throuch Settings > Device Info > Reset
3. When the screen turns dark, hold the volume-up key until the USB-Symbol appears
4. After a few seconds, the PC should recognize the touchpad device
5. Open a commandline window and navigate to the Novacom installatin location. In windows this is C:\Program Files (x86)\Palm\SDK\bin
6. Unzip the acmeinstaller.zip and copy the ACMEInstaller file to the novacom location
7. Run novacom boot mem:// < ACMEInstaller
8. After a few seconds, the touchpad shows a linux terminal and executes the installatin procedure
9. When done, it’ll boot into Android

 

Install the google applications

Cyanogen Mod 7.1 comes without any google applications such as Market, GMail, Maps, etc. Here’s how to install them.

1. Boot the touchpad to android
2. Connect it via USB to the PC
3. in the android taskbar, enable the USB Storage
4. In windows, copy the gapps-gb-full… file (you downloaded in the beginning) onto the touchpad
5. Reboot the touchpad
6. In the boot menu, select “Clockwork Mod” using the volume keys. Confirm with the home button
7. select install zip from sdcard > choose zip from sdcard
8. Select the gapps-gb-full… zipfile for installation
9. Reboot
10. Setup your google account

That’s it. You now have a market and you can install any apps you want. You have about 1.3 GB for apps, so don’t worry about the space

 

My Wifi hangs

The only issue I had so far was the wifi. Sometimes it doesn’t connect anymore and if you open the Wifi settings, it hangs.

If that happens,

1. delete your wifi from the list (navigation in the settings is very slow, but it still works). If you don’t manage, reboot it and try then.
2. Turn the touchpad off (reboot is not enough!). When it reboots after you selected “shutdown” (happened to me) just select shutdown again from the boot menu.
3. Wait 30s, then startup the touchpad
4. Once booted, configure your wifi connection again

After those steps, it instantly connected.