GNet Solutions

I have recently purchased a new phone as an upgrade, my previous phone has CyanogenMod on it and I have become accustomed to the control, performance, and ease of use CyanogenMod offers. I purchased my phone, in acceptable condition, from http://www.glyde.com

After receiving my new phone, I proceeded to research the latest available version of CyanogenMod that will run on the Evo 4G. The original ROM was a stock carrier ROM running Android 2.3.5 Ginger Bread, and the latest version of CyanogenMod that is compiled for the HTC 4G "Supersonic" is version 7, the Ginger Bread version. As of writing this article, the latest version of CyanogenMod is 10, running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. My previous phone is an older piece of hardware, and it is running CM10. There must be a lazy developer over at Cyanogen, however the forums suggest that EVO is just a low priority because of how old it is
Old is not useless. I managed to find an unofficial CM10 ROM for "Supersonic" to test. However if that does not work , I will need to compile my own unofficial version of CyanogenMod. More info can be found here

To get started I needed a few things:

• Backup of previous phone's apps + data (I used Titanium Backup)
• Android Developer Tools
• An Unlocked Bootloader
• Adding a better Android recovery tool
• Install CyanogenMod 10

Android Developer Tools¶

The download for the ADT package is fairly big, it can be downloaded from the Android Developer page.
Once I downloaded the package I extracted it to /opt/ and created links for the executables I needed in /usr/bin/

cd Downloads
tar xzf adt-bundle*
mv adt-bundle* adt-bundle
mv adt-bundle /opt/
ln -s /opt/adt-bundle/sdk/platform-tools/adb /usr/local/bin/
ln -s /opt/adt-bundle/sdk/platform-tools/fastboot /usr/local/bin/

• Ubuntu users can instead use:
  

  sudo apt-get install android-tools-fastboot android-tools-adb
  

An Unlocked Bootloader¶

I had to create an account with htcdev.com in order to receive an unlocked bootloader, as the version of HBOOT was newer than the method described here

• Step 1
  After powering down, press Volume Down and while pressing Volume Down, press Power holding both buttons to start the device into Bootloader mode.
  If you have difficulty, power up normally, go to Settings->Battery and deselect Fast boot. Power down and try again.

• Step 2
  Use the Volume buttons to select up or down. Highlight Fastboot and press the Power button.

• Step 3
  Connect the device to the computer via a usb cable

• Step 4
  Install fastboot (provided by ADT or android-tools-fastboot package)

• Step 5
  Open a terminal session and type:
  

  fastboot oem get_identifier_token
  

  
  Copy the contents from
  

  <<<< Identifier Token Start >>>>
  

  
  All the way to this line:
  

  <<<<< Identifier Token End >>>>> 
  

  
  Note: Only copy the highlighted sections above. Do not copy the INFO or (bootloader) prefix
  Once the information has been entered, click Submit

• Step 6
  You will receive an email with the attachment: Unlock_code.bin. Save this file in the same folder as your fastboot files.
  If, after a short period of time, you have not yet received the mail, or you have received an email from HTC, but does not contain an attached file, it is possible that more stringent spam filters and anti-virus programs will block this mail or attachment.

• Step 7
  In the terminal type:
  

  fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
  

• Step 8
  On your phone you will now see the disclaimer. Please read this carefully as this action may void your warranty. Use the Volume buttons to highlight your choice, and the Power button to make your selection. If you select Yes, your phone will be reset to its’ factory default settings, and your bootloader will be unlocked. If you select No, your phone will reboot and no modifications will have been made.

Adding a better Android recovery tool¶

At this point I could simply add the CyanogenMod zip file and upgrade the stock ROM. However I prefer control down to the finest detail with my devices, so I installed Clockwork Recovery.

fastboot flash recovery recovery-clockwork-touch-5.8.0.1-supersonic.img

Install CyanogenMod 10¶

Once Clockwork Recovery was installed, I continued on to install CyanogenMod by going into recovery mode, by first powering off the device and then holding the Volume Down button while powering up the device. Once in the HBOOT menu press the Volume Down button until the Recovery option is highlighted then press Power. When the Clockwork Recovery menu has loaded select Install from zip, and then locate and select the CM10_Supersonic.zip. Once this process finishes, do a factory reset and clear the cache partition. Reboot the device and CyanogenMod will load.