I really hate it when vedors spoil perfectly good hardware by shipping crappy software. I also don’t like being locked out of the product that I paid with my own money. So, while HTC Desire is a really nice phone (I have been using it for the past 8 months and I am very happy with it), the software that HTC installed on it is a piece of crap.
I won’t make a review of the original software, because it’s just not worth my time. Let’s just say that it didn’t stay installed on my phone long enough to find out all the problems. I decided I needed to “free” my phone from HTC’s failed attempt of a Android distribution and I would install something different – I would root, S-OFF, unlock and install a community distribution.
What follows is a checklist of things to do if you have a HTC Desire and you want to free your phone:
Step 0. Download the latest Freedom 4 Android release. F4A is my pet project – it is a collection of tools you can use to customize your Android phone. All the tools that I will mention are already installed on F4A. You will also be able to install a web browser so you can download anything else (a new radio, a new recovery image).
Step 1. Root the phone with unrEVOked. Running this tool will give you root (superuser) access on your phone. It will also install a new recovery image (ClockworkMod). Having root will allow you to install any application, including the ones that will need to read or write system files – for example to do a backup or to change hidden settings. The new recovery image will allow you to backup and restore the whole system image, and also to apply any “update” or patch to your system, even if it’s not from HTC.
Step 2. S-OFF with AlphaRev. The S-OFF flag controls whether you have write access to certain parts of the system. If you want to flash system, recovery or radio images not signed by HTC, you need to be S-OFF. Running AlphaRev will also enable advanced fastboot functions, which you will need later.
Step 3. Remove network lock with HTC Desire SIM-Unlock. If you bought your phone on a contract, it is most likely locked on that network. This means that you can’t switch SIM cards and use a provider that has better coverage or cheaper data, and if you go abroad… you’d better leave your phone at home (data roaming == death). However, if you run this tool your phone will not be network locked anymore – and you won’t even have to pay for a unlock code!
Note: After these first 3 steps, your phone is almost the same as when it was bought. Sure, there are some small changes, but the software you’re running is still the one shipped by HTC. You will get regular software updates, and if you like the original software (please say you don’t) you can stop here and enjoy your partial freedom. You can always return later and go all the way!
But if you’re ready to do even more “hacking” and exploit all the possibilities the hardware offers, read on!
Step 4. Update the recovery image. The recovery image installed by unrEVOked is not bad, but it’s an old version. If you want more features (you want, trust me), you should update ClockworkMod to the latest version.
Step 5. Backup everything. From now on we’ll be doing serious changes to the system, so take 5 minutes and backup everything on your phone. If the new software versions you’ll install doesn’t work for you or you simply don’t like it, it’s good to have a backup to return to.
Step 6. Repartition the phone to have more storage for apps. HTC shipps a very “fat” system, and this will leave you with very little space for apps. You can move some of them to the SD card, but that has some issues and doesn’t always work. Since we’ll be installing a much slimmer system, you should apply this new partition table which will give you more than twice the size for apps.
Step 7. Update the radio image. The radio is a piece of software that know how to “talk” to the GSM/3G/bluetooth/wireless chips. It is what makes your device a phone. A buggy radio image will drop calls, will have signal problems and can drain your battery. So you should always be up to date on the radio image.
Step 8. Install a better system – CyanogenMod 7. Cyanogen is a open source, community-built Android distribution. It fixes a lot of problems in the original firmware shipped by HTC and adds a lot of very useful features. While some users might preffer another “custom ROM” (there are tens, if not hundreds – you should experiment!), I find that CyanogenMod is just perfect for the average user. So read this guide and go for Second Method (via Recovery).
Note: I suggest that after step 7 on that guide you also Wipe Dalvik Cache and Wipe battery state (Advanced mode in ClockworkMod Recovery).
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And that’s all! If you followed the 8 (maybe-not-so-simple) steps, you now have a fully unlocked phone on which you can change everything you want, a batter radio and recovery system, more space for your apps and a better Android system.
Enjoy! 
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