How (not) to brick the Android Developer Phone

"The path to exercising this freedom is long and poorly documented, though. Eventually somebody will certainly pull together a definitive resource for developers wanting to hack on their Android phones; until then, one is left digging through a long series of web sites and forums (a few of which are listed below). This article will not be that resource, but, hopefully, it can help to point interested people in the right direction. Please note that this article assumes that you have an ADP1 phone; if you have a locked-down G1 you can still participate in all of the fun and games that follow, but you will need to root the phone first.

"The first stop, unfortunately, is the decidedly non-free Android SDK. Actually, this package is only truly mandatory for those wanting to build Android applications of their own. But it contains a pre-built version of the Android Debug Bridge (adb) tool, which is essential for working with the phone over a USB connection. With adb, one can connect to a shell running on the phone, move files back and forth, forward network ports to and from the phone, and more. Yes, one can run a shell directly on the device using the terminal emulator application, but life is certainly much easier when one can use a real keyboard."

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