Nexus S (I902x) Installation¶

Warning: installing an operating system, such as Replicant, may void your device's warranty and will erase the data stored on the device.

Prerequisites¶

In order to install Replicant on your device, it is assumed that you have a computer running a GNU/Linux operating system and everything necessary to connect your device to the computer through USB available. Moreover, it is assumed that anyone performing the installation knows how to use command lines in a terminal and has basic knowledge about it.

Downloading the files¶

The first step in the installation process is to download and set up the files that will be used to install Replicant to the device. The files must be downloaded on your computer first.

1. Find out what the latest image is: check out the Last image part of the general table on NexusS
2. Download all the files listed for the device (including the checksum) on ReplicantImages for the latest image
3. Download the fastboot utility: jump to the base URL of the latest image release (on ReplicantImages) and get fastboot from the tools/ directory.
As fastboot is built as a 32 bit binary, you will need to install compatibility libraries for 32 bits executables if your computer is running on a 64 bit architecture.
4. Make sure fastboot can be executed: open a terminal in the folder containing fastboot and run:

chmod a+x fastboot

Preparing the device¶

The next step in the installation process is to prepare the device for fastboot mode.

1. Make sure the device is completely turned off and the USB cable is disconnected from the device
2. Start the device by holding the following key combination: Volume up, Power
3. Hold the key combination until the device shows Fastboot mode
4. Connect the USB cable to both the computer and the device

Unlocking the bootloader¶

If this is the first time you are flashing an operating system to your device, you'll have to unlock it first. If this is not the case, you can skip that part.
Beware: all data stored on the internal storage will be lost during that operation.

1. Open a terminal in the folder containing fastboot and run:

sudo ./fastboot oem unlock

2. Confirm that you want to unlock the device (using the volume keys to navigate and the power key to select)

Installing the images¶

Now that both the computer and the device are set up, it is time to actually install the images to the device.

1. Open a terminal in the folder containing fastboot and run:

sudo ./fastboot flash boot path/to/boot.img
sudo ./fastboot flash recovery path/to/recovery.img
sudo ./fastboot flash system path/to/system.img
sudo ./fastboot flash userdata path/to/userdata.img
sudo ./fastboot erase cache

Note: path/to/boot.img refers to the path to the boot.img file. If you downloaded fastboot and the images in the same directory, you can replace path/to/boot.img with boot.img. Same goes for recovery, system and userdata.

2. If everything went well (fastboot should indicate an error is something went wrong), you can reboot your device:

sudo ./fastboot reboot

Your device should now be running Replicant!