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Make your own HTC EVO custom ROM with dsixda's HTC Android Kitchen

Evo-android-kitchen Want to make your own HTC EVO custom ROMs but don't have the technical know-how to get it done? Thanks to dsixda's HTC Android Kitchen, you don't need any culinary training to be able to cook your own ROMs.

Designed for those who want 1) an easy starting point to make their first ROM, 2) the ability to modify shipped or custom ROMs, and 3) relief from the confusion caused by "all those scripts and complex commands required for building and extracting," the kitchen simplifies the ingredients, cuts down the cooking time, and automates the prep and clean up usually involved with whipping up a ROM from scratch.

The kitchen can be set up on a computer running Linux (Ubuntu recommended), OS X, or Windows using a customized version of Cygwin or Ubuntu by way of a virtual machine. Once that's done and you've chosen/imported your base ROM (see FAQ for instructions), all you have to do is pick and choose what you want from the menu and click "Build ROM."

Here are the menu options:

Main Menu

  • Set up working folder from ROM
  • Add root permissions
  • Add BusyBox
  • Disable boot screen sounds
  • Add wireless tethering
  •  Zipalign all *.apk files to optimize RAM usage
  • Change wipe status of ROM
  • Change name of ROM
  • Check update-script for errors
  • Show working folder information

Advanced Options

  • Deodex files in your ROM
  • Add task killer tweak for speed (stock ROM only)
  • Add /data/app functionality
  • Add Nano text editor + sysro/sysrw
  • Add Bash (command shell)
  • Add Apps2SD
  • Add /etc/init.d scripts support (busybox run-parts)
  • Add custom boot animation functionality
  • Porting tools (experimental)
  • Unpack or re-pack a boot image
  • Unpack data.img
  • Sign APK file(s)
  • Convert update-script or updater-script
  • Run plugin scripts

The HTC Android Kitchen was built about a year ago and has supported the EVO for nearly as long as the phone has been available, but in light of a recent tip about it and the introduction of G&E's new Reader ROM Picks series, I think it's a good time to bring it up again.

The developer, dsixda, updates it with intense regularity too, so there's always something new worth talking about. Looking at the most recent set of release notes, you can see that dsixda has updated the kitchen more than 20 times in the past month. Yesterday, it was updated twice! Most of the updates contain bug fixes, but some add new features and improve existing ones.

Whether you want to make a custom ROM for yourself or for the rest of the EVO community, you can get started by downloading dsixda's HTC Android Kitchen from the links below.

[Download @ GitHub | xda-developers] Thanks, XpAcErX!

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Jenn K. Lee

Jenn K. Lee is the founder of Pocketables. She loves gadgets the way most women love shoes and purses. The pieces in her tech wardrobe that go with everything are currently the Samsung Galaxy Note II, Sony Tablet P, and Nexus 7, but there are still a couple of vintage UMPCs/MIDs in the back of her closet.

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