Developer hacks HTC phone

An iPhone and Mac developer has posted detailed instructions online on how to hack the new HTC HD2 phone to run the MeeGo Linux operating system.

Steven Toughton-Smith has written on a personal blog how to experiment with the new system by installing it on the HD2. The gadget normally runs the Windows Mobile operating system.

“I didn’t deviate much from the instructions at all, except for having the kickstart file produce an ext2 image,” Troughton-Smith said. “Using the latest kernel from Ubuntu for HD2, and a slightly modified initrd.gz from the same package, I combined these with the MeeGo rootfs image, and with a little tweaking I got as far as the homescreen.”

However, there are several problems with the installation, he said.

“Plenty of things aren’t working, the touchscreen being the most egregious, like WiFi, graphics acceleration, etc. But it’s a start.”