I ditched my iPhone 3G for a Nexus One. For me the reason was an extremely easy one: seemless integration with Google. I love the way it handles syncing email, contacts, calendar, and voice mail. To be honest, I don’t really use the phone for much else. I tracked my usage of apps on the iPhone and found them mostly to be novelty apps.

But being a Linux geek at heart and a Capricorn, I do like to have complete control! So I embarked on rooting the Nexus One as soon as it OTA updated to Android 2.2 (Froyo). After reading numerous threads, blogs and posts, here is my way of distilling all that info down into four easy steps.

Remember: this is for the stock ROM FRF91. I cannot explain — as I don’t know — what will happen if you screwed around with your phone in the past. This happens to be a phone fresh from the factory that OTA updated to Android 2.2 as soon as I turned it on! YMMV.

Step 01: Unlock Bootloader

• Download fastboot for Linux here
• Turn off the Nexus One
• Connect your phone to your computer via a USB cable
• Power it on by holding down the trackball as you hit the power button

you should see a text screen with three skateboarding Androids

• Open a terminal on your Linux box

navigate to where fastboot is located

• Run ./fastboot-linux devices

you should see some output
if you did not see output, you need Step 02: Modify UDEV
repeat above steps until output is seen

• Run ./fastboot-linux oem unlock
• Use the Volume Up to select Yes to Unlock bootloader

Step 02: Modify UDEV
AFAIK, this only applies to Ubuntu systems.

• sudo vi /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
• add the following lines to this file

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="18d1", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666"

• sudo chmod a+rx /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
• sudo services udev restart

Step 03: Flash a Recovery Image

• Download the lastest recovery image here
• Turn off Nexus One
• Power in to Fastboot mode

hold down trackball as you hit the power button
same as in Step 01: Unlock Bootloader

• Run ./fastboot-linux devices

make sure you see the device

• Run ./fastboot flash recovery recovery-RA-nexus-v1.7.0.1.img
• Test recovery mode

use the Volume Down-key to toggle Reboot
hit the power button
hold down the Volume Down-key as it reboots
navigate to RECOVERY with the Volume Down-key
press the power button to select

• If all goes well, you’ll see a nice recovery menu

Step 04: Install Rooted Image

• Download the rooted image from here
• While in Recovery mode, perform a nandroid backup of your system
• Return to main menu and select USB-MS toggle

This will mount the SD card onto your Linux system

• Copy over froyo-rooter-signed.zip to the SD card
• Unmount the SD card in Linux
• Press the trackball to disable USB-MS mode
• From the Recovery menu select Flash zip from sdcard

Within a few seconds you will have a rooted Nexus One w/Froyo Android 2.2

• Power down or reboot the phone

If all went according to plan, you should have a rooted Nexus One. A quick way to tell is by looking for a new app call “Superuser Permissions.”

Good luck!