Install Android 2.3 Gingerbread AOSP ROM on Motorola Milestone

The Motorola Milestone, was originally shipped with Android 2.1 Éclair and while there have been various custom ROMs for the installation of Froyo on it, CyanogenMod 6 and GOT are amongst the title contenders for the best Froyo ROMs of the said device. Recently, XDA Developer user edgardcastro has ported the standard Gingerbread from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) to the Milestone, allowing owners to install the latest version of Android on their device.

Before you install this ROM, please keep in mind that this build is still under development and therefore, some bugs can be expected. Things like memory tuning and performance tuning are still pending, and will be included in further updates.

To look at the bright side, Milestone owners can look forward to a stable build of a custom Gingerbread ROM for their handsets sometime in the future. If patience is not one of your most polished virtues, please read ahead on how to get Gingerbread on your device.

The following issues are known to exist in the ROM and will be catered for in future updates:

• GPS not working. A-GPS works and it is suggested to turn off GPS Satellites location in system settings.
• Internal compass is showing inverted directions(North/South are switched).
• Video recording quality is not at its best yet.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. AddictiveTips will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.

The method is the same as our previous post regarding installing Android 2.2 Froyo based CyanogenMod 6 on Motorola Milestone.

What you’ll need:

• The Gingerbread AOSP ROM: (https://code.google.com/p/shadowmodbr/downloads/detail?name=update-smbr-2.3.2b2-signed.zip) AOSP GINGERBREAD ShadowMOD-BR v2.3.2b2
• Open Recovery 1.46: (https://modmymobile.com/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=28089) Download Link
• The overclock pack: (https://code.google.com/p/shadowmodbr/downloads/detail?name=smbr-2.3.2b2-overclock-pack.zip”) Download Link

Pre-Flash Setup:

1. Extract Open Recovery 1.46 zip file.
2. Copy “OpenRecovery” Folder and “Update.Zip” to SD card.
3. Copy the Gingerbread ROM to SD card\OpenRecovery\updates
4. Copy the Overclock pack to SD card\OpenRecovery\updates
5. If you’re upgrading from Éclair, you need to flash a 2.2SBF as described in this post. Froyo users can just go to the next step.
6. Boot the phone into OpenRecovery 1.46 (method described in detail here)
7. Perform factory data reset, wipe Dalvik cache and cache partition
8. Apply the ‘update-smbr-2.3.2b2-signed.zip’ followed by the ‘smbr-2.3.2b2-overclock-pack.zip’
9. Perform factory data reset, wipe Dalvik cache and cache partition again.
10. Reboot your device, and you’re done!

Congratulations! You now have Gingerbread running on your Motorola Milestone!

For future updates and mature builds, stay tuned or head over to the XDA-Developers forum thread.

Read Full Bio

Fahad Abdullah

A Robotics Engineer by profession, driven with a geek's urge to learn, to understand and to keep up with the rapidly changing technology all around us. I'm an Android enthusiast and hope to contribute what little I can to the Android world.

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