Want to dump that WebOS and Run Android on your HP Touchpad?

The people at Cyanogenmod team and few other teams are racing to a final release of a stable android OS on the defunct Hp Touchpad. Well theres a US $2000 reward aswell to be won for the people who comes up with the final release.


Note: Amazon still has HP TouchPad 16 GB and HP TouchPad 32 GB in stock.
and the Cheaper Smartbuy Hp TouchPad 16GB 


Here is a video from the Cyanogenmod team below and the note from them.

Hey Internet--
Here is some (older) touchpad progress from Friday. The Cyanogenmod team wanted to share it with the public to bring attention to our need for a few more touchpads (for developers currently working without them).

As you can see from this quick demo, we've been working hard and have made progress. Since this video was created last week, the build has been more "tabletized" (tablet tweaks added, etc.), lvm support has been added.
The touchscreen driver issue is now the focus of our attention.
Our ultimate vision is to create a *multiboot* solution where the end user will be able to boot into WebOS, Cyanogenmod, and/or other OSes. This appears to be very possible, and we have discussed several potential implementations with our new friends in the WebOS development community to make it easy for an end-user to set up.
For the moment though, we need about 4 tablets, as we have talented and experienced developers who cannot contribute effectively due to a lack of hardware. If you have an extra touchpad and are willing to help the cause, please let us know in the comments below.
A BIG CAVEAT-- PLEASE DO NOT ASK FOR ETAS. For the uninitiated, this is the #1 rule for Cyanogenmod. It will certainly be a long while before our goals become reality. Our goals incidentally are not connected with any bounty-- we are motivated to do it right, not do it fast.
And now the obligatory shout outs-- Thanks to rootzwiki and all the devs and everyone else who are collaborating and contributing to this project. You know who you are, you.
The CM team www.cyanogenmod.com

Supercharge Your New HP Touchpad With Non-Market Apps and Patches

Many of you bargain hunters probably picked up the defunct HP Touchpad last week, and though WebOS isn't exactly thriving, that doesn't mean you can't do some pretty neat things with it. If you want to go deeper, here's how to get extra functionality out of your Touchpad.

While there isn't much in the way of Android-style custom ROMs (yet), users can install non-market apps and software patches from Preware, a repository of WebOS software maintained by Preware.org. All it takes is a settings change on the Touchpad itself and a small Java program called WebOS Quick Install. It's kind of like rooting or jailbreaking, but nowhere near as complex.

I put this guide together with a lot of help from the WebOS Internals Wiki and thePreCentral Touchpad forum, which incidentally is a great place for app and patch suggestions. Definitely head over there once you're done setting up your Touchpad if you need more inspiration.

Step One: Activate Developer Mode

Full size

Turn on your Touchpad and press the home button. Tap the "just type" area and enterwebos20090606. Tap the "Developer Mode" icon that appears. Tap the "on/off" slider in the top right corner of the next screen, but leave the "DEVELOPER MODE PASSWORD" field blank. Tap "Submit".

Step Two: Install WebOS Quick Install

Full size

Switch to your computer and download the latest version of Jason Robitaille's WebOS Quick Install. It's a Java app, so you'll need an up-to-date version of Java, but it should work equally well for both Windows and OS X.

Step Three: Install Homebrew Apps & Patches

Plug your Touchpad into your computer with the included MicroUSB cable. It's best to use the cable that came with the device; it seems pretty picky about third-party cables. You should also use a USB port directly on your computer, not a hub or extension cable. Do NOT press the "USB Drive" pop-up that appears.

Switch back to your computer and double-click the .jar file you downloaded. It'll probably install some drivers for WebOS hardware—just let it do its thing. When it's finished, the Quick Install menu will appear. From this page you can manually install apps and packages. Click the globe icon on the right side (which looks like an old-school Palm HotSync icon—nice!) to open up a menu with all the Preware apps and tweaks ready to install.

Full size

Standard homebrew apps are on the "Applications" tab. Quality fluctuates across the 200+ entries, but there's a lot of worthy apps there, and it's all free. I highly recommend installing the Preware app, which then lets you install apps right from your device rather than needing to connect with WebOS Quick Install.

"Patches" is a great collection of advanced software tweaks that WebOS users have put together over the last few years. Just click "Install" underneath the description area to apply a patch. Two of the patches you'll absolutely want to implement are "Remove Dropped Packet Logging" and "Muffle System Logging", which cut down on the intensive back-end tech support services and should give you a noticeable speed boost.

The apps and patches will download and install across the USB cable right away. When you're finished, just unplug the cable. If you want to remove patches later, just repeat the above steps and click Tools > Device Management from the main Quick Install screen. Save the .jar file in a handy location for when you want to use it again. Advanced users can check out custom kernels for overclocking and a huge variety of Linux programs that run on the Touchpad.

This post originally appeared on Michael's personal blog.

---

Michael Crider is a freelance web writer. You can check out his regular posts on Screen Rant, follow him on Twitter (@MichaelCrider) or visit his personal blog.

Article Source : 

http://lifehacker.com/5836294/supercharge-your-new-hp-touchpad-with-preware