I have been running Cyanogenmod 7 (Alpha 3.5) for about year on my 16GB Touchpad. For the most part it has worked well, although at times the wireless has been flaky and the battery life is much shorter compared to using WebOS. I've been meaning to make this upgrade in the hopes that these issues have been resolved, and also to to make the move to Ice Cream Sandwich. The update went off without a hitch and from what I can tell so far none of my settings or applications were lost.
I used the following video as my starting point for the upgrade as I was a little fuzzy on the procedures as it had been some time since I did the initial CM7 install, and unfortunately I did not document my work:
http://www.reverendkyle.com/index.php/articles/131-upgrade-from-cm7-to-cm9-on-the-hp-touchpad
Main Steps
I began by creating directory to collect all of the files needed for the install. I ran into some dead links along the way, so I have included my sources for the necessary files below:
- universal-novacom-installer: https://code.google.com/p/universal-novacom-installer/downloads/detail?name=UniversalNovacomInstaller-1.3.jar
- ACMEInstaller2 (video states that this version is specifically made for the upgrade from CM7 -> CM9): http://goo.im/devs/jcsullins/cmtouchpad/tools/ACMEInstaller2
- gapps (Google Apps which cannot be distributed with CM due to licensing issues): http://goo.im/gapps/gapps-ics-20120429-signed.zip
- CM9 Alpha 2 ROM: http://techerrata.com/file/cm/touchpad/alpha/cm9_alpha2/update-cm-9.0.0-RC0-Touchpad-alpha2-fullofbugs.zip
Once I had these files, I was ready to perform the upgrade according to the following rough steps (keep in mind I am working from a 64-bit Windows 7 installation):
- Run the novacom installer
- Connect Touchpad to my desktop computer with USB cable and put the device into USB storage mode (through settings menu of Android OS)
- Place both the CM9 ROM and gapps files in the 'cminstall' directory (case sensitive) in the root of the Touchpad
- Reboot the Touchpad and hold the 'increase volume' button' until a large USB symbol appears on the screen
- Open a windows command prompt and execute the following commands (please note that I copied the ACMEInstaller2 file into the C:\Program Files\Palm, Inc directory in order to avoid any issues with path when executing the final command):
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Users\kjones>cd \
C:\>cd program files
C:\Program Files>cd palm, inc
C:\Program Files\Palm, Inc>novacom boot mem:// < ACMEInstaller2
C:\Program Files\Palm, Inc>
If all went well you should see two images of Tux in the upper left hand corner of the screen, along with a whole bunch of messages to standard output as the update occurs. Hopefully all is successful, and in a few minutes you will be presented with the beautiful ICS home screen, along with your prior apps and settings all intact.
I've found one possible issue right away, which is the inability to connect to an L2TP PSK VPN (detailed further here: http://www.vircom.com/security/how-to-fix-l2tpipsec-psk-vpn-connection-on-android-ics-4-0-x/). I have confirmed the connection from my Windows desktop, and although there is a slight chance I am entering my credentials incorrectly, this is functionality that I require for work and will need to investigate further.