[TouchPad Development] jcsullins:
Touchpad Toolbox (aka tptoolbox) is a completely self-contained and user-friendly system for the low-level management of the HP Touchpad.

TPToolbox replaces:

ACMEInstallers

ACMEUninstallers

Various methods of resizing volumes (erroneously called partitions)

Various methods of reflashing the A6 battery monitoring chip

Various methods of completely wiping/recreating volumes

TPToolbox adds:

A straightforward, reliable and easy-to-use method of installing all versions (ICS to LP) of Android on the Touchpad.

The ability to completely remove webOS.

User Interface

As the toolbox name implies, there are several tools in tptoolbox. These tools are accessible via a menu-driven interface:

The interface consists of three primary panes: menu, help and output. The menu pane is toward the top left. The help pane is toward the top right. The output pane is at the bottom.

When a tool runs, output (and possible error messages) will appear in the output pane (doh!). Also, the very bottom of the menu pane will have a "WORKING" status indicator. When a tool fails to complete successfully, the status indicator will change to "FAILED." When a tool completes successfully, the status indicator will change to "DONE." The DONE/FAILED status indicator will remain until the next user input (i.e. VolUp/VolDn/Home is pressed).

Most tools, however, are not simple one-step operations. They may require additional confirmation or input during the process. In those cases, the "WORKING" indicator will disappear (without a DONE/FAILED) after part of the process completes and a new menu will appear. You will be guided through these processes with appropriate information in the help pane. Also, if an operation is cancelled (i.e. you say 'no' to a confirmation, etc.), the status indicator will be reset (be blank).

The VolumeUp, VolumeDown and Home buttons are used to select menu items.

The screen will automatically blank if there is no user input for 20 mins. The Power button can be used to blank/unblank the screen.

Installing Android

Although the on-screen help will guide you through the process when you select "Install Android", I'll give an overview of the process here and how it differs from previous methods. Unlike previous methods of installing Android, you do not need to copy any files onto the Touchpad prior to running TPToolbox. After you select "Intstall Android" it will do some basic checks on the volumes and filesystems on the device. Then, it will share the "media" volume to your PC allowing you to copy the installation files (ROM, Recovery and GApps) to the Touchpad. It will then check these install files to make sure they are compatible and have no obvious errors (i.e. basic zip integrity check). Assuming those tests pass, it will create a set of volume resizing criteria based on the type of Android being installed (i.e. DataMedia vs Non-DataMedia) and confirm that you have availablespace on the device. Next, you will be presented a menu allowing you to confirm to proceed with the installation. It will then install moboot (which is included in TPToolbox) and recovery and resize the volumes. Then it will generate an "install script" for recovery and boot into recovery to complete the installation of the ROM and GApps. After recovery completes it's installation of the ROM and GApps, the Touchpad should boot into the newly installed ROM.

TL;DR: Select "Install Android," Copy files when it asks, Confirm when it asks

For more information on compatible ROM/Recovery/Gapps, etc., see post #3.

Complete Data Reset, webOS Removal and Android Uninstall

One of the tools available is "Complete Data Reset". This will completely wipe all OSes and Data from the Touchpad and rebuild the volumes fresh (actually, there will only be one volume after this, 'media') and rebuild /boot with a minimal set of programs (provided by tptoolbox) that are required by Android to boot. After doing a "Complete Data Reset," you can then "Install Android" (i.e. without webOS). Or, you can re-install webOS (see "Create webOS Volumes" in post #4) and then (optionally) "Install Android." Note that there are no separate "remove webOS" or "remove Android" (This is by design!).

See Also

Post #2 - Loading TPToolbox

Post #3 - Installing Android via TPToolbox

Post #4 - Other TPToolbox Tools

Post #5 - TPToolbox Limitations/FAQs/etc.