How to register an Android Dev G1 over WiFi

Note: This is an old post that might not be applicable anymore

I got an Android Dev Phone. The first thing you have to do when you turn it on is register the phone to a Google Account. However I don't have a data plan with my phone, and could not register my new account, rendering my phone useless. The G1 has WiFi, and I was in a WiFi network, so I should have been able to use WiFi to connect to the google servers.

By default you can't connect to WiFi. This is how you turn on WiFi. You'll need a computer running Ubuntu Linux. Install the Android SDK. Connect the phone to a PC via USB. According to this Google page, you have to create a file called /etc/udev/rules.d/50-android.rules and put this in it:

So from a command line, run $ sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/50-android.rules and put the following into it SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666" Then make sure the permissions are a+rx: sudo chmod a+rx /etc/udev/rules.d/50-android.rules

Unzip the SDK, and go to the tools directory in a terminal go to the 'tools' directory. The following command will show you the list of devices that are plugged in:

If nothing shows up here, then you computer isn't detecting the phone. Make sure the phone is plugged in, and you have the correct file as above. Then restart the phone and go to the registration screen.

Then you can connect to the phone's shell and manually launch the settings screen.

This will bring up the Settings screen on your phone. From here you can tell it to connect to a certain WiFi network. After it's connected you can proceed and register the phone as normal.