Nexus 5: Marshmallow from factory image

A couple of years ago I've bought the Google Nexus 5, lately I was thinking on change the device but none of the new ones were really impresive to take that decision. And as it was not a real need, I've decided to keep with this smartphone because I'm so happy with it (even with Lollipop).

I was running a rooted 5.1.1 Lollipop when Marshmallow happened, I've rooted it mainly to change the DPI, but as you can do it now without being root, I feel like I'm going to start Marshmallow from an factory image.

First of all, make a backup of all the data, configurations and whatever, I would like to start from scratch, no updates, just empty the device and start installing the oficial image. Once it's done we can start the procedure:

  • Download the factory image (MRA58K)
  • Unzip it and get the hammerhead-mra58k folder
  • Check we have adb and fastboot commands from shell
  • Plug the device via USB port to the computer and...
$ adb reboot-bootloader
$ cd adt-bundle-mac-x86_64-20140321/sdk/platform-tools/hammerhead-mra58k
$ ./flash-all.sh

Please be patient, the process will take a bit of time, as the first start, but once the phone reboots you will be running Marshmallow. Oh!, as extra ball you can change the DPI directly from adb (with the phone plugged via usb), from 480 to 380 in my case:

$ adb shell wm density 380 DPI && adb reboot

Now it's time to configure your account, syncronize data, restore settings and customize all the stuff...That's all, enjoy the sweet.

Marshmallow

android tech

About the author

Óscar
has doubledaddy super powers, father of Hugo and Nico, husband of Marta, *nix user, Djangonaut and open source passionate.
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