1 Android Screen Density
2 ======================
3 :author: Aaron Ball
4 :email: nullspoon@iohq.net
5
6
7
8 Recently a Droid X owner I know showed me a software that can change the screen
9 density on Android phones (I can't remember if it was a part of his rom or
10 not). I thought it was cool, so I set out to find a way to manually change
11 screen density without installing any additional software since I try to run as
12 minimalistic an install on my phone as possible (my fellow Evo users out there,
13 you know why).
14
15 Just before we start things off here, I'd like to put a disclaimer on this one.
16 You likely won't brick your phone (you'd have to try really hard or have really
17 bad luck), but you can mess it up pretty bad as we will be editing a system
18 configuration file. If you cause some problems, please feel free to ask
19 questions about it and I will try my best to help, but I offer no warranty or
20 guarantee on this.
21
22 With that out of the way, let's get started!
23
24 As many things do in Android, this requires root as we will have to remount the
25 /system partition.
26
27 First things first, crack open your terminal emulator. If you don't have this,
28 you can find it on the market, however most roms includes this application by
29 default.
30
31 Once in terminal emulator, run the following command:
32
33 ----
34 su
35 ----
36
37 This logs your terminal session in as root(or **S**uper **U**ser so we can
38 perform the various operations needed to make the change. Obviously, your
39 superuser software will kick in here. Just select Allow.
40
41 Now that we are logged in as root, run the following command.
42
43 ----
44 mount -o remount,rw /system
45 ----
46
47 This will remount the /system partition with read/write permissions. Without
48 running this command, we can't save the config file we will be editing in a
49 few. The default android has for this on boot is read only permissions, as this
50 partition contains some pretty critical stuff (it isn't called system for
51 nothing). This is a good security measure to keep programs from changing all
52 kinds of stuff on your phone. No worries however, we will only have write
53 permissions set up for a few minutes.
54
55 Now, open up the build properties file located at /system/build.prop I
56 am assuming here that you know how to use VI. If you don't, I am in the
57 process of writing up a post on using VI in Android terminal emulator.
58 If you know how to use it on a desktop, VI on Android is very similar
59 and you should be able to proceed as I detail later how to hit the
60 escape key when you don't have one on your phone.
61
62 ----
63 vi /system/build.prop
64 ----
65
66 Scroll down until you see **ro.sf.lcd_density = 160**. If you change this
67 number and reboot your phone, your screen density will change on startup. I
68 typically use 120.
69
70 Finally, save the file and reboot. For you EVO users who don't have a qwerty
71 keyboard with an escape key (who has one of those anyways), press **volume up +
72 e**. I believe volume up is the terminal emulator equivalent of ctrl.
73
74 Reboot phone for your changes to take effect.
75
76 *WARNING (Wik)* : Don't change this value to too small or you won't be able to
77 use your phone because everything will be tiny. You have been warned.
78
79 *WARNING WARNING (Also Wik)* : When I discovered the build.prop file, I was
80 most excited and started poking around. I noticed a lot in there that could
81 cause problems for your phone. Be careful when changing the values in this
82 file. It can be fun, but you might end up with an unusable phone until you
83 reflash it.
84
85
86 Category:Android
87
88
89 // vim: set syntax=asciidoc:
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