Kindle Fire - How to Install Ice Cream Sandwich ROM

Folks who have the Kindle Fire can now get a foretaste of Ice Cream Sandwich while the rest of us watch and drool. Thanks, once again, to the great people at XDA Developers who made this happen.

The custom ROM is based on AOSP code for Ice Cream Sandwich. So far, the ROM is still in the pre-alpha stage, so it is not quite perfect yet.

If you install this custom ROM into your Kindle Fire, it is likely that you will experience issues. Here are some of the issues that you may encounter:

The touch screen might be unresponsive when waking up from sleep mode.
There are issues in the audio where at times it doesn't work.
There are issues in rotating from portrait to landscape view.
The Wi-Fi radio may sometimes disconnect for no reason.
There are apps that will crash and will force close.

Those are only some of the issues that you may encounter with this custom ROM. Remember that this custom ROM is a pre-alpha version, so don't expect everything to work perfectly. But, if you have the guts to try out this custom ROM, feel free to read on.

Prep the Device

The device needs to be rooted. You can follow the guide here.
You need to install the Team Win Recovery Project 2.0 or TWRP2. For the steps, go here.
Make sure the device is fully charged to avoid issues.
You need to have a PC running Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Install the Custom ICS ROM

Download the custom ROM from here and save it to your computer.
Connect the device to your PC via USB cable, and then copy the downloaded file into the root directory of the device's SD card.
Disconnect the device from the PC and turn off the Kindle Fire.
Boot the device again and once you see the yellow triangle icon, press the Power button one more time to boot into recovery mode.
In recovery mode, just to be safe, create a backup of the device by tapping on the Backup button. Once the process is done, go back to the main menu.
Wipe the Cache and the Dalvik Cache. Just tap on “Wipe” then choose “Cache”, and once that's done, go back and tap “Dalvik Cache.”
To install the custom ROM, tap on the Install button. This will bring you into a two-column file browser. Tap the file that you have copied into the device. Then tap the big Flash button at the bottom left to start the installation.
Once the installation is done, you will see three big buttons at the bottom. Choose the Reboot button to reboot the system.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Ice Cream Sandwich on your Kindle Fire.

Kindle Fire user? $5 in Amazon Coins await you

by Bogdan Bele, 1 week ago

Kindle Fire users have a little reason to be happy, as Amazon announced in a press release (which you can check out below) that it is giving away 500 Amazon Coins to every user. That’s…

Comments

E

I don’t know if Google already does this but the should have a pure Android Version available to the public so the can update their own device
- a
  
  the problems with that are compatibility and oem/carrier control
- http://www.dsaif.com/ Saif
  
  That’s not possible. There are 2000+ different Android devices!
- Arsenal™
  
  OEMs are the ones to blame! :P
  - http://www.facebook.com/johnphillip.saayman John-Phillip Saayman
    
    Yes because look at the s3, it could be on 4.2.2 but it’s not. Thats cause the s4 is on 4.2.2, so they deliberately stall with the update otherwise the s4 isn’t so special anymore.
    - Arsenal™
      
      Rooting FTW! :D
NexusUser4Life

I think the ultimate goal for Google was to have a true Google phone. So I think they want to differentiate the term “Google/Nexus Phone” from “Android Phone”. Now that low-end prepaid carriers are constantly advertising affordable “Android Phones”, that really does sort of cheapen the Android brand. If every phone had the latest version of stock Android, then Nexus devices wouldn’t be so special, would they? I used to be against fragmentation, now I kinda see what Google is up to in keeping the Google/Nexus line of devices pure.
wizfactor

I’m surprised you didn’t mention the security holes that are found in older versions of Android. Google has clearly been patching these flaws as soon as they’re found, so I feel moderately secure on 4.2. But when other manufacturers and carriers refuse to update their handsets, they not only deny access to new Android features, they also leave critical security holes wide open.

For the sake of the consumer, this is absolutely unacceptable, and for me is the number 1 reason why manufacturers and carriers must be held accountable for their reluctance to upgrade their Android devices. You would get mad at Oracle or Adobe if they stopped updating their Java or Flash plug-ins to fix known vulnerabilities. Why should Android (or any mobile OS for that matter) be treated differently?
- Arsenal™
  
  exactly! well said!
Alu Zeros

Google doesn’t really care they don’t get paid for specific os version on device. They get paid for using google services and advertisement. Google’s could honestly care less if you have the newest or not, or what hardware your on (apple, blackberry, windows, etc)
nishantsirohi123

then there are consumers whose devices constantly gives them an alert of the update being available. but they are either too lazy to update or aint bothered with it at all
gargamel

I really don’t see the issue here. Look at desktops: 90% running Windows, but what is the distribution between the different versions of Win? Some are XP, some Vista, Some 7, and some 8. I guess there is a small % still running WIN98 or 2000. Very similar to Android.

Not to mention that GB is a great OS, and I personally was reluctant to upgrade to ICS. Only JB convinced me it’s time to move. And still, I keep my old Nexus One on GB (CM 7) rather than upgrading to ICS/JB- it just works!
http://www.facebook.com/johnphillip.saayman John-Phillip Saayman

I must say that I don’t like being on an old version of Android. I love software updating. I don’t mind if you have ICS but I have an Gs3 and it on 4.1.2. Which is the newest official one. So you’d advise a Nexus for me, the thing is that a Nexus device doesn’t have good enough specs. I wish Samsung would make another Nexus with a 5 inch screen and a 1.8 ghz processor and all that nice stuff. Cause to me Nexii devices aren’t up to scratch enough for me. ( not saying they’re bad!) just my own like
C-Ice

There is a H/W restriction (kernel 3+ require ARMv7 floating point) which dictates current Android distribution. That is main reason why there is more JB than ICS devices at this point of time and also reason why many devices are stucked operative on old GB (great deal of ARMv6 and lot of RAM). That will change some day soon. Fact that there is more JB than ICS telling that Android is not fragmented much due to lazzy updates as it is due to H/W restrictions.

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How to Install Ice Cream Sandwich ROM on Kindle Fire

Prep the Device

Install the Custom ICS ROM

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