READ ALL OF THIS POST AND THE ONE AFTER IT!
No, really, read it all. There's important information in here, honest!
First of all, i'll update this post with more information over the weekend, i'm kinda tired after a busy week but I know there's a few people looking forward to getting there hands on this particular ROM, so I thought i'd get something online as quickly as possible.
What is it?
As you all know, HTC have announced the 'HTC Desire', which is effectively HTC's version of the Nexus One. It shares a lot of the same hardware, but features cool stuff like HTC Sense and other cool apps (such as a camera app with face recognition, touch focus etc. etc.). The product is due to launch in just under 2 months, which means very early Beta ROMs have started to leak. This Alpha release is one such leak.
Alpha? That sounds scary?
Yeah, this isn't even Beta. There's a good chance you won't want to use this as your main ROM, but you might like to check out what's coming down the road. Now that this ROM has been ported to the N1 (and is nearly flawless), ports of future leaks will be a lot easier and a lot quicker to release. When the final Desire release eventually arrives, it should run perfectly on our devices without too much additional work.
So what works?
Almost everything - it's quicker to talk about what doesn't work. Aside from the FM radio, there appear to be no hardware incompatibilities that will cause a problem between the two devices. Even the noise cancelling microphone is functional in this ROM. The only problems with the ROM are related to the fact it's early Beta. The camera application does not yet record at 720P and is locked to a max res of 3 Megapixels, but these are indeed all symptoms of an early Beta release, simple as that. You'll notice occasional oddities such as setting the wallpaper is best done through the settings app rather than the menu key on the homescreen, but on the whole, the system is pretty usable and very cool. Weirdly, Google Maps doesn't seem to have multitouch in this build, although the browser does. I'd expect this to change before release. Oh, did I mention Flash 10.1 appears to be present?
See the 'known issues' in the next post for more information.
Tell me about partitions!
The Desire has a different partition layout to the Nexus One, which means some stuff had to be moved from /system to /data. No biggie, and with /system being 98% utilised due to sensibly moving stuff around, it worked out rather well. Be aware that this means you must wipe BEFORE installing the ROM and NOT AFTER, or it won't boot. A wipe is strongly recommended before trying this ROM - and remember to nandroid backup first!
What else are you working on for the ROM?
I have deliberately left this ROM un-odex'd, as I know other ROM developers will like to have a play with it (remember to credit your source guys!). Going forward, odex'ing the ROM makes a lot of sense to save space, or perhaps moving the dalvik-cache to the cache partition (as in cyanogen's ROM). I am also looking into moving some of the system partition into squashfs partitions to save yet more space.
What kernel are you using? Any other tweaks worth knowing about?
The ROM has the usual MCR tweaks (tun.ko, openvpn, busybox, dropbear etc.) and is running a custom kernel by teknologist and myself based on Cyanogen's excellent source. Himem is enabled.
This is great - how can we say thanks?
You can express your appreciation by signing up to a MoDaCo Ad Free or MoDaCo Plus Account using PayPal or Google Checkout, as detailed in this post on MoDaCo. As well as donating to support the work that goes into all the various MoDaCo activites, you get cool stuff like free software (there's some great Android stuff coming too!), and ad free MoDaCo site and of course access to the MoDaCo Online Kitchen. All signups are very much appreciated.
Alright, i've read enough, gimme the downloads!
One download, update zip format, apply via Amon_RA's excellent recovery image, remember to Nandroid backup first. You probably won't want to use this as your production ROM yet!
DOWNLOAD MD5: 7e9b4a5cd77b866d5aef89cfc16fbed5
MIRROR MD5: 7e9b4a5cd77b866d5aef89cfc16fbed5
These links use referrer checking to prevent bandwidth theft - if you get redirected to the MoDaCo homepage, try 'right click save as', another browser, or disabling noscript / ad blocking
An online kitchen will be coming shortly for MoDaCo premium members (once i've had some sleep, it's been a rollercoaster ride with this ROM!), which include all the usual MCR goodies. Rather than uploading the whole ROM every time I tweak it, I may also roll out test fixes through the kitchen before pushing them to the main zip (it's MUCH easier and MUCH quicker with my slow upstream connection).
One more thing?
What, am I Steve J now? 
To finish i'd like to say 'enjoy playing with the ROM', thanks for your support and here's looking forward to the final Desire release (after a few more Betas) on our beloved Nexus Ones! 
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