2021 update: Rob Braxman said that in the US carriers are now blocking this device, so he can't even use his.
The problem with this setup is hardware. The OS may be secure but the device is not.
This is Nexus5, not 5x which is a little different.
In your Nexus5, go to Settings and tap ____ seven times to unlock developer. Also turn on ______. Now you need more than just your phone.
First Download UBPorts (Linux or I think Windows)
(Keep reading this paragraph) Second, download Android SDK Tools to use to unlock the OEM bootloader on the phone. THis is at developer.android.com/studio, and you scroll down to Command Line Tools Only: stkmanager. There's a Linux option as well there. THAT didn't work, since they don't seem to make available the SDK Tools, just the full version and a few other things. Intsead, go to forum.xda-developers.com for toolkit-wugs-nexus-root-toolkit where he has a link to the Nexus Root Toolkit, and download that.
Open that program and plug the Nexus 5 into the computer with USB. When you plug it in you'll see a message on the phone saying 'allow?' and you want to check 'always allow' and then click OK. Now with the program, you can 'Unlock' the bootloader. Then the phone will reboot itself as part of this same process executed by the Wugs program.
I didn't bother to 'root' the phone, but went and did UBPorts next. It didn't detect it was a Nexus 5 so I picked it manually.
Third,
A YouTube video you can follow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnlUdjUaD3Q&t=85s
NEXUS 5
- The D820 version of the Nexus 5 is designed for North America and will connect to 2G, 3G or LTE on AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint. The D821 version of the Nexus 5 is set up to work with the rest of the world. European users should have no problem with a 2G, 3G or LTE connection. But some of the Asian carriers that use different networks could pose a problem. For example, China Mobile uses a proprietary 3G pipeline that has kept the Apple iPhone off the roster of the world's largest carrier.
- North America (D820) Nexus 5 model:
- GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
- CDMA: Band Class: 0/1/10
- WCDMA: Bands: 1/2/4/5/6/8/19
- LTE: Bands: 1/2/4/5/17/19/25/26/41
- Outside North America (D821) Nexus 5 model:
- GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
- WCDMA: Bands: 1/2/4/5/6/8
- LTE: Bands: 1/3/5/7/8/20
- 70x138x9mm
- 130g
- Display:5 in, IPS, 1080x1920, 24bit
- GPU: Qualcomm Adreno 330, 450mhz, 4 core
- SoC: Cualcomm Snapdragon 800 MSM8974AA
- RAM: 2gb, 800 mhz
- Storage: 16 or 32
- Battery: 2300mAh, Li-Polymer
- Micro-SIM
- USB 2.0 Micro
- Bluetooth 4.0
Installing Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
(but this didn't work and my device got Google bricked)
- Go to Settings and click the bottom item 7 times until the phone tells you you are now a developer. Go back one screen and enter Develop Options and enable USB debugging.
- Open UBPorts program (I did it on Ubuntu) and plug in the device with a USB cable. UBPorts will now detect what phone you have. It will now say that the bootloader is not unlocked and needs to be, and you can select OK do that on UBPorts. Your phone will now show a message saying 'do you really want to unlock the bootloader?' and you check the little box for 'always do this' (Make sure you do this because I think it needs to to complete the Touch installation correctly) and select Yes. Now on UBPorts you can start the installation. It will show a progresss screen on UBTouch (first it will say "Downloading" and then "Sending" then "Rebooting" and then there will be a message saying there are remaining steps the device will perform for 5 minutes (the device shows a "Google" screen during this time) and that the device will reboot after.
