The one thing to keep in mind here is that beyond the modified Linux kernel, there's not much if anything about Android that looks like a "traditional" Linux di

The one thing to keep in mind here is that beyond the modified Linux kernel, there's not much if anything about Android that looks like a "traditional" Linux distro. Android has recreated a whole new userland toolchain on top of the kernel, centered around Dalvik (Androids' JVM). If you want a more traditional Linux system to tinker with, buy a N900 instead, which comes with a Maemo Linux distro. Most Android development in the actual OS level seems to be based around patches to the AOSP codebase. Cyanogen has created a github repo with his build environment/overlay, which supposedly should allow you to start hacking on the internals, and then build/flash that new image to your phone. Building on top of that, the NDK will at least allow you to write Androids apps in C/C++ that could potentially hook into any changes you make to the core OS build, and would give you the most options for tinkering how you like. I'd recommend the Nexus One for any Android OS work though, as Google made it trivial to gain root access from the bootloader and flash your own image to the system. If you really don't like T-Mobile, you could always wait a bit longer for Google to start selling the Nexus One in CDMA format for VZW.