When you set up ADB, you’ll get fastboot commands, too. Fastboot commands like “fastboot flash” will allow you to install custom recoveries and kernels.

Last week, we showed you how to install ADB and fastboot on any OS. If you're not sure why you'd want to go to the (relatively minor) trouble, here are just some of the useful things you can do ...

You can get the platform tools for Windows, Linux, or Mac direct from Google's servers. You get a ZIP file containing the platform tools folder with ADB, fastboot, and a few other tools.

Windows support is greatly improved. More stability for automated testing Helpful diagnostics for adb/fastboot Linux USB permissions problems Other improvements to command-line tools like ls and sed.

HTC users can easily unlock the bootloader as well as flash partitions using a new tool, FastADB, thanks to sandix, an XDA senior member on xda-developers forum. According to a post on the forum ...