The first generation Nexus 7 tablet, the 2012 edition, has been left out by Google of the Android Marshmallow release for good. The tablet sports only 1GB RAM, and it was surprising to see even Lollipop coming to it officially. But that was a good gesture from Google to the aging tablet.

Anyway, we’re 2015 now, and there’s no way Google could have continued the support for software updates to Nexus 7 2012, but that doesn’t mean latest Android releases would come to halt on your tablet now.

Google has released the Android 6.0 Marshmallow source code to AOSP, and the 3rd party developers have taken the matter into their hands now to deliver an AOSP based Marshmallow ROM to Nexus 7 2012 users.

Dmitry Grinberg, who released the first Marshmallow ROM for Nexus 10 and Nexus 4, has now released a Marshmallow ROM for Nexus 7 2012 WiFi (grouper) as well.

The ROM is pretty functional, major things like SELinux, Camera, NFC, GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth are all working fine, so we guess it’s safe to install it on your Nexus 7 2012.

You can grab the Marshmallow ROM file from the download link below, and simply flash it using a custom recovery with a Factory reset + Wipe cache & Dalvik cache.

[icon name=”download” class=”” unprefixed_class=””] Download Nexus 7 2012 Marshmallow ROM

Since this is an AOSP based ROM, you won’t have Google services pre-installed on it. To get Google Services, you need to flash a compatible Gapps package separately after flashing the ROM file. Grab Marshmallow Gapps from the link below.

[icon name=”download” class=”” unprefixed_class=””] Download Android 6.0 Marshmallow Gapps

Be sure to say thanks to Dmitry for the ROM on his personal blog over here. 

Happy Androiding!