A year on the Galaxy S2: running a one-man ROM help desk for my friends

So yesterday I tweeted “#IFeelRoyalWhen my friends are astonished how I am already running #Android #4.2.2 on my sgs2” ;-) And it’s true! Samsung’s own updates stop at 4.1.2 for the S2, which is what I was running a month ago when I told someone the “galaxy s2 still kicks ass”. The phone is two years old now and I still mean every word of it.

I’ve had this S2 for almost exactly a year, and for most of that year I’ve also been the tech support guy for a few friends with the same phone. All of it happened in Twitter replies, half in Hinglish, so here I am putting it all in one place before I forget how any of it worked. :)

“YouTube like a boss”, I tweeted to the S2 gang on 26 May 2012, three days after I got my real I9100.

How I got here

Flashing wasn’t new to me. Back in February 2012 I had an early CyanogenMod 9 build running on an LG Optimus One and even wrote a preview of it.

The S2 though, started badly. The box and the bill said GT-I9100, but the phone inside was the weaker I9100G, and it took six weeks of fighting Samsung India to get a real one. I’ve written that whole saga up separately. Short version: the G hung every now and then and kept throwing camera failure errors, and a friend had ended up with the same phone, so we spent weeks cribbing about it together on Twitter. But I didn’t sit around waiting for Samsung! By 29 April I was running a custom ROM with a custom kernel on the G, with a full backup of the original ROM in ClockworkMod recovery so I could revert any time.

On 23 May 2012 Samsung finally swapped it for a sealed I9100 at their Nehru Place office, in about an hour. Same day I told a friend: “lol who cares i m downloading Resurrection Rom n will flash it ;)”. Priorities. :P

Why root at all?

Three days after the swap, someone asked me what’s the point of rooting. My answer then: getting ICS before it’s even released, blocking ads and changing the boot animation. Ten days later, a friend who had just got a new S2 got a longer list: freeze the bloatware, remove the ads, take a full nandroid backup. “Root is key to every problem :-P”, I’d told him earlier that day. Okay, slightly overconfident. ;)

Is it risky? I said no. If it was, I wouldn’t have tried my odds on a 30k phone directly! And a lot of that confidence comes from one tiny gadget.

The USB jig

Samsung’s bootloader keeps a binary counter. Every time you flash something unofficial it goes up, and the service centre guys can see you’ve voided your warranty. My Nokias never had anything like this. Or as I put it to a friend: “sammy ko pta lg jata h”, Samsung finds out.

The fix is a USB jig. It’s a little USB plug with a resistor in it which makes the phone think it’s hooked up to the repair tool Samsung has at its service centres. Got mine off eBay for about Rs 150-200 including shipping. It does two jobs:

• It resets the binary counter, so the phone stops showing that it was ever flashed. I did that on the G back in April.
• It un-bricks! If a flash goes wrong and the phone won’t switch on or go into download mode, just pull the battery, insert the jig, put the battery back and you can flash again. It does nothing while the phone is on; switch the phone off, plug it in, and it drops into download mode by itself.

So my standing offer to the gang was “koina brick bhi kr dia toh i have usb jig so firse zinda krdenge”: if anyone bricks one, we’ll bring it back to life. B-)

Of course the jig can’t save you from everything. I’ve seen two friends fry the motherboard of their S2, which is scary stuff.

The help desk

The most complete walkthrough I can dig out of my replies is from 6 June, for a friend going from stock to rooted:

1. Go to Settings, then About phone, and send me a screenshot. Are you on Gingerbread or ICS? I’ll give you the rooted kernel file that matches your kernel version.
2. Download that rooted kernel. That’s step one.
3. Get Odin on your PC. It’s the tool that flashes kernels, modems and ROMs onto the phone.
4. “dont play anything stupid with odin without askin..u may fry the mb”. Just a friendly suggestion. ;)

After that, everything goes through ClockworkMod recovery. To change kernels, flash the kernel’s CWM zip using “install zip from internal sd”. You don’t need the stock kernel back, just one that supports your ROM’s Android version. To update a ROM, flash the new version over the old one (the Aroma installer makes it a breeze), then clear cache and Dalvik cache and fix permissions. Fixing permissions also avoids Google login conflicts.

Some of it was just showing people around. In June I told a friend to fiddle with the ROM Control option in Settings because he’d love the mods, and to enable Settings, ROM Control, Toggles so he could add a packet data switch.

And then there’s after-sales support. :P When one friend’s phone started acting up in July, I started with the usual questions: which version are you on, did you undervolt or underclock, and at what frequency? I was sure it was the kernel. Fix was to reflash the CM9 kernel, or reflash the ROM and pick “kernel not flash” under the Aroma installer’s advanced options, which won’t touch your data. Twelve days later I was explaining deep sleep vs wakelocks: deep sleep is the phone doing only the basic phone stuff, and a wakelock is whatever won’t let it get there.

Battery and heat: Siyah and ExTweaks

Delhi summers are not kind to phones. On 25 May 2012 it was 43° and counting, and my S2 was not liking it at all!

What fixed it for me was the Siyah kernel, a custom kernel for the S2, plus its companion app ExTweaks, where you can tinker with CPU voltages and frequencies. Undervolting did the cooling job for me, and it helped the battery too. In mid-June I told a friend I could “pretty much get it down 16 hours now”. That’s 16 hours on a single charge. My pitch to anyone who asked became “Undervolt will extweaks application n boom battery life is superb”. Siyah also has a dual boot option, so I can keep a second ROM around without wiping the first. How cool is that?

By August, on a Jelly Bean ROM, the battery got me through a day easily with about 3 hours of screen-on time.

Every ROM this phone has run

• Resurrection Remix, from day one. Close to stock ICS, the “Pure Nexus ROM” as I called it. By end of July a friend and I were both on RR 2.6.1.
• Paranoid Android, a hybrid ROM with tablet and phone UI. It was only 95 MB and I ran it in dual boot as my secondary ROM, which needs Siyah 3.2.2 or above. In August its Jelly Bean build became my daily driver, and it was amazing.
• AOKP, which by late August I rated much better than another ROM I hadn’t liked. Jelly Bean also got me Google Now, which I called the most amazing virtual assistant ever.
• Samsung’s official 4.1.2, which I was on in April this year.
• Android 4.2.2 (CM10.1), which is what I’m on right now.

When a friend asked about nightlies in June, I told him they’re good but buggy, with a lot of force closes.

Why I’m still on it

Last June I got an offer to exchange my S2 for a Galaxy Note and asked the gang what they thought. All three gave the same answer, and I kept the S2. A few weeks before that I’d been arguing that it had better specs than the Galaxy Nexus, a long shelf life, and that people in stores were still buying it.

A year ago I was cribbing to these same people that there was still no ICS in spite of all the rumours. And now the phone is on 4.2.2, a version Samsung never gave it, all because the guys at XDA kept building for a two-year-old Samsung after Samsung itself moved on to the S3 and S4. Hats off to them! And now my friends are the ones asking me how. :)

@ItsKushalShah lol dont tell me warranty woes.i m already rockin a custom rom with custom kernel..and have reset binary counter with usb jig

@jatinkrmalik, 29 April 2012

@ItsKushalShah yupp...i have full backup of original rom and i can revert back anytime using clockwork mod recovery B-) so thts not a prob..

@jatinkrmalik, 29 April 2012

@ItsKushalShah man, no ics nothin in spite of all rumors :<

@jatinkrmalik, 30 April 2012

@ankitpandey @Vivekkl @ItsKushalShah bro but i have seen 2 of my friend getting fucked because they fry up the motherboard of s2 :-\ scary

@jatinkrmalik, 27 May 2012

@Vivekkl yes s2 has better specs than nexus...better better cpu.... :-) n large shelf life....go to any store...people r still buying s2

@jatinkrmalik, 30 May 2012

@Vivekkl @ItsKushalShah oh okay.. :-) ya accessories n all bhi krle...n fir Root is key to every problem :-P

@jatinkrmalik, 5 June 2012

@Vivekkl @ItsKushalShah u need to be rooted...u can freeze the bloatware apps remove ads from phone, take whole nandroid backup etc etc !

@jatinkrmalik, 5 June 2012

@Vivekkl bhi jig is a mini usb port like thing with a resistor in it which emulates like repairing tool samsung has at cc !

@jatinkrmalik, 6 June 2012

@Vivekkl @ItsKushalShah are u on gb or ics ? n setting me jakr abt phone ka screenshot bhej n thn i ll give u a file as per kernel version

@jatinkrmalik, 6 June 2012

@Vivekkl bhai i got it from ebay...u can check thr..it will cosr u arnd 150-200bucks with shipping !

@jatinkrmalik, 6 June 2012

@Vivekkl if u brick it...ur phone wont switch on or go into dwnld mode...so u can pul out battery.insert jig..put battry back..n u can flash

@jatinkrmalik, 6 June 2012

@Vivekkl here is the link.mmdownload this file...its rooted kernel.. its first step just dl it

@jatinkrmalik, 6 June 2012

@Vivekkl after dwldin tht kernel dwnld this soft on pc... odin its a tool to flash kernel modem roms on phone...!!

@jatinkrmalik, 6 June 2012

@Vivekkl cool...n dont play anything stupid with odin without askin..u may fry the mb ;-) :-P just a frndly suggestion haha :-D

@jatinkrmalik, 6 June 2012

@Vivekkl it doesnt do anything when phone in on..but u can switch it off insert the jig n let it go itself into dwnld mode,used when bricked

@jatinkrmalik, 7 June 2012

@Vivekkl yoo....fiddle up with rom control option in settings u ll luv the mods... :-)

@jatinkrmalik, 10 June 2012

@Vivekkl settings->rom control-> toggles...enable it n modify the toggles which gives option for toggle of packet data :-)

@jatinkrmalik, 10 June 2012

@Vivekkl yes i have....its a customizable kernel with dual boot option:-D

@jatinkrmalik, 10 June 2012

@Vivekkl well download the clockworkmod zip file of kernel n flash it via recovery from install zip from internal sd :-)

@jatinkrmalik, 11 June 2012

@Vivekkl no need for stock..u just need a kernel supporting ur rom version i.e ics..battery life depends on how u tweak it..dl link in a min

@jatinkrmalik, 11 June 2012

@Vivekkl oh yes exactly I can pretty much get it down 16 hours now!

@jatinkrmalik, 17 June 2012

@Vivekkl yeahh but undervolting did the cooling job for me :-D

@jatinkrmalik, 20 June 2012

@Vivekkl tinker with extweaks app along with siyah kernel ;-) google it

@jatinkrmalik, 20 June 2012

@Vivekkl nightlies r good but buggy n many force close :-[

@jatinkrmalik, 20 June 2012

@Vivekkl @ItsKushalShah @ankitpandey guys m getting an offer to exchange my s2 for note..same time old...whats ur take ?

@jatinkrmalik, 20 June 2012

@ankitpandey @ItsKushalShah @Vivekkl haha bhai teeno ka same answer h...s3 ghnta dega koi hahah :-)

@jatinkrmalik, 20 June 2012

@Vivekkl @ItsKushalShah yes just flash it over older version bro.... With aroma launcher its breeze... Clear cache, dalvik n fix permission

@jatinkrmalik, 25 June 2012

@Vivekkl not. Much bugs kernel is fluxi in it by default n fix permission to avoid google login conflicts n battery state doesn't matters

@jatinkrmalik, 25 June 2012

@Vivekkl kr skta h I m also using siyah.....its superb... Undervolt will extweaks application n boom battery life is superb :-D

@jatinkrmalik, 25 June 2012

@Vivekkl :-D which version are you on... N did you undervolt or underclocked it?? If yes than at what freq

@jatinkrmalik, 12 July 2012

@Vivekkl hmm bhai I'm sure it's kernel prob..Kernel reflash krle cm9 wala.. :-) it will solve the problem & fix permissions, dalvik chahe

@jatinkrmalik, 12 July 2012

@Vivekkl hahaha reflash the rom & from aroma instsller go to advanced options n click kernel not flash.. Don't worry it won't touch ur data

@jatinkrmalik, 12 July 2012

@Vivekkl deep sleep is when system is usimg just basic phone functionality and wakelock is condition ehich dint let phone go in deepsleep

@jatinkrmalik, 24 July 2012

@Vivekkl same here even I am on rr2.6.1

@jatinkrmalik, 30 July 2012

@ankitpandey no idea :-P lol how to check it and bro I'm on paranoid ROM now and its amazing ;-)

@jatinkrmalik, 7 August 2012

@ankitpandey gets me through a day easily with like 3hours of on screen time from stats

@jatinkrmalik, 7 August 2012

@ankitpandey Naah didn't liked it... This Aokp is much better but I'm on jelly bean 3.0.4 btw :-)

@jatinkrmalik, 22 August 2012

Google now most amazing virtual assistant ever on #jellybean #gindia #gindia2012

@jatinkrmalik, 5 September 2012

@colmsmyth galaxy s2 still kicks ass ;) rocking official android ? 4.1.2 here B-)

@jatinkrmalik, 26 April 2013

#IFeelRoyalWhen my friends are astonished how I am already running #Android #4.2.2 on my sgs2 ;-)

@jatinkrmalik, 19 May 2013

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