Flashing Cyanogenmod 11 on the Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo+ GT-I9301I

 

Repeatedly I went to a lot of pain flashing my S3 Neo because I did not write down how I did it the last time, but not again!

This tutorial assumes you know what you are doing, you can brick your device, blablabla, read the disclaimer on the firmware sites.

 

It also assumes:

• You still have the original firmware on your phone (otherwise you can skip the Heimdall and TWRP steps)
• Your phone is charged over 50% (better safe than sorry)
• You have an microSD-Card in your phone
• You have an USB cable at hand
• You use Linux as OS
• You made a Backup of all important data, ALL DATA WILL BE LOST

I was using Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS.

Compile Heimdall

I built Heimdall some month before, so I had already all dependencies installed. If you run into error messages compiling, keep in mind that you have to install probably some dependencies.

Quote from Linux/README from Heimdall Repo:

1. First make sure you have installed build-essential, cmake, zlib1g-dev,
qt5-default, libusb-1.0-0-dev and OpenGL (e.g libgl1-mesa-glx and
libgl1-mesa-dev).

git clone https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/Heimdall
 cd Heimdall
 mkdir build
 cd build
 cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
 make heimdall

Voilà you got heimdall

Download all android images/software you need

I like to get stuff together completely before I start, because it sucks when the mirror you desperately need is down in the wrong moment.

So create a directory where you put all the files, e.g. in your home-directory.

mkdir ~/android_firmware

TWRP (Custom Bootloader)

You need this only if you have still the stock ROM on your device

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=56085899&postcount=2

Download the file from „Odin method“

it is called recovery.tar.md5 and check the md5sum
 md5sum recovery.tar.md5

compare it with the one mentioned on the download mirror page.

Untar the recovery.tar.md5 file

tar -xvvf recovery.tar.md5

the recovery.img file is what you need later

CyanogenMod 11.0 for the Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo ( GT-I9301I, GT-I9301Q and GT-I9300I )

Get the firmware

http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3-neo/orig-development/cyanogenmod-11-s3-neo-gt-i9301i-t2917015

cm-11-20150424-UNOFFICIAL-s3ve3g.zip

and check the md5sum:

md5sum cm-11-20150424-UNOFFICIAL-s3ve3g.zip

Camera Sensor Fix

It freaked me out at my first try that the camera did not work. If that’s the case you might need this fix:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=57818464&postcount=267

Camera_fix.zip

Google Apps Minimal

I did NOT use the GAPPS mentioned on the xda-developers site, it didn’t work for me. During install I read something about for „Android 5.0“ scroll by, so it probably is a version to new for that image.

I used:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2779598

gapps-kk-20150412-minimal-edition-signed.zip

Again check the md5sum:

md5sum gapps-kk-20150412-minimal-edition-signed.zip

 

Flashing

Put all files on the SD-Card

cm-11-20150424-UNOFFICIAL-s3ve3g.zip

gapps-kk-20150412-minimal-edition-signed.zip

Camera_fix.zip

Flash the TWRP Bootloader

Press VOL_DOWN + HOME + PWR

Wait until you are prompted to press VOL_UP, Press VOL_UP

Wait until the screen is loaded

Plug in the USB-Cable

execute

sudo ./heimdall flash --RECOVERY ../../../recovery.img --no-reboot

I experienced that it does not work always. Sometimes USB errors came. For me the Heimdall-master from github worked. It may be chance, it may be you have to make sure you wait long enough so the download mode has really fully loaded before you plug in the USB cable into the computer. Just try it several times if it doesn’t work the first time. Always unplug the USB in between the tries.

Now important! Samsung resets its own bootloader if you don’t boot directly into recovery mode after flashing an alternative bootloader.

So when the flashing progressbar is finished, shut off the phone by pressing PWR until it shuts off

Now press VOL_UP + HOME + PWR until booting Recoverymode written in tiny blue font on the top of the phone appears.

Now inside the recovery mode loader

The TWRP loader has nice buttons, if you have to navigate by VOLUP/VOLDOWN it may be the Samsung Original Loader.

So, inside the TWRP loader:

• first do a factory reset
• Then choose install and browse through the directories (e.g. one level up and choose external_storage or similar)
  until you find the zip files
• Install cm-11-20150424-UNOFFICIAL-s3ve3g.zip
• Install gapps-kk-20150412-minimal-edition-signed.zip
• Reboot and check if the camera works
• If the camera does not work boot into Recovery-Mode again and install the Camera_fix.zip