It’s a bit weird. The process was really easy, but none of the tutorials I found worked; each stopped working at one point or another. So, assuming other people will hit the same barriers and want a Just Works way to get root, I’ve gone through my terminal history for the bits that worked. Obviously, this is just what worked for me; I can’t guarantee it’ll work anywhere else though if you’re at all familiar with the process it’ll probably look right. The only real stumbling blocks I hit were getting a recovery menu (unfamiliarity with adb) and picking a ROM that I could trust. There was nowhere near enough diligence in that bit of the process, though. Bad Avi. Also, for those still expecting disclaimers, this voids warranties.
I can’t find a reboot-and-hold-down-X-key method of rebooting into recovery mode (the boot menu) that works, and it seems to be different for each variant of this device in any case. Using adb, the Android debugger, does work, and contrary to several scare stories doesn’t require proprietary Samsung drivers.
adb’s really easy to make work. First, install a jdk. You might do this differently if you’re not running Debian:
root@debian:~# apt-get install sun-java6-jdk
While we’re here, if you want to suggest a more interesting hostname, go for it. I’m having a bit of an imagination failure in that department.
Next, you need to grab the tarball of the Android SDK, extract it somewhere and make its tools subdir part of your $PATH. You probably should do most of this as some user that isn’t root, but I was rather excited at the time:
root@debian:~# mkdir adb && cd adb
root@debian:~/#wget -q http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r07-linux_x86.tgz
root@debian:~/# tar -xzf android-sdk_r07-linux_x86.tgz
root@debian:~/adb# ls android-sdk-linux_x86
add-ons platforms SDK Readme.txt tools
root@debian:~/adb# export PATH=${PATH}:/root/android-sdk-linux_x86/tools
Now (or perhaps while you’re waiting for the tarball to arrive), enable USB debugging on your phone. It’s under Settings -> Applications -> Development for some reason. Check the box next to “USB debugging”. You’ll need to have the USB cable unplugged. Plug it back in again, then, returning to your shell with adb in its path, check for the presence of your device:
root@debian:~/adb# adb devices List of devices attached 90006e8ba84e device
If yours doesn’t show up, I’m not really sure what to do. Google?
Now, you need to have the update.zip somewhere. I’ve uploaded the one I’ve used to here but this’ll work for any of them.
root@debian~/adb# wget -q http://aviswebsite.co.uk/stuff/galaxys_root/update.zip
If UMS works on yours, copy update.zip with your favourite file copying method. Mine didn’t, so I used adb. There are two sdcards in the Galaxy, an internal one and an external (removable) one. The internal one is mounted at /sdcard, the traditional location of removable ones, and the external one at /sdcard/sd. You want to put update.zip in /sdcard, not /sdcard/sd.
root@debian:~/adb# adb push update.zip /sdcard/update.zip You then use adb to reboot into the recovery menu:
root@debian:~/adb# adb reboot recovery
Select “Apply sdcard:update.zip” and wait while it installs it, then “reboot system now”. You now have root. The quickest way I can think to test it is to download and install the ‘superuser’ application from the market, then test it with adb:
root@debian:~/adb# adb shell $ su #
You’ll get prompted (on the phone) to allow an unknown application root access, and then you’ll have root. Congratulations, your phone is now yours. :)
Now, I’m off to follow the rest of How to make the vibrant software not suck, ’cause it’s shocking out of the box.