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2014-04-06

Rooting guide for Samsung Galaxy S3

... and now, something complitely different...
The point of the following - I did spend much time to find the correct way to root my Galaxy S3 (GT-I9300). So I think that one more guide is proper.

Some useful educational links:
S3 in xdahow to root S3, how to root with Clockwork, Clockwork-recovery guide.
A bit more blah: It's my first smartphone, and no - I did not feel like more 'socializing' but I was thinking about 'little thingy with database and text editing capabilities I can carry with me'. I started thinking about tablet but dropped the idea as impractical - reaching conclusion that only thing  'always carryable' is a phone. After some reasearch into rooting I bought S3 - as certainly rootable and also currently very cheap.
And - some very basic info about rooting:
- Why? For removing bloatware and to use some apps which are unavailable/un-installable for unrooted devices.
- You loose your warranty.
- You might brick your phone.

What I did:
Installed heimdall in Sid, flashed my phone with Clockwork-recovery and installed Clockworks' superuser.

!- With a new phone, it's probably good to wait for first big system-upgrade of your phone - as after rooting you don't get them anymore.

# Meanwhile, download:
- heimdall files (has readymade debs),
- Clockwork recovery,
- superuser.zip (of Clockwork... and, I lost the link),
- and some wallpapers - which you can test-copy from your PC to phones' SD-card when first time in recovery-mode.

# Install heimdall (two debs, cli and gui frontend) to your debian (sid). I did that with simple dpkg -i. Also, heimdall is in Debians' repo too - but, naturally, those are older versions.
And do get readme from here.

# Open up heimdall: sudo heimdall-frontend. 'Sudo' is a must!

!- Do not proceed until your phone is 100% charged. That's a standard warning. Now, it's not very probable that your phone runs out of juice during those couple of seconds when replacing /RECOVERY - BUT, if it does, you get at least soft-brick. So, do charge this bloody battery.

# Insert usb cables' PC end.
- boot the phone to download-mode : Power+Voldown+Home : accept disclaimer.
- connect usb cables' phone-end.

# In heimdall:
- check 'no reboot' because afterwards you want to go to recovery-mode, not to standard reboot. DO NOT check repartition - as this formats your whole phone.
- in 'utilities' tab - 'detect' to be sure your device is detected.
- save the PIT from your phone. In the Download PIT section of the 'Utilities' tab, click the Save As button, navigate to ~/your-correct-folder-for-that-file and enter a file name such as GT-I9300.pit.
Save.
Also, maybe it's wise to check 'verbose' in 'Advanced'-menu.
- Go to 'flash' tab, browse for .pit you saved. When .pit is found, 'add' button gets activated. Press 'Add' and pick your folder to flash and file to flash with.
Correct folder is /RECOVERY and file is recovery-clockwork-6.0.4.6-i9300.img - at this moment anyway.
Click START button (I did that process twice - as the first attempt didn't do a thing). The second one was a success.

# When/if you get success-message, unplug usb and go to recovery-mode: VolUp+Home+Power
Have this super-guide open in your PC.
- Do system backup to SD-card.
- install superuser.zip (which you already copied from your PC to SD-card together with those wallpapers.
- And do whatever you want... errrr... - Don't wipe your system, but you can wipe cache - which is good thing to do, occasionally.

# Reboot normally. Install terminal emulator and do 'su' there to verify successful rooting. Then install no-bloat and clean out all shit. After that clean out 'no-bloat' too...
And then you can re-bloat your phone with all those very-important-special-apps-you-always-wanted.
I suppose that most of Samsungs' devices (phones, tablets) can be rooted with the same general procedure - if there are proper images to be found.

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