[UNOFFICIAL BUILD] Unofficial Pi/e/ Community Build for Samsung Galaxy SII / S2 - i9100

[Chimpthepimp]

So as Nougat is getting quite old, I tried myself at building Pi/e/ for I9100 and to my surprise it built quite easy and succesful, thanks to rinando and linusdan a.k.a Danilo Santos ☭.
To flash it please follow the steps given at this XDA-page by Danilo, as this device is quite old and it is not intended for such new android versions you have to follow the exact steps for flashing;

1. Boot your phone into Download-mode (Volume down + Power/Standby + Home and hold for 10 seconds).
2. Start ODIN 3.07 on your PC.
3. Connect your phone via USB to your PC.
4. Press volume up on your phone, ODIN should detect your phone.
5. In ODIN:
   Auto Reboot : unchecked
   Re-Partition: checked
   PIT : i9100-LOS-16.0-Emulated-Storage.pit
   PDA : i9100-LOS-16.0-Emulated-Storage-TWRP-3.3.1-1.tar.md5
6. Press Start.
7. After succesful flash, reboot phone into Recovery:

• Press Volume up + Power/Standby + Home and hold for 10 seconds.
  The phone shuts down.
• Repeat Press Volume up + Power/Standby + Home and hold for 10 seconds
  Phone boots in recovery TWRP 3.3.1-1.

8. Swipe to Allow Modifications
9. In TWRP 3.3.1-1 you need to format partions

• Wipe -> Format Data -> Type [yes]
• Wipe -> Advanced Wipe -> Select:

• Davik / ART Cache
• Cache
• System
• Non-emulated Storage
  -> Swipe to Wipe

10. Install /e/OS-0.9
11. Boot System

the first boot may take several minutes to start, be patient.

• Please note this is a test build.
• Please take a backup of your data before your proceed.
• Please report if you encounter bugs.

If you are Ok with these warnings then you can download the Pi/e/ image for the Samsung Galaxy SII - (i9100) “i9100” is available for download here

for Heimdall flash please use the same files as given in the linked XDA thread and follow these steps:

1. sudo apt update
2. sudo apt upgrade
3. sudo apt install heimdall-flash heimdall-flash-frontend
4. heimdall-frontend
5. Boot your phone into Download-mode (Volume down + Power/Standby + Home and hold for 10 seconds). to get in Download-mode confirm with Volume up.
6. change in heimdall to Utilities tab, press detect button, Phone should get recognized ‘Device detected’
7. switch back to Flash tab and choose PIT: i9100-LOS-16.0-Emulated-Storage.pit (by Browse for it), tick Repartition Check-box
8. Unzip the i9100-LOS-16.0-Emulated-Storage-TWRP-3.3.1-1.tar File. (it should result with a recovery.img file)
9. By clicking Add button choose RECOVERY to flash and again choose the recovery.img you unzipped in previous step by Browse.
10. Tick the No Reboot checkbox and hit Start
11. After succesful flash, reboot phone into Recovery:
12. Press Volume up + Power/Standby + Home and hold for 10 seconds.
13. The phone shuts down.
14. Repeat Press Volume up + Power/Standby + Home and hold for 10 seconds
15. Phone boots in recovery TWRP 3.3.1-1.
16. Swipe to Allow Modifications
17. In TWRP 3.3.1-1 you need to format partions

• Wipe -> Format Data -> Type [yes]
• Wipe -> Advanced Wipe -> Select:
  Davik / ART Cache
  Cache
  System
  Non-emulated Storage
  -> Swipe to Wipe

18. Install /e/OS-0.9
19. Boot System

[Tintin]

“Patching system image unconditionally…” thank you @Chimpthepimp !!
-> Reboot -> E logo …

[Chimpthepimp]

It took around 10min to boot on my s2 … So patience is the vortue of the strong (or whatever the proverb is)

[Tintin]

10 min and it is booted to /e/ nicely !!
I am so happy too see my mobile favorite OS on my so old GT-I9100P !!
It’s crazy !!

[Tintin]

In dev options RAM usage 435Mo/ 822Mo, it is very fluid.
Nice work !!
I hope you will maintain times to times this build, just to prove it can be done with device unveiled 13 February 2011

Thank you sir !

[Chimpthepimp]

I was impressed by its fluidity as well, also battery keeeps up quite a bit and it is not getting really hot as it happens with other systems i tried on it before…

[piero]

I forwarded the link to a friend who had an old s2 in a drawer, I hope he will become a /e/ user and that he will make advertising of the project

[yeti]

Hello Chimpthepimp !
Thank you for creating this image for the I9100 !
I am using Linux Mint. So I could not use Odin. I tried point 5. it with Heimdall, and it works.
I only had to untar

@Chimpthepimp

i9100-LOS-16.0-Emulated-Storage-TWRP-3.3.1-1.tar.md5

It contains the files “recovery.img” and “zImage”.
So I flashed with Heimdall:

heimdall flash --repartition --pit i9100-LOS-16.0-Emulated-Storage.pit --RECOVERY recovery.img --KERNEL zImage --no-reboot

Then reboot into recovery and sideload with adb:

adb sideload e-0.9-p-20200428-UNOFFICIAL-i9100.zip

And it works! Thanks for your work !!!

[Chimpthepimp]

i m on linux since years now and always had good experiences with heimdall :)) it may be a little bit more complicated for new users… In this case i just copy pasted from xda LOS 16.0 thread for i9100…

[piero]

Hi,
Please, could you edit your first post adding the Heimdall method to install twrp ?

[Chimpthepimp]

let me know if you also need pictures…

[cedricsi]

Thank you vert much

[LEPT]

Nice job! This is incredible. This old device works well with Android Pie and eOS! (after I am holding my breath for a few minutes )

[breversa]

Great job ! Thanks a lot !

What about Magisk though ? Shall I flash rINanDO’s boot image (https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=4349826312261750850) found here : https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s2/development-derivatives/pie-i9100-t3850588 ?

[LEPT]

@breversa You have the BOOT.IMG inside the ZIP of the /e/ROM. You copy this BOOT.IMG to your smarthphone’s memory. Then, you have to install Magisk Manager (APK), and from it install Magisk by choosing the option to patch BOOT.IMG. Select the BOOT.IMG you found in the ZIP from /e/OS. When Magisk Manager is finished, it will have created a magisk_patched.img inside the Downloads folder.
You already have your BOOT patched with Magisk. Then if you want, you flash it to have root.

[breversa]

Clear as day. Thank you !

[breversa]

… though I’m getting “Unsupported/Unknown image format” when doing so.

Have you tried it with the boot.img coming from e-0.9-p-20200428-UNOFFICIAL-i9100.zip ?

[LEPT]

Not with this particular smartphone, but with different ones and it’s always the same process.

In this one, as I only wanted to be root (and not use Magisk modules), I used the .ZIP flashing from TWRP of LineageOS 16.0, which works for eOS Pie.
https://download.lineageos.org/extras

[molej]

Many thanks for providing this build!

I have a problem though: it never finish booting; the dot under the e just kept jumping for an hour until i retried the procedure, with another battery just to change something, same result.

Because you other people get it working, i think it may be a hardware problem, or some old debris maybe because I failed to get LOS15 on it last year - nut did not have time to dig or ask on forum.

Or are there maybe different versions of i9100?

Anyhow. I am on Mageia Linux and used heimdall exactly as yeti described (thanks!) [UNOFFICIAL BUILD] Unofficial Pi/e/ Community Build for Samsung Galaxy SII / S2 - i9100 with the difference i did not use adb, but used TWRP to install the zip from an inserted SD.

Is there something i should/can clean out like old data or user info, using TWRP, before rebooting into e? Or other ideas?

[yeti]

I am not sure, but I had the same issue after flashing with adb sideload. I waited more than 1h for the first booting. I forgot, that there was an SD plugged in. I removed the SD and flashed the phone again. After flashing without SD, my i9100 booted successfully. I think it took 20 minutes for the first boot. Maybe it does not work with an SD-Card plugged in. After the first successful boot, I plugged the SD-Card in. The SD was successfully detected, formatted and worked.