postmarketOS

Samsung N7100 (Galaxy Note II GSM)

Basic info

Device: Samsung Galaxy Note II (N7100 GSM)

ARM Cortex A9 Samsung Exynos 4 Quad 4412 (32bit), quad core 1.6GHz; 2GB RAM, 16GB storage.

What works

What does not work

Not tested

How to enter flash mode

Press and hold "volume down + home + power" simultaneously. Then click volume up to confirm.

Installing system

First build the device package:

./pmbootstrap.py build device-samsung-n7100

Then you need to configure the kernel before building with menuconfig like so:

./pmbootstrap.py menuconfig linux-samsung-n7100

You can hold down the enter key while it asks you the y/n questions until you get to the menu, then you want to enable the DEVTMPFS kconfig flag located in Device Drivers ---> Generic Driver Options.

Now you want to compile the kernel itself:

./pmbootstrap.py build linux-samsung-n7100 --arch=armhf

Once you've successfully compiled the kernel you can install the OS to an SD card or your system partition. I've only tried an SD card:

./pmbootstrap.py install --sdcard=/dev/sdb

You will need a 1GB SD card in order for this to work, also keep in mind that this will format the sd card.

Next you want to put your phone in download mode by holding power + vol down + home all together until you enter download mode, press volume up again to continue past the warning.

Now you can flash the boot image:

./pmbootstrap.py flasher flash_kernel

We're using flash_kernel because the N7100 packages its kernel and initfs file into one boot image, where as some other phones have separate partitions for each unlike the N7100.

If everything checks out OK, your N7100 should reboot and you should see the Samsung logo. Dont worry if the screen is flashing on and off and its taking a while, after a minute or 2 it should show up the pmOS splash!