So, I got this pho­ne on my trip to the US. It's a Ga­la­xy SII va­riant ca­lled the S959­G. It's not a ve­ry co­m­mon va­rian­t, and of cour­se it was lo­cked to a ne­two­rk tha­t's una­vai­la­ble he­re, and co­mes wi­th An­droid 2.3 whi­ch is an­cien­t, so it nee­ded so­me fi­xin­g.

And man, the An­droid co­m­mu­ni­ty is a me­ss about do­cu­men­ting stu­ff. So he­re's my shot at it.

This on­ly applies to THIS PHO­NE if you go blind doing this, or your dog ca­tches fi­re, not my pro­ble­m.

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The goa­l:

• Un­­lo­­­cked

• Rooted

• Newer An­­droid

• Google Apps

• Do­­­ne using Ubun­­tu (be­­­cau­­se I pre­­fer it)

The pro­ce­ss is a bit len­gth­y, but sim­ple.

Install heimdall

It's in the re­po­s, just use ap­t, pie­ce of cake

Go to the XDA pa­ge for this pho­ne be­cau­se that see­ms to be the ca­no­ni­cal in­for­ma­tion sour­ce.

Get (from whe­re it sa­ys "The best way to root") the CWM RE­CO­VE­RY v6.0.27 fi­le. It's ca­lled CW­M-­Re­co­ve­r­y.­ta­r.­m­d5 be­cau­se ver­sion na­mes are for the weak.

Get the recovery.bin that's inside it using tar xvf CW­M-­Re­co­ve­r­y.­ta­r.­m­d5

Put your pho­ne in­to do­wn­load mo­de. For this mo­del tha­t's do­ne like this:

• Turn off

• Plug in­­to USB

• Press Vo­­­lu­­me Up and Vo­­­lu­­me Do­­wn (keep press­e­­d)

• Press po­­wer (keep press­e­­d)

• When Sam­­sung appears on screen, let go of po­­wer bu­­tton

• When you see a wa­r­­ning si­g­n, let go of vo­­­lu­­me bu­­ttons

• Cli­­ck Vo­­­lu­­me Up

Flash the recovery.bin using heimdall: heimdall flash --­re­co­ve­ry re­co­ve­r­y.­bin

Now you ha­ve to go in­to re­co­ve­ry to make ba­ckup­s:

• Turn off

• Un­­plug USB

• Press Vo­­­lu­­me up and do­­wn and hold

• Press po­­wer

• Let go of po­­wer when Sam­­sung fla­s­hes

• The­­re you are

In this mo­de, vo­lu­me up/­do­wn mo­ve the cur­sor up/­do­wn and the po­wer bu­tton chooses the se­lec­ted op­tio­n. Do the ob­vious thing to do a ba­cku­p.

Turn on the pho­ne and make su­re it wo­rks.

Now co­py the Cya­no­gen­Mod zip fi­le from XDA (or any i777 ima­ge) in­to the pho­ne's SD Card so­me­how (drag and drop in Nau­ti­lus wo­rks ;-)

Go ba­ck in­to re­co­ve­ry mo­de as abo­ve.

Clean up the pho­ne: Clean da­ta, ca­che, and in ad­van­ce­d, clean dal­vik ca­che.

Ins­ta­ll by using "Ins­ta­ll zip from sd­car­d" and choosing the ri­ght one, and doing the ob­vious thin­g.

Boot the pho­ne, it should now be in Cya­no­gen­Mod (ya­y).

Try to make a pho­ne ca­ll. If you can't an­d/or the pho­ne asks for a SIM PI­N, it's sti­ll lo­cke­d. To un­lo­ck I us­ed this APK whi­ch was un­tes­ted on this mo­de­l, but he­y, it wo­rke­d.

You may al­so need to ins­ta­ll one of the "mo­de­m" fi­les from XDA. Just put them in the SD car­d, go to re­co­ve­r­y, and ins­ta­ll one, tr­y, if it does­n't wo­rk then try ano­ther one.

Get ga­pp­s-­j­b-20130301-­sig­ne­d.­zip from the XDA pa­ge.

Co­py that in­to the SD car­d, then ins­ta­ll from re­co­ve­ry mo­de.

And tha­t's it. If it fail­s, you can pro­ba­bly go ba­ck to so­me­thing rea­so­na­ble using the sto­ck fir­mwa­re tha­t's in the sa­me pa­ge, but I ha­ve not do­ne it so I do­n't offer in­truc­tion­s.

Good lu­ck!