Yoav 5120

Samsung Galaxy i7500 – Rooting and updating to Galaxo 1.6.3 Dummies Tutorial

Disclaimer: I got most of this information in various forums, I don’t really remember all of them, but there are some places that you should go visit cause they are full of useful information.

The first is http://www.drakaz.com/ that’s where the Galaxo ROM came from. Check their download section for newer ROMS and stuff, plus those guys are awesome; you should support them if you can.

Then we have http://www.androidwiki.de and www.iandroid.co.il, lots of good information can be found there.

So I recently acquired a Samsung Galaxy i7500 from Orange in Israel. Because Google hasn’t written their own Hebrew support, the cellular companies here in Israel developed their own code together with Samsung Israel (menus, keyboard, fonts, etc.). The problem is that they are keeping the Hebrew code to themselves and are not planning on sharing it or releasing any updates for the software (I called Samsung Israel and they confirmed that the only software they support, and will support, is the pre-installed Cupcake 1.5). Why would they help you in any way? Since you’re “depending” on their software for Hebrew support, they can just “make you” buy a newer phone... or so they thought!

I looked around in hundreds (literally) of forums and tutorials trying to figure out, first, how to “get root” so I could try to uninstall all the useless and unrequested software that came pre-installed and locked into the phone.

There I started to learn about upgrading the phone to Donut 1.6, but still, Hebrew was not supported.

After reading many different confusing posts on the Israeli Android forum (www.iandroid.co.il) I found some posts that were actually helpful.

Here, you will find my simple step by step tutorial for dummies on how to upgrade your Cupcake 1.5 to Donut 1.6 (Galaxo 1.6.3) and then how to add Hebrew support (not for menus, only for reading/writing Hebrew and to send/receive sms)

THIS WORKS FOR BOTH I7500 AND I7500L

Please download all the files to your computer before you start doing anything. Once you have all the files you can be sure you can proceed.

STEP 1 (ADB drivers):

You need to install the ADB drivers (Android Debug Bridge). You’ll need those to operate the Android SDK correctly. – Terminology is unimportant; just follow this tutorial step by step and you’ll be fine, but I’ll try to give you details so you know what is going on.

Download the drivers here: MEGAUPLOAD – The leading online storage and file delivery service and extract the folder (“usb_driver”) to your desktop

When I first tried to do this, I did it in my “state-of-the-art” DualCore @3.2Ghz, 6GB RAM, Windows7 Ultimate 64bit computer. Only to find out that the 64bits Windows versions (XP, Vista, Server and 7) have problems recognizing these drivers. It can still be done, but it requires a lot more effort. So my recommendation: Do this in a 32 bit Windows!

I’m using Windows 7 32 bits (x86), so I’ll continue this tutorial assuming you have the same operating system... it should be very similar (if not identical) to other 32bits versions of Windows.

Go to your Galaxy, go into the Settings, select Applications, then Development, then tick USB debugging. Now plug it into your computer. Some drivers will automatically install, give it some time until the little window that scans for drivers is done doing its thing.

Open up the device manager.

You should see an unknown device with a yellow exclamation mark. Right-click it and select update drivers.

Select Browse my computer.

Select Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.

If you see a list of devices and you have to pick one, don’t select any and just click next again. Then, click “Have Disk”. Browse to the “usb_driver” folder that you put on your desktop before, then select the x86 folder (which means 32-bits) and in it select “android_usb.inf”.

Your device should now have the required drivers. More on that later, but for now just stick to the guide.

>STEP 2 (Placing the Recovery, Update and .tar files)

You’re going to need these files:

• The Android SDK: Download the Android SDK | Android Developers

• This Donut firmware (JC6): MEGAUPLOAD – The leading online storage and file delivery service (used to restore Google Apps, don’t worry I7500L users, it’s the same for everyone)

• The custom recovery (4.6.3): http://www.drakaz.com/FILES/GALAXY/?file=RECOVERY_4.6.3.zip (used to apply the update, among other stuff)

• Galaxo 1.6.3.2: http://www.drakaz.com/FILES/GALAXY/?file=Galaxo_V1.6.3.2.zip

I suggest saving all of those to the desktop, to avoid confusion.

Start by placing the “android-sdk-windows” folder to the root of your C drive. The place doesn’t really matter, but you’ll have to type the path into a command prompt later, so if you follow my example, place it in the root of your C drive.

Extract the files located inside the “RECOVERY_4.6.3.zip” file. You now have “recovery.img” and “RECTOOLS.tar.gz”. Take “recovery.img” and place it in the “tools” folder of the “android-sdk-windows” folder (ie: C:\Android-sdk-windows\tools\).

Now, rename “Galaxo_V1.6.3.3.zip” to “update.zip”.

Then, extract “Samsung.tar” from “I7500XEJC6.zip”.

Connect your phone to the computer, pull the dropdown notifications menu and click on “Select to copy fies to/from your computer”. Now in your computer open the file manager (My Computer) and you should see 2 new drives. They are the internal and external sd cards of your Galaxy.

Take “update.zip”, “Samsung.tar” and “RECTOOLS.tar.gz” (the last one was in RECOVERY_4.6.3.zip), and place them on the root folder of both drives (SD cards). Do not put these files inside any folder.

STEP 3 (Recovery and update):

Power off your phone and leave it connected via USB.

Open a Command Prompt (Click on the Windows “start” button, click on “run” and type “cmd” and press enter; or search for “cmd” in the start menu and click on “cmd.exe”).

On the “command prompt” (C:\Users\name>) type “cd C:\android-sdk-windows\tools”, of course without the “ ”. If you didn’t put the Android SDK on the root of your C drive, you’ll have to modify this line and put the actual path. Press enter.

Now type “fastboot flash recovery recovery.img” without pressing enter just yet. (pay attention to the command, the word “recovery” appears twice – I kind of got stuck here the first time for not paying attention)

Boot your phone into fastboot mode, to do so press and hold both the Call button (bottom left) and Power button (bottom right) keys at the same time, until you see on the phone that you are in fastboot mode. You’ll have about 15 seconds to press enter on the command prompt on the computer. If it works, you’ll see something else than “waiting for device” appear in the command prompt. If it doesn’t work, your phone will automatically restart after 15 seconds into normal mode. You’ll have to power down and repeat.

When I tried to do this the first time, it wouldn’t do anything, just reboot. It would wait for the device, then my Galaxy would boot normally. To solve this, open the device manager on your computer and turn the Galaxy off again. You are going to boot into fastboot mode again (press and hold the call and power buttons), you’ll have about 15 seconds to check the device manager (open it beforehand), and see if there’s a new device that needs drivers. Mine was Android 1.0 (with a yellow exclamation mark, meaning that there are no drivers). You’ll do the exact same thing as you did with the ADB driver, using the exact same driver (right click the unknown device, update the driver, select from a list, next, Have disk, Browser, then find the same “android_usb.inf”. Check the beginning of the guide if you don’t remember what to do.)

Tip: copy the path of the “usb_driver” path (C:\Users\Name\Desktop\usb_driver) to your clipboard, that way you can just paste it when you’re looking for the file, instead of having to browse to get to the driver folder.

If things are working as they should, you should see this in the command prompt window:

Next step is to boot again, but this time in recovery mode. To do so, press and hold the “Lower volume button”, the “Call button” and the “Power button”. If it works, you’ll see a green menu with lots of choices. You’ll be done in 5 more steps:

1. Scroll down and select “Nandroid backup”. It will take a short while but it sure is worth it. You’ll have to press the Home button to confirm, just follow the instructions on-screen. – This step creates a folder called “nandroid” in your sd card where it creates a backup of the current system, in case you need to restore your phone to its original factory settings. Up until this point, you haven’t really modified your phone, but that’s about to change.

2. Now, select “Wipe data/Factory reset”. It’s going to erase all your applications and settings, but it shouldn’t touch anything saved on your SD card (such as pictures, music, saves, etc). It’s important to do this; otherwise the phone will not work properly.

3. After that, select “Apply sdcard:update.zip". – This step will install Galaxo on your phone.

4. Now select “Restore G.Apps”. - This will install the Google Applications on your phone.

5. Reboot and enjoy your new Galaxo!

If the phone gets stuck on the Android screen, wait for about 10 minutes, and then if it’s still stuck, pull out the battery and boot again. If it still doesn’t work, you can try again, or boot into recovery and try to “apply the sdcard:update.zip” again and restoring the Google apps without rebooting between, and trying another wipe after that.

source: Androidforums.com

Installing Hebrew

The credit goes to Gilad Ben-Yossef, he wrote the original “tutorial” on how to do this; but it was in Hebrew, here you have it in comprehensible English now:

1. Go to the Android market and download the software “GScript Lite”

2. Open GScript, press and hold “Reboot phone” and select "Save to SD." (This will create a folder called “gscript” in your sd card).

3. Download the file with the Hebrew fonts here: (link taken from first page):

4. Plug your Galaxy to your PC and mount it (To mount it for the first time, in your phone go to “Settings – About Phone – Additional Settings – tick “Mass storage only”)

5. Create a new folder on the root of the sd card called “Hebrew” (with a capital “H”).

6. Extract the contents of the zip file “hebdroid.zip” into the “Hebrew” folder that you created in your SD card. At the end of this process you should have eight font files and the LICENSE.txt file.

7. Download the file Hebrew.sh file here: http://www.2shared.com/file/6134602/a12 ... ebrew.html

8. Save the file (hebrew.sh) in the “gscript” folder in your sd card (this folder was  automatically created during step 2).

9. Unmount and disconnect the device from the computer.

10. Open the software GScript Lite on the device. Click the “menu button”, click “Add” and then click “Load file”.Select from the list Hebrew.sh, click on “Save”. The device will run the script and will reboot.

11. You now have Hebrew fonts and support in your phone, but you need a keyboard. Download “AnySoftKeyboard” and its “Hebrew language pack” from the Android Market, that should do it.*

DONE! You now have Hebrew fonts! I (You can follow this part of the tutorial to install Hebrew in new ROMS too).

*To use this (or any other) keyboard, go to your phone’s “settings – Locale & text – tick AnySoftKeyboard”. This will activate the keyboard. To choose it as an input method, open any text box (messaging, search, etc.), press and hold on it, click on “Input Method” and chose the keyboard of your preference.

Orange 3G wireless settings

You can (or are supposed to be able to) get the 3G connection settings over an sms. To do so, send an sms to 999 with the word “odt” inside it (without the “ “ of course). You should get an sms that will ask you for a pin number, that is 0000.

If you didn’t get the sms (like me) don’t worry, you can input the settings manually.

Go to “Settings – Wireless conections – Mobile networks – Access Point Names – click the menu button and chose “New APN””. Enter the following settings:

Mame: orange

Apn: uwap.orange.co.il

Proxy:102.118.11.55

Port 8080

Username orange

Password: mobile54

Server: leave blank

MMSC: http://192.168.220.15/servlets/mms

MMS proxy 8080

MMS port: 425

MCC: 425

MNC:01

APN type: internet+mms

Authentication type: none

Now click the menu button and chose “Save”

Ta-daaa you have 3G internet again!