Installing Cyanogenmod 7.2 on Samsung Galaxy 5 (GT-I5500)

It's been a while. Been too busy to play anything except the Star Trek Online that just went free (nice game, space is good, ground missions are bad - maybe a little too easy).

Anyways, I finally got off my behind and installed Cyanogenmod 7.2, ie. Android 2.3.7 on my Samsung I5500 which was previously a 2.2 Froyo phone.

CM basic apps, with extra "Egg Timer"
and Opera installed.

I really got bored of the slowness of the original Samsung firmware - sometimes it took 5-10 seconds before I could place a call. And the phone's memory was really starting to limit me even with everything possible installed on the 8BG SD card.

Why it took so long was mostly because previous versions of CM had some "features" (read bugs or incompabilities) and all the instructions on the net really use the Rom Manager, an Android app that costs 4,95 eur (the free version isn't up to snuff when it comes to installing stuff on the Galaxy5).

So, how to do it? Let's see...

All the files I used can be found here (for now, if the traffic gets too large I'll reserve the right to remove them :P ).

Oh, and absolutely no support and all questions will go unanswered (this is mostly for my own memoirs :P ).


Preparation:

• Export your contact data to your SD card (phone / contacts then hit menu button and choose import/export). Make sure you save all your contacts in the VCF file.
• If you want to save your SMS messages, install "SMS Backup & Restore" from the Android Market, it's free. Use it.
• Make sure there's nothing on the phone you cannot afford to lose, apart from the gallery, pretty much everything will be lost.

Rooting your Galaxy:

• Connect your Galaxy5 to your PC via USB and let it install the drivers, make sure it's in the "USB debugging mode" (in Finnish it's a "little" misleading "USB-vianetsintä" under the "Sovellusasetukset / Kehittäminen" menu)
• Unpack "SuperOneClickv2.3.3-ShortFuse.zip" to your PC and run it.
• When it sees your phone, hit the "Root"-button to root your phone and if it asks to install busybox, let it do it, it's really that simple.
• Now you have a rooted phone and a new app "superuser" installed in the apps screen.

Moving the neccessary files into your phone:

• Mount your phone on your PC as mass media with your USB cable and copy the "update-cm-7-20120206-MADTEAM-galaxy5.zip" (or newer if you have it) and "gapps-gb-20110828-signed.zip" (Google apps, 28.11.2011 version) to the SD card, you can use a sub directory if you want.

Installing the recovery partition / mod installer - ClockworkMod:

• First, copy ODIN (the firmware flasher, from the "odin v4.28 and ops file" directory) on your PC and make sure your phone is in "USB debug mode"(from the settings menu).
• Put your phone into "recovery mode" by shutting it down and booting with "VOLUME DOWN" + "SELECT BUTTON" + "POWER OFF / HANG CALL BUTTON" pressed down simultaneously (select is the middle button surrounded by the silver cursor "ring")
• Connect the phone and let windows install the drivers for it.
• Run ODIN in administrator mode ("run as") and make sure ODIN can see the phone and then select option "One package" (options "auto reboot" and "protect OPS" should be selected by default).
• As the "OPS" file, select the "EUROPA_I5508_v1.0.ops" that came with ODIN (it's in the same directory)
• As the "One Package" file select "ClockworkMod-Galaxy5-v0.7.tar"
• Hit "Start" and wait until it has installed ClockworkMod
• Optional "to-do" in ClockworkMod: if you want to install another version, you can copy it on the SD card and install it via the "zip" option on the main menu (you can also mount the SD card for your PC on the main menu)

Installing the CyanogenMod:

• If you want to install CM later, and rather boot now back to your old system, you need a way to reboot in to ClockworkMod later on. There are several ways to do this later, like installing a "rom manager" -type software (the actual Rom Manager, free version, from the app store didn't work well with Galaxy5, so I used ROM Toolbox instead) or you can always re-flash with ODIN and let it boot into ClockworkMod.
• Anyway, when you are in ClockworkMod and before you start flashing (for the first time), wipe the caches, etc by selecting:
  "wipe data/factory reset" and "wipe cache partition" and then advanced/wipe both "dalvik cache" and "battery stats"
• After that choose "install zip from sd card" and navigate to where you saved "update-cm-7-20120206-MADTEAM-galaxy5.zip" and let it flash.
• Then do the same with "gapps-gb-20110828-signed.zip"
• If everything went OK, reboot and you now have CyanogenMod installed (the first boot will take considerably longer than the normal boots after that).

CyanogenMod performance menu
in the settings (in Finnish)

Why CyanogenMod?

• Samsung doesn't really support their phones for long. The latest Android version is 2.2 and it seems to be the last. CM for Android 4.0 is already under development, and hopefully will be released as fully working "final" later on this year
• CM is faster, you can over clock your cheap 600MHz phone easily for 10-20% speed gains (and battery loss :D ), you can also get rid of excess baggage like the Samsung apps and even some Google apps that have been installed into the phone memory and are hogging the precious little RAM we have in the Galaxy5 - with CM you can install Google Maps on the SD card, etc.
• CM works pretty well now; WLAN & WLAN APs work OK, telephony and GPS work, etc. You're no longer trading usability and features for a OS update.
• You don't need to be a Yarrr!-Pirate to get mileage from a rooted phone.

PS3 Space Marine - deal of the week in Play Asia

Region free, get it for $18.90 here.

Star Wars: The Old Republic beta

Since the NDA has been lifted...

SW:TOR is pretty much Bioware "playing it safe"; it has nothing really new, the graphics are lackluster so they will run on your neighbour's  machine from 2005 and it focuses on the usual level- and gear grind.

It will not make a real dent on WoW's armor, but it will probably have a few hundred thousand Star Wars fans and people bored in the WoW grind flocking to it, at least for the first "free" 30 days.

I played my trooper come commando to level 18 during sunday and monday - and while fun at times, there's too much running around (and the 35% speed boost you get at level 16 doesn't really help) and all the quests are pretty much of the standard "kill X monsters" or "fetch X items" variety.

I have to admit that they *did* accomplish something I wished the Conan game had perfected before; nearly all the quests have complete voice acting (except the "quest automat" ones). Now, I can't honestly say if this continues all the way until level 50, but it does to at least 20. Then again, so did Conan's...

Will I get this one on release? Not a chance.

Would I play this for free, with "pay to play" content bundles? Probably.

Ok, why is it that the PS3 always seems to get the short end of the stick?

Seems like the choice of  getting Skyrim for the PS3 was the least favorable one.

Why? It is starting to look like it's the platform where the "big saves bug" will most likely drop your frame rates or freeze your game. Oh, and speaking of freezing, the game has frozen / crashed on me on at least three occasions - so save often.

The game also looks crappiest on the PS3, I believe. Though neither of the console versions can hold a candle to the PC one - especially after you download a couple of "hi-res texture" mods for it.

I know I should've got the PC version - it's a Bethesda game after all and Oblivion was in the exact same situation even though the PC hardware was the underdog in 2007.

As for other games, every time there's a comparison, the Xbox 360 seems to come out as a winner - even though the PS3 is supposed to have superior hardware. How does, exactly, the superior processor, etc help you if you're memory limited and most of your games aren't even anti-aliased like the competitor's?

Don't get me wrong; owning all the current gen consoles, I would love to, well... "love" the PS3, but real world experiences make it harder and harder. I would especially love to prefer the PS3 for multiplayer titles, where paying for the actual game is enough and you don't have to pay the console manufacturer monthly for playing online. ;P

So come on PS3 developers, get your freaking act together and release less buggy games even though you're only doing a conversion (most dev studios seem to target the 360 as their main system, if not the PC). Sheesh!

Play-Asia - buy for $60 with PayPal before year's end and receive a $6 off coupon.

Here: Grab a US$ 6 off US$ 60 Limited Coupon!

Might be nice if you're a frequent customer. ;)


Oh, and Skyrim is still very nice. Level 20 and going strong - have left the main quest line nearly untouched and just played the side quests that go on, and on, and on and...

Skyrim!

Finally got to play Skyrim last sunday (got it since the release day) and all I can say is that it's good, good, RPing, slashing & hacking, sneaking & spellcasting good.

Yes, it's basically Oblivion V2.0 and the console versions are really starting to show the age of the current consoles vs the PC that nowadays has 4+GBs of memory and 1+GBs of dedicated video memory - where it really, and I mean REALLY, shows is the texture resolution.

Looking at the screenshots I'm left feeling I should've gotten Skyrim for the PC instead of the PS3.

Then again, I like sitting in the living room and playing with the wireless controller (which I could do if I dragged the huge PC there and set up the controller with some crazy software, no thanks ;) ).

Yakuza 4 & L.A.Noire sale

Update:

L.A. Noire for the Xbox 360 is sale for $19,90 + p&p.


And Yakuza 4 is still on sale:
Yakuza 4 (PS3) is on sale at Play-Asia for $17.90 + p&p... ;)

Deus Ex: Finished

Gotta say that it's one hell of a game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Made very much in the spirit of the original Deus Ex and repeats no mistakes from the sequel.

Very good, a 9.5 out of 10.

Has it been a month and a half already since last update? Damn...

Sorry about that.

I've been too busy playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution (damn good, so good it wipes the second Deus Ex from your mind and brings back the warm feeling from the first, classic one).

Oh, and the damn Rise of Isengard expansion for Lord of the Rings Online. Blah... ;P


Oh, and I did try (briefly) the new Call of Juarez game ("The Cartel"). You know, the one that's based in our time and tries a lot to be like GTA, but succeeds mostly in being like Kane & Lynch 2?

What an god-awful screw-up of a good intellectual property and two good western games... ;P


Oh, while we're on "everything" -subject here; if you like independent fantasy/suspense/whatever films - rent / buy "Trollhunter". It's a Norwegian film that's surely going to get a watered-down Hollywood version later on, but it's refreshingly new. And the Norwegian nature is really beautiful (well, except for all those damn big trolls :D ).

Vacation's over...

... well it's been over for two weeks but little to no gaming (of new games, at least; some Darksiders and Riddick there).

I did try From Dust (on the PC); it's a nifty little god game with raise/lower earth/water (or lava ;) ). Very "Populous for the 2010s" -kinda thing. Recommended.

Oh, and Conan, the MMOG game, went free this summer. I still can't get myself to play that one. It just seems there's nothing much to do and lots of running around to find even that little thing to do. I had a two month subscription and probably logged in four times. Good thing the pre-paid card cost me less than 5 euros... ;)