How to Install Slimrom on SGS3

Slim ROMs Guide: A brief overview

SR is built from Cyanogenmod, but is a lighter, less resource intensive flavor. It still has plenty of features (more in some cases) and is what I decided to run on my U.S. Cellular Samsung Galaxy S III (d2usc/d2lte).

 

If you do not have U.S. Cellular and do not have a Samsung Galaxy S3, this post IS NOT FOR YOU!!! But, you can treat it as a guide. I will have links to all the sources I used to make it as simple and uncomplicated as possible.

Step 1: How to backup your device.

First and foremost, the easiest way to backup you device is to use Google, and have them backup all your stuff to the cloud. It is convenient, easy, and hassle free with no new apps to download or complicated steps to follow.

For me, I like to manually copy everything (photos, contacts, music, etc.) myself to my external microSD card, then copy that to a safe location on my computer, then again to an external HD.

It is actually very simple to backup ALL of your contacts. Your phone comes with a stock import/export that will allow you to save your contacts to a .vcf file, a vCard file. Go into your Contacts app, hit the “Menu” key (the touch button to the left of the “Home” button), then export. THAT EASY!

For me, that was really the most important aspect of my phone, but for others, they want everything saved: they want to upgrade from 4.3 to 4.4.4 (like me) and be able to import all their apps without having lost anything.

Backup Solutions:

We will use two ways to make backups: CWM Recovery and Titanium Backup. I want to use these two methods because A) Paranoia and B) CYA (covering your ass) in case anything at all goes wrong.

CWM Recovery – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.koushikdutta.rommanager&hl=en

Titanium Backup – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup&hl=en

How to backup with CWM Recovery:

You MUST do this method first as it is your “Stock”, unmodified, non-rooted ROM and will be our snapshot of your base system.

I HIGHLY recommend using an external micro SD card.

You’re going to need to download a few utilities in order to get it up and running.

DOWNLOAD them all here:      LINK1          LINK2

Extract the folder to your desktop (easy access).

Have a full charge on your phone.

Follow these steps:

  1. In the “00. Drivers” folder, install the drivers. And restart your computer.
  2. In the “01. ODIN” folder, Run As Admin, “odin3 v1.85.exe”
  3. Uncheck “Auto Reboot”
  4. Click the “PDA” button.
  5. Select the “CWMS3USCellularrecovery.tar” file in same directory as the ODIN executable.
  6. Now, power off your phone.
  7. Take the back off (this is just a precaution)
  8. After it has shutdown, hold the Volume Down button, then the Home button, then the Power button.
  9. After the warning message appears, you can let go of all three buttons.
  10. This screen is a warning to scare you but STAY STRONG and do not be intimidated.
  11. Press Volume Up to accept their disclaimer.
  12. Now, connect your phone to your Windows computer.
  13. In the first box, if the drivers have installed properly, there will be an ID:COM number and it will be orange.
  14. Since we have already selected the PDA file, just hit “Start”
  15. Should take about 10 seconds.
  16. If the box turns green and it gives you a Success message, then you are good to go!
  17. Now, if you phone auto-reboots, pull the battery.
  18. If during the next step, you phone starts to turn on and you are not in recovery mode, pull the battery.
  19. Manually Power off the phone.
  20. After shutdown, hold Volume Up, Home, and Power buttons.
  21. After you see the “SAMSUNG” boot and when you see the name of the phone: Galaxy S3, let go of the power button, BUT continue to hold down the Volume Up and Home keys.
  22. Your phone screen should now look like Figure 1 below (with the exception that the version is 6.0.4.5).
  23. Use the Volume buttons to move up and down and the power button to select OR touch the category you want.
  24. Select “backup and restore”
  25. If you have an external SD card inserted, select the option of “backup to /storage/sdcard1”
  26. Else, select “backup to /sdcard”
  27. It will immediately start backing up you system.
  28. Depending on how much is going on your phone, this can take up to 30 minutes.
  29. Once it is done, Go Back and “reboot system now”
  30. WE ARE NOW GOING TO GIVE YOUR PHONE ROOT ACCESS.
  31. Now, copy the “UPDATE-SuperSU-v2.00.zip” file to your ext. sd card or internal storage from the “02. Root access” folder.
  32. Power off your phone.
  33. After shutdown, hold Volume Up, Home, and Power buttons.
  34. After you see the “SAMSUNG” boot and when you see the name of the phone: Galaxy S3, let go of the power button, BUT continue to hold down the Volume Up and Home keys.
  35. Should look like FIGURE 1 below again.
  36. This time, click “- install zip”
  37. Then click “- choose zip from /storage/sdcard1” if you copied to ext. SD OR “- choose zip from /sdcard” if to internal storage
  38. Find the “UPDATE-SuperSU-v2.00.zip” file and then select “- Yes – Install UPDATE-SuperSU-v2.00.zip”
  39. Reboot the phone after it installs.
  40. You may or may not get a warning that explains that you may have lost root access. Go ahead and choose “- Yes – Fix root (/system/xbin/su)”
  41. Now on to Titanium Backup!

Backup with Titanium:

Before we use Titanium, we need to do a few things with the SuperSU we just installed.

  1. Navigate and find the SuperSU in your apps.
  2. When it opens up, it will say KNOX is detected, do you want to disable: SAY YES FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS TRUE AND GOOD.
  3. Your device should now be rooted, time to install TB and find out!

Install Titanium and Backup User Apps:

  1. Go to the Google Play Store and search for Titanium Backup.
  2. Install the application.
  3. Open it up.
  4. If you are rooted, you will get a pop-up from the SuperSU app asking you to “Deny” or “Grant” Titanium Backup with root permissions. Touch “Grant”
  5. Touch the “Backup/Restore” tab
  6. Touch in the top right the Square with a Check mark. FIGURE 2
  7. Under the Backup category, hit RUN and “Backup all user apps” FIGURE 3
  8. This will take a bit.
  9. After it finishes, I suggest that you copy it to your ext. SD card and then copy it to your computer for super safe keeping.

FIGURE 3

You are all set! All of you data has been backed up, saved, and you even have a backup restore in case it all goes to hell! Let’s get started.

Installing SlimKat

NOTE: the latest version of SlimKat (Slim-d2lte-4.4.4.build.9.0-OFFICIAL-8262) did NOT work for me. I mean, it installed just fine, but I had no network! I believe that this is a bug in SlimKat AND Cyanogenmod 11.

  1. Download and copy to your external SD card the SlimKat ROM: Slim-d2lte-4.4.4.build.7.0-OFFICIAL-5979
  2. Download and copy to your external SD card the Google Apps: Slim-Addons-normal_gapps.4.4.4.build.9-20150107
  3. IMPORTANT: Verify the SHA1 or MD5 for each package. If the download was corrupt, the install could fail and possibly brick your device!
  4. After you have downloaded and verified the two packages and said a quick prayer, we are ready to install the ROM.
  5. Power off your device.
  6. Hold the Volume Up, Home, and Power buttons.
  7. Once you see device name (Galaxy S 3), let go of power button while continuing to hold the Volume Up and Home keys.
  8. You should be back in the CWM Recovery mode screen. (If you did not boot into recovery mode, you may need to re-install custom recovery. See steps 2 – 22 in “How to backup with CWM Recovery” to get that functionality back.
  9. We are going to WIPE YOUR DEVICE CLEAN. This is why we have made so many damn backups! (Note: this just formats the system, data, and cache. In theory, all your other storage should remain, just not the OS files.)
  10. Click “- advanced”
  11. Select “- wipe dalvik cache” —> Yes
  12. Back in the main menu, go into “- mounts and storage”
  13. Select “- format /system” — Warning: this completely destroys your OS, only do this if you absolutely certain you want to continue —> Yes
  14. Select “- format /data” —> Yes
  15. Select “- format /cache” —> Yes
  16. Back to the main menu, select “- wipe cache partition” —> Yes
  17. NOW, to install the ROM (SlimKat) and GAPPS (Google Apps)
  18. Click “- install zip”
  19. Choose “- choose zip from /storage/sdcard1”
  20. Find the “Slim-d2lte-4.4.4.build.7.0-OFFICIAL-5979.zip” file, select it —> Yes
  21. Should take about 1 – 2 minutes to unpack.
  22. After that is finished, install the “Slim-Addons-normal_gapps.4.4.4.build.9-20150107.zip” (Install zip, choose from ext sd card, select —> Yes)
  23. You should have successfully installed all the necessary files to run SlimKat on your U.S. Cellular Samsung Galaxy S3.
  24. Select “- reboot system now”
  25. Since it is being set up for the first time, it will take between 5 and 10 minutes to install. (Took 5 minutes in my case.)
  26. Set up your phone as you would when you first got it in the store: wifi, gmail, name, etc.
  27. First thing I do is import my contacts. Use the app “Simple Explorer” to find your exported Contacts.vcf file. Click on it and open it with the Messaging app. I had almost 3,500 contacts so it took roughly 5 minutes to import them.
  28. Update all your Google Apps via Google Play Store.
  29. After you have done that, you can do two of the three or all three things: A) Make a backup of THIS system right now and/or B) root your device again C) restore your apps via Titanium Backup.

Restoring your apps from Titanium Backup

After you have re-rooted your system and installed Titanium Backup, follow this:

  1. Make sure in Settings, under Security, you have checked the “Unknown sources” box or this restore WILL NOT WORK.
  2. Launch Titanium Backup
  3. Go to Backup/Restore tab
  4. Click the square and check mark in upper right. FIGURE 2 (above)
  5. Under the Restore category, hit RUN for “Restore missing apps with data” FIGURE 3 (above)
  6. Select which apps you want to import. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you manually select each file. Don’t want a system app or a stock bloatware app creeping in do we?! FIGURE 4
  7. Click the Check mark in upper right again to begin installing apps.
  8. Follow on screen instructions.
FIGURE 4

Success!

If you have followed all of these instructions to the crosses and dots of the T’s and your i’s, you should be ready to go!

Have fun exploring. I’ll post more guides for Cyanogenmod here in a few weeks.

(that was a lie)

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