Install CyanogenMod or LineageOS on Samsung Galaxy SII GT I9100

Nataraj
3 min readJul 18, 2021

There are multiple reasons to install a custom ROM on an older mobile device

  1. Lack of updates
  2. The device has gone slow and you are not able to use it at all
  3. You just want better performance
  4. You are really tiered of google tracking you

These instructions are specifically for Samsung Galaxy S2 GTI9100

1) Enable USB debugging
2) Install adb, fastboot, heimdall, heimdall-frontend
fastboot devices (may not list the devices so )

The most important point is that you should get recovery working on this phone
3) Download and extract CWM-KitKatCompatible-i9100.tar flash the zImage using heimdall

heimdall flash — KERNEL zImage — verbose

Note: I used this as the recover image CWM-KitKatCompatible-i9100.tar

Below is the output

Initialising connection…
Detecting device…
Manufacturer: “SAMSUNG”
Product: “Gadget Serial”
….

Setting up interface…
Initialising protocol…
Protocol initialisation successful.
Beginning session…
Some devices may take up to 2 minutes to respond.
Please be patient!
Session begun.
Downloading device’s PIT file…
WARNING: Empty bulk transfer after receiving packet failed. Continuing anyway…
PIT file download successful.

Uploading KERNEL
0%
21%
42%
63%
84%
100%
KERNEL upload successful

Ending session…
Rebooting device…
Releasing device interface…

Now you can boot to recovery Press Volume Up + Home + Power

4) Once you are in the recovery image you could use adb to push cm-13.0–20161218-NIGHTLY-i9100.zip to respective storage

adb push cm-13.0–20161218-NIGHTLY-i9100.zip /storage/sdcard1/

5) Install the build by selecting Install zip option in the recovery console

Tips:
On this phone especially on the international edition or on Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-I9100
Press Volume Down + Home + Power for flashing the recovery image
Press Volume Up + Home + Power for booting into the recovery image.

Tips:
On this phone especially on the international edition or on Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-I9100
Press Volume Down + Home + Power for flashing the recovery image
Press Volume Up + Home + Power for booting into the recovery image.

References :
I was able to download cm-13.0–20161218-NIGHTLY-i9100.zip from https://androidfilehost.com/?fid=457095661767133548
The supported list of cyanogenmod’s on this device is here
https://web.archive.org/web/20161224214832/https://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=i9100

How to Install CyanogenMod on the Samsung Galaxy S II (“i9100”)
https://web.archive.org/web/20161224194651/https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_i9100

There is one change that you have to follow from this article note the “ — kernel” parameter to heimdall is “ — KERNEL”

heimdall flash — KERNEL zImage — verbose

I have not been able to install gaps but you and do it from the below

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