Installing CyanogenMod 10.2 on a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet (N8000) for Software Freedom Day

From broken screen to crapware

A couple of weeks ago I had an unpleasant on-line interaction with some troll that ended with my Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 in a similar state to this one:

This is how much damage can be inflicted on an electronic device by jabbing it repeatedly with a rigid index finger. Learn from my experience.

After parting with a heart-stopping amount of money, I got the tablet back from the service centre with a new screen and a bunch of crapware because they "upgraded the software" as an additional service. 

I tried to uninstall some of these mysterious apps but they promptly reappeared of their own volition. Ironically, this happened on Software Freedom Day, which prompted me to think about the four essential freedoms in the Free Software Definition:

Freedom 0: the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.

I do not wish to run these programs at all. I have no purpose for them.

Freedom 1: the freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish.

I do not want to study these programs and I would like to change them to do my computing as I wish by removing them altogether.

Freedom 2: the freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.

These programs are redistributing themselves freely but they are not helping me, my neighbours, or the dog, because he is barking at the fence.

Freedom 3: the freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.

I can't modify these programs and I would never foist unwanted crapware on others.

So, today, the day after Software Freedom Day, I decided to replace the stock Samsung ROM and regain my lost software freedom.

CyanogenMod shall set you free

Fortunately, the dedicated crew at CyanogenMod.org have produced an open source firmware distribution that runs on the Galaxy Note, so here are detailed instructions to install CyanogenMod 10.2, which is based on Android 4.3.1 (Jelly Bean), on a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (GT-N8000) using a 64-bit desktop running Debian 7.6 (codename "wheezy").

Flashing non-stock firmware is not for the faint-hearted, but it is not too difficult if you follow the installation instructions exactly. There are four steps:

• Download and install the software needed to do the flashing;
• Flash the tablet with ClockworkMod Recovery to replace the stock recovery software;
• Install the new CyanogenMod firmware; and
• Re-install the Google apps.

Getting set up

Install ADB

The first step is to install Android Debug Bridge (ADB) which is a command line tool for interacting with the tablet over the USB cable. 

Edit the apt package manager's sources.list file to include the wheezy-backports repository so that you can install adb:

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vi /etc/apt/sources.list

Then add the following entry, where mirrorsite.debian.org is a nearby Debian mirror:

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deb http://mirrorsite.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-backports main contrib non-free

Update the list of available packages and install the adb tools:

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apt-get update
apt-get install android-tools-adb
apt-get install android-tools-fastboot

Install Heimdall

In order to flash the recovery firmware, you must download and install Heimdall (the software, I mean, not the music). Download it from here and install it:

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dpkg -i debian7-heimdall_1.4.0-0_amd64.deb

Firmware downloads

Now download the software that you will flash to the tablet. Make sure that you are downloading the correct versions of each, otherwise it will all end in tears:

• ClockworkMod Recovery for the N8000
• the CyanogenMod image for N8000
• and Google Apps for Android Jelly Bean

Okay, now flash CWM Recovery

Power off the tablet and wait a few seconds until it has died down completely. Don't plug in the USB cable yet.

Press Volume Down then the Power button and hold them down together until a Warning screen appears, then let them go.

The Warning tells you that a custom OS can cause critical problems and invites you to press Power Up if you are determined to proceed, which you will because you want your software freedom.

The tablet will go into stand-by mode:

In fact it is downloading nothing, it is just waiting for you to take the next step, so plug in the USB cable and use Heimdall to flash the Recovery image from the desktop to the tablet:

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heimdall flash --RECOVERY clockworkmodrecovery.6046.n8000.img --no-reboot

A blue progress bar will appear on the device showing the recovery being transferred to the device. When the image has been flashed, unplug the USB cable, press Volume Up then Power, wait until the Samsung title bar appears, and release them both.

Make sure you reboot into recovery immediately otherwise the custom recovery will be overwritten and the device will reboot as though your custom recovery failed to install. All being well you should boot into the new custom Recovery.

Install CyanogenMod

Now you are in the Recovery mode, you can install the new firmware image, but first backup the stock ROM.

In ClockworkMod Recovery, you use the physical volume buttons to move up and down and the power button to confirm a menu selection, so use Volume Up to navigate to "backup and restore", confirm with the Power button, and then select "backup to SD card".

When the backup is done go back to the main menu and select "wipe data/factory reset".

Once that has completed, go back and select "install zip", followed by "install zip from sideload". Sideload will wait until you have plugged in the USB cable and entered on the desktop:

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adb sideload cm-10.2-20140323-NIGHTLY-n8000.zip

When the sideload is finished, the tablet will find the update package and install it. Note that it does not display an "Install complete" message. You can tell the install is complete if there were no fatal error messages and you have regained control over the menu.

Go back to the main menu and reboot into CyanogenMod. After an agonising wait, you should see:

Finally, Google Apps

Boot the tablet into recovery mode (Volume up, then Power, wait for Samsung title bar, then release them both) and select "install zip", followed by "install zip from sideload". Then on your desktop enter:

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adb sideload gapps-jb-20130813-signed.zip

Now reboot to your stripped down, open source Galaxy Note and enjoy being free to control your own software.

Setting up a Dashboard using Bootstrap

Bootstrap dashboard

I have a number of web-based tools to monitor and maintain the various devices and applications on my network. It would be very convenient to integrate the tools with an administration console hosted on a secured web server that will let me in from the outside but keep the script kiddies out. 

I decided to use Bootstrap to build a dashboard to do that. It is a front-end web development framework that was written by Mark Otto and Jacob Thornton at Twitter to standardize their development environment and share common design patterns and code. 

Why Bootstrap and not some other web framework?

• It was released under the MIT open source licence in August 2011 on GitHub, so you are free to download and use the code, modify it, and distribute it, as long as you respect the license terms; 
• It uses HTML 5 which makes the site design very responsive irrespective of the form factor of the device, whether desktop or mobile;
• There are many free templates to get you going, and there is a market of premium templates if you want to pay for upscale designs;
• It is simple, elegant, and easy to get up and running.

Install Bootstrap 3.1.1

Download Bootstrap

Use your favourite browser to go to the very minimalist Bootstrap home page and click on Download Bootstrap:

You will be given a choice of download options. Choose Download Bootstrap to download the precompiled and minified versions of Bootstrap's CSS, JavaScript, and fonts:

This download will not include documentation or the original source code files, so you don't have to bother compiling other files. Later, you can use the other download options to get the source code and play around with the Less compiler.

Install Bootstrap

Installation is simple: copy the download to your working directory, unzip it and rename it.

Create the index page

This Bootstrap download does not include a sample default index page, so using a text editor create a text file called index.html under the parent directory, "Bootstrap" in this example, and include this HTML code from the Bootstrap basic template:

Open index.html with your browser and you should see "Hello, World!".

Now try these examples on the Bootstrap site to get you fired up while I play around with templates for Admin themes.

Yes, Another Blog About Technical Things

Another blog?

"A blog? Aren't there too many blogs?"

Absolutely. As of today, there are 188.7 million blogs on Tumblr, more than 70 million on WordPress.com, and nobody knows how many are on Blogger because Google keeps that a secret.

"Then why are you blogging?  Who is going to read yet another blog?"

Well, I never update my FaceBook page because I am not very sociable. I do have an account on Google Plus even though my son thinks it consists of tumbleweed and the lost souls of Linux administrators, and I occasionally post there, but the format does not lend itself to long technical posts.

I decided to blog for two reasons. Firstly, the notes I make while I wait for the kettle to boil get archived in the universal bit bucket of digital entropy on a regular basis, so a blog on a server owned by Google is a fine off-site disaster recovery site.

Secondly, the hundreds of millions of blogs out there host a rich seam of thought nuggets that help enormously when faced with some seemingly intractable technical problem. By posting here I may save someone else from an afternoon of banging their head on a keyboard or rocking to and fro in despair.

Thirdly, it is important to know that off-by-one errors are a common source of software defects and neckbeard humour.

Who am I?

"But who are you? Why do you think you have something interesting to say?"

For many years I worked in a senior position in government and am now consulting in the more general field of Open Government. Working in the public service demanded a certain level of decorum and restraint so I was not able to swear freely or make pointed observations that some may feel to be controversial, but as a consultant I am at now at liberty to blog as I see fit.

But I will not go so far as to hurl invective at vendors like Linus Torvalds did, although his rant did spur NVIDIA to contribute more support to the Nouveau open source driver for their cards.

What is this blog about?

"Okay, so you are determined to blog, even though there are probably more than 300 million other blogs out there. What are you going to blog about?"

Getting your teeth into something new in the I.T. world involves extensive googling for prior art, but that search will return all sorts of flotsam and jetsam that you have to assemble into something that works.

Since I keep detailed notes as I work through a problem because the chances are good that I will face the same problem again sooner or later, I decided to write up my notes and post them here as a record of various stages of a journey to nowhere in particular.