ReplicantInstallation¶

Backup your data¶

Before attempting to install Replicant, you need to backup everything you can from the device as most of the data will be erased during the installation.

You can skip this step if you have no data you want to keep.

Installation overview¶

The installation of Replicant is several steps:

• First you install a Replicant recovery. It's a very minimalist operating system that is dedicated to the installation of Replicant.
• Then you download Replicant and use the recovery to install it.

Recovery installation¶

To install the Replicant recovery, follow the instructions on the Recovery installation with Heimdall wiki page.

Wipe the existing system, cache and data partitions¶

Once this is done, you then need to wipe the existing system, cache and data partitions. This is to ensure that the partitions are formatted correctly.

To wipe the system partition, once you are in the recovery:
1. Select Advanced
2. Select Wipe system partition
3. It will ask you to confirm the wipe, so you will need to select Yes to confirm it.
4. Press the back key to get back to the general menu

To then wipe the cache and data partitions:
1. Select Factory reset
2. Select Wipe data (keep media)
3. It will ask you to confirm the wipe, so you will need to select Yes to confirm it.
4. Press the back key to get back to the general menu

Using the recovery to install Replicant¶

Installing Replicant can be done either by:

• downloading the installation files the device, without the need of a computer
• using a computer and a microSD
• using a computer and the internal storage to store the installation files

Once this is done, you will need to do a factory reset.

Factory reset¶

To do a Factory reset, you need to be in the recovery.

1. Select Factory reset
2. Select Wipe data (keep media)
3. It will ask you to confirm the wipe, so you will need to select Yes to confirm it.
4. Press the back key to get back to the general menu

Reboot the device¶

Once the factory reset is done, you can then reboot the device.

In the recovery:
1. Select Reboot system now to reboot the device
2. Your device now has Replicant installed!

Backup the EFS¶

Now that Replicant is installed, it's a good idea to do a backup of the EFS partition which has the modem data.

This way it would be way easier to restore it if it becomes corrupted (it can sometimes happen with Replicant).

Only the following devices that are supported by Replicant have an EFS:

• Galaxy S 2 (I9100)
• Galaxy S 3 (I9300)
• Galaxy S 3 4G (I9305)
• Galaxy Nexus (I9250)
• Galaxy Note (N7000)
• Galaxy Note 2 (N7100)
• Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (P3100)
• Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 (P5100)
• Galaxy Note 8.0 (N5100)

So you can skip this section if you have a device that is not mentioned in the list above.

First make sure that you have adb setup correctly and that it gives you a root shell on the device by following the wiki page that explains how to install adb and get a root shell on your device.

Once this is done you can then backup the EFS.

For the Galaxy SIII (I9300), run the following commands to do that:

mkdir backup_efs
cd backup_efs
adb pull /efs/ efs
adb shell "cat /dev/block/platform/*/by-name/EFS" > EFS.img 

This will create a copy of the contents of /efs in the backup_efs directory. It will also backup the full partition.
Keep these files around as a backup in case anything goes wrong.