CRT and custom boot animations on the Samsung Galaxy Gio S5660

Disclaimer:

Following this procedure may result in your phone not starting up or working properly any more. Usually, you can recover it using ODIN. I cannot be held responsible for what happens to your device. By following these instructions, you agree to take full responsibility.

Introduction

Here’s what I did to enable the infamous Gingerbread CRT and custom boot animations on my Samsung Galaxy Gio S5660. This procedure is based on various hints and posts by other people on various forums.

These instructions are based on a rooted S5660XXKQ6 rom (Android 2.3.4), it should work on any rooted Android 2.3.3 rom for the Gio though.

  • You can download the S5660XXKQ6 rom over at SamFirmware (free registration required), follow the instructions on how to use ODIN to flash the rom.
  • To root this rom (or any stock Gingerbread rom for the Samsung Gio), follow these instruction on the XDA developers forum.

Requirements

  1. I use the EStrongs File Explorer in root explorer mode with / and /system mounted as read-write (check the ES File Explorer settings). If you prefer using Root Explorer or adb, feel free to do so.
  2. Install Samsung KIES so you have the necessary drivers to access your phone’s SD card when you connect it.
  3. Get yourself a decent archiver like 7-zip, jZip or PowerArchiver.
  4. Download and unpack apktool. You;ll need apktool-install-windows-r04-brut1.tar.bz2 and apktool1.4.1.tar.bz2 (latest version while writing this guide, newer versions should also work), extract both of them to a new directory. Note that apktool depends on the Java Runtime Environment.
  5. A 320x480 bootanimation.zip file on your SD card. You can find a couple of them here (these were made by Dysgenic).

CRT animation

This is the hardest part of this guide, I’ll try to describe it as clearly as I can. Also, these instructions are based on using a Windows 7 host.

  1. Start ES File Explorer and navigate to /system, locate the build.prop file and open it in the ES File Explorer editor.
  2. Remove the line that reads debug.sf.hw=1.
  3. Save and close.
  4. Use ES File Explorer to copy /system/framework/framework-res.apk to your SD card.
  5. Connect your phone to your PC and enable USB storage.
  6. Copy the framework-res.apk file from the SD card to the folder where you extracted apktool.
  7. Open a command prompts (cmd.exe) and change to the directory where you extracted apktool using the cd command.
  8. Extract framework-res.apk: apktool d framework-res.apk
  9. Open the file framework-res/res/values/bools.xml in your favorite text editor and change the line <bool name="config_animateScreenLights">true</bool> to <bool name="config_animateScreenLights">false</bool>.
  10. Go back to the command prompt and rebuild the apk file: apktool b framework-res framework-res-crt.apk.
  11. Now open both framework-res.apk and framework-res-crt.apk in your archiver and copy resources.arsc from the newly created apk file to the original apk file. Make sure the file doesn’t get compressed (use the ‘Store’ compression method)!
  12. Copy the framework-res.apk file back to your SD card.
  13. Safely remove the SD card from Windows and disable USB storage on your phone.
  14. Use ES File Explorer to copy framework-res.apk from the SD card back to the /system/framework folder.
  15. Reboot your phone. You’ll notice the boot animation disappeared and is now a completely white screen which is where part 2 of this guide comes in.

Custom boot animation

  1. Start ES File Explorer and navigate to /system/bin.
  2. Delete or rename samsungani.
  3. Rename bootanimation to samsungani.
  4. Copy the 320×480 bootanimation.zip from your SD card to /system/media.
  5. Reboot your phone. You should now see your new boot animation.

Questions and comments

If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave a comment below.

Posted by Ingmar Steen on Sun 07 August 2011 13:53