[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] br0adband:
While I don't particularly consider myself a noob, I am having some issues with this recently acquired Galaxy Note that I find to be a bit frustrating in trying to find an answer, so here goes.

It's a GT-N7000 (well duh), made in Vietnam, in great condition, but the SIM card reader has a leaf-spring missing (of the 6 necessary to read a SIM card) - that's not the issue, and I've got a replacement SIM card reader ordered and it should be here next week at which time I'll attempt replace it myself.

So, what is the issue? Well, it had Android 2.3.6 on it (factory OS) when I got it a few days ago, got the Samsung USB drivers installed, installed Kies, Kies saw it, said there was an update and I allowed it to do the update to 4.1.2 which is where it's at right now. I also have Odin and I grabbed the same firmware as an Odin-installable version so I can do some ROM testing/etc.

What I understand about the Galaxy Note is that the kernel and the recovery are now "fused" together (for lack of a better term) and when you flash a kernel it has a recovery as part of the code - it's not like other devices (apparently) in this sense with a separate kernel and recovery img's. Ok, so I'm up to speed on that, got it.

I've been attempting to get CM11 installed on this Galaxy Note for a day now and I'm just not having any luck - I guess my biggest issue is just getting a proper kernel installed that will LET me install CM11. I read and tried using Phil'z Touch to do the installation - got the full wipe done then went to install CM11 (the latest nightly at the time yesterday) and of course it flakes out on me because it can't detect that the device is the GT-N7000 at all. So I do a lot more reading and a few thousand posts later I find one that says "Phil'z Touch won't flash properly, it'll error out, use the Raw kernel..." or something similar.

Back to 4.1.2 with Odin...

So I go find that kernel and of course it doesn't do anything, just sits on the opening boot screen.

Back to 4.1.2 with Odin, again...

Now I've spent hours reading more posts, and doing searches, and more posts and more posts and right now I'm still just as stupified as ever to be honest. Usually this sort of stuff is simple: I read, I learn, I follow whatever instructions I've found, I implement the methods the instructions show, and I'm still not getting anywhere.

I've got a stock 4.1.2 Galaxy Note GT-N7000, I've got several kernels here downloaded and verified (MD5) as best as I can, I've got CM11 from yesterday verified (MD5), and I've put them on the extSD card for flashing purposes (16GB Samsung microSD) and I'm just not having much luck at all.

I'm missing something, somewhere, and I'm damned if I can figure out what it is.

I hate asking for help, I really seriously do, but I'd like to get CM11 installed just so I can see if it helps in some respects because this Note with 4.1.2 on it is laggy as hell and - like many other people - think it should do better. I'd read that the Raw kernel - just the kernel alone - had made some pretty dramatic differences for people in terms of performance but of course it's a 4.3 kernel and apparently there's just nothing out there for 4.1.2 anymore (or at least I can't find anything).

I don't care about all the other ROMs available, I'm interested in CM11 because that's the one I prefer - if I can't get that installed then I suppose I won't have any luck with any other custom ROMs anyway so, that's my foundation I suppose: get CM11 installed, see how it goes, if it works great then so be it, if it doesn't then I'm going to try and track down the 2.3.6 firmware (which seems to have vanished from any and all places online, totally) and roll back to Gingerbread which was extremely fast and snappy by comparison.

Sorry for the long post but I am not a tl;dr kind of person. If anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks...

Info if needed or whatever:

Android 4.1.2

Baseband: N7000XXLSO

Kernel: 3.0.31-906407dpi@DELL237 #3 SMP PREEMPT Tue Feb 19 22:05:07 KST 2013

Build: JZO54K.N7000JPLSB

PDA: N7000JPLSB

Phone: N7000XXLSO

CSC: N7000OJPLSB