[Galaxy Note II Original Android Development] tilaksidduram:
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Introduction

MultiROM is one-of-a-kind multi-boot mod for Samsung Galaxy Note II. It can boot any Android ROM as well as other systems like Ubuntu Touch, once they are ported to that device. Besides booting from device's internal memory, MultiROM can boot from USB drive connected to the device via OTG cable. The main part of MultiROM is a boot manager, which appears every time your device starts and lets you choose the ROM to boot. You can see how it looks on the left image below and in gallery. ROMs are installed and managed via modified TWRP recovery. You can use standard ZIP files to install secondary Android ROMs and MultiROM even has its own installer system, which can be used to support other Linux-based systems.

Features:

* Multiboot any number of Android ROMs

* Restore nandroid backup as secondary ROM

* Boot from USB drive attached via OTG cable

* Install ROM to external SD card [Newly Added feature]

You can also a video which shows it in action.

Warning!

It _is_ dangerous. This whole thing is basically one giant hack - none of these systems are made with multibooting in mind. It is no longer messing with data partition or boot sector, but it is possible that something goes wrong and you will have to flash factory images again. Make backups. Always.

Installation

1. Via MultiROM Manager - This at present does not have support for n7100, working on getting it enabled.

This is the easiest way to install everything MultiROM needs. Install the and select MultiROM and recovery on the Install/Update card. If the Status card says Kernel: doesn't have kexec-hardboot patch! in red letters, you have to install also patched kernel - either select one on the Install/Update card or get some 3rd-party kernel (the 3rd party kernel should also have kexec-hardboot patch) here on XDA. You are chosing kernel for your primary ROM, not any of your (future) secondary ROMs, so select the version accordingly.

Press "Install" on the Install/Update card to start the installation.​

2.Manual installation

Firstly, there are videos on . If you want, just search for "MultiROM installation" on and those, big thanks to all who made them. There is also an awesome article on Linux Journal.

Note 1: Your device must not be encrypted (hint: if you don't know what it is, then it is not encrypted).​

MultiROM has 3 parts you need to install:

MultiROM (multirom-YYYYMMDD-vXX-t03g.zip) - the ZIP file from second post and flash it in recovery.

Modified recovery (TWRP_multirom_t03g_YYYYMMDD.img) - the zip file from second post and flash it in recovery.

Patched kernel - You can use either one of the stock ones in second post or third-party kernels which include the patch, you can see list in the second post. Download the ZIP file and flash it in recovery.

You current ROM will not be erased by the installation.

Download links are in the second post.​

Adding ROMs

1. Android

Go to recovery, select Advanced -> MultiROM -> Add ROM. Select the ROM's zip file and confirm. As for the space, clean installation of stock 4.4 after first boot (with dalvik cache generated and connected to google account) takes 676mb of space.

2. Ubuntu Touch

Use the MultiROM Manager app to install Ubuntu Touch.

Ubuntu Touch is in development - MultiROM will have to be updated to keep up with future changes in Ubuntu, so there's a good chance this method stops working after a while and I'll have to fix it.

3. Firefox OS

Firefox OS is just another Android ROM from MultiROM's point of view, so grab the ZIP file from Firefox OS' thread and add it as if it were Android

Using USB drive

During installation, recovery lets you select install location. Plug in the USB drive, wait a while and press "refresh" so that it shows partitions on the USB drive. You just select the location (extX, NTFS and FAT32 partitions are supported) and proceed with the installation.

If you wanna use other than default FAT32 partition, just format it in PC. If you don't know how/don't know where to find out how, you probably should not try installing MultiROM.

If you are installing to NTFS or FAT32 partition, recovery asks you to set image size for all the partitions - this cannot be easilly changed afterward, so choose carefully. FAT32 is limited to maximum of 4095MB per image - it is limitation of the filesystem, I can do nothing about that.

Installation to USB drives takes a bit longer, because the flash drive is (usually) slower and it needs to create the images, so installation of Ubuntu to 4Gb image on my pretty fast USB drive takes about 20 minutes.

Enumerating USB drive can take a while in MultiROM menu, so when you press the "USB" button in MultiROM, wait a while (max. 30-45s) until it searches the USB drive. It does it by itself, no need to press something, just wait.​

Updating/changing ROMs

1. Primary ROM (Internal)

Flash ROM's ZIP file as usual, do factory reset if needed (it won't erase secondary ROMs)

Go to Advanced -> MultiROM in recovery and do Inject curr. boot sector and then reboot.

2. Secondary Android ROMs

If you want to change the ROM, delete it and add new one. To update ROM, follow these steps:

Go to Advanced -> MultiROM -> List ROMs and select the ROM you want to update.

Select "Flash ZIP" and flash ROM's ZIP file.

To flash GAPPs for the Secondary ROMS, Go to Advanced -> MultiROM -> List ROMs and select the ROM you want to update.

Select "Flash ZIP" and flash GAPPS ZIP file.

Installing of Touchwiz as Primary Rom & AOSP ROM as Secondary.

Boot into recovery and flash Modified TWRP Multirom recovery

Next, Flash the Multirom zip.

Next, Flash the Modified Agni Stock Kernel and then flash the Mali blobs zip too and finally reboot the phone

Allow the phone to auto boot into the touchwiz rom. Once booted reboot the phone into recovery again.

Now you can flash any AOSP rom as Secondary ROM. for that follow the below steps

Select Multirom - > Add Rom -> ROM Type & Location to install the ROM -> AOSP ROM ZIP -> start the installation.

After installation is complete, go back and select the AOSP ROM that you installed and select "Remove Boot.IMG".

Reboot the Phone now and in the Multirom Manager Menu, select the secondary rom and allow it to Boot.

Note : Wifi is not working on the AOSP ROM installed as secondary, this needs to be debugged further. I am guessing it is due to the kernel version installed on the stock rom versus the touchwiz roms. Apart from the wifi, all other features are working fine.​

Source code

MultiROM - https://github.com/Tasssadar/multirom/tree/master (branch master)

Modified TWRP - https://github.com/Tasssadar/Team-Win-Recovery-Project (branch master)

Kernel w/ kexec-hardboot patch - https://github.com/tilaksidduram/android_kernel_samsung_smdk4412/commits/kitkat

MultiROM device tree - https://github.com/tilaksidduram/android_device_samsung_t03g

Thanks a lot to Tasssadar for creating this awesome utility.

XDA:DevDB Information

MultiROM, Tool/Utility for the Samsung Galaxy Note II

Contributors

tilaksidduram

Version Information

Status: Beta

Created 2014-10-10

Last Updated 2014-10-11