I had a request to replace Samsung’s stock Android with MUI on a Note 2 LTE (N-7105). MIUI is a flavour of Android that runs on Xiaomi range of phones. Its UI is very much like Apple’s IOS. There is no application drawer and all apps installed appear on the home screen.
The first source I hit was the MIUI forums, which are very active. There are several ROM developers with their own threads. Unfortunately, their opening posts (OP) are terrible. There is no clear documentation on the steps and tools required. Especially if you are starting from stock Samsung. After much searching, I found a few procedures for Samsung S4, so I thought it should work. And it did.
Installing MIUI v5 on Samsung Note 2 LTE GT-N7105
The basic steps are:
- Root the phone
- Backup the EFS folder
- Install recovery manager
- I used CWM, it may be possible to use TWRP
- Flash MIUI
- Flash G Apps.
The details:
- Install Odin on your computer. (link)
- Install Samsung USB apps. (link)
- Wait for the computer to recognize the phone.
- Download Chainfire’s Autoroot (link)
- Download MIUI (link), CWM recovery manager (link) and Google Apps (link)
- Restart the device in download mode.
- Using Odin, flash Autoroot.
- Device restarts.
- Backup EFS folder, copy Google Apps and MIUI zip
- Restart the device in download mode.
- Using Odin flash CWM recovery manager.
- Restart into recovery mode.
- Device restarts
- Flash MIUI
- Restart again.
- Flash Google Apps.
- Done!