Galaxy Note 3

Root your phone

It's easy. Follow YouTube: How to ROOT Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Easily for a simple guide, but essentially:

1. In Windows, download and install the Samsung Kies phone drivers and the Odin flash tool. In Linux, use heimdall:

    apt-get install heimdall-flash-frontend 

2. Enable USB debugging on your phone, in Settings → Developer options (see below about enabling developer options if it is missing).
3. Restart your phone in download mode: power it off, then hold down the volume down, home and power buttons.
4. Plug your phone into your PC with a USB cable.
5. Start Odin. You should get a yellow or blue box in ID:COM, otherwise you didn't follow the instructions.
6. Download Chainfire's Galaxy Note 3 root image, extract the CF-Auto-Root-hlte-hltexx-smn9005.tar.md5 file, and choose it with the PDA button.
   • Make sure you know what you're doing and have downloaded the right image, or you'll brick your phone. My phone is the international SM-N9005 Note 3 with the Qualcomm chipset, there are other variants.
7. Click Start. Your phone should reboot.

Now you can do things like:

• bin all that crappy Samsung shovelware,
• durdle with your fonts, and
• control your Canon EOS camera with a USB on-the-go cable.

Ditch the Samsung ROM

Install CyanogenMod instead.

Intrepid hackers may want to try this from their phone using the allegedly awesome Mobile ODIN app, otherwise these instructions, or this worked for me:

1. Root your phone (see above).
2. Install ClockworkMod Recovery.
3. Download a recent Note 3 CyanogenMod build.
   • Update September 2014: Please ensure you have the correct variant (Verizon and Sprint phones are now different builds)
4. Stick it on your phone, along with the latest Google apps bundle.
5. Back up your shit first, then use ClockworkMod to reboot into recovery and install the updates (you'll need to clear your data and cache partitions first).

Enjoy a faster, more battery efficient, less restricted, less buggy phone with zero spyware and shovelware (other than the Google apps, and whatever else you're installing yourself). I'm still running the 20140120 nightly several weeks later and haven't noticed any problems.

Enable Developer options

In Android 4.2 and later, developer options are hidden by default. To enable them, go to Settings → About phone, and tap Build number seven times. Now there's a Developer options in your settings, which can enable things like

• USB debugging (for use with the Android SDK),
• an advanced reboot menu, and
• hard-kill with a back button long-press. Handy for buggy or non-responsive apps.

Installing the CACert root certificate

The root certificate:

wget https://www.cacert.org/certs/root.crt
cat root.crt > 5ed36f99.0
openssl x509 -inform PEM -text -in root.crt -out /dev/null >> 5ed36f99.0

Rinse-and-repeat for the Class 3 certificate:

wget https://www.cacert.org/certs/class3.crt
cat class3.crt > e5662767.0
openssl x509 -inform PEM -text -in class3.crt -out /dev/null >> e5662767.0

Copy these two files onto your phone, then on your phone using the Terminal app:

su
mount -o remount,rw /system
cd /system/etc/security/cacerts/
cp /sdcard/5ed36f99.0 /sdcard/e5662767.0 .
chown root:root 5ed36f99.0 e5662767.0
chmod 644 5ed36f99.0 e5662767.0

Then reboot your phone.

Or use the Android SDK

If you can't be arsed typing all that into a terminal on your phone, fair enough, it's quite tedious with a phone keyboard. Instead, you can use the Android SDK to copy shit to your phone and run a shell:

~/android-sdk-linux/platform-tools/adb push e5662767.0 /sdcard/
~/android-sdk-linux/platform-tools/adb push 5ed36f99.0 /sdcard/
~/android-sdk-linux/platform-tools/adb shell

Then type it here instead. You'll need to enable USB debugging first, which is a developer feature (See above.)