The Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 comes with Android 2.2 and can easily be updated to Android 2.3 if you are running Windows on your computer and if you get Samsung’s fragile Kies application to run. If you have been following this blog you know that any Windows installations reside safely banned inside Virtualboxes so my first attempt was naturally to install Kies (it failed, so you don’t need to do that. However you will need a USB-ready VirtualBox installation, so read on).
Preparing VirtualBox
I installed the VirtualBox directly from Oracle’s download site, not the one that comes with Ubuntu’s packet manager. Please also note that under Ubuntu you need to unlock Virtualbox USB 2.0 support with these two steps:
[1] Fix group access rights to USB device
Administration -> Manage Groups -> Vboxusers -> Properties-> add your account -> restart
[2] Install VirtualBox extension Pack (see references below)
3. Connect the phone and select the USB filter from the machine settings. Make sure USB 2.0 EHCI is enabled, otherwise the update will crash & burn.
Now you can install your favorite Windows into the VirtualBox, I chose an english Windows XP, SP3.
After the installation is finished, make sure to install all updates to get a current system.
Installing Android Updates
I followed exactly the tutorial from androidadvices.com [3]. This requires that you download a ZIP (>100MB) into the VirtualBox, unzip it and run the update software.
After updating and rebooting, the phone came up in russian. To set it back to english, one has to use some intuition and navigate around the menues – the word you are looking for is язык, thus:
1. Tap the four white squares sign on the blue rectangle in bottom right corner
2. Tap the blue/white gear in the bottom right corner (настройки)
3. Scroll down to the black A in the white rectangle and tap (starts with язык )
4. Tap the first entry
5. Select your language from the list
References
[1] How to fix VirtualBox USB Support
http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-Fix-VirtualBox-USB-Support-111715.shtml
[2] Install VirtualBox Extension Pack
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
[3] How to update Samsung Galaxy Mini S 5570 to Gingerbread 2.3.3 firmare
http://androidadvices.com/how-to-update-samsung-galaxy-mini-s-5570-to-gingerbread-2-3-3-firmware/
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