WARNING - unlocking will
wipe your user data - settings, apps, all the stuff you lovingly created "just so" on your groovy new phone. If you have not done so already, back it up all that good stuff with one of the many backup tools out there and/or create a google account to ensure all your useful data (contacts, email, etc) are safely sync'd to the cloud.
I have used these instructions on Ubuntu 10 and 11, they probably work on earlier versions (why haven't you upgraded?!) but make use of google and the man pages to see what "bumps in the road" you may hit.
I assume you have previously installed
adb as part of the
Android SDK - note it has moved to
platform-tools now
Get fastboot from
http://android-dls.com/files/linux/fastboot
Connect phone to Ubuntu via USB cable
su
lsusb
will show a list including these identities - but, oddly, no description/name information, it may be another set of values entirely, I noticed it sometimes appeared as
one of these two:
:
:
Bus 001 Device 044: ID 18d1:4e22
Bus 001 Device 044: ID 18d1:4e20
:
:
I now know 18d1:4e22 is the identity when android has booted, and 18d1:4e20 is the identity when in the boot loader. Doh!
Now edit this information a rules file:
vi /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
Many posts suggested differing prefixes 70, 90 instead of 51, but it seemed to make no odds - man udev to explore options
Edit in two lines :
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTRS{idProduct}=="4e22", MODE="0666", OWNER="user", GROUP="plugdev"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="18d1", ATTRS{idProduct}=="4e20", MODE="0666", OWNER="user", GROUP="plugdev"
Replace user with your uid.
plugdev is a group of which you need to have membership - type groups from command line, as your uid, to see what groups you have - man groups for help
18d1 - vendor id from lsusb
4e22/4020 - product id from lsusb
Other vendor codes are documented
here
Now ensure correct perms on the rules file we made earlier:
chmod a+rx /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
Restart adb server as root - I made a simple init.d service to make adb daemon restart easier but the
basic commands (if running as root and in the directory where you installed adb) will be:
./adb kill-server
./adb start-server
output something like:
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
then try
./adb devices
should get something like:
List of devices attached
3931B6CB90EC00EC device
if you get output like:
List of devices attached
???????????? no permissions
you need to check the permissions on the rules file are like:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 111 2011-01-30 15:50 /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
and that you started the adb server as root
so now we can set the phone to the bootloader and try to run fastboot - this one you can do as your own user id
./adb reboot bootloader
should give a basic screen with an android logo and some details about the phone, version etc
and some choices that can be actioned via the hard keys. Should be saying FASTBOOT MODE at the top of the screen.
as root issue:
./fastboot devices
should see:
3931B6CB90EC00EC fastboot
if nothing happens you have configured incorrectly, and no results will return.
Now you can unlock, do this as root:
./fastboot oem unlock
The phone will prompt you to check this is really what you want, and then will do you bidding.
Reboot the phone and set it up as require.
If you subsequently reboot to the bootloader you will see the lock state as:
LOCK STATE - UNLOCKED
