[MOD] MultiRom for Samsung Galaxy J5 (2015) [SM-J5xxx]

[ganesh varma]

Introduction:

MultiROM is one-of-a-kind multi-boot mod for Galaxy J5. It can boot any Android ROM as well as other systems like Ubuntu Touch, Plasma Active, Bohdi Linux or WebOS port, once they are ported to our 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 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, daily prebuilt image files to install Ubuntu Touch and MultiROM even has its own installer system, which can be used to ship other Linux-based systems.
​

Features:

• Multiboot any number of Android ROMs
• Restore nandroid backup as secondary ROM
• Use for example Ubuntu Touch or Desktop alongside with Android.
• Boot from USB drive attached via OTG cable

Warning!

It _is_ dangerous. This whole thing is basically one giant hack - none of these systems are made with multibooting in mind. It is messing with boot sector and data partition. If something goes wrong you will have to flash factory images again. Make backups. Always.​

Installation:

1) Flash the Modified TWRP image with odin or extract the tar file and install the img file with flashify or another recovery that has img install feature.
2) After flashing the recovery image boot into the recovery and Flash the MultiROM zip.
3) That's it you're done. Reboot into system and the multirom menu will show up.
Enjoy!! ​

MultiROM has 3 parts you need to install:

• MultiROM (multirom_vXX_n7-signed.zip) - download the ZIP file from second post and flash it in recovery.
• Modified recovery (TWRP_multirom_n7_YYYYMMDD.img) - download the IMG file from second post and use fastboot or Flashify app to flash it.
• Patched kernel - Not needed for our device.

Your current rom will not be erased by the installation.

Downloads are in 2nd post!!

Important: Since the Kernel hasn't Kexec Hardboot patch, you have to check "use no kexec workaround" box in multirom settings. (it has been set to this option by default)
​

Adding ROMs:

1. Android
2. Go to recovery, select Advanced -> MultiROM -> Add ROM. Select the ROM's zip file and confirm.

Using USB drive (not tested yet):

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 boot sector.​

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.​

Explanation of recovery menus:
Main menu:

• Add ROM - add ROM to boot
• List ROMs - list installed ROMs and manage them
• Inject boot.img file - When you download for example kernel, which is distributed as whole boot.img (eg. franco kernel), you have to use this option on it, otherwise you would lose MultiROM.
• Inject boot sector - Use this option if MultiROM does not show up on boot, for example after kernel installation.
• Settings - well, settings.

Manage ROM:

• Rename, delete - I believe these are obvious
• Flash ZIP (only Android ROMs) - flash ZIP to the ROM, for example gapps
• Add/replace boot.img - replaces boot.img used by this ROM, this is more like developer option.
• Re-patch init - this is available only for ubuntu. Use it when ubuntu cannot find root partition, ie. after apt-get upgrade which changed the init script.

How does Kexec workaround works:
You need to have a kexec-hardboot supporting kernel or the non-kexec workaround as described perfectly by @nkk71 here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...26&postcount=4 (Be sure to leave him a thanks!)​

NOTE: Stock Lollipop Firmware required. Will not work on MM bootloaders.

Credits:
A big thanks for:
@nkk71 For his kexec workaround
@Tasssadar For MultiRom Source Code
@Nick Verse

XDA:DevDB Information
MultiRom for Galaxy J5, Tool/Utility for the Samsung Galaxy J5

Contributors
ganesh varma
Source Code: https://github.com/Galaxy-J5


Version Information
Status: Beta
Current Beta Version: 1
Beta Release Date: 2016-12-18

Created 2016-12-18
Last Updated 2016-12-19

 

[ganesh varma]

Reserved

Downloads:

MultiRom TWRP Recovery:
Recovery Images for LL Bootloader:-
J500F
J500FN
J500G
J500H
J500M
J500Y

MultiRom ZIP Installer: multirom-20161218-v33-UNOFFICIAL.zip​

Changelog:

18.12.2016
=====================
* Initial release

NOTE: Stock Lollipop Firmware required. Will not work on MM bootloaders.

Hit that Thanks button if you like my work!!

 

[abhijeet1331]

Awesome work bro @ganesh varma ..

Congrats & all the best.. :good::good:

 

[johnhux7]

That's really cool buddy.
I'm very impressed
Nice one
John

Sent from my Honor 8 using XDA Labs

 

[Telepracity]

Uhh, so that means i can dualboot in android?
anyways, cool

 

[Vherniel]

Alright! Time to get our hands dirty ?
Great job @ganesh varma and @Nick Verse to port this Mod to our J5. Thankyou so much!

 

[aarush.chaurasiya]

Nice work bro @ganesh varma
????????

 

[paulo boë]

Great job. Just noticed that the screen resolution is not okay. It seems somehow it zoomed a bit in....

 

[updesh94]

Will the data partition be the same for both ROMs or different??

 

[MiGuPa]

I have installed a new ROM in external SD. When I try to boot it, I can't find it, why??

 

[ganesh varma]

Will the data partition be the same for both ROMs or different??

No the secondary ROM creates a folder in the internal storage and uses it as data partition. The two roms have their own data partitions.

I have installed a new ROM in external SD. When I try to boot it, I can't find it, why??

Did you see by swiping right to the External tab on the multirom menu? The roms installed to SD card will be shown under External tab in multirom menu.

 

[johnhux7]

I think that it's so cool that you have made this for the J5
Good work
Thanks for your time
John

 

[MiGuPa]

Did you see by swiping right to the External tab on the multirom menu? The roms installed to SD card will be shown under External tab in multirom menu.

Yes, I also stayed there, and any new

 

[luisfelipee]

Good Work, man!
works in J500M?

 

[JosephDM]

Good Work, man!
works in J500M?

Nope, read the #2 post man... For now only F and FN models.

Sent from my SM-J500FN using XDA Labs

 

[updesh94]

Mixed Review!

No the secondary ROM creates a folder in the internal storage and uses it as data partition. The two roms have their own data partitions.

So I tried the multirom, It's working absolutely great.. No issues in any rom...
I installed Stock Lollipop primary rom and Resurrection rom as the secondary rom...
Glitches---
1. In the boot menu where OS are displayed if we tap the multirom icon, a ping pong game starts which says "to exit press power button" but then we are stuck in it and only possible way is to remove battery... :laugh:
2. Sometimes the selected rom doesn't boot and nothing happens.. only 1/10 times... :silly:
3. Storage becomes low in /data and /system has a lot of space, can u suggest a way to transfer dalvik-cache of primary rom to /system ??I tried one but it didn't work!!
By the way, It seems awesome to multiboot Roms...
I'm using j500F btw...

 

[MiGuPa]

Now I tried to install an ROM on internal memory, and when I tried to boot:

 

[luisfelipee]

Nope, read the #2 post man... For now only F and FN models.

Sent from my SM-J500FN using XDA Labs

thanks for reply. i asked cuz some F roms works in M model

So I tried the multirom, It's working absolutely great.. No issues in any rom...
I installed Stock Lollipop primary rom and Resurrection rom as the secondary rom...
Glitches---
1. In the boot menu where OS are displayed if we tap the multirom icon, a ping pong game starts which says "to exit press power button" but then we are stuck in it and only possible way is to remove battery... :laugh:

try press volume down + power button till restart.
to recovery mode when cel stuck, press all buttons (vol+, Vol-, Home and power) when screen off leave 'vol-' only and keep others

 

[ganesh varma]

Update

Multirom for J500G,J500H,J500M and J500Y variants is now available. Can be downloaded from the second post!!
These recovery images are for LL bootloader's. Multirom for MM bootloader's will be available by the end of next week. :good:
Make sure that you have read all the instructions from the first post when you ran into problems. Everything is mentioned over there.

 

[aslam4580]

thanks @ganesh varma...its really awasome i m using on j500f.