8 December 2012 by Lars

Rooting Samsung Player 4.0 (YP-G1, US version) on Linux

Searching around, the obvious answer to this question is “SuperOneClick”. But I’ve tried it a few times, and it never worked.

So I tried it the “hard” way (which, for somebody using Linux on a daily basis, really isn’t that hard…), following guidance here (yes, it’s for a Samsung Fascinate, but generically, all root exploits are like that):

1) Download SuperOneClick (google it) [SO]. We are not going to run it, so don’t worry about installing mono and all that, we only want the files there. Unzip it. Mine is at Downloads/SO

2) You will use whatever ADB suits you, the ‘adblinux’ distributed with SO will work just fine:

cd ADB; chmod a+rx adblinux; mv adblinux adb

3) Check that your device is plugged in, and in Debug mode (under Applications). Push all the necessary files to the Samsung Player [SP]

./adb devices
./adb push ~/Downloads/SO/Root/su-v2 /sdcard/su
./adb install ~/Downloads/SO/Root/Superuser.apk
./adb push ~/Downloads/SO/Dependencies/busybox /sdcard/busybox
./adb push ~/Downloads/SO/Dependencies/sqlite3 /sdcard/
./adb push ~/Downloads/SO/Exploits/psneuter /data/local/tmp/

4) You now want to run one of the exploits that are distributed with SO. In my case, psneuter worked, so I didn’t try any other. To do that, get a ADB shell, and execute it:

./adb shell
[Note: this should change your prompt to just a $ because now you are remotely on your phone]  cd /data/local/tmp 
chmod 0755 psneuter
./psneuter
[NOTE: this should kick you out of the prompt, with the following message ]
property service neutered.
killing adbd. (should restart in a second or two)

5) Now check that you have TEMPORARY root:

./adb shell

This time you should get a # prompt instead of a $ prompt. This means you are remotely on your phone as root. 
-Copy and paste each following line one at a time (press enter after each line):

mount -t rfs -o remount,rw /dev/block/stl9 /system 
cd /system/xbin 
cat /sdcard/su > su 
cat /sdcard/busybox > busybox 
chmod 4755 su 
chmod 4755 busybox 
exit

6) Now reboot the device, and check that root held:

./adb reboot
./adb shell

$ su
#

You should be good to go.

#root#Samsung Player#YP-G1