Growing up I didn’t have much of a clue about how the world worked apart from my parents who I didn’t think were necessarily the sharpest tools in the shed seemed to be doing alright at the game of life. Their finances were intact, and they seemed to be hosing merrily along as middle-class citizens without any effort put into formal education or taking time to work out how to be educated enough in stocks to make money that way either.

As you become a young adult, you’ll soon start to be more consciously aware of money. Some of your friends will have lots of it quite quickly if they don’t go on to get further educations and others will be waiting substantially longer. At the time of my young adult years, the housing market was booming and so there was a lot of people who knew nothing about finance who all of a sudden were quite anxious with what was being presented in front of them, a world where they were finally far behind anyone who had invested in land or housing already.

In a typical of capitalist society kind of way, the housing market is used for assets rather than shelter, and if you find yourself on the wrong side of it, it can be a massive financial swing. Not only will you be paying much more for the house itself, but you’ll need to pay higher rent prices because the rent prices are dictated by the price of the homes. In other words, those who own homes and investment properties can rake in massive amounts of money while those who own nothing need to cough up more than they can afford to pay rent. This type of hustling would be better affiliated with a stock market of sorts, but this is actually how we treat housing and solidarity or a lack thereof. In the end, rising house prices aren’t the end of the world for those who didn’t get a chance to buy. In fact, if you were to look at the stock market prices and how much they’ve risen today from the 1980’s you’ll find out that it isn’t too far off being as good as an investment as real estate anyway. And those who think they’re gaining wealth from real estate but haven’t yet sold, but might be in for a surprise should the market come crashing down.

But attempting to explain all that to young kids is not easy. If your definition of an adult were not just an age of sexual maturity but more an age where we have enough education and clarity to be the best versions of ourselves, then the age that we are told we are adults is substantially younger than it should be. A young adult is still very much a kid at heart, mainly forced into adulthood so they can start driving, working and being an asset to the economy. There will be many who will refute that, but it is irrefutable by most if they were to honestly list all the childish antics they got up to during those years.

Part of the way the less fortunate among the groups socializing around tables were choosing to get by was by using these new “Android phones.” I had at least five or so middle-aged women asking me what this new Android phone revolution was all about. The difficulties I had explaining to those people how Android was an operating system running on hardware by other manufacturers was enough for me to realize why the way Apple went about their business of controlling both software and hardware was actually a pretty wise idea. The average person struggles to comprehend the way Android goes about its business. It’s also probably why Microsoft has such a bad reputation as being a bad product. In the long run though, I’m bullish on Android and Microsoft because it doesn’t matter what the average joe comprehends easily; what matters is whether or not the idea can make money, and that is something both Android and Microsoft should be pretty good at it in the future.

Details of Note

  • The custom recovery images available in this guide are only to be installed on the Samsung Galaxy J2 (SM-J200) smartphone. Most devices have a custom recovery image developed specifically for it, and you shouldn’t install one that is intended for another device unless advised it is okay by a professional.
  • The codename for the Samsung Galaxy J2 (SM-J200) TWRP Recovery image is “j2lte.” You will see that codename in the TWRP image file path and also from your About Device menu so you know you are flashing the right file on the right device.
  • You can find the device tree files over at its GitHub page.
  • You can install the official TWRP Recovery application from the Google Play Store or from the TWRP website as an apk, if you have root access on the device already, and get the TWRP installed that way, no adb required. Once the app is installed, it will be in your Downloads folder. Navigate to the Downloads folder and select the TWRP application. When the application opens tap on the option for flashing the TWRP.

Files Required

How to Install TWRP Recovery on Samsung Galaxy J1 Ace (SM-J110)

Note: The Odin flashing tool is really easy to use, but it only works on the Windows operating system. You won’t get the flashing tool to load on a Mac or Linux computer. It doesn’t really matter what version of the Windows operating system that you’re using as long as it is something above Windows XP.

1. Download and install the Samsung USB drivers on the computer if you don’t have them already.

2. Download the firmware (.tar) file from the links above directly to the computer. Extract the file by right-clicking on it and choosing the option to extract. When you do, you’ll see the tar.md5 file inside. That’s the file you’ll be using to do the flashing.

3. Download the Odin flashing tool. It doesn’t really matter what version, but the latest is the most up to date so grab that one. Extract the Odin file and then double-click on the Odin executable file (.exe) that is found from within the Odin folder after extraction. You should now have the Odin interface open on the computer and waiting for you to connect to it.

4. Boot the Samsung mobile device into the Download Mode by first powering it down and then rebooting by holding the Volume Down + Home + Power keys at the same time.

5. A yellow warning triangle will come up on the device’s display. At this time you need to press the Volume Up button. You’ll then see the device getting into the Download Mode. It’s then ready for the flashing.

6. When in Download Mode, connect the Samsung mobile device to the computer with the USB cable.

7. If you have installed the USB drivers correctly, the Odin flashing tool should detect your device. You can tell this by observing the ID: COM port lighting up with a color, usually yellow or blue.

It doesn’t matter what color, it’s the lighting up that counts.

8. After the device is picked up by Odin, click on the PDA or AP button, depending on what button your version of the Odin flashing tool has.

9. Navigate to the stock ROM folder and upload the tar.md5 file to this location in Odin.

10. Without changing any of the default settings, click on the Start button in Odin, and the flashing then begins.

11. Wait until Odin shows a Pass message before disconnecting your device.

You can now close the Odin flashing tool and continue using your computer if you like.

TWRP App Installation Method (Root Required)

If you decided to download the TWRP application from the Google Play Store or the APK file from the official TWRP website, then after you open the application you will be given a few different options to choose from. But before even going that far, it’s important to note that you should only install the TWRP APK file from the official TWRP website. If you’re installing it from Git, or any other file hosting website, it might not be the official version, and thus, it won’t have been built or tested by the official TWRP developers and maintainers.

Once the application is open, you’ll need to agree to not hold anyone from TWRP responsible for any issues that your device may face while using the application. This is a standard disclaimer that Team Win puts on top of each of the recovery image files from the official website as well, so it’s nothing new. It just explains that it is your decision to put the custom recovery on your device, and while they work hard to provide a quality product, there are no guarantees that your device isn’t susceptible to damages relating to TWRP while the custom recovery is installed. You can grant the application root permissions now as well. Root access can be obtained by flashing SuperSU, or other appropriate rooting files, from the custom recovery itself. Without root, you won’t have access to some of the app’s features, such as image flashing. It’s here also where you can enable InsightCore (a feature to monitor and record the network performance of your device).

Once you’ve accepted the agreements, you’ll see the TWRP application’s home screen, where you can choose to flash TWRP or view the network statistics. When choosing to flash the custom recovery, you’ll need to scroll and select your device from the list to make sure you are flashing the correct file. When the device is chosen, the TWRP application automatically then searches for the latest version of the TWRP for that device and will continue doing so every day for as long as the app is installed. This interval can also be altered from the Settings in the top right-hand corner of the device’s display when the apps open.

If root access has been enabled, you’ll see the chance to select the custom recovery image and the buttons for flashing the images to boot or from recovery. You should choose to flash the images to recovery. Only use the boot image flashing when you are flashing full boot images, not just kernel zimages.

DD Installation Method

You can also get the custom recovery installed on the Samsung Galaxy J7 Exynos SM-J700 smartphone by using the DD install method. To do it this way, download the latest recovery image file for your device from its downloads page on the official TWRP website (Primary [Americas]| Primary [Europe]) and then place the file in the root of your /sdcard folder. Rename the image “twrp.img.”

You then need to run the following commands from the ADB shell or a Terminal Emulator application:

su

dd if=/sdcard/twrp.img of=/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/recovery

Custom recovery images do not support official over-the-air software updates.

One of the features that the Android operating system has is the system partition. It’s here where your manufacturer and carriers store their default applications, so you can never delete them. Some of these apps can be turned off, but you won’t be able to uninstall them completely. The reason being that you can’t get into the system partition to remove them unless you have access to the root user account.

The updates that you get from the manufacturer never run through the system partition. This is because they are just differential updates. These kinds of updates can be so straightforward that sometimes they don’t even replace the full files, instead opting just to patch bits and pieces. That will be a good thing if you are a data-conscious user who wants to save costs by not downloading too much. The drawback about it though is that users who modify the system partition by getting root access, removing stock applications or installing BusyBox, etc., will run the risk of unexpected behavior if they go back to using them again after having a custom recovery image installed.

There’s no real reason for you to notice that the custom recovery image is installed when you have one, so there’s no reason to panic about getting rid of it. The only time you would ever notice it is if you were to boot into the recovery mode and notice the different interface. But if you did want to go back to using the stock recovery, even after understanding the risks, then you could always flash the stock recovery image, typically found in the stock ROM zip package for your device. The stock recovery image will just wipe over the current custom recovery; there’s no reason to delete the custom one first, or even any real way to make that happen even if you wanted to. It’s also possible to just flash the entire stock ROM zip file by using a flashing tool that is made for your manufacturer, and the stock recovery image will get installed during its installation, too.

That’s all.

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