I was recently given an elderly Samsung Galaxy II LTE (Android 2.3.5) by a friend who knew I wanted a camera. The only hiccup has proved to be transferring the photos to the computer.

If I connect the phone to a computer with a USB cable, two new files appear: "Samsung LTE" and "Samsung LTE Card". I expected that they would open with Archive Manager, but nothing happens.

If I go to Settings>USB utilities>USB mass storage it says "Tap the button below to copy files between computer and SD card."
The "button below" is marked "Connect storage to PC".

When I tap the button, it shows the message "Attention. USB is connected. Remove the cable." (which seemed less than helpful)

I found nothing else in the settings that seemed germane. I am running Linux Mint 18; is there an application that might be useful, or am I missing something obvious?

I would prefer to use a USB cable if possible.

You could try Airdroid, if it's in the Play store for that version. Resist the temptation to sign up for their "cloud" storage and use it simply to connect to your computer over the network.

One word of caution: When you are done using Airdroid, close the program, or it will ping any wireless network you go by.

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I had a terrible time getting Linux Mint 17 to see my Android tablet but installing mtp it helped.
Found a few threads. I hope they help.

Find out if mtp is installed.
After installing mtp tools if you can't access your mobile, there are three possible cases, either your mobile is screen locked or your data cable doesn't allow data transfer or you didn't turn on sharing option in your mobile as mtp.
https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-conne...-on-Linux-mint

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=226148
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questi...inux-mint-17-1

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2312327

http://askubuntu.com/questions/504408/mtp-android-mount

If none of those solutions work than put a thread in our Android Device Forum.

I have a tmobile s2 with android 4.1, and fedora has no problems recognizing the phone.

After you tap connect storage to pc, wait a minute and then see if the phone is visible to your linux system. Fedora won't automatically mount the phone but does give me a desktop icon to mount it.

Anyway, I believe the message to disconnect your cable should say something like disconnect when you're done doing whatever. My version presents a button "turn off usb storage" when it's connected fine, and should also say turn storage off when you're done.

Just a couple questions:
Did you make sure to unlock the phone prior to trying to access the files on the phone? If the screen was locked, that may have prevented you from seeing anything.
Also the latest Android is Android 4.1.2 "Jelly Bean" for the GS2. You might try updating the phone.
Admittedly I don't remember the capabilities of 2.3.5, Have you checked if there is a hidden 'Developer Options' by tapping on the build number? I think you have to tap it around 8 times. Or if it's not hidden, did you try enabling ADB?
In my opinion, if you like to work in terminal, ADB is powerful and hard to beat

Easiest way to move files to and from an android phone that I've found is an App called WiFi File Transfer which you should find in the play store.

Providing both your phone and PC are connected to the same network, all you do is start the App which will provide a file share local IP address on your network. Start your browser on the Linux box and point it at the file share IP indicated on the phone and you can then browse to find files on either the PC or the phone to upload/download to your heart's content.

No wires, no file system protocol software, no hassle!

Play Bonny!

is your fone a galaxy s-2. if i recall correctly, that model doesnt have lte (i think samsung thought wimax was going to be the prevailing technology).

that fone works with usb mass storage (and not mtp) which should make things less complicated.

i think there is a dropdown on the cellular-fones screen when connected to a pc via usb asking if you want to allow the pc to see the contents.

and then you should be able to browse the contents on the pc as if its a normal usb drive.

another option is kde connect if you use kde as your desktop.

I have had no luck with this.Most of the suggestions involved a wireless connection, and I was particularly interested in a usb connection.
I am giving up—the phone refuses to upgrade the operating system, and is flaky in other ways, so I suspect it would just be a time-sink.
However, given that the solutions offered might be of use to others, I am marking this solved.
Thanks anyways.

I just remembered that when I was running Linux Mint and plugged in my Android Tablet (usb cable) Mint saw it right away.

If you have the patients maybe give Linux Mint a try.

He said he was running Mint 18 in the OP, and it's apparently not working for him

Next time you should try responding to your thread when you get replies to it and report with results (e.g. exactly what you tried, the results, and any, preferably verbatim, messages you receive along the way. Troubleshooting is a process, the first suggestion doesn't always work. Especially when we know nothing about your system other than it's Mint 18, and whatever way it is that you're trying to do something isn't working.

MTP should be installed.

It works in this thread.

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=226148

Yeah I can't imagine why it wouldn't work in Mint, that seems fairly standard in most linux distro repositories.

Agreed-

It worked on my machines when I was running Mint 17 and Mint 17.3.