yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] kilsmap:
yeah...we as new wannabe devs are learning back the basics...i'm still trying to figure out what to do about the kernel source...afraid of bricking my phone in the process... hehe.. but all the kernel sources for all regions has been released...
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] 巴哈姆特:
Dear friend. I come from China, now I already have a good i9070, I can help you with your test, you can send to my mailbox angeeks100319@gmail.com
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] kilsmap:
hmmm...qzem, im getting stuck at initramfs...how do we get these for our phones? because the kernel can only be flashed safely when it is compiled with initramfs files from our phone... and for the phone to get custom recovery, i think they will also need initramfs files...
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] qzem:
Same thing here. I have no idea how to get those, been asking around the forum an searching, but for now all the directions indicates that you need to have root access to get iniramfs. That really sucks...
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] kilsmap:
hahaha...from this point of view, all Samsung phones after Galaxy S Advance will be quite hard to root... I'm waiting for the Galaxy SIII to launch, and for someone to root it... Maybe then we will be able to use the same way to root our phone... If only we can see what's inside our kernel.bin.md5... I'm sure the files we needed are in there...
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] mdfzhi:
the initrams? u mean ramdisk?

grab stock boot.img and extract from it.

the stock boot.img can be grabbed from odin flashable stock rom.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] kilsmap:
Yeah.. We have the stock rom, but can't figure out which one should we extract the boot.img from.. There was system.img.md5, cache.img.md5, hidden.img.md5, modem.bin.md5, and kernel.bin.md5... So which one? My suspicion lies to the kernel.bin, but I have no idea how to extract it..
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] qzem:
I have compiled a stock kernel from source code, so I got zImage file, now I have to find out how to build boot.img from this. I will contiue tommorow I hope I am close to the solution! Mabe few days to crack this baby :D.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] Mahalio:
Good luck!

Hope you get to a solution soon :)

I can't work on it as I currently don't have a phone to test on, sent it in for repairs.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] kilsmap:
Have u tried flashing it directly to the phone? You don't have to make it into a boot.img to flash it.. Because I'm afraid that the zImage will be useless if not paired with working initramfs.. Compiling the kernel is quite straightforward, the thing is to get the initramfs to turn the kernel insecure.. There are also scripts to extract initramfs from zImage, but I haven't had time to test it..
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] qzem:
Ok what exactly is in initramfs, that is what I am trying to figured out? I've recompiled some other samsung boot.img with dsixda kitchen, and I got zImage and a folder caled boot.img-ramdisk, which included different files like init, init.goldfish.rc init.rc, default.prop, etc. In a file default prop is the setting ro.secure=0, and this is the settign I belive, that makes kernel insecure. I've also tried to unpack the zImage that I got from thsi boot.img, with the kitchen to see if includes those so called initramfs, but it doesn't. So I think that if I figured out which files should be in ramdisk, and if those files can be pulled of the phone, that than maybe I can repack a working boot.img. What do you think?
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] kilsmap:
Yep, you got everything right there, I think.. Initramfs, ramdisk are the same thing.. They should include the cpio.gz, init.rc, default.prop etc... Have you extracted these files from the source kernel? Cos I don't think we can copy directly from phone, cos we need to preserve the permissions set on the files... Can you do that with kitchen?
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] foxity:
I am following the topic and hoping it works out the development of kernels and roms to the device.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] qzem:
Come on it has to be a way to compile an insecure kernel without having the access to rooted phone. Cause all the options I found till now, required some files, that can only bee pull from rooted phone. But the whole point of an insecure kernel is the possibility to root the phone. Anybody can help us? Maybe I should start another thread, damn it! :D
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] kilsmap:
Haha... Yeah, somehow I feel that Samsung is screwing with us, what with the new firmware format (never had kernel.bin before) and secured kernel, this is becoming impossible.. If we just have some devs good-hearted enough to port CWM recovery for us.. But without initramfs, I don't know if it's possible..
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] xanonus:
The initramfs is inside kernel.bin.md5 (as for the Galaxy S firmware).

kernel.bin.md5 is a normal zImage Linux kernel (+md5).

the initramfs is included in the kernel image (see http://xdaforums.com/wiki/Extract_initramfs_from_zImage)

the initramfs is in our case a uncompressed cpio archive, therefore the script in the wiki does not work, but https://github.com/mistadman/Extract-Kernel-Initramfs/blob/master/unpack-initramfs can extract it without problem.

So, there should be no difficulty to root the i9070... :)

The easiest way would be to change the initramfs and repack everything.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] diego-ch:
just a tease...

[YOUTUBE]Siaro01Y8z8[/YOUTUBE]

some things still need to be fixed, please don't ask for it yet...
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] bufa:
This is awesome!!

We need ROMs for this excellent hardware! :good:
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
It seems you were able to compile the TWRP recovery :good:

I was planning on work on CWM porting today and after your post about the partitioning I fell I can finally get some result.

Edit: need to extend the VM disk to download some git stuff before continuing
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] diego-ch:
at first I was trying to repack the default kernel + twrp, with help from the #TWRP guys ( chris41g and Dees_Troy )

but it wasn't working, always getting stuck at boot logo.

then chris41g decided to compile the kernel from samsung source (which, btw, has lots of bugs),

so he did his modifications to the samsung source, added twrp files, compiled it, and we got it booting.

we still have an issue with this kernel: the mobile network is not working, it says there's no simcard attached to the phone.

everything else that I tested was fine... gps, bluetooth, wifi, camera, usb tethering, usb mass storage, video with hardware decoding...

chris41g uploaded his work to github, now we need to continue developing for this phone

https://github.com/chris41g/android_kernel_samsung_u8500

obs: he based his work on GTI9070_LA_GB_OpenSource

so its a VJLD1 kernel I'd guess.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
had not luck trying to compile the CWR or our phone.

Dowloading from git the #TWRP code.

EDIT: Hammering down the errors during zImage build but nearly done
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
Build completed but having some problem flashing the zImage.

Tried with heimdall but it fails to connect.

Tried tar the image file and flash using odin but no luck

Googling like crazy to find a way

Edit: Found no way to flash it back so I've unpacked the generated zImage and compared with the unpacked xddl3 kernel.

I've found out that in the lib\modules, the folder structure is different; the .ko files are there but in the originial one there are more modules.* files and the .ko file are in different subfolder.

I honestly don't know if these changes are meant to be or not but it's the only thing I've found out tonight. (ofcourse there are difference in the .rc files but there were comments and I understood why they were made.)
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] diego-ch:
just dd the zImage to mmcblk0p15, thats what I'm doing here.

if it fails to boot (stuck on boot logo), you can flash the original kernel with odin.

you can also test if adb shell is working even if you're stuck on boot logo.

I also have the stock kernel.bin.md5 on /sdcard so I can dd it back when the compiled kernel has bugs.

that way you won't increase the binary counter (mine is still zero)

btw, please check if the kernel partition is mmcblk0p15 on your device. I havent tried it on european models but I think they're the same.

to do that you need to install parted on /system/bin and type "parted /dev/block/mmcblk0p15 print"

then it will output your partition table. the one I'm flashing is mmcblk0p15 labeled "Kernel".

be careful using dd, if you type something wrong it can mess up the partition table!

I'm doing this:

dd if=/path-to-zImage of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p15
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
Thx for all the info I'll dd the image this evening.

I have a Dev phone (won it on a Samsung sponsored contest) so I have no problem with the binary counter.

From the partition.fstab it seems that the kernel partition shuold be mmcblk0p15 but i'll check with parted to be sure.

Let's hope that the new structure will fix the driver problems.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
Good and bad news.

Good:

I was able to compile the kernel with the modified modules structure and DD it on the phone; that now show the correct kernel version and the simcard is working fine

Bad:

I'm not sure that everything in the build worked as expected because I see no change in Bootlogo, nor in Recovery, nor in everything else.

Unfortunatelly I've not time to work on it tonight
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] diego-ch:
nice!

you mean the green samsung logo that appears after the device logo?

that one I changed on /system, not in the kernel
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
Yep that.

If I can mange to have 5 minutes I'll post the phone info page with the kernel having my machine name in it.

Gtg
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
As I've find out this morning the Wifi is not working.

I'll try to check this at home this evening
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] qzem:
I think that with custom compiled kernel, you must also compile new wifi drivers. Try to find out how to compile dhd.ko (this is the usual name of a wifi driver on samsung phones). So when you flash you kernel, you must also push new dhd.ko.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] bufa:
any news about this phone?

Is it a good choice to buy?

will it have custom roms support?

I'm used to Motorola defy's CM and MIUI ROMs and I'm afraid I'll be stucked at stock ginger forever :(
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] titus1:
If you can afford an S3, then by all means bypass the S Advance.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] diego-ch:
We just ported a custom recovery (TWRP),

so we need some time to start building custom roms for the s advance,

I'm looking for info on how to write the device config files so I can try to build CM10 to it.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
Finally on holidays so I'll have more time to work on the rom.

@qzem: the dhd.ko was extracted directly from my phone and after that error I've tried unpacking other images but no luck same problem. I'll look into it tomorrow.

@diwgo-ch: could you please provide info on how to get twrp? on other Samsung threads I've found that they flash the recovery with the rom but I've not found out how they merged the two.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] diego-ch:
they merge it into the kernel, as samsung uses zImage + initramfs with recovery inside that image.

but from what I tried with twrp guys, repacking the zImage replacing samsung stock recovery did not work. (the phone got stuck at boot logo)

so we decided to compile a new kernel.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] Risuke:
CM9 now stable, the port may be easier now, no?
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
I (unfortunately) don't think so... I've followed the problem with drivers in bringing ICS to the T-Mobile G2 and now it's working with some hacks on drivers... and at the momement we are not able to build the kernel from source correctly (seams the Samsung open kernel it's bugged and not the version installed on our devices....)

I'm downloading CM7 source and at the same time trying to modify the samsung source code to build a fully working kernel.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] bufa:
so, no cm9 yet, but may be cm7? :)
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
I got some problem with getting the cm source (run out of space on the VM even with 15 free...)

Tomorrow i'll try with the more promising fix of drivers on the samsung source.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] diego-ch:
yep, CM sources takes a lot of space.

I downloaded CM10 sources here, about 10GB.

Today I changed my laptop from ubuntu12.04 to fedora17, which seems to be very good,

because I was having some annoying issues with ubuntu. and now I have 65GB free to work with.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] Dr. Sheldon Cooper:
Is it possible to put ICS Paranoid Android on Galaxy Advance I9070?
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] bufa:
Once we have CM9, it should be easy ;) we depend on our few developers!! so we need to help them as much as we can!

greate work guys! thank you very much!! :D

If you need help with anything, we are here to support you! :angel:
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] shut_down:
^ +1 :)
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hamzani azni:
Keep your hard work..try to work together as one! mybe that can help us because we just have a few developer. thanks all developer!! we love you..
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
A little teaser

Sorry but I'm in a rush and didn't remember how to take screenshots form the i9070

Image here

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B0CnV_gvF2TgUDhYLXBuRzlNalU
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] shut_down:
Can you reup pics? Because it says "Invalid Attachment specified.". And thank you for interest for this phone development. :)

Ok, google doc now accesible. :)
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] diego-ch:
@hackbob I can see that you fixed the wireless issue, nice!

You can take screenshots by holding power + home
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
Here now I've a litte more time to explain things.

Problem with tapatalk attachemnts aside, what the screenshot show, is that my compiled kernel have now everything working fine.

My latest build had a not working wifi driver, so I've investigated unpacking the build zImage and comparing the content with the kernel.bin.md5 present in the odin images from the How to root kernel.

The difference was in the lib folder structure, for some reason the repack scripts give me errors and the zImage is not repacked so I've took a look in the build script provided from the #TWRP guys (ref to post )

In the script there was a copy of built modules to initramfs dir that was then the source for the zImage; I'va added a dir with the original modules form the extracted kernel.bin.md5 and before building the new zImage the script copy these files to the initramfs dir.

After that I dd the image on the phone without any problem.

I know it's more a kang than a clean buid but it's still a step forward ;)

---------- Post added at 02:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:48 PM ----------

@diego-ch: seems I'm not the only one with a working build kernel ;)

Is it yours a more clean build then mine?

---------- Post added at 02:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:49 PM ----------

... and now i've checked the repository and the build script is changed to do the same thing as mine ... but in a cleaner way
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] bufa:
So, those screenshots are form CM9?? You are already running a CM9 build?? that's such a greate step forward!! :D

when do you think you'll be able to share de biuld?? :)
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
As far as I'm concerned the screenshot are from a modified GB Source from samsung.

I still had some problem of space getting the CM7 source so tomorrow I'll go buy a new HDD ext to move some thing and make space for the VM (got only 128GB of space due to SSD disk and many are taken due to work stuff).

I think (from the screenshot) that diego-ch it's working on the same source as I am.

I have some appointments tomorrow so I think I'll have really little time to work on the code, but I'll be fully back on the 16.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] bufa:
yes it's gb, I didn't check :p

Thanks a lot!! I'll be waiting and trying to get a forum for this phone :D

edit: Where do you guys learned how to port ROMS? because I'm willing to start porting ROMs, finally I got Ubuntu fully working, and I have some free time, but no xp builing roms :/
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
I have no experience in rom building at ALL.

I took the majority of the infos from this thread, found some in other Samsung subforum, in the Chef Central/Android forum here on XDA and some googling around.

The main problem is how much time you can spend on testing things... I'm now on holiday so I can spend a lot of time on checking checking the sources and running the builds.

I have some thing that I have to try out to compile a working kernel without pushing the driver, but I'll have some time this evening so I hope to let you know tomorrow.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] diego-ch:
Same thing here, first time working on android kernel and custom roms.

Mostly because I bought this phone for myself and it had no support, besides qzem's rooting guide.

I 've been reading some xda threads, cyanogenmod wiki, and also using google to gather more info.

@hackbob

I dont know yet what's wrong with the kernel, it does have the wifi module (dhd.ko) inside the zImage,

but the module doesn't get initiated with the device. I tried using 'insmod' and, after that, it did detect the wireless card,

but some other things should be done after loading the module for it to work properly.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] pixdev:
Hey guys,

Allow me to introduce myself! I'm Jamie, the Lead Website Developer over at RA-Mod, the custom Android ROM.

I recently bought a S Advance on a really cheap deal and I noticed that our phone doesn't have an XDA subforum. Well, over at RA-Mod, we've just launched a new site with various features such as status updates, friendships and guest blogs - but more importantly for you guys, we've launched a new totally integrated RA-Mod Forums.

I've spoken to dympy (the RA-Mod creator) and he's let me set up a subforum for the S Advance, seen as there isn't an XDA one! You can access it at http://ra-mod.com/_groups/samsung-galaxy-s-advance-i9070/ - be sure to register an account first!

If you have any questions, contact me - @Jamie on RA-Mod or sent me a PM on XDA.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] bufa:
thanks guys, I finished installing ubuntu, and checking out the begginers threads in chef central forum :) there's a lot to learn, but considering that developers are not very interested in this phone, it's a good time to start :)

Hope to see some progress from that TWRP port! :D
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] pixdev:
Good luck! I maintain versions of Android-x86 for OpenFrame devices (JazzMod for Joggler) but I've never built from scratch or touched CyanogenMod before. I'll help where I can though!
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] shut_down:
Thank you guys!!! :)
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] pixdev:
I've just rolled out Group blogs to the i9070 Group/Forums on RA-Mod.com! I'm still tweaking it, but can any possible contributors (preferably people involved in development like hackbob and bufa - if there is anyone else please let me know!) PM me with their RA-Mod username. Thanks!
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
Hi all,

a quick update I've downloaded all the sources and compared them, aside from really minor changes (comments, paths and flags in the makefile) I've found nothing worth a deeper investigation.

While checking the files I've made a full build of all the kernel and I got the exact same dhd.ko file, so the problem seems to be in the code as published from samsung.

Aside from that, here the logCat of me trying to turn on Wifi (find "E/WifiHW ( 1740)")

I've finally managed to download cm7 code and I hope I can find there the right source for the bcm4330 wifi driver.

---------- Post added at 11:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:26 PM ----------

no luck with CM7, there is no Src of the kernel there, already compiled drivers.

Now downloading a working kernel for the SGII that have the wifi src.
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] pixdev:
Now, that is interesting - this is what I interpreted...

It looks like it checks the CSC code (Country Specific Code) and it reports back as Italy. It then loads the driver based off the CSC code (in this case, the normal driver - I presume the CSC allows Samsung to use different hardware configurations in different regions) and then it can't find the file modname.

Looking through another Samsung kernel (don't have the S Advance one... yet) Modname refers to a module (most likely the WiFi module) that is missing.

So, all in all, you're on the right track! However, it may be possible that the WiFi module is prebuilt, in which case you could grab it from the root kernel. Alternatively, now I come to think of it, modname could just be a placeholder and the WiFi driver is already present!

There again, I'm still a beginner at all this (especially with regards to vendor code - I'm used to Android-x86!) so I could be (and possibly am) completely wrong
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] bufa:
Well I've been playing around with the GB LA kernel, but is a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot to read, to compile it and make it "work", so let' say It's slow progress ¿?

About wifi, didn't we have a working wifi compilation? the screenshots showed wifi on??

I've seen that sg 2 and htc evo have the same wifi hardware, maybe the guys from those forums know the way to get wifi working! :)

well, I'll be checking this thread regularly :) hoping that next time we'll have a working compilation!!
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] diego-ch:
my first tests with chris41g from twrp had wifi working, but no 3g ( did not detect the simcard )

now it's the opposite thing. 3g works. wifi doesn't. bummer :S
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
In my screenshot the working wifi was not from compilation but pushed from another rom.

Yesterday I've tried to modify the source of the wifi driver with the sgs one, but It seems our code is newer and there are some phone specific changes... to make it short: it didn't compile at all ... but I was really tired yesterday.

I'll do some work this evening but I think we are on the right track :fingers-crossed:
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] bufa:
Can we use baseband switch? like in defy baseband switch? or is it a problem of drivers?

I hope so!! did you try with the sgs2 wifi dirvers? I think its the same hardware there ;)
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
:D:D:D:D:D

Not Yet...

---------- Post added at 09:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:55 PM ----------

Well... the hard way didn't work (substituted the source files with the sgs II ones).

Restoring from git the original files and doing things with a proper approach will take time but probably fix the driver.

I'll keep you posted
[Galaxy S Advance I9070 Android Development] hackbob:
I've tried everything that made sense but ended up with nothing.

I'll try to ask for help this evening after dinner.