[Off-topic] Atomicmuffin:
::

THE HOOK

Hello! My name is Atomicmuffin, and may I present the concept of an (aptly dubbed)

'Android Mobile Triage Kit'!

This is a minor little "side-project" i've been killing time with as of late and it had been suggested by an associate that I share with the community.

::THE GOAL

In a nutshell?

I just want community feedback.

Before I set to work typing out a series of long articles (I tend to be overly defining in my writing :C), and before I spent the time to lay everything out, taking pictures, tutorializing steps, etc. And that's just the Forum part. The UI/UX is non-existant, nor do I have any sense of established direction with my custom software tools and the like that i've written. SO, before the required time is spent "noobifying" my mini-project and developing documention as such...here I am.

::A BRIEF BACKSTORY

I decided to come here and gather input from th community following my experiences yesterday, which consisted of the successful ressurrection of an associates' pretty-much-dead Galaxy S3-Mini via on-the-spot boot-sdcard generation....subsequently followed by another associate whom wanted the latest firmware (Marshmallow) for their S5 (flashed to PB1..they were still on 4.4.2 KitKatt! NK1 I believe)...and capped off with the first-timers' starter-pack (S4-edition) for a friend: TWRP Flash + Root >> then custom ROM and Kernel.

This general scenario is of course nothing new to the modding community, however there is one (or maybe two or three) critical aspects of this partiticular endeavor that may appeal to some, the primary of which is PORTABILITY.

All of this happened in a 20-minute window, at a Starbucks, and it all fits in my jean pocket. Hell, half the time was spent waiting for downloads to complete on crappy Starbucks wifi. Afterwards, It was suggested that I venture outside of my bubble and share with others this little setup i've assembled. And after brief consideration about persuing it, and longer consideration for the name of it, here I am.

Triage [tree-AZH]:

-Noun -- Triage is the process of examining problems quickly, often with limited resources, in order to decide which ones are the most serious and consequently must be acted upon first.

Alrighty then!...but why?

See...now that's just one o' them great life mysteries. But actually, I'd have to conclude that it is because I lack other, more creative ways to spend my free time. Take this circumstance combined with owning excessive amounts of Samsung mobile devices (in sequential order, too!) and **** like this was just bound to happen sometime....

::PEAKING UNDER THE HOOD

So...just what is the 'Android Mobile Triage Kit' exactly?

It is an assortment of tools & utilities, both hardware and software, and self-made as well as some google-search-aquired software components and some Amazon-search-aquired hardware components. And so, with those powers combined, out pops a Triage Kit in which one can quickly assess and attend to any Samsung mobile device capable of being flashed via ODIN.

Even at this stage (lets call it Pre-PreAlpha) or "state" of the project, there is nothing I cannot do in ODIN, nor any other tool that this setup cannot do as well. Mobile Odin and FlashFire (and similar apps), while certainly very useful and convienent for what they are (Thanks Chainfire! And also for the inspiration!), they depend on one, often-critical and unchangeable fact of life: The device has to at least boot. Even further, make it into a ROM after booting, and further still, require root privs. Whereas the only immovable obstacle facing my uniquie approach would be something along the lines of definitive hardware failure (like you dropped it in the pool).

Even if you're hard-bricked and cannot reach ODIN-mode, depending on which device you have the tools exist or are in-development, and those select devices can often be recovered by constructing a boot-sdcard (or more advanced, a boot eMMC-like partition on an external flashdrive). Currently, the pair of tools i'm developing to handle those tasks is on the backburner, but not forgotton.

::TEAR 'ER APART AND PIECE 'ER TOGETHER

All that's left is the how. This article is already too damn long as well so I'll try to be brief..

Absolute Essentials:

1x - Samsung-manufactured device to be operated on. (e.g the phone you wanna ODIN-flash)

1x - Mobile Device running Android 4.4+ (KK+) and

ROOT CAPABLE

, ideally Samsung-manufactured as well but not critical.

1x - USB-Std A--Female to USB-MicroB--Male Adapter. Colloquially referred to as an USB-OTG adapter.

1x - Length of standard USB-Std A--Male to USB-MicroB--Male cabling. (AKA Charge cord)

MUCH - Patience.

This would be bare minimum. My "kit" contains many more tools and doohickeys to save as many helpless victims on the go as possible. I'll add a pic later, but given the functionality of it all, it STILL FITS INSIDE MY 'TRIAGE BAG' (aka A Crown Royal Baggy), AND FITS ENTIRELY INSIDE MY JEAN-POCKET, ALBEIT SNUGGLY..

::THE NITTY GRITTY

Since Android runs atop the Linux Kernel, The main concept here is what happens inside the MasterDevice (or HostDevice, if you will). We actually piece together a Linux Distribution and build a rootfs imagefile. We "boot" this image inside the phone, passing variables, params and other required resources from Android such as hardware drivers, etc. We then pull a Chinese Fire Drill with various processes, handing the reigns over to this booted image. Once all is said and done, we have (for all our relavent intents and purposes) a running Linux Distro in which we operate. From there it's just a matter of developing the comm tools.

This "chroot", as it's called in Linux terms, isn't only limited to our application of it flashing devices. In fact, I built my "Plebian" (my own personal Debian-based setup) chroot on my VZW-branded Galaxy S4 for the sole purpose of assisting in the ONLY OTHER "side-project" i'm working on currently: Reading, Reverse-Engineering and Hacking the CANBUS its associated modules inside a BMW E90 via the ODB-II port. You can do anything! It's basically a mini-desktop. In fact, i'm (although sparingly) working on further integration with my phones, involving root-switching, kernel-switching, kexec'ing (hot-booting Kernels), and perhaps even bootloader bypasses? Who knows. But anyway....

If interest is lackluster, no big deal, whatevs, it's just a side-project. However should interest explode, patience would be a virture, as it would be a good chunk of time before I'd finish creating all relevant documentations and such, and stabilize the disaster that is the current UX before finally going public. Unforuntely in it's current "working" state, only those with quite the intimate knowledge of Linux (and kernel), usb, serial device communication, etc..etc...would be able to actually use it effectively. Thus why i'm here to receieve feedback!

::THE FINAL QUESTION:

Should I continue to develop and release such a project? And would the community benefit to such an extent as to justify the additional time investment? Thank you guys so much for the input!

P.S: Didn't know which forum to post in, since i'm currently only requesting feedback in the conceptual sense, so posting it in off-topic.