[Sony Xperia C4 ROMs, Kernels, Recoveries, & Other ] bigrammy:
Sony "MediaTek SoC" Cross-Device Development: C4 C5 XA XA1 L1 E5 M5 and others

Hi Sony MediaTek SoC Device owners This is a WIP and I stand to be corrected by any dev regarding my grasp or explanation of things.​

In this OP I will share all what I know or think I know about the Sony Device line that use MediaTek SoC's (System on Chip).​

In my opinion most users will fall into one of two camps

Camp 1. Those who have always used Sony Devices and purchased one of these MediaTek based phones probably due to the price point.

Camp 2. Those who are well use to MediaTek based phones typically having used or owned previous cheaper Chinese branded devices. (I am in this camp mainly :o )

Camp 1. users will be well use to all the terms used in association with Sony device development.

Camp 2. users will be baffled and left scratching their heads saying "what" "what's that" "how do you mean" "I don't get it" :eek:

So for the benifit of Camp 2. users and noobs I present a list of the most often used Sony Terms and tools along with a very brief explanation and links where applicable.

1 FlashTool (meaning a Sony Specific tool to flash firmware packages using Sony's S1 Protocols in our case (http://www.flashtool.net/index.php Note: the Warning to C4/C5 users in the Downloads section. To use that version you need a custom FSC if one exists if not then there is a older version which is safe to use but it does have some limitation but more on this later)

2 TA (meaning Trim Area This is a impotant /partition and contains info specific to the device like IMEi, Serial Number, DRM keys, also Keys for Sony specific stuff which are called "Proprietary's" (more on this later)

3 FOTAKERNEL (meaning a For Over The Air Kernel a /partition basically this is the /recovery partition

4 .sin (meaning a Sony Specific archive tool kinda like .zip When you get stock sony firmware it comes packaged in .sin archives eg: system.sin boot.sin fotakernel.sin these .sin's all contain Sony Signatures i believe

5 .elf (meaning Sony's Preferred Format for the boot and recovery instead of the standard .img the .elf's are contained within the .sin's as explained above.

6 XperiFirm (meaning a firmware downloader and extraction Tool which allows you to choose your device and any Stock Firmware package for it. It will then download the firmware and automatically extract the file's contained within the .sin's. Stand Alone XperiFirm Thread Here This Tool is also integrated in to FlashTool which is at the top of this list XperiFirm is denoted within FlashTool by the XF tab/button at the top.

The following Info and Tools below are Mainly For Dev's. Some of the Tool's are beta and untested so ONLY experienced dev's should consider using them. When you brick a Sony it's usually just that a brick :eek: Unlike other MediaTek devices which are pretty unbrickable :good:

7 UnSIN (meaning a Tool by the dev of XperiFirm and is a stand alone tool for unsining .sins and would be most useful to dev's. (Note: for dev's it works using "mono" on Linux systems although I have to do a tune2fs on the system.ext4 before it can be extracted this could be just a glitch in my setup on yours it may well work just fine. :o ) UnSIN Thread Here

8 AIK (meaning Android Image Kitchen by [MENTION=4544860]osm0sis[/MENTION] this tool will unpack the .elf's and repack them as AOSP .img's by default :good: I did notice the default pagesize seems to be 4096 but most if not all the MediaTek .img's I come across seem to use 2048 so I usually change this from the default 4096. Main Thread HERE

9 Trim Area Proof Of Concept (meaning a tool by [MENTION=4120742]munjeni[/MENTION] to replace DRM fix likley this tool needs to be tested/adapted to MediaTek devices. Main thread HERE

10 Xflasher (meaning a tool again by [MENTION=4120742]munjeni[/MENTION] This tool is a cmdline tool and can flash devices using the S1 protocol in download mode. I tested this on the L1 Flashing only the system, boot, recovery etc but not the "boot delivery" preloader lk etc and it worked well but further testing is needed regarding the "boot delivery" Main Thread HERE

11 Unpack any Sony firmware (meaning a tool again by [MENTION=4120742]munjeni[/MENTION] Main Thread Here

To be continued..............

This is a draft OP so may change thing around depending on comments and certain dev's etc etc

Maybe a meeting point for Sony MediaTek SoC Device to meet share and get help from across the different device threads.

There is 98% + commonality between all our devices so It make sense to share and swap info in one common thread.

I am pretty sure what works for one device will most likely work for another.

Comments welcome. :eek:

[MENTION=4196889]DerTeufel1980[/MENTION]