[Samsung Galaxy Note 8 ROMs, Kernels, Recoveries, &] BigCountry907:
Getting things lined up.

In order to further test running a custom system using TFTP boot function of U-Boot you will need a usb to Ethernet adapter. The adapter you use needs to be both compatible with the Note 8 and also supported in U-Boot.

Unless you want to write your own driver for U-Boot.

I bought D-Link DUB-E100 USB 2.0 Fast Ethernet Adapter which is listed as supported in U-Boot. Luckily it works out of the box for the note 8 also.

Connect it to the device, then go to settings , connections, More Connection Settings and click on the Ethernet.

Probably should turn wifi off first. But thats all it takes and the note 8 will have internet connection from the adapter.

This is good because going back to the whole userspace thing knowing the kernel is already loaded if the kernel did not support the device out of the box there would be no chance of this working. I am happy the adapter works. I tested one before from best buy and it did not work.

Yes it is a usb A adapter but simply use your Usb-a to usb-c adapter that came with the note 8.

There is still a ton of work to do.

First I have to get U-Boot up and running on my dragonboard.

Then I need to port safestrap to the dragonboard.

I am also happy that i have my T560NU Tab E back up and running. I bricked it flashing the engineering Aboot with a non matching bootloader set. But a new motherboard was $60 so i bought it and im back in business.

The T560NU comes shipped with a Unlockable Bootloader. ( Go Figure )

All it takes is flipping on the allow OEM - Unlock and the Tab can run TWRP and a custom boot image.

I just got Lineage ( Android 9.0 Running on the Tab E yesterday )

So U-Boot will work for sure on it. This allows me to take the Dragonboard U-Boot (msm8916 chip) and test it on the T560NU ( msm8916 chip). U-Boot gets flashed to the boot partition on both.

My hope is that the Dragonboard port of U-Boot will be compatibl with the T560NU out of the box. I don't see why it won't. Confirming that will make me feel better about the compatibility of the Dragonboard 820 and the Note 8 If all goes well with the Tab E dragonboard port of U-boot is should go well with the note 8 dragonboard port of U-boot.

If all goes well there will be one last obstacle to overcome.. Because we cannot flash U-boot to the boot partition on the Note 8 we will need a way to load the u-boot.bin. Yes we are gonna do it over tftp but normally TFTP Boot is a function of U-boot.bin and done while booted to the U-boot terminal.

So the U-Boot source code or at least the TFTP boot part of it will have to be compiled as a stand alone binary that can execute TFTP Boot from Andriod Userspace. I have not started on that part of this yet. If anyone out there having the knowledge to port the U-Boot source into such a binary wants to jump in that would be great.

In the mean time I will see if i can get some messages out to the U-Boot support and see if they believe such a thing is possible.

As well with the discovery of the qualcomm manuals regarding the E-Fuses and secure boot manuals opens yet another door to investigate. Reading through the manuals tells us that the sec.dat ( sec partition ) is used for blowing fuses with the right TZ image. There also are spare fuses that exist and no doubt that there is a way to use them to unlock the device.

At any rate much of the fuse data or ( whats blown ) could be figured out by reading theses manuals and picking at the signatures appended to the boot images. There are up to 3 certs used to sign a single boot image. And either 2 certs or 3 certs are used. Determining that will tell us what scheme samsung used.

There is also several references to how the device serial number is used in determining what fuses to read. Like turning on Jtag debugging. I think a lot could be learned. For sure comparing the data in the signatures between the stock, combination, and edl bootloaders will tell us something. Weather or not the EDL Bootloaders have less restrictions. And a sure thing i would expect to see a difference in the signatures ( the way the bits are used) in comparing the T560NU (unlockable) bootloaders to the N950U.

But all of that is a entirely different approach than the direction im headed in at the moment.

I am sure that U-Boot can do what we need it to do provided we can get some functionality by creating standalone binaries. :eek: