yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] Kartun:
Tried a14 on SM-T865. Top speakers does not work, and I was unable to find working rolling build. Some of them does not boot at all, some goes to bootloop. If someone knows woking one, please share :)

Bluetooth headphones (kz z3) does not pair (it worked on stock ROM)

Nearby share works ... more or less, not always able to find other devices.

I have not found settings for fingerprint or faceunlock.

TWRP dissapears, seems it's replaced after successfull boot, so update procedure takes a while.

It have some glitches here and there, so imho it's not ready to be daily driver.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] Sage:
Agree
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] tablet_seeker:
The top speaker issue has been fixed for a couple of weeks now. Just flash one of the daily builds on ci.android.com and install the aosp kernel.

Get either the stable 4.19 or latest android 14 kernel

Branch Grid

ci.android.com
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] mad4some:
I was getting ready to try and flash the latest beta 13 build (QPR3), that build should have the speaker problem fixed, correct?....I'm going by a comment you have in the OP.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] peppet:
You can also try https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations/wiki/Generic-System-Image-(GSI)-list
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] tablet_seeker:
If you're going with Android 13, flash the latest artifact from the aosp-master branch.

Branch Grid

ci.android.com

That's the bleeding edge for Android development.

Top speaker issues have been fixed with the stable release of kernel 4.19

It depends on your stock firmware, whether you have it or not. That's why we've been getting mixed reports.

If you flash the latest aosp-master build and the top speakers don't work, you will also have to install kernel 4.19

Phusson builds also have the speaker issue fixed but you can only download Android 12 from their release page. 13 needs to be built by cloning the repo.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] mad4some:
Thanks, I was able to successfully flash the latest samsung build from samfirm a couple of days ago but got failures trying twrp and vbmeta after borking the button pushes. Will be trying again soon and just want the most stable gsi build to flash and don't care if it's absolute latest or not.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] tablet_seeker:
Yeah, make sure to follow the guide precisely, I wrote it very detailed on purpose so that it always works no matter what.

If you don't care about the latest and greatest then flash the stable release of 13 on the Google GSI page from 2022 (link in OP). That's gonna be rock solid. Also download the kernel to be safe, because that image is dated.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] mad4some:
Ok just got flashed (13 QPR3) and Magisk 26.1 all successful and rooted. Following your link (post #50) I found 4.19 and just need to confirm I want the one from 2nd column from left called "kernel-aarch64" correct? And while I'm at it, how to install kernel?....and if I want to flash a newer version of aosp do I just flash new system.img in twrp again (dirty) or are full wipes/format needed? Thanks for your help! (y)
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] Sage:
Does brightness with properly on 14? The last time I tried I couldn't get full brightness
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] peppet:
Yesterday I spent my time experimenting with A13. I found out that the problem with the audio is with the system audio decoder management, let me explain. After installation I tried to reproduce 2 files, 1 .MP3 and 1 .FLAC; in both only lower speakers; then I flagged 'alternative audio policy' in Qualcomm and Samsung phhusson and this time .mp3 4 speakers working, .flac only the 2 Inferior. Always played with a file manager. The only audio player that allows you to change the decoder used is musicolet. The problem is that I use v4a and this breaks the phhusson settings,So I prefer to use v4a with headphones. Otherwise you can only listen to .mp3 with 4 working speakers. I'm on crdroid.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] peppet:
Ok got all my speakers working with v4a and all formats. That's how. I installed crDroid-9.5-arm64_bgN-slim-Unofficial.img (don't know if it has anything to do with it), then, in this order (otherwise the b T audio doesn't work) I flagged both alternate audio policies in phhbsettings and then use system Wide bt Hal. In v4a I have both Legacy and Compatibility mode enabled. I've tried and tried and it works!Now just screen mirror don't work
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] tablet_seeker:
Yes, you need the aarch64. It's pretty straightforward you just flash the kernel in TWRP. Recommend you read the documentation and a guide though.

You'll have to wipe and reflash the gsi for updates, our device doesnt have seamless.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] peppet:
i found a bug. if the audio player is on and the screen turns off, when you turn it on again the audio returns to 2 speakers only
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] tablet_seeker:
What image are you using?
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] peppet:
I've tried almost all of them. now fw stock
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] tablet_seeker:
Did you install the recommended kernel? Everybody knows by now that the stable kernel fixes audio for AOSP 13 and 14.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] peppet:
yes I tried but despite downloading the indicated kernel I had a bootloop, I must have the wrong version. Could you link to exactly the right one? Thank you
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] spiramedia:
Is there any "dex" desktop mode?
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] Sage:
No. Though check my post on GSI for the closest thing
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] spiramedia:
can you give me a link? just i want a13 or a14 for installing windows 11 arm on virtual machine.​
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] Sage:
https://xdaforums.com/t/lineageos-20-android-13-gsi-install-instructions.4571805/page-2
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] Reonz:
that is unlikely to happen because normal snapdragon soc don't allow pKVM etc.etc virtualization from factory, some machines come with Windows on ARM and still without virtualization support, e.g. Huawei Matebook e (snapdragon 850), while in fact 850 support VM, but it can't be turn on after being manufactured.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] fonix232:
Please stop talking BS. APKMirror is ran by Illogical Robot LLC., a company created by Artem Russakovskii (aka ArtemR), a well respected Android expert and journalist. He's also the founder (albeit he does not work there anymore, as the site was sold) of Android Police.

As for your question... Yes, I've verified multiple APKs from there, and they're all intact, unchanged, and signed with the official keys. You can test this theory yourself, download an app from the Play Store, then try to install an APK update from APKMirror via ADB - if there was ANY kind of ****ery, the installation would fail due to different signing keys.

As for the work you've done on this tutorial, thank you. Albeit there are a few mistakes here and there:

The S-Pen does not detect screen rotation properly, and gets stuck in portrait mode, making it quite useless (claiming that it "works" is a bit of an overstatement)

Same goes for the touchpad on the official keyboard, exact same issue

After installing the system, TWRP is removed

It isn't just removed, but any subsequent flashing of TWRP will not be able to mount or access

/data

or Internal Storage, even through MTP. Ideally, one should not need to go through the whole process of reflashing the latest OEM firmware, then TWRP, then the system image, just to update/change the OS.

Fingerprint reader is stated to be working ,however no AOSP image seems to recognise it.

Hall effect sensor also seems to be bugged - the official keyboard does not wake the screen upon opening.

Haptics/vibration seems to be VERY hit and miss. Even though it's enabled for e.g. keyboard and navigation and touches, I can only get it to vibrate when turning off.

On another note, just how possible/impossible would it be to get a "pure" Linux distro (e.g. Ubuntu, Arch, etc.) running on this tablet, in a GSI form?
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] dodgebizkit:
This looks interesting, I very rarely if ever use any Samsung specific software so image try this after its had a bit more work on development - does the S pen still work as it does with the Samsung fw or does it work differently?
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] arvin2212:
Failed to flash TWRP but this helped:

https://xdaforums.com/t/how-to-bypa...-state-prenormal.3891193/page-4#post-85552805
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] arvin2212:
Hi,

I tried installing the latest version of Android 14, and also the beta version of Android 13 in this guide. Tried a few different GIs but the top speakers did not work for all.

I then tried flashing the latest version of Android 14 and also flashed the latest kernel here:

Artifacts

ci.android.com

But when i do flash the kernel (flashed as boot) after flashing the system image (flashed as system) it results in a error that takes me to the donwload screen.

Need help on how to download and flash the kernel..

* I tried crDroid as well , and enabled the alternate audio for both samsung and qualcom, and enabled wide hall as someone mentioned here, but it made no difference. The top speakers did not work * which makes me assume that the issue is not fixed with the roms but the kernel.. tried all the builds that are on android 14 and everything that was said to have solved the speaker issue but none worked. My kernel is still the old kernel that came with the stock rom.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] arvin2212:
Sorry for the excess post. was supposed to edit the post.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] tablet_seeker:
This happens when you don't flash the vbmeta tar in the correct slot with TWRP. Please make sure to follow the OP exactly. It's extremely detailed on purpose, so that everyone with the same device will have the exact same outcome.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] arvin2212:
Thank you for your reply.

I did..

TWRP in the AP , and vbmeta in the CP right?

Flashing any android build works fine with that. I can boot in AOSP and different roms without any error.

The error only occurs (as shown in the pic above) when I flash the kernel (boot.img).

This is how it looks like before flashing:

This is the boot.img that i used:

boot.img on branch aosp_kernel-common-android14-6.1 on target kernel_aarch64 at 10298368​

https://storage.googleapis.com/android-build/builds/aosp_kernel-common-android14-6.1-linux-kernel_aarch64/10298368/68a2e1a7b6bbb44c798c92dbf5fc6d67c883a54d3af6e8edd5bc99bf52d6426f/boot.img?GoogleAccessId=gcs-sign@android-builds-project.google.com.iam.gserviceaccount.com&Expires=1686397236&Signature=ikmm687R70V4S0y8/FKVNVCzomAuyaj2KwxZWpj18/5OZ3WA1O/WhEXXMNKg+7LXJz95gt45wlFVBjQ4lOrP6PVDjRawYw8qQQF4u8qTmLKxQEwAU/YUOpyCWBCJ8uJzZ74GoBzrZ30DRLJ2+GEFWR2YjVeGloCV01MIghEgoWmpYujnstFxFDyZ6Fp2oXEfJjkckMKgk1g1lZym4+mHEuYtsVelFnqI5VqMJI5NUgYepYY1ue3XBLfcqDRSlNeRyZNl1r2QusQIgMkSumnCuePBAzGXb0MZfFEI6ubwV7rDH3sMKnfOt7vbtb9xVhCGSeaXY3PLDAqYQqGLMDhP5g==
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] tablet_seeker:
Did you patch the legacy boot.img prior to flashing?

You need to extract that boot.img, copy only the kernel files and add them to your original boot.img. That's what you flash via TWRP.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] stuie1952:
Thanks to the OP for all his efforts on this project. It is quite a job to respond to the myriad queries and questions and remain calm, cool and collected at the same time.

My question relates to the above statement.

Please correct me if i am wrong but as i understand it the boot image is an executable and does not contain kernel files that can be accessed. I would therefore be grateful if you could clarify the above statement for me. My understanding is that i need to use the patched boot image, not the original. Is there more to it than that?

Many thanks
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] Lehner82:
Are there any non source bugs ? Used GSI roms in the past and they had unstable Bluetooth with crackling here and there
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] fonix232:
Standard Android boot.img's are actually a combination binary of an ELF standard kernel image, and an initrd file. Presumably, there are some device-specific init sequences in that initrd, hence why you can replace the kernel image itself, but still need to repack the boot.img.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] Deadman2496:
Hi! i was curious would this work with a the t-867 version of the s6? I got the t-mobile version and was hope to try it out
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] MonsterK:
Hello,

Thank you so much for this guide, I am really excited to try it out.

Before I start flashing GSI ROM, I'd like to be sure that I can go back if there are any problems.

What should I do in ODIN to go back to a stock ROM? Should I select Nand Erase, Re-Partition, while unselecting Auto Reboot?

Or should you uncheck Re-Partition?

I'm a bit lost....

Thanks for helping me ;)
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] fonix232:
Would be great if you wrote a guide for that as well, detailing which file to download from the Google build host, and how to patch things exactly.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] Third Position:
Cannot get this to work no matter what I do

Followed the steps exactly. Downloaded the latest stable Android 14 from the developers page, extract system.img. Wipe dalvik + cache and format data. Copy system.img to internal storage and install with twrp into system partition and reboot, just keeps bootlooping to the galaxy tab s6 loading screen. WTF am I doing wrong?
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] fonix232:
I've run into this many times. The GSI flashing is very hit and miss.

Your best bet when you run into this is to re-do the whole flashing sequence:

Flash stock ROM via ODIN with repartition + NAND erase enabled, auto reboot disabled, and important - add the PIT file on the first screen!

Click "Reboot to Download" in ODIN to, well, reboot to Download mode

Flash TWRP + vbmeta.img with repartition and NAND erase and auto reboot DISABLED

Reboot to download mode again

Hold Power + Vol Down until screen turns off, then immediately slide finger to Vol Up, keep pressing until booted into TWRP

Format /data (wiping the cache in my experience isn't necessary)

Go back to TWRP's main screen, then Reboot into Recovery

Ideally you'd use an SD card and flash system.img from there (that way you don't have to transfer it all the time - I also found that both ADB and MTP copy can fail to the main storage at a worrying frequency)

After system.img is flashed, wipe /data again

Reboot

This should result in a working GSI flash in about 5-6 times out of 10. Not sure what exactly goes wrong when it doesn't work, though, as there's no time for ADB to come online and give us meaningful results. I suspect a boot flag being set wrong, or something akin. Hell, I can't even get TWRP to work consistently!
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] tablet_seeker:
Sure, it supports A/B, but no automatic updates. You can follow this guide, too.

Flashing the Samsung firmware using Nand Erase and Re-partition (with the stock PIT file) completely wipes the device and reverts it to factory settings.

Yeah, if you're unhappy with the GSI, simply follow the step to flash the stock firmware.

It's pretty straightforward, really. The kernel image and the kernel headers are contained in the boot.img which is available under every artifacts page on ci.android.com's kernel entries. You simply click the text menu above and type in "kernel". There are countless versions to choose from. My recommendation is either the mainline or stable/common kernels > 4.16 You simply replace these two files in your device's boot.img with those of the kernel artifact's boot.img, then proceed to patch your device's boot.img with Magisk and flash that with TWRP.

I will add these instructions to the OP, but you can find guides for this literally anywhere.

Branch Grid

ci.android.com

There are reports of the latest Android 14 GSI causing bootloops on some devices with the stock kernel.

Please flash one of these 13 versions and report back:

Latest CI Release (aosp_arm64): https://ci.android.com/builds/branches/aosp-main/grid?legacy=1

Stable 13 Beta Release: https://developer.android.com/topic/generic-system-image/releases

If you absolutely want the latest 14 version, you may need the stable mainline kernel or > 4.16:

Branch Grid

ci.android.com

I'll add the kernel instructions to the OP, so there won't be any more confusion.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] fonix232:
I've tried a number of kernel images and repacked them into a boot.img matching the specs of the T865 (incl. versions, bootparams, etc.), and it _always_ resulted in a non-booting/bootlooping device.

Also the grid you linked has over a dozen targets - even ignoring the X86 ones, there's 6 targets for aarch64/arm64. Which one is the best here? kernel_aarch64? kernel_allmod_aarch64? kernel_cf_aarch64? kernel_abi_aarch64?

You also forgot to mention any sort of patching with Magisk. So yeah, I think a proper write-up is needed here, since if I couldn't find my way around it to make things work, others will be even less equipped to do so.

Overall, I think we'll need the following steps:

Which kernel branch we should watch out for (I for one would love to see my tablet running kernel 5.10 or something around there, if possible)

Which target within that branch (vertical columns once the branch is selected)

Which file to download from the artefacts of the latest build of the target (I'm guessing Image or Image.gz)

How to unpack the boot.img securely (mkbootimg plus the Python scripts Google provides seems to be the way to go ahead)

Which files to replace with which (my guess would be using Image to replace `kernel` in the unpacked bootimg, leaving `ramdisk` alone)

How to repack the boot.img

What else to do before flashing

How to flash (again guess, through TWRP -> Flash -> Flash image -> boot partition selected, then boot.img flashed)
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] tablet_seeker:
arch is self-explanatory, since kernel_aarch64 is the only target that could contain a boot.img and there is no compatible x86 version. Everything else is clearly marked as either compilation instructions or config stuff.

Patching with Magisk is only necessary if you want root.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] Deadman2496:
sorry but when I attempted to follow the instructions and was on odin it appeared to fail when installing twrp and vbmeta.tar
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] tablet_seeker:
This error occurs because you have not unlocked the bootloader properly.

You need to make sure the developer option "bootloader unlocked" is visible. Also enable USB debugging. Please follow the OP, precisely.

Other than that make sure you are using an 867 TWRP recovery.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] Deadman2496:
I did. I used the tab s6 lte model version of twrp. But thank you I’ll keep trying to figure it out for my 867
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] tablet_seeker:
Yeah, it's the bootloader. After flashing the stock firmware, you need to boot it, connect to the internet, enable developer options, make sure bootloader unlocked is ticked and enable USB debugging. After that you can flash TWRP and vbmeta.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] fonix232:
The fact that I clearly described what IS NOT clear, and you shrugged it off with an "it should be self explanatory" shows that you clearly don't see, it is NOT CLEAR.

So please, address the steps I've listed above.

Furthermore...

kernel_aarch64 contains no boot.img. It contains a kernel Image file (in uncompressed and GZIP-compressed versions). kernel_abi_aarch64, kernel_arm_allmodconfig, kernel_cf_aarch64, kernel_cf_kasan_aarch64, kernel_cf_kprobes_aarch64, kernel_kasan_aarch64, kernel_kprobes_aarch64 ALL contain Image/Image.gz files, but NONE contain a boot.img.
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] peppet:
@Tablet instead of wasting time getting nervous, why don't you spend the same time explaining step by step how to do it if you know it? or saying 'I don't know, sorry' will be appreciated. I believe
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] fonix232:
The only reason why I'm asking "rude" is because I've already asked nicely multiple times, and each and every time your reaction wasn't to actually help, but to shrug it off with "it's self-explanatory" or "you can find guides for this literally anywhere". These are neither instructions, nor precise.

#86 is anything but explanatory.

And seriously, if you can't be arsed to share your actual knowledge, then don't write half-assed guides, especially when people with MUCH LESS technical knowledge are reading and following your post. Trust me, if you get annoyed by me asking precise instructions (which, to date, you've still failed to provide), you do not want to encounter an average XDA user who will bombard you with PMs because your guide "broke their tablet".

Might I also point out that instead of looking into the quite detailed steps I've given that reproduce the non-booting issue, and pointing out any problems, you again gave an answer the equivalent of "get off, don't bother me". Not sure what makes you think you can afford this attitude, because it's clearly neither knowledge nor experience.

{Mod edit: Inappropriate language removed. Oswald Boelcke, Senior Moderator}
[Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Guides, News, & Discussion] fonix232:
{Mod edit: Quoted post has been deleted. Oswald Boelcke, Senior Moderator}

Are you intentionally writing incorrect guides that absolutely don't work? You know as well as I do that a standard Android boot.img can not be mounted on Linux, or any other OS, since it's a special packaged format that, among other things, includes a bunch of details that simply cannot be part of a filesystem descriptor (such as the boot command line).

And before you claim that I haven't even tried, here's the result (although I knew the outcome before even trying):

user@ubuntu:/[..]/Samsung/boot$ mkdir boottest
user@ubuntu:/[..]/Samsung/boot$ sudo mount -o loop boot.stock.img ./boottest
mount: /[..]/Samsung/boot/boottest: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop0, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.
dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.
user@ubuntu:/[..]/Samsung/boot$ sudo mount -o loop boot.mainline.img boottest
mount: /[..]/Samsung/boot/boottest: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop0, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.
dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.

Since your process obviously doesn't work, I must ask - have you actually done this? At all? Have you managed to boot a mainline kernel build on your Tab S6? I'd love to see some demonstration, including:

copies of the mainline, stock, and modified boot.img you created

screenshots of the process you did in terminal

screenshots of the tablet booting and showing the kernel version in Settings