VoLTE Implementation For Google Pixel 3a/3a XL

atarilinux

That's great news! Keep us posted how everything goes! Fingers crossed everything works correctly!

mr_growl

Did first attempt at flashing. This is on pixel 3a XL:

flash last stock firmware (android 12.1)
install twrp
boot into twrp and open terminal
umount /dev/block/dm-4 (which was mounted to /data and /sdcard)
mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/block/dm-4
mount /dev/block/dm-4 /data
mount /dev/block/dm-4/sdcard
boot into bootloader
flasboot flash boot boot.img
attempt to reboot into recovery

At this point the device wouldn't boot into recovery. So I'm flashing twrp back on to it.

Any thoughts?

Here's the repo I'm using: https://gitlab.com/mr-growl/ubports-ubuntu-touch-google-bonito-volte
I'm building in a ubuntu server 20.04 vm. I modified the deviceinfo from atarilinux's version slightly which got it building properly for me.

mr_growl

While I was re-flashing twrp a thought occurred. With TWRP on the pixel 3a (compared to the nexus 5 and 4 which I used to use) I have to boot it using "fastboot boot twrp.img" and then use the "flash current twrp" option (taken from the lineage install instructions)... on the older phones it was "fastboot flash recovery twrp.img". Which makes me think this twrp might be writing to the same place as boot.img when I do the "fastboot flash boot boot.img". Any thoughts on that?

ikoz

@mr_growl Why don't you formtat through the built it in option in TWRP or even better via fastboot: fastboot format:ext4 userdata? (the partition name may differ)

Also, when the block device shows up as dm-something it is encrypted.

mr_growl

@ikoz Thanks! I'll give that a go (I'm still new to a lot of this).

I was thinking it was encrypted. Seems to me that encryption is on by default in android 12 / lineage 19.1 and there isn't an option to disable it in the interface. Not sure what to do from this point.

ikoz

@mr_growl If you disable requiring password to login (just swipe to unlock), it will also disable encryption.

But just running the fastboot command will work (if it throws any error, it likely means your fastboot build is broken and you'll have to use the official one from Google).

atarilinux

@mr_growl

I might be off here, but did you use fastbootd? The Google Pixel 3a has retrofitted dynamic partitons in Android 12.1.

https://source.android.com/docs/core/architecture/bootloader/fastbootd

Info on Retrofitted Dynamic Partitions:
https://lucaweiss.eu/post/2023-03-30-retrofit-dynamic-partition/

mr_growl

@atarilinux I did not use or know about fastbootd. I did see it just now as I was flashing it back to stock. I'll have a read up about it.

What would help is if someone could suggest what steps I should take to flash this. Starting with stock android 12 (not even set up, just a fresh flash with all defaults) and a boot.img, system.img, dtbo.img and rootfs.img

I might not have time to test it till the weekend, though. I might try setting up a working build for sargo as well in the mean time. I can only test with bonito and the moment but I gather sargo is the more popular one around here

atarilinux

@mr_growl

That sounds like exactly what was mentioned on the QA call. This was our Step 3 to figure out. I'm assuming we got Step 1 and Step 2 finished. Step 1 was to verify VoLTE was possible. Step 2 was to finish the build (or make a new port). Step 3 was to figure out how to get it on the phone. On Step 3, we were thinking the articles I gave you in the last post would help. Also, keep in mine that Lineage OS, etc. does have some form of install method for Pixel 3a with Android 12. We may be able to pull some information from that project.

Here are my notes from the QA call:

On Android 12 port for the Google Pixel 3a on GitHub:
*Source Material - Not Image (VERIFIED, LOOKING AT NEW PORT)
*Information on image build process, but not how to install it (FIRST IMAGE BUILD COMPLETE)
*Built on top of latest Android 12.1 version for the Google Pixel 3a, but build not completed (FIRST IMAGE BUILD COMPLETE - @mr_growl)

Issues with building/installing: (WHERE WE ARE NOW)
*Issue with getting image on phone
*Has retrofitted system super-partition, this means two partitions act as they are one
*Has not been installed in this type of environment, we would need to figure it out

As far as my phone, I have bonito as well. Unfortunately, I can't test sargo.

mr_growl

@atarilinux Thanks for all that. I'll have a read through those articles hopefully this weekend.

If you have a bonito to test with then I'll stick with that for now. Have you been able to get a build going? Should I find somewhere to host the outputs from my build?

atarilinux

@mr_growl

I haven't gotten a build going. I was still trying to get the process flow, etc. in order. It's all new to me, so any build would take me a long time as I want to know what happens on each step and why.
Initially, I was trying to reverse engineer the original port and figure out what made it incomplete. Once I got to that point, I would complete the port. Doing that on my own is a bit difficult, but I'm detailing things as I come across them. My technical expertise is in a different area than this one, so there is a lot to learn.

If you want to give me the steps and builds, I'd be happy to test further!

mr_growl

@atarilinux I tested bulding on fresh installs of ubuntu server 20.04 and 22.04. Have a look at the readme in this repo: https://gitlab.com/mr-growl/ubports-ubuntu-touch-google-bonito-volte

Run the apt commands, checkout the repo and run the other 3 commands and you should end up with the.img files. I'd recommend 24GB of ram. 16 and a good swap file or 8 and a really good swap file. 60GB of disk is plenty for the OS and the builds. On the first successful build I did I only had 8gb of ram and 20gb of swap and it took ages but it built... before that it'd just keep erroring out (if you see an error 137, that's it saying you need more ram/swap).

That repo links to two other of my repos which I made some changes in to get it building with one command.

So to recap:

set up a vm/machine with ubuntu server 22.04 or 20.04 with 24GB ram and 60gb disk (all defaults during the install
follow the readme on the repo linked above.

If you encounter any problems let me know but it should just go. Expect an hour all up to set up and run the build.

I'll read through the articles you sent through tonight and see what I can make of it.

Good luck!

atarilinux

@mr_growl

Thanks so much for the info and for building the port! My main Linux computer doesn't have enough power to run those specs natively unfortunately, but I can check what solutions I have. The virtual machine option would probably be the most promising thing for me rather than trying to run it on my local machine. I'll keep you posted as I work through it. Thanks again!

mr_growl

@atarilinux Ya, my first build was on a very low spec machine. It can be done but is not fun

I'm taking a page out of what you said earlier and am going on a mission to try to understand the process a bit more. I'm starting with building lineage os 19.1. The instructions seem pretty straight forward so seems like a good place to start.

Documenting the steps I ran to get a working lineage 19.1 bonito build on ubuntu server 22.04 here:
https://gitlab.com/mr-growl/ubports-ubuntu-touch-google-bonito-volte/-/wikis/Building-Lineage-19.1-for-Bonito

This is being run on a system with < 8GB ram, so included steps to make a big swapfile at the top. VM specs are 2 i5 cores, 240GB disk, 7GB ram, 24GB swapfile

atarilinux

@mr_growl

Yeah, max RAM I have is 16GB, but on an ARM based computer. With this one, I would have to virtualize x64 which would have a knock on performance. The main x64 Linux computer has 8GB. Not ideal. Let's just say I have been on the market for a better computer for a while. Hahaha

Let me see what I can work out. Thanks for the steps and the build!

atarilinux

@mr_growl

Looks like I got something running in a virtual machine, but it is very, very slow probably due to the instruction translations to the ARM processor among other factors. Needless to say, it can run, but it will take forever under these specs if it doesn't crash. I've been eyeing a desktop PC for a while. I might have to take the plunge when the means become available. If I can't get this to work on my hardware, I will let you know.

mr_growl

@atarilinux Memories of building linux kernel in the 90s

The lineage build is taking me a lot more time to build than the ubports one but I'm still plodding along on that for now. I'm hoping the lineage build will be an enlightening endeavour

One part about the ubports build that I'm unsure about is the vendor blobs. With the lineage build I extraced the blobs from my phone and added them into the source but I haven't noticed a step like that for the ubports build.

atarilinux

@mr_growl

Hahaha It definitely feels like the 90s! I better get some techno or grunge playing while I'm working on this. Hahaha

Yes, when comparing different alternative OS builds, I noticed the same thing. I got stuck on where exactly these should go as I didn't notice anything similar in the Ubuntu Touch documentation. That led me back to trying to trace the original port and other ports to see what happens where and where these vendor blobs should go. Also, I don't know the last time the documentation has been reviewed and updated. For example, I still see the Nexus being referenced and that is from 16.04. I'm not sure how much has changed since then on the porting side. Also, there may be some things that could be left out either by accident or "like, of course, you should know you have to do XYZ, why do I need to write that?" which may confuse the new or average user. This is not a problem limited to just Ubuntu Touch. Other systems have similar omissions in their documentation sometimes. Overall, the documentation so far is great, but I do notice there are some places where I'm having questions, and it sounds like it is not just me. Maybe reading additional material is confusing me? I'm not sure. Anyway, I'll see what I can find out, and if I notice anything, I'll post it here.

atarilinux

@mr_growl

I did find this in the forum as a Port QA Checklist. Still looking into the vendor blobs.

https://gitlab.com/ubports/community-ports/general/-/blob/master/DeviceChecklist.md

mr_growl

@atarilinux I've just finished and flashed my own build of lineage 19.1... for comparison, the ubports build takes me about 1 hour... the lineage build took closer to 20 hours on the same machine... so I really feel like something might be missing

That said, it may be that the lineage build is building everything where as the ubports build is downloading the GSI rootfs and such... I dunno... still learning.

I think my next step is to follow the halium documentation and correlate that with the Droidian porting documentation. I do have a suspicious about where and when the blobs might need to be added but just need to go over everything again and let it sink in a bit. Anything I discover I'll document on the wiki for the repo I'm working in on gitlab and will link to here.