Porting to Samsung Galaxy Note 4 SM-N910P

doniks

I think the best known way right now is this faq:
https://pad.ubports.com/p/porting-faq and of course the bunch of smart people in the ubports porting telegram chat

tigerpro

@doniks thank you for the link, I will look through it and try the relevant parts. I think I may have tried these before and went from a booting device to a bootloop device, but that could be a different thing I had tried previously. I did get the latest edge roots from that though so I will try that first and go from there. I hope to have an update soon. I was using the telegram for awhile however most of the people on there that try to help me end up either guiding me to a bootloop or don't know enough to fully help yet so I try to keep that as a last resort now. I do need to fix my repo though with all my tweaks so far.

doniks

@tigerpro said in Porting to Samsung Galaxy Note 4 SM-N910P:

@doniks thank you for the link, I will look through it and try the relevant parts. I think I may have tried these before and went from a booting device to a bootloop device,

well, there is no guarantee that it will happen again, but I guess it's still a step forward. Next step would then be hunting down the specific reason for the boot loop

fwiw, this is the selection of things I took from the faq:

https://github.com/Halium/projectmanagement/issues/22

take frameworks/native and bionic from the porting-faq
rm graphics-android-caf.so.10
fix /run/user/32011 (porting-faq)
fix dbus-daemon-launch-helper (porting-faq)

but that could be a different thing I had tried previously. I did get the latest edge roots from that though so I will try that first and go from there. I hope to have an update soon.

good luck

I was using the telegram for awhile however most of the people on there that try to help me end up either guiding me to a bootloop or don't know enough to fully help yet so I try to keep that as a last resort now. I do need to fix my repo though with all my tweaks so far.

I hear you. I personally also like the format of a forum or a mailing list, where you can formulate a more elaborate question or answer and have the full context of the conversation. But I think many people prefer tg, at least I have often gotten the answer I was needed on tg eventually.

tigerpro

@doniks I have some mostly good news, I did the first few things in the link you provided, I now get the Ubuntu Touch boot screen with the scrolling dots, I have yet to get it to go any further than that though. I can ssh in so I dont fully know if this is the spinner that is referred to or if it a different screen all together. Ill just leave it be and see if it eventually does something more cause the screen does dim after awhile then eventually shut off and if I press the home button it comes back up with the same screen. I appreciate all your help so far.

doniks

@tigerpro said in Porting to Samsung Galaxy Note 4 SM-N910P:

@doniks I have some mostly good news, I did the first few things in the link you provided, I now get the Ubuntu Touch boot screen with the scrolling dots, I have yet to get it to go any further than that though. I can ssh in so I dont fully know if this is the spinner that is referred to or if it a different screen all together.

That's great! And yes, that is the "spinner" (I had the same question:) ).

I think what I had to do at that point was the stuff about /run/user/32011 - it's in the FAQ. You should see something about it in the logs: http://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/porting/common-problems-run.html#getting-more-mir-logs

tigerpro

@doniks I was thinking that could be part of the issue but the part in the parenthesis indicates it was fixed 10/28/18 and I'm using edge roots from 12/6/18 however I could try that, if that doesn't resolve it then I'll try getting the logs and see if those shed any light on the matter. I have to stop for a little bit today, but I'll look at it later.

doniks

@tigerpro said in Porting to Samsung Galaxy Note 4 SM-N910P:

@doniks I was thinking that could be part of the issue but the part in the parenthesis indicates it was fixed 10/28/18

yeah, saw that. seems it wasn't really fixed ... I guess ... I had to do it and I also had a newer rootfs

tigerpro

@doniks OK, I will try that as soon as I can. I wanna keep going now that I'm so close I can practically taste it, lol. I know I will have more to do once I get the GUI, for example I expect BT to not work cause I had to disable BT in the defconfig to get halium to compile successfully, but once I have a working boot I can at least go from there with it. I am thinking I'll focus on getting the device stuff that doesn't work (like BT) working then I can go from there to start working on the network based stuff (like WiFi and LTE) if needed. I am also working on a plan for a DIY dock to utilize the desktop GUI but that is a different topic for a different time.

tigerpro

@doniks so trying that didn't work, when I tried to get the logs following the FAQ my device rebooted after I issued the last command so I'm kinda stuck at this point (tried 3 times to no avail) I have a gut feeling that something isn't configured right for my device but figuring that out is gonna be very time consuming. I'll try it again tomorrow with a fresh rootfs (the merge list for edge is quite big so there may be a fix in place for that) and if it still doesn't let me do what I need I'll see what my options are.

tigerpro

@doniks I have News, I finally got the device to go past the spinner, it was a combo of my udev rules and the 32011 stuff, I now have a fully working GUI, working touchscreen, and working file access, thats about it though, the wifi is detected but it isnt finding the wifi network for some reason, Ill have to play with it in terminal I guess, as for the rest, any idea where I could start with getting the rest to work?

tigerpro

So I have been trying to get my ofono stack working, as of now it seems like the android stuff can't access its own stuff in the /proc folder.
The list of what isn't working as of this writing is:

Cellular (Ofono sees the cellular modem but can't access its own folder in /proc)

Bluetooth (completely untested)

Rotation (sensors are found but no values generated)

GPS (test_gps segfaults in halium-boot but not in hybris-boot)

Audio (untested)

S-Pen (kernel sees it as a input device but disables it for some reason)

If anyone reading this has a note 4 and wants to take on any of these tests let me know your findings and I will update the list as issues are resolved. I also welcome any advice anyone may have if they read this and are not in telegram but have an idea of what's going on.

tigerpro

So I have an update for anyone following this that isn't on telegram or IRC, there are now a couple people working with me on the Note 4 port, the devices are the Sprint, the T-Mobile, and the Trltexx. We have managed to get audio somewhat working, all the hardware as far as we can tell is seen by the kernel, and we are now just trying to get everything working on the GUI side. I have switched to telegram as the primary communication method so dont expect many updates on here, if you have a galaxy note 4 and would like to contribute, you can find me on telegram in the UBPorts group, the UBPorts porting group, and the halium group.

pe3noATo2DOTpl

Dear @tigerpro,

Which exactly Note 4 version should I buy to support you?

Is "SM-N910P" the only that you support ?
I can see that there are different models called N4: SM-N910S, SM-N910C, SM-N910H, SM-N910L, SM-N910K.

Kind regards and good luck, Piotr.

tigerpro

@pe3noATo2DOTpl i currently own a 910P and a 910V, they both have a CDMA modem in them, theres also a 910T port which is GSM and a 910F, in theory any of the variants should be able to boot the port, but without all the variants to test I cant confirm, whichever you get, let me know on telegram and I will add you into the note 4 ubports chat and we can see if we get more features working

libremax

@tigerpro Congrats, 3 Samsung Galaxy Note 4 models are now in UBports installer.

Can you precise what is functioning and what is not on those devices ?

tigerpro

@libremax at the time of this writing,

what works:
Audio
GPS
Status LED
Video Acceleration

what works with quirks:
BT (if disabled requires reboot to enable again)
SMS/MMS (seems to work overall, but sometimes there is no notifications for recieved SMS/MMS, Sometimes won't send SMS/MMS either)
Auto-Brightness (Sometimes has to be toggled off then on after a reboot)
Camera (GStreamer camera is needed for Camera to not crash the device, otherwise view finder shows then device crashes after a few seconds)

what doesn't work:
In Call Audio (Logs show it is working but it does not actually work, mic nor sound work)
S-Pen (detected by kernel, mir/unity does not handle styli input currently)
Sensors (they are detected, but no values are added)
Fingerprint Sensor (halium needs a repo for biometry services)

I think that's everything, if I missed anything I'm sure someone will chime in and ask, I also welcome anyone who'd like to try and help, to please do so.

libremax

@tigerpro Thanks for your answer
What about hotspot functionality ?

tigerpro

@libremax I only tried it once for a couple minutes, it turned the hotspot on, then off, and the device I connected was able to get to google, but I had the Samsung Quirks from Florian installed, and I didnt have it on for more than a couple minutes, so I would say it seems to work, but its not fully tested

tchan

@tigerpro
Hi!
Congratulation for this port, I read all the work you have done to finish that it was very intresting.
I have this device but it have a hardware, stuck in boot loop if it's not plug to power supply. Anyway it still works so I want to install UT.
The devices is now on unofficial Lineage 16.0 (android 9), i used odin to install it and I have the TWRP recovery. Samsung drivers, ADB minimal and fastboot are installed on the PC Win10.
Do I have to go back to a stock to a stock rom to install it through the UBports Installer? I guees yes, which one is better?

Thanks.

tigerpro

@tchan if you already have twrp and a custom ROM installed, then your safe to install with the launcher, you dont need to revert software or anything. I will caution to make sure its a snapdragon variant as my port will not work on the exynos variant. I can say from experience, the bootloop issue your experiencing is a bad battery, I have 2 devices that had this issue till I replaced the battery. I would like to ask that you report back what happened if you do go ahead and try to install my port.