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[HowTo] Compile the Kernel Source Code for the HTC One XL

Hi guys!
Someone requested a tutorial on how to build the kernel source code, so I thought I might as well do it I'll give you a bit more information too.
Maybe this will kick start kernel development a little bit too. Who knows.
Anyway:
1. Set up your build environment as per this guide by AOSP here: http://source.android.com/source/initializing.html
This guide will be primarily aimed at Ubuntu, but it should be easy enough to do on other Linux PCs. Ubuntu is highly recommended. And don't ask about Windows.
2. Download the toolchains: http://code.google.com/p/rohan-kernel-evita/downloads/detail?name=toolchains.tar.gz&can=2
I've hosted both GCC 4.4 and GCC 4.6 (prebuilt) on my Google Code page. These are for Linux.
Download the toolchain package here: http://code.google.com/p/rohan-kernel-evita/downloads/detail?name=toolchains.tar.gz&can=2
Then un-tar the archive and extract it to your home folder so that the path to the toolchain directories are ~/toolchain/whatever-one-you-want
3. At this point you can decide which kernel source you want to download. There are really two sources.
The first choice is getting it from HTC Dev directly. This is good if you want to build your kernel for a Sense 4 ICS ROM. If you want to build for AOSP/JB, then scroll down below all the following HTC stuff.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To use HTC's source:
Go to HTCdev.com and make an account. Then download the source code for our device (I'd recommend the "One X" source under carrier "AT&T" version "2.20". Let the zip file download and extract it to your home folder (so the path is /home/user/evita-ics..../
To build HTC's source, run these commands:
Code:
cd ~/evita-ics-whatever_the_directory_is_named
export ARCH=arm
make elite_defconfig
Second command is saying what type of architecture we want (we are compiling for ARM processors, so we want ARM)
Third command is saying to make the default config for our device (whose hardware is codenamed "elite")
Then to build the actual kernel:
Code:
make -j# ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=~/toolchain/arm-eabi-4.4.3/bin/arm-eabi-
In the command above, there is "-j#". Replace the "#" with the number of CPUs you have.
Ask me about it if you need help. That should be it! Let the build go and in a few minutes you should have a zImage file located at ~/evita-ics-..../arch/arm/boot. That is the actual kernel.
To test out the zImage (kernel), connect your device via fastboot mode and type:
Code:
fastboot boot /path/to/zImage
Combined with the ramdisk, thats what makes the boot.img file. Eventually if you want to distribute your kernel, you should use an installer that injects the zImage into the boot.img or combine the zImage with a ramdisk to make a boot.img. I can do a tutorial on that later on as well.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To get the "other" source:
This source is based off of HTC's source and includes other devices as well in it (the One S and Evo 4G LTE). Its good if you want to build JB AOSP kernels.
To download this kernel source do this:
Code:
mkdir ~/kernel
cd ~/kernel
git clone https://github.com/CyanogenMod/android_kernel_htc_msm8960.git -b android-msm-evita-3.0
This version also includes a number of optimizations and odd bug fixes present in the HTC version.
To build this second source, run these commands:
Code:
cd ~/kernel/android_kernel_htc_msm8960
export ARCH=arm
make elite_defconfig
Second command is saying what type of architecture we want (we are compiling for ARM processors, so we want ARM)
Third command is saying to make the default config for our device (whose hardware is codenamed "elite")
Then to build the actual kernel:
Code:
make -j# ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=~/toolchain/arm-linux-androideabi-4.6/bin/arm-eabi-
In the command above, there is "-j#". Replace the "#" with the number of CPUs you have.
Ask me about it if you need help. That should be it! Let the build go and in a few minutes you should have a zImage file located at ~/evita-ics-..../arch/arm/boot. That is the actual kernel.
To test out the zImage (kernel), connect your device via fastboot mode and type:
Code:
fastboot boot /path/to/zImage
Combined with the ramdisk, thats what makes the boot.img file. Eventually if you want to distribute your kernel, you should use an installer that injects the zImage into the boot.img or combine the zImage with a ramdisk to make a boot.img. I can do a tutorial on that later on as well.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The second option is also a bit better as it uses the 4.6 toolchain instead of GCC 4.4. HTC's source doesn't work with GCC 4.6 so it can't be used without changes that the second source has.
If you have any questions, feel free to post here, message me on twitter (@rohanXm), chat me on IRC (#HTC-One-XL) or PM me!
If this helped you, please consider hitting the donation link under my username on the left. Donations are never required but always appreciated.

Instead of downloading cm10 the readme inclided with the HTC source has directions for getting a tool chain which will compile the source.
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

Perfect. Now I just have to read.
Sent from my HTC One XL bumping it

rohan32 said:
Code:
repo init -u git://github.com/CyanogenMod/android.git -b jb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FYI, It looks like the branch name has changed. When I changed "jb" to "jellybean" the repo init command worked.

Rohan. You are one bad MF'er
Sent from my twin turbo'ed OneXL rocking rezound beats

rohan32 said:
2. You can either try to find a standalone package of the precompiled toolchain, or you are going to need to download a ROMs source. I'd recommend downloading a ROMs source since I've never found a good toolchain that worked for me. If you find one that works, post below
For now we will download CM10 since that seems like the defacto standard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I downloaded the 2.20.502.7 kernel source and when I extracted it there was a file named evita_readme.txt which gave another, possibly more "official", location for downloading a toolchain:
--Please follow below command to download the official android toolchain: (arm-eabi-4.4.3)
git clone https://android.googlesource.com/platform/prebuilt
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just performed a build with this toolchain but got this error when I attempted to load zImage via fastboot:
c:\>fastboot flash boot zImage
sending 'boot' (5140 KB)...
OKAY [ 1.044s]
writing 'boot'...
FAILED (remote: image error! (BootMagic check fail))
finished. total time: 1.077s
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure if this is caused by the toolchain or if I screwed something up. Have you ever seen this error before?
EDIT: Ok I see what I did incorrectly. The zImage needs to be "Combined with the ramdisk". You wouldn't know how to perform this operation... would you?

denversc said:
I downloaded the 2.20.502.7 kernel source and when I extracted it there was a file named evita_readme.txt which gave another, possibly more "official", location for downloading a toolchain:
I just performed a build with this toolchain but got this error when I attempted to load zImage via fastboot:
I'm not sure if this is caused by the toolchain or if I screwed something up. Have you ever seen this error before?
EDIT: Ok I see what I did incorrectly. The zImage needs to be "Combined with the ramdisk". You wouldn't know how to perform this operation... would you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are trying to flash a zImage
To my knowledge, only booting zImages work on this device. For the time being just boot the zImage (use fastboot boot zImage)
I will make a tutorial on how to combine the zImage created with a ramdisk to make a boot.img when I get the chance

denversc said:
FYI, It looks like the branch name has changed. When I changed "jb" to "jellybean" the repo init command worked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oops, my bad! That was a mistake. AOKP uses -jb and CM uses -jellybean so I got them switched fixed now

Out of any device I've seen more people actually interested in helping and learning to help then any other community. I've watched noobs become less noobish.. I've watched skizz learn how to make themes. Hell I've learned 10 fold what I knew before this phone myself.
That is beautiful, and now such an informed, helpful post such as this.
Have great Sunday you guys! I think I might give this a shot!
Sent from my One X

I'll streamline this process in a bit, so that you don't need to download CM10
Edit: cleaned up post, now I'm uploading just the toolchains. Its a tar.gz archive, around 150mb. Much better than downloading the entire CM10 source

rohan32 said:
You are trying to flash a zImage. To my knowledge, only booting zImages work on this device. For the time being just boot the zImage (use fastboot boot zImage)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your response, rohan. You are absolutely right: I was incorrectly attempting to flash zImage straight to the boot partition, and the error produced by flashboot was justified. I have since successfully "tested out" my compiled zImage by flashing it via "fastboot boot zImage" and it worked like a charm! I ported the modifications from sbryan's Blackout BeastMode kernel and I am now able to OC to 2106 MHz and UC to 192 MHz. It's been running solid for the past few hours at least
Of course, the kernel reverts back to the one stored in the boot partition after a reboot, and I want my shiny new kernel to "stick". I've done a bit of research on this topic and found some information about combining my zImage with a ramdisk into a "real" boot.img but have not yet been successful in creating a boot.img which does not bootloop after flashing it.
For example, I found an article on xda called Basic Kernel Kitchen for Minor Kernel Tweaking which points to a "kitchen sink" tool for creating a boot.img from a zImage and a ramdisk. My problem is that I don't know where to get or how to make a ramdisk. So I tried using the ramdisk from the boot.img of the ROM that I am currently running (CleanROM 4.5 DE) but just got into a bootloop. I've since been doing some yard work today so haven't gotten back to investigating further.
I also found another program named abootimg which can also produce a boot.img from a zImage abd a ramdisk, but when I tried it an error message about my zImage being "too big" was produced.
If it's not obvious yet, I am kind of fumbling around in the dark as compiling and deploying custom kernels is completely new to me! But this post was the most valuable resource I've come across in getting to this point. Thanks so much for writing it! I eagerly await your next article about creating the boot.img
---------- Post added at 06:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:50 PM ----------
rohan32 said:
cleaned up post
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for cleaning up the post rohan. I have a few follow-up questions/comments:
missing toolchains link -- the post says "Download the toolchains:" but there is no link to download anything... did you forget to paste the link?
official toolchain -- That's great that you uploaded the toolschains to save tonnes of bandwidth. The CM10 source was taking a VERY long time for me to grab. However, I imagine some people (like me) would prefer to get the toolchain from an "official" source. In the "evita_readme.txt" file of the kernel sources downloaded from HTC dev it instructs one to use the official sources from "git clone https://android.googlesource.com/platform/prebuilt". This is the toolchain that I used and it successfully built the zImage.
ko files -- I noticed in the ZIP file for Blackout BeastMode, in additional to installing the zImage it also puts a bunch of "ko" (kernel modules I believe) into the /system partition (eg. qce40.ko). Should I also be deploying .ko files from my build to the device?
Thanks!

denversc said:
Thanks for your response, rohan. You are absolutely right: I was incorrectly attempting to flash zImage straight to the boot partition, and the error produced by flashboot was justified. I have since successfully "tested out" my compiled zImage by flashing it via "fastboot boot zImage" and it worked like a charm! I ported the modifications from sbryan's Blackout BeastMode kernel and I am now able to OC to 2106 MHz and UC to 192 MHz. It's been running solid for the past few hours at least
Of course, the kernel reverts back to the one stored in the boot partition after a reboot, and I want my shiny new kernel to "stick". I've done a bit of research on this topic and found some information about combining my zImage with a ramdisk into a "real" boot.img but have not yet been successful in creating a boot.img which does not bootloop after flashing it.
For example, I found an article on xda called Basic Kernel Kitchen for Minor Kernel Tweaking which points to a "kitchen sink" tool for creating a boot.img from a zImage and a ramdisk. My problem is that I don't know where to get or how to make a ramdisk. So I tried using the ramdisk from the boot.img of the ROM that I am currently running (CleanROM 4.5 DE) but just got into a bootloop. I've since been doing some yard work today so haven't gotten back to investigating further.
I also found another program named abootimg which can also produce a boot.img from a zImage abd a ramdisk, but when I tried it an error message about my zImage being "too big" was produced.
If it's not obvious yet, I am kind of fumbling around in the dark as compiling and deploying custom kernels is completely new to me! But this post was the most valuable resource I've come across in getting to this point. Thanks so much for writing it! I eagerly await your next article about creating the boot.img
---------- Post added at 06:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:50 PM ----------
Thanks for cleaning up the post rohan. I have a few follow-up questions/comments:
missing toolchains link -- the post says "Download the toolchains:" but there is no link to download anything... did you forget to paste the link?
official toolchain -- That's great that you uploaded the toolschains to save tonnes of bandwidth. The CM10 source was taking a VERY long time for me to grab. However, I imagine some people (like me) would prefer to get the toolchain from an "official" source. In the "evita_readme.txt" file of the kernel sources downloaded from HTC dev it instructs one to use the official sources from "git clone https://android.googlesource.com/platform/prebuilt". This is the toolchain that I used and it successfully built the zImage.
ko files -- I noticed in the ZIP file for Blackout BeastMode, in additional to installing the zImage it also puts a bunch of "ko" (kernel modules I believe) into the /system partition (eg. qce40.ko). Should I also be deploying .ko files from my build to the device?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey!
Sorry, set it to upload then got distracted Link posted
The reason why your boot.imgs bootloop is because there is a special ramdisk address that needs to be set when combining the ramdisk with the zImage, and most kitchens don't support this. You also need to set the address after setting the base value.
I will post a guide on how to make it a real boot.img whenever I get the chance.

I'm telling you people, Rohan is a BOSS. Most helpful dev I know.
Sent from my HTC One XL using xda app-developers app

rohan32 said:
Hey!
Sorry, set it to upload then got distracted Link posted
The reason why your boot.imgs bootloop is because there is a special ramdisk address that needs to be set when combining the ramdisk with the zImage, and most kitchens don't support this. You also need to set the address after setting the base value.
I will post a guide on how to make it a real boot.img whenever I get the chance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the zImage thanks to your tutorial, but I want to know how to create the kernel zip, whenever you have time will be amazing if you can post a guide, I'm really looking forward to that guide, because i haven't been able to locate a guide that works
Sent from my HTC One XL using xda premium

rohan32 said:
Hi guys!
Second command is saying what type of architecture we want (we are compiling for ARM processors, so we want ARM)
Third command is saying to make the default config for our device (whose hardware is codenamed "elite")
Then to build the actual kernel:
Code:
make -j# ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=~/toolchain/arm-linux-androideabi-4.6/bin/arm-eabi-
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the correct make for "other source" kernel.
Code:
make -j# ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=~/toolchain/arm-linux-androideabi-4.6/bin/[COLOR="Red"]arm-linux-androideabi-[/COLOR]

Can you make a tutorial on how to insert governors into a kernel?

Compiling problem
Hey man,
Please help me I followed your article but when I try copile with:
make -j2 ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=~/toolchain/arm-eabi-4.4.3/bin/arm-eabi
I got something like this:
/home/martin/toolchain/arm-eabi-4.4.3/bin/../lib/gcc/arm-eabi/4.4.3/../../../../arm-eabi/bin/as: error while loading shared libraries: libz.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Thanks
UPDATE:
now its work
I went deeper and install lib32z1 with "sudo apt-get install lib32z1"... now its work

My device repositories are not available on github, But I got device tree and vendor blobs by making changes in similar device repo. That reference device's kernel's lineageos_defconfig is situated in htc msm8974 kernel repo. So how can I get lineageos_defconfig for my device, and which other my device related kernel files(.dtsi or any other) I have to push in htc msm8974 repo and get those files to make things ready for build?
Please help......

Kexec-hardboot patch

In this post, I would like to explain what kexec-hardboot patch is and also bring it to light a bit more since until now, it was only burried in MultiROM thread.
@kernel developers: I would like to ask you to merge this patch to your kernels, because it is essential part of MultiROM - it allows me to boot any kernel without changing the boot partition. I realize that it is no small request, but the patch is not big, touches relatively stable parts of kernel and should not cause any problems. Thank you.
What is kexec?
It is syscall of Linux kernel, which allows you to boot another Linux kernel without restarting the device - "Linux boots itself". The functionality is equivalent to fastboot -c *cmdline* boot zImage initrd.img, but without PC and fastboot. It is fairly known thing, so more info at wikipedia and man kexec.
Standard kexec call unfortunatelly does not work on Nexus 7. It freezes somewhere, and it is very difficult to find out where - probably some of the drivers are not shut down/re-initialized properly, it is a commong thing among Android devices, which is why kexec-hardboot was made.
What is the difference between normal and hardboot exec?
Kexec-hardboot patch adds a real device restart to that process, so that all the drivers can be properly reinitialized. It stores new kernel to RAM, reboots the device as usual, and kernel from boot partition immediately jumps to the one which was stored to RAM before reboot.
Another difference is that both kernels must be patched. The "host" kernel requires a full patch, the one which is being kexecd' requires only two small compatibility patches.
To sumarize the process:
kexec --load-hardboot.... is called and kernel it loaded into RAM.
kexec -e is called. Special info is written to memory (to area which is not overwritten on reboot) and the device is rebooted.
After reboot, very early in the boot process, kernel checks if that special info is present in RAM and if so, it loads new kernel from RAM and jumps to it.
Kexecd' kernel starts and boots.
For more info, read the original thread.
Patches:
Full kernel patch: https://gist.github.com/4558647, 4.1 kernel repo, cm 10.1 kernel repo
This is the full kernel patch. Kernels with this patch can be both "host" and "guest" kernels.
Related CONFIG options:
CONFIG_KEXEC=y
CONFIG_KEXEC_HARDBOOT=y
CONFIG_ATAGS_PROC=y
CONFIG_GROUPER_HARDBOOT_RECOVERY=n
First three options must be enabled. Last one, GROUPER_HARDBOOT_RECOVERY, specifies if the kexec call should reboot to normal mode or to recovery. This can be useful if you don't have the kernel in boot partition but only as kernel in recovery partition. You usualy want to disable this option.​
Compatibility patch: https://gist.github.com/4458581
This patch only makes the kernel bootable via kexec, ie. it can't be the host kernel. This was made for Ubuntu kernel (and it was accepted), because I did not want to drag the whole patch in there. If your kernel is for Android ROMs, you should use the full patch.​
Userspace kexec binary: View attachment kexec-tools.zip
That ZIP file contains kexec source, patches and README. It is from the original patch from Mike Kasick. It also contains precompiled, statically linked kexec binary, so you probably just want to use that.​
Usage:
Once you have the kernel patches and kexec userspace binary in place, just run following command to boot into new kernel:
Code:
kexec --load-hardboot zImage --initrd=initrd.img --mem-min=0x85000000 --command-line="$(cat /proc/cmdline)"
kexec -e
Note the command line parameter - cmdline from bootloader is not added automatically, you have to put it there by yourself.
Currently used by:
MultiROM - I use it to boot different kernels (eg. Ubuntu).
MOSLO - Part of Plasma Active for Nexus 7, also usefull tool for every N7 developer - read more: http://ruedigergad.com/2012/12/09/nexus-7-easily-flashaccess-entire-userdata-partition/
Authors:
This patch was made by Mike Kasick for Samsung Epic 4G. Since that, it was ported to several devices, one of them is Asus Transformer TF201 - I used patch from TF201 and modified it a bit (basically just changed few SoC specific constants). People at #ubuntu-arm helped me out with that, thanks.

Hi Tasssadar,
im trying to get this to work on the HOX in order to have a shot at multiboot,
the patched applied with no problem... however on compiling i gett this error
"Adress for kexec hardboot page not defined"
ask this error naturely defined to kick in with every device beside N7 i that comment completely....
and that ended up giving me an error about KEXEC_HB_PAGE_ADDR not defined,
so i readded it, but i removed the "#if defined(CONFIG_MACH_GROUPER)"
now trying to compile it, its gets pretty close to the end... but failed with unexpected string error at line OUTPUT_ARCH(arm) in file linux/arch/arm/boot/compressed/vmlinux.lds
Code:
/*
* linux/arch/arm/boot/compressed/vmlinux.lds.in
*
* Copyright (C) 2000 Russell King
*
* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
* it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as
* published by the Free Software Foundation.
*/
OUTPUT_ARCH(arm)
ENTRY(_start)
SECTIONS
{
/DISCARD/ : {
*(.ARM.exidx*)
*(.ARM.extab*)
/*
* Discard any r/w data - this produces a link error if we have any,
* which is required for PIC decompression. Local data generates
* GOTOFF relocations, which prevents it being relocated independently
* of the text/got segments.
*/
*(.data)
}
. = 0;
_text = .;
.text : {
_start = .;
*(.start)
*(.text)
*(.text.*)
*(.fixup)
*(.gnu.warning)
*(.glue_7t)
*(.glue_7)
}
.rodata : {
*(.rodata)
*(.rodata.*)
}
.piggydata : {
*(.piggydata)
}
. = ALIGN(4);
_etext = .;
.got.plt : { *(.got.plt) }
_got_start = .;
.got : { *(.got) }
_got_end = .;
_edata = .;
. = ALIGN(8);
__bss_start = .;
.bss : { *(.bss) }
_end = .;
. = ALIGN(8); /* the stack must be 64-bit aligned */
.stack : { *(.stack) }
.stab 0 : { *(.stab) }
.stabstr 0 : { *(.stabstr) }
.stab.excl 0 : { *(.stab.excl) }
.stab.exclstr 0 : { *(.stab.exclstr) }
.stab.index 0 : { *(.stab.index) }
.stab.indexstr 0 : { *(.stab.indexstr) }
.comment 0 : { *(.comment) }
}
also, im booted into windows now... so i can't provide the exact error.

I'm afraid "comment everything which doesn't work" won't work here. The KEXEC_HB_PAGE_ADDR and END_MEM is device-specific, it will most likely be different for HTC One X. You can find out what address is it supposed to be by examining /proc/iomem on your device. For example, here's memory map from grouper:
Code:
...
80000000-be9fffff : System RAM
80008000-808faba7 : Kernel text
80940000-80b8228f : Kernel data
beb00000-bebfffff : ram_console
...
So, for grouper, END_MEM is 0xbe9fffff + 1 = 0xbea00000.
KEXEC_HB_PAGE_ADDR is located 1MB before console RAM, which is in this case also immediatelly after System RAM, so for grouper, it is also 0xbea00000.
but failed with unexpected string error at line OUTPUT_ARCH(arm) in file linux/arch/arm/boot/compressed/vmlinux.lds
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That doesn't seem to be related to this patch. Are you using correct cross-compiler?

Tasssadar said:
I'm afraid "comment everything which doesn't work" won't work here. The KEXEC_HB_PAGE_ADDR and END_MEM is device-specific, it will most likely be different for HTC One X.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i figured
but im walking you through what i did.
You can find out what address is it supposed to be by examining /proc/iomem on your device. For example, here's memory map from grouper:
Code:
...
80000000-be9fffff : System RAM
80008000-808faba7 : Kernel text
80940000-80b8228f : Kernel data
beb00000-bebfffff : ram_console
...
So, for grouper, END_MEM is 0xbe9fffff + 1 = 0xbea00000.
KEXEC_HB_PAGE_ADDR is located 1MB before console RAM, which is in this case also immediatelly after System RAM, so for grouper, it is also 0xbea00000.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Code:
7d000000-7d003fff : tegra-udc.0
7d000000-7d003fff : tegra-otg
7d000000-7d003fff : tegra-udc
7d004000-7d007fff : tegra-ehci.1
80000000-beafffff : System RAM
80008000-8094000f : Kernel text
809a8000-810b940f : Kernel data
beb00000-bebfffff : ram_console
bec00000-beffffff : fbmem
bf000000-bf7fffff : fbmem
0xbeafffff + 1 = 0xbeb00000
grrr that would put me inside the ram_console...
aaaa would it wok if i used the address before??
7d00800
Edit:
or did your ram RAM end earlier because you set you END_MEM 0xbea00000
in that case, it works out just the same with the HOX
That doesn't seem to be related to this patch. Are you using correct cross-compiler?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i would have guessed so, but the kernel compiled and is working before the patch.
im using the one provided by google (Android NDK r9) while it contains booth gcc 4.6/4.8 im using 4.6 (arm-linux-androideabi-)

The patch will move ram_console 1MB further, see https://gist.github.com/Tasssadar/4558647#file-n7_hardboot-diff-L387 . You'll have to modify this part of the patch, it will be in different file for your device.

Tasssadar said:
The patch will move ram_console 1MB further, see https://gist.github.com/Tasssadar/4558647#file-n7_hardboot-diff-L387 . You'll have to modify this part of the patch, it will be in different file for your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HOX is also a Tegra 3 device... so im guessing i wont need to touch a thing?
also note... that iomem provided is from an unpatched kernel (as i cant compile a patched one)
also,
im currently on freenode #htc-one-x
if you dont mind joining.

I've been looking through the kexec-hardboot patch these last few days, trying to actually understand it instead of just blindly porting it and after several hours of messing with assembler with no means to debug it, I've managed to remove the need for guest kernel to be patched. This is not really useful for grouper, since thanks to multirom and accepting kernel devs, nearly every third-party kernel has the proper patches. But, if I'll port multirom to some other device (hello, flo), it will be very useful
To know more see the changes in this commit, but you'll probably need to understand how the patch does things: https://github.com/Tasssadar/androi...mmit/2ce4130061f72430a8ddfde25346c4e528c5c30b
@mkasick: Could you please look over this? I'm afraid there's some good reason why you didn't do this in the first place, like rewriting some part of memory which shouldn't be rewritten or something like that. Thank you.

Tasssadar said:
I've been looking through the kexec-hardboot patch these last few days, trying to actually understand it instead of just blindly porting it and after several hours of messing with assembler with no means to debug it, I've managed to remove the need for guest kernel to be patched. This is not really useful for grouper, since thanks to multirom and accepting kernel devs, nearly every third-party kernel has the proper patches. But, if I'll port multirom to some other device (hello, flo), it will be very useful
To know more see the changes in this commit, but you'll probably need to understand how the patch does things: https://github.com/Tasssadar/androi...mmit/2ce4130061f72430a8ddfde25346c4e528c5c30b
@mkasick: Could you please look over this? I'm afraid there's some good reason why you didn't do this in the first place, like rewriting some part of memory which shouldn't be rewritten or something like that. Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perfect timing, just finished my last exam
Edit:
Also, this applies on top of the original patch right??
Edit2:
i can't seem to get it to kexec boot, but i didn't do much testing, maybe 2morrow night!
Edit3:
fixed, it was a problem with min-addr,
changed it to 0x82000000 and it worked

One more question...
TEGRA_PMC_BASE is also device specific, ain't it???
So, for a Qualcomm device, what should I be using? I am guessing it is MSM_RPM_BASE, which I got from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=31127486&postcount=7

Yes, it is SoC-specific. This is using some special register to reset the chip, I'm not sure if that is available on msm chips - probably yes, but in some different form. Your best chance is to examine restart sequence in arch/arm/mach-msm/restart.c and port it to assembler.

Tasssadar said:
Usage:
Once you have the kernel patches and kexec userspace binary in place, just run following command to boot into new kernel:
Code:
kexec --load-hardboot zImage --initrd=initrd.img --mem-min=0xA0000000 --command-line="$(cat /proc/cmdline)"
kexec -e
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The address of 0xA0000000 is not necessarily the best choice going forward. It originally made perfect sense, as it is well above everything else. But now that we can boot unpatched guest kernels, we can hit the interesting situation where the guest decompression may take a full minute. At least it's when I've seen on the Ouya game console that's running the next chip after Grouper.
When I realized what's going on, I changed to 0x8E000000, as it gets me just below the 256 MB limit of cache-enabled memory that's present on a typical guest at that early decompression stage. It's enough to hold a typical 8 MB boot image kernel/ramdisk. Now the guest kernel startup is fast in all cases.
Thank you Tasssadar for continuing your work in this area, especially with finding that way to allow unpatched guests.

Indeed, that's actually what I'm using in MultiROM for flo and mako (and grouper, but it is useless 'cause not all 3rd-party kernels have been updated), I just kinda "forgot" to update these threads.

Would it work on devices with locked bootloaders (Xperias). I mean :does the idea of this patch would also work on bootloader unlock allowed :no devices?
Sent from my LT22i using xda app-developers app

I am trying to build a kexec patched kernel integrated into a ROM. I make sure that the following code is there in the defconfig:
CONFIG_KEXEC=y
CONFIG_KEXEC_HARDBOOT=y
CONFIG_ATAGS_PROC=y
The ROM works well, except that it does not boot my secondary ROMs - kexec hardboot patch missing. I have multi ROM and TWRP recovery installed
What am I missing?

Logs or it didn't happen.
Show me dmesg from normal boot into android, with MultiROM and your kernel installed.
Code:
adb shell
su
dmesg > /data/local/tmp/dmesg.txt
exit
exit
adb pull /data/local/tmp/dmesg.txt

Porting?
Tassadar which things do I need to boot kexec kernel on my device (Motorola Electrify 2) .

@Tasssadar, Sorry for picking up this kinda "old topic" but I'm sadly experiencing some problems while trying to port kexec-hardboot to the Sony Xperia Z2 (aka sirius). I applyed all needed commits (cherry-picked from a apparently working Z1 repo for stock kernel) to my CM based custom kernel (https://github.com/Myself5/android_kernel_sony_msm8974/tree/kexec-cm-12.0) and it does not boot at all. It's stuck on the Sony Logo, and it seems like I can't get any log either. I also tryed the stock cm kernel with the patch (https://github.com/Myself5/android_kernel_sony_msm8974-kexec) cause I tought it might be some incompatibility, but sadly it wasn't. Hope you have any ideas to solve my problems, cause I'm out of ideas ATM. I also checked the kexec commits for other devices (namely the One Plus One) and it seems like I got everything needed.
Thanks in Advance

Tasssadar said:
In this post, I would like to explain what kexec-hardboot patch is and also bring it to light a bit more since until now, it was only burried in MultiROM thread.
@kernel developers: I would like to ask you to merge this patch to your kernels, because it is essential part of MultiROM - it allows me to boot any kernel without changing the boot partition. I realize that it is no small request, but the patch is not big, touches relatively stable parts of kernel and should not cause any problems. Thank you.
What is kexec?
It is syscall of Linux kernel, which allows you to boot another Linux kernel without restarting the device - "Linux boots itself". The functionality is equivalent to fastboot -c *cmdline* boot zImage initrd.img, but without PC and fastboot. It is fairly known thing, so more info at wikipedia and man kexec.
Standard kexec call unfortunatelly does not work on Nexus 7. It freezes somewhere, and it is very difficult to find out where - probably some of the drivers are not shut down/re-initialized properly, it is a commong thing among Android devices, which is why kexec-hardboot was made.
What is the difference between normal and hardboot exec?
Kexec-hardboot patch adds a real device restart to that process, so that all the drivers can be properly reinitialized. It stores new kernel to RAM, reboots the device as usual, and kernel from boot partition immediately jumps to the one which was stored to RAM before reboot.
Another difference is that both kernels must be patched. The "host" kernel requires a full patch, the one which is being kexecd' requires only two small compatibility patches.
To sumarize the process:
kexec --load-hardboot.... is called and kernel it loaded into RAM.
kexec -e is called. Special info is written to memory (to area which is not overwritten on reboot) and the device is rebooted.
After reboot, very early in the boot process, kernel checks if that special info is present in RAM and if so, it loads new kernel from RAM and jumps to it.
Kexecd' kernel starts and boots.
For more info, read the original thread.
Patches:
Full kernel patch: https://gist.github.com/4558647, 4.1 kernel repo, cm 10.1 kernel repo
This is the full kernel patch. Kernels with this patch can be both "host" and "guest" kernels.
Related CONFIG options:
CONFIG_KEXEC=y
CONFIG_KEXEC_HARDBOOT=y
CONFIG_ATAGS_PROC=y
CONFIG_GROUPER_HARDBOOT_RECOVERY=n
First three options must be enabled. Last one, GROUPER_HARDBOOT_RECOVERY, specifies if the kexec call should reboot to normal mode or to recovery. This can be useful if you don't have the kernel in boot partition but only as kernel in recovery partition. You usualy want to disable this option.​
Compatibility patch: https://gist.github.com/4458581
This patch only makes the kernel bootable via kexec, ie. it can't be the host kernel. This was made for Ubuntu kernel (and it was accepted), because I did not want to drag the whole patch in there. If your kernel is for Android ROMs, you should use the full patch.​
Userspace kexec binary: View attachment 1653562
That ZIP file contains kexec source, patches and README. It is from the original patch from Mike Kasick. It also contains precompiled, statically linked kexec binary, so you probably just want to use that.​
Usage:
Once you have the kernel patches and kexec userspace binary in place, just run following command to boot into new kernel:
Code:
kexec --load-hardboot zImage --initrd=initrd.img --mem-min=0x85000000 --command-line="$(cat /proc/cmdline)"
kexec -e
Note the command line parameter - cmdline from bootloader is not added automatically, you have to put it there by yourself.
Currently used by:
MultiROM - I use it to boot different kernels (eg. Ubuntu).
MOSLO - Part of Plasma Active for Nexus 7, also usefull tool for every N7 developer - read more: http://ruedigergad.com/2012/12/09/nexus-7-easily-flashaccess-entire-userdata-partition/
Authors:
This patch was made by Mike Kasick for Samsung Epic 4G. Since that, it was ported to several devices, one of them is Asus Transformer TF201 - I used patch from TF201 and modified it a bit (basically just changed few SoC specific constants). People at #ubuntu-arm helped me out with that, thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry for picking up this older topic as well, but I always played with the thought of merging kexec support into a kernel and I'm doing one right now.. But my secondary device is a LG G2 and since the era of Lollipop began, somehow MultiBoot just stopped working and nobody can figure out why. I think they even started to build some new concept now.. So before I spark a heated debated by Note 4 users I'd love to know if you have any idea if this patch is still applicable? Altough the only way to find out is to probably just try it lol.

Tasssadar said:
In this post, ....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bro can you please mention on your wiki that kexec isnt supported for x64 devices? It will be great help and save developers hours! I was porting for oneplus 2 when a dev told me that kexec isnt there for x64. I was shocked
Is any alternative available for that? Please reply! Thanks.
All other devs, who cant make multirom to work (lollipop is the x64 era) stop working. Kexec isnt supported for x64. Find an alternative for it.

Can Anyone help me to port this? Here is my patched kernel (ignore arch/arm64) and this is /proc/iomem.
Code:
80000000-854fffff : System RAM
80008000-80fa43ef : Kernel code
81112000-817bf797 : Kernel data
8cb00000-9fefffff : System RAM
9ff00000-9ff3ffff : persistent_ram
9ff40000-9ff7ffff : persistent_ram
9ff80000-9fffffff : persistent_ram
a0000000-ffffefff : System RAM
For kexec_hb_page_addr the value i inseted is 85500000 coz as tasssadar said 884fffff + 1 = 85500000, but I don't know what value add for
Code:
#elif defined(CONFIG_ARCH_MSM8916)
/* Restart using the PMIC chip, see mach-msm/restart.c */
ldr r0, =MSM8916_HARDBOOT
mov r1, #0
str r1, [r0, #0]
loop: b loop
MSM8916_HARDBOOT, and if I compile the kernel it stucks on samsung logo.

[FAQ/HOWTO] An introduction to how-to-build a kernel for MT6589

Hi guys,
I was working on this since some time and here it is
Please read FAQ first
FAQ :
Can I compile a MT6589 kernel for every phone ?
As you know, a MT6589 kernel won't fit in every MT6589 smartphone because of specific configs/files in the kernel source tree.
So, if you compile my kernel which is expected to work on a Faea F2S don't expect it to work on a Acer Liquid E3 for example.
Conclusion : You have to get the kernel source for your phone​
How can I check my kernel source ?
Of course, this is not enough to see "source code for ZTE N986", you have to check if it's full or not and if it works.
Most people don't know what is working kernel source. You just have to read the GPL guidelines that every manufacturer have to complain with :
“ The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. ”
The part which has not to be included is the toolchain but there should reference to it (which toolchain to use)
For MT6589 kernel, the toolchains arm-eabi-4.6 and arm-linux-androideabi-4.6 should be used. (mtk used arm-linux-androideabi-4.6 for kernel but it should be arm-eabi-4.6)
So now you know which toolchain to grab and then for kernel source you have to check this minimal structure :
bionic
kernel
mediatek
build
config
custom
kernel
platform​README​
If I have kernel source, can I build it for my device ?
Erm... Sometimes the structure is here but the kernel source is messy... Why ?
Because you were not provided the matching source of the kernel used on your smartphone and the reasons are multiple (I won't give details).
So, the idea is to run a first build. If you get errors, then check the step above about toolchain and structure.
The next step for fixing errors is to play with source. Good luck for that.​
What are the benefits of a custom kernel for MT6589 ?
First big benefit is to introduce kitkat compatibility because there was an issue on android binder driver in mtk kernel source.
Next benefit is to be able to remove some stuff from mtk which is useless on user side and waste ressources (a lot of debug for example).
Others benefits will be in optimizations or new features (see frandom for example)​
HOWTO :
Build from my repo (specific devices supported) - It's not for compiling your kernel source but to understand how kernel build works​I explain how to build from my repo first because it can help you to understand how you should build kernel source
Prerequisites : A build environment (actually Ubuntu Saucy x64 with build-essentials, ccache, repo, java, perl v5.14+ and openssl) and I won't explain how to get one as there is multiple howto on the net.
For repo, the idea is to create a bin directory in your $HOME (usually /home/accountname/), copy repo binary inside it and then add this bin to $PATH var.
BE CAREFULL TO WHAT YOU DO WITH $PATH VAR ! I always see people doing :
Code:
export PATH=/home/foo/bin
this is erasing $PATH var, just check before and after with echo $PATH
So the idea is to introduce your path AFTER the actual $PATH var
This is easy...
Code:
export PATH=[COLOR="red"]$PATH:[/COLOR]/home/foo/bin
And of course, $PATH is reset once you close terminal and I won't explain how to set $PATH automatically.
Once you got this, everything should be working and it will be easy
Code:
mkdir workdir
cd workdir
repo init -u https://github.com/Dr-Shadow/android_kernel_mt6589_manifest.git -b master
repo sync
Then you should get this in your workdir :
kernel
manifest
mtk-tools
out
ramdisk
scripts
toolchain​Just do :
Code:
cd kernel
./certificates.sh
./build.sh
./certificates.sh is needed only once (it's for signing flashable zip and it will setup some keys for it, just reply to questions and don't add passphrase)
And of course, the build.sh contains most things you need to know on steps for building kernel (which commands to use) and you need to know how it works ​Build from your own kernel source​
I'm building the doc... I have to remind which vars need to be overriden

Reserved

Reserved #2

Thanks for making this thread brother it will help us to learn... Subscribed

Looking forward to the how-to to build with your own kernel source.

Dr-Shadow said:
Hi guys,
I was working on this since some time and here it is
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you Dr-Shadow! This is very cool. I'm going to try it out!

Great
It's always nice to see further development on MTK Based Devices.
Regards

I'll chip in and say thanks too. Finally getting around to trying to compile Alcatel's OneTouch Hero (aka TCL Y910) provided sources.

I might be in as well with A820, but I'm relatively new to Android and have only done porting of 4.1 and 4.2 so far.
Haven't built anything although I have some knowledge about the source code and SDK, which I've only used for reference purposes and the tools from it.
Will try to compile the stock kernel this weekend, but I'm not quite sure if something else is needed, even if the kernel source seems complete to me.
I'm a quick learner and have a lot of programming experience in other technologies, even thought I'm more of a front-end developer these days.

Is there a Stock Kernel with Safetynet Patch?

I'm looking for a stock kernel that only patches Safetynet checking. Does this exist? If not, is it easy for me to "make it" myself?

I'm not sure if there's a prebuilt one, but building one yourself isn't too hard. The patch is at https://github.com/sultanxda/androi...bc05b16bbd33521c2fffaf491c5657a94bfcfc5.patch. You just follow the steps at http://source.android.com/source/building-kernels.html as usual with the following notes:
Use "kernel/msm" as the source location
Use "marlin_defconfig" as the build configuration
Apply the patch after running the git checkout command
Use the aarch64 prebuilts, not the arm ones

Cares said:
I'm looking for a stock kernel that only patches Safetynet checking. Does this exist? If not, is it easy for me to "make it" myself?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depending on your motivation for a "stock kernel" you might try franco kernel. He doesn't seem to do anything that MIGHT introduce instability or strays very far from stock.

I can vouch for franco. He does minimal performance-only tweaks by default.

josephcsible said:
I'm not sure if there's a prebuilt one, but building one yourself isn't too hard. The patch is at https://github.com/sultanxda/androi...bc05b16bbd33521c2fffaf491c5657a94bfcfc5.patch. You just follow the steps at http://source.android.com/source/building-kernels.html as usual with the following notes:
Use "kernel/msm" as the source location
Use "marlin_defconfig" as the build configuration
Apply the patch after running the git checkout command
Use the aarch64 prebuilts, not the arm ones
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey thanks for the tip. I went ahead and patched the no safetynet patch to the android-msm-marlin-3.18-nougat-mr1 kernel source and compiled it. I now have a Image.gz-dtb file which I zipped (I also just have a binary file named "Image"). What should I with those now, just flash those like I would one of the other kernels? And which file exactly? The gz file? or the just binary file named "Image"?
So essentially "fastboot flash kernel <file_name>"?
When I was compiling I got two warnings by the way:
drivers/soc/qcom/Kconfig:371:warning choice value used outside its choice group
drivers/soc/qcom/Kconfig:376:warning choice value used outside its choice group
Anything I should be concerned about? I've never done this before, but did a lot of reading before I went ahead and used to do some C coding back in the day, so it's not completely unknown to me.
Essentially, these are the steps I followed, after quickly installing Linux Mint:
Code:
Create a working directory in /home/$USER/ (I created /home/sakete/android)
Enter working directory
Download android kernal source
git clone https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/msm
Download prebuilt toolchain
git clone https://android.googlesource.com/platform/prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/aarch64/aarch64-linux-android-4.9
cd aarch64-linux-android-4.9
export PATH=$(pwd)/prebuilts/gcc/linux-x86/aarch64/aarch64-linux-android-4.9
export CROSS_COMPILE=$(pwd)/bin/aarch64-linux-android-
export ARCH=arm64
export SUBARCH=arm64
Checkout specific kernel branch for Pixel/PixelXL (be in 'msm' folder)
git checkout android-msm-marlin-3.18-nougat-mr1
Get Safetynet Patch (still be in 'msm' folder)
git fetch https://github.com/sultanxda/android_kernel_oneplus_msm8996 cm-13.0-sultan
git cherry-pick abc05b16bbd33521c2fffaf491c5657a94bfcfc5
Build kernel (still be in 'msm' folder)
make clean
make mrproper
make marlin_defconfig
make -j$(grep -c ^processor /proc/cpuinfo)
I initially got some build errors, but running this command solved it: sudo apt-get install build-essential
This is a useful link for those of you who are interested in doing this as well: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=69627576&postcount=7108

Hey if you can build it and post it here, that would be awesome. This is exactly what I'm looking for.
It will let me preemptively unlock my Verizon bootloader before flashing the latest OTA, while keeping Android Pay.
Has Google already posted the source for the 7.1.1 update kernel?

The source I pulled (android-msm-marlin-3.18-nougat-mr1) should be what's in the December update. It should be 7.1.1

Sakete said:
Hey thanks for the tip. I went ahead and patched the no safetynet patch to the android-msm-marlin-3.18-nougat-mr1 kernel source and compiled it. I now have a Image.gz-dtb file which I zipped (I also just have a binary file named "Image"). What should I with those now, just flash those like I would one of the other kernels? And which file exactly? The gz file? or the just binary file named "Image"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Image.gz-dtb file is the one you want.
Sakete said:
So essentially "fastboot flash kernel <file_name>"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've never done it like that, but that's apparently how Franco's kernel installs, so it's worth a shot I guess. Another way of doing it is to unpack the stock boot image with either pbatard's unmkbootimg or osm0sis's Android Image Kitchen, replace its kernel with your Image.gz-dtb, then repack and flash the new boot.img to the boot partitions.
Sakete said:
When I was compiling I got two warnings by the way:
drivers/soc/qcom/Kconfig:371:warning choice value used outside its choice group
drivers/soc/qcom/Kconfig:376:warning choice value used outside its choice group
Anything I should be concerned about? I've never done this before, but did a lot of reading before I went ahead and used to do some C coding back in the day, so it's not completely unknown to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing you need to worry about.

josephcsible said:
The Image.gz-dtb file is the one you want.
I've never done it like that, but that's apparently how Franco's kernel installs, so it's worth a shot I guess. Another way of doing it is to unpack the stock boot image with either pbatard's unmkbootimg or osm0sis's Android Image Kitchen, replace its kernel with your Image.gz-dtb, then repack and flash the new boot.img to the boot partitions.
Nothing you need to worry about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great, thanks, I'll try flashing the kernel tomorrow night and will post it if successful.
Interestingly it seems that Pixel (sailfish) and Pixel XL (marlin) use the same kernel / kernel source? There at least doesn't seem to be a sailfish specific source. Will be interesting to see how it pans out tomorrow.

Sakete said:
Interestingly it seems that Pixel (sailfish) and Pixel XL (marlin) use the same kernel / kernel source? There at least doesn't seem to be a sailfish specific source. Will be interesting to see how it pans out tomorrow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed. The same kernel binary can run on both devices. (The ElementalX and Franco kernels don't even have separate builds for the two.)

Would you mind posting the image you built?

iPwn_ said:
Would you mind posting the image you built?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm at work now, will post it tonight.
Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

Stock Kernel + SafetyNet Patch applied
Well holy crap, it actually worked! Just flashed the kernel, set up android pay no problem! And everything else works just fine too.
Attached is a zip.
Steps to install (make sure you have adb and fastboot set up):
- Download file and unzip
- Reboot into bootloader (power down, hold Power + Volume Down)
- Attach device to computer
- Enter command: fastboot flash kernel <kernel_image>
- Enter command: fastboot reboot
- Disconnect device and wait for it to finish booting. That's it!

You're my hero.
Might be a lot to ask, but it would be dope if you maintained where you update the build every month for Google's latest release.

iPwn_ said:
You're my hero.
Might be a lot to ask, but it would be dope if you maintained where you update the build every month for Google's latest release.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm creating a thread in the dev section.
Edit: thread is up.

Cares said:
I'm looking for a stock kernel that only patches Safetynet checking. Does this exist? If not, is it easy for me to "make it" myself?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A bit late, but just for the record, ElementalX is just like stock with added features. If you don't use those features, you are essentially using the stock kernel.

I am thinking about going this route.. but I am not sure the process to flash a custom kernel on my Pixel.. would anyone be able to walk me through it? thanks!

Building kernel from Xiaomi's source for cereus (probably, cactus too)

Since Xiaomi released source code for kernel, I tried to build it.
https://github.com/Dhoine/android_kernel_cereus
Current status of this - it compiles, boots, but unusable.
Bugs:
Broken bluetooth
Broken wifi
Soft-reboots after some time
Propably, more bugs that remained undiscovered because of reboots.
Tested with miui 9 on cereus 3/32.
--------
You can test builded kernel using this:
GDrive
Use Carliv image Kitchen to repack your rom's boot.img, then flash it via fastboot (UNLOCKED BOOTLOADER REQUIRED). To restore working state after testing, flash stock boot image again.
WARNING
Our kernel uses android regular boot.img format, not MTK.
---------
If you want to build this, any manual for building kernel will fit. I used google's android arm eabi 4.9 toolchain, our arch is arm, defconfig is cereus_defconfig.
For now, I don't have enough time to take a closer look at this (work, university exams), so, any help (last_kmsg, dmesg, pull requests) will be appreciated.

Wait seriously? Does that mean that i can buil LOS rom now? I have my UbuntuVM with whole LOS source code downloaded but i got stuck at no kernel found for cereus. So it might work now(Im extremely new to linux) I'll try to build the rom asap

TanRayCz said:
Wait seriously? Does that mean that i can buil LOS rom now? I have my UbuntuVM with whole LOS source code downloaded but i got stuck at no kernel found for cereus. So it might work now(Im extremely new to linux) I'll try to build the rom asap
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This kernel for now won't really help with building los. I haven't find any device tree for our SoC (or close). MTK always requre a ton of patches to android sources. But i have reference MTK 9.0 android sources for this SoC - ALPS (can't share, it's probably illegal, but you can find them on 4pda.ru, if you want). It builds on almost unmodified reference device tree, but i haven't tested it on device. First, we need to make this kernel usable.

[email protected] said:
This kernel for now won't really help with building los. I haven't find any device tree for our SoC (or close). MTK always requre a ton of patches to android sources. But i have reference MTK 9.0 android sources for this SoC - ALPS (can't share, it's probably illegal, but you can find them on 4pda.ru, if you want). It builds on almost unmodified reference device tree, but i haven't tested it on device. First, we need to make this kernel usable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This may not really help, but can you try that kernel again after upgrading to MIUI 10.2.4 ?
EDIT : See https://www.kimovil.com/en/list-smartphones-by-processor/mediatek-helio-p22-mt6762 for a list of devices with MT6762. Probably we can check out their trees?
EDIT 2 : It seems like our Redmi 6 is the only device with available kernel source in that list.
EDIT 3 : Try this?

minhducsun2002 said:
EDIT : See https://www.kimovil.com/en/list-smar...lio-p22-mt6762 for a list of devices with MT6762. Probably we can check out their trees?
EDIT 2 : It seems like our Redmi 6 is the only device with available kernel source in that list.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe them exists, but I haven't found them.

minhducsun2002 said:
This may not really help, but can you try that kernel again after upgrading to MIUI 10.2.4 ?
---------------------
EDIT 3 : Try this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I finally finished my university exams, so now I have some free time to play with it.
The kernel you link is just forked xiaomi sources merged to linux 4.9 kernel. It shouldn't be buildable at all, since there is the same problem in sources I "fixed" with this.
Probably, this too.

[email protected] said:
I finally finished my university exams, so now I have some free time to play with it.
The kernel you link is just forked xiaomi sources merged to linux 4.9 kernel. It shouldn't be buildable at all, since there is the same problem in sources I "fixed" with this.
Probably, this too.
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[email protected] said:
Maybe them exists, but I haven't found them.
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You're right, they're identical.
By the way, I couldn't find any implementation available for our Helio P22; the chipset itself is fairly new, thus not many devices have the source code available.

minhducsun2002 said:
This may not really help, but can you try that kernel again after upgrading to MIUI 10.2.4 ?
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Ok, i've tested it on latest GS. It seems to work a way better. At least, it doesnt reboot after few seconds of usage. It makes things a lot easier.
Tested a few more things:
-sound - works
-camera (both photo and video) - works
- mobile data - works
- phone calls - work
- dual sim -works
- all sensors work
The only thing i was unable to test is gps. It didn't worked for me, but i was inside 9-floor building near the window to inner corner of building... So idk.
And usb otg - since i don't have adapder.
After this I can tell, that there are only 2 major bugs - wifi and bluetooth.
Maybe gps, fm radio and exfat too. This is modules loading problem, I think (though, there shouldn't be any modules, drivers are marked as built-in in config, but .ko files for them exist in /vendor/lib/modules)

[email protected] said:
Ok, i've tested it on latest GS. It seems to work a way better. At least, it doesnt reboot after few seconds of usage. It makes things a lot easier.
Tested a few more things:
-sound - works
-camera (both photo and video) - works
- mobile data - works
- phone calls - work
- dual sim -works
- all sensors work
The only thing i was unable to test is gps. It didn't worked for me, but i was inside 9-floor building near the window to inner corner of building... So idk.
And usb otg - since i don't have adapder.
After this I can tell, that there are only 2 major bugs - wifi and bluetooth.
Maybe gps, fm radio and exfat too. This is modules loading problem, I think (though, there shouldn't be any modules, drivers are marked as built-in in config, but .ko files for them exist in /vendor/lib/modules)
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Click to collapse
Yeah, Treble definitely makes things easier.
Nevertheless I'm trying to integrate those kernel modules into the compiled zImage - there's no modprobe in Android, sadly.

Adding modules support and disabling modules versions check in config didn't help.
I can't find any source files in kernel sources, from which these modules can be built. Maybe, they are built from separate platform code (they are placed in vendor, so...) Need to download ALPS (brrr, around 50 gb of tar.bz2 archives) to check it.

I've looked into reference mediatek 4.9 kernel sources and found this:
Code:
# Do build-in for Makefile checking
# export CONFIG_WLAN_DRV_BUILD_IN=y
ifeq ($(CONFIG_WLAN_DRV_BUILD_IN),y)
PATH_TO_WMT_DRV = vendor/mediatek/kernel_modules/connectivity/common
PATH_TO_WLAN_CHR_DRV = vendor/mediatek/kernel_modules/connectivity/wlan/adaptor
PATH_TO_WLAN_DRV = vendor/mediatek/kernel_modules/connectivity/wlan/core/gen4m
ABS_PATH_TO_WMT_DRV = $(srctree)/../$(PATH_TO_WMT_DRV)
ABS_PATH_TO_WLAN_CHR_DRV = $(srctree)/../$(PATH_TO_WLAN_CHR_DRV)
ABS_PATH_TO_WLAN_DRV = $(srctree)/../$(PATH_TO_WLAN_DRV)
# check wlan driver folder
ifeq (,$(wildcard $(ABS_PATH_TO_WMT_DRV)))
$(error $(ABS_PATH_TO_WMT_DRV) is not existed)
endif
ifeq (,$(wildcard $(ABS_PATH_TO_WLAN_CHR_DRV)))
$(error $(ABS_PATH_TO_WLAN_CHR_DRV) is not existed)
endif
ifeq (,$(wildcard $(ABS_PATH_TO_WLAN_DRV)))
$(error $(ABS_PATH_TO_WLAN_DRV) is not existed)
endif
$(warning symbolic link to $(PATH_TO_WMT_DRV))
$(warning symbolic link to $(PATH_TO_WLAN_CHR_DRV))
$(warning symbolic link to $(PATH_TO_WLAN_DRV))
$(shell unlink $(srctree)/$(src)/wmt_drv)
$(shell unlink $(srctree)/$(src)/wmt_chrdev_wifi)
$(shell unlink $(srctree)/$(src)/wlan_drv_gen4m)
$(shell ln -s $(ABS_PATH_TO_WMT_DRV) $(srctree)/$(src)/wmt_drv)
$(shell ln -s $(ABS_PATH_TO_WLAN_CHR_DRV) $(srctree)/$(src)/wmt_chrdev_wifi)
$(shell ln -s $(ABS_PATH_TO_WLAN_DRV) $(srctree)/$(src)/wlan_drv_gen4m)
# for gen4m options
export CONFIG_MTK_COMBO_WIFI_HIF=axi
export MTK_COMBO_CHIP=CONNAC
export WLAN_CHIP_ID=6765
export MTK_ANDROID_WMT=y
# Do build-in for xxx.c checking
subdir-ccflags-y += -D MTK_WCN_REMOVE_KERNEL_MODULE
subdir-ccflags-y += -D MTK_WCN_BUILT_IN_DRIVER
obj-y += wmt_drv/
obj-y += wmt_chrdev_wifi/
obj-y += wlan_drv_gen4m/
endif
No such code in xiaomi's source. And this prooves my words: these modules CAN BE BUILT IN and SOURCES FOR THEM ARE IN ALPS. I have to download this ton of ****...
-------
I tried to backpors drivers from 9.0 - no success. It compiles,but doesn't boot. I tried to hack modules loading - no success too.

[email protected] said:
Adding modules support and disabling modules versions check in config didn't help.
I can't find any source files in kernel sources, from which these modules can be built. Maybe, they are built from separate platform code (they are placed in vendor, so...) Need to download ALPS (brrr, around 50 gb of tar.bz2 archives) to check it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most of the time those binaries are not open-source (you probably know vendor blobs for Google devices are too, but that is a different story). Nevertheless I don't really get why kernel modules are placed in
Code:
/vendor
- after all, mobile devices don't have hot-plugging hardware that requires dynamic LKM loading, why do they separate them out?
I'll attempt to crawl the web for those sources while waiting for Mi Unlock to allow my device being unlocked (the waiting period sucks).

[email protected] said:
I've looked into reference mediatek 4.9 kernel sources and found this:
No such code in xiaomi's source. And this prooves my words: these modules CAN BE BUILT IN and SOURCES FOR THEM ARE IN ALPS. I have to download this ton of ****...
-------
I tried to backpors drivers from 9.0 - no success. It compiles,but doesn't boot. I tried to hack modules loading - no success too.
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Click to collapse
1. Backports? How?
2. In which file did you got those lines?
3. Indeed those modules' source are removed from our tree - if you have the link, I don't really mind having another 50GB occupied on my PC to get those source code.

minhducsun2002 said:
1. Backports? How?
2. Indeed those modules' source are removed from our tree - if you have the link, I don't really mind having another 50GB occupied on my PC to get those source code.
Because attached below is the existence of the modules. /shrug
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I already said that i have leaked mtk alps 9.0 sources These modules have sources, they are not prebuilt. I managed to built in them, but kernel doesn't boot at all after that. And i can't take any logs because the system dies before adb init.

Ok, after one little, but very cruel hack modules are fixed. Enjoy testing the kernel.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Z3p2fAWOZFyp045QMNV6vhLZvj9ZZPSY

[email protected] said:
Ok, after one little, but very cruel hack modules are fixed. Enjoy testing the kernel.
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Click to collapse
does it work well?

Lonewolf_1210 said:
does it work well?
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Users from 4pda reported it fully working.
---------------------
Soon will be build with usb network adapters support enabled (requested by romanxdream from 4pda).
P.S. I'm not adding everything requested to kernel. But this was only config modification.
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I don't check xda often, so there can be a huge delay in my responses.

[email protected] said:
Users from 4pda reported it fully working.
---------------------
Soon will be build with usb network adapters support enabled (requested by romanxdream from 4pda).
P.S. I'm not adding everything requested to kernel. But this was only config modification.
-------
I don't check xda often, so there can be a huge delay in my responses.
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Click to collapse
Great job then, hope for a custom rom coming soon

Ok, download link to all versions. I'll edit the first post later.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yEZRS8L8bPgkk58tT5Uv2b-vsLqk7aql

Should we make a telegram group for this?