Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 (samsung-lt023g)

Maintainer

 * hpagseddy

Entering flash mode

 * Power down the device, then press and hold  +   +   simultaneously.
 * Once the device vibrates, release, but keep   and   held.
 * The device will ask you if you wish to upload a custom OS. Press  to confirm.
 * Once the device displays &quot;Odin mode&quot; in the top-left of the screen, it is ready for flashing.

Entering recovery mode

 * Power down the device, then press and hold  +   +   simultaneously.
 * Once the device vibrates, release, but keep   and   held.

Installation
Kernel can be installed via  after entering flash mode. To install rootfs add  to the deviceinfo file. If you want to install to USERDATA partition use the partition name USER.

Packages required for installation
Packages required for a working installation are:
 * dhclient
 * linux-firmware-mrvl
 * xterm (in case your DE choice has no terminal built-in)

What works
See devicetable on the right.
 * Booting off a microSD card
 * Booting from system partition using Android recovery ZIP option
 * Physical buttons
 * Touch keys
 * Backlight brightness
 * Battery indicator
 * Wayland
 * X11
 * Front and back Camera (/dev/video0 - front camera, /dev/video1 - back camera)
 * Sensors
 * Bluetooth (only shows available devices. Still looking for a way to connect to a device)

What does not work
Everything else is untested as of writing this.
 * Cellular networking(not exist on some models)
 * 2D and 3D Acceleration
 * Audio

Incompatible software
Due to the lack of upstream support for the PXA986 SoC, the kernel remains to a very old 3.4.5 version. As of 2023, there is still largely chance that the software on the edge channel of postmarketos will run on this device with some notable exceptions. Concerning the choice of the environment, lxqt works out of the box. It has been reported that xfce4, gnome, and mate never reach the desktop.

Some issues related to general software:


 * Software using sandboxing will fail (e.g. epiphany browser). Of course, this includes all flatpaks as well
 * /etc/fstab cannot be used to mount a partition (an unsupported kernel syscall in newer versions of mount prevents the access to the file)
 * Some programs will just fail to start

How hpagseddy get camera working
Right now it's not usable for daily use, just for testing camera quality and checking if camera is working or not. I used "motion" package from alpine linux to capture pictures. If you want to test it too, just use "apk add motion" command to install that package. Then simply type "motion" and it will start capturing pictures nearly every second. If it doesn't capture pictures or pictures are just black squares then your camera isn't working. For opening pictures, i used feh image viewer to view images but every gallery app works great.

How to get WiFi working
Install  to get the necessary firmware files, reboot the device after install. Run, then configure  : $ wpa_passphrase YOUR_SSID YOUR_PASSPHRASE | sudo tee /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf Then run: sudo rc-service wpa_supplicant start sudo udhcpc -i mlan0 Note: You need to turn rndis0 off using  if you used USB Internet. Also remove usb_internet.start from. If starting the service didn't work, start wpa_supplicant manually with: sudo wpa_supplicant -u -Dnl80211 -B -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -imlan0 You might need to kill the existing process if the wpa_supplicant service fails to start (find it for example with htop).

You can also use NetworkManager, stop and disable wpa_supplicant, and restart NetworkManager.

About GPU
The GPU is Vivante GC1000 which has open source drivers but we can't get it work yet. The reverse engineered driver is called etnaviv and the compiling process is a little bit complex. If anyone figures it out don't forget to tag @hpagseddy at postmarketos matrix server. Galaxy tab 4 7.0 have same GPU, and plasma mobile seems to work better with hw acceleration, but OpenGL is failing.

Wayland works, but you may get better battery life with X11 (tested gnome vs mate).

Mainline
The PXA986 SoC has no support upstream (https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/arm/marvell.html#mmp-mmp2-mmp3-family-communication-processor).

Links

 * Kernel source
 * Unofficial TWRP
 * Add support for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 (lt023g)
 * Vivante Open source drivers
 * more updated kernel