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Amazon Fire 7 2015 (amazon-ford)

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Revision as of 22:30, 18 January 2021 by Cdde (talk | contribs) (Document the current state of trying to get kernel to compile)
This device is marked as not booting.
Status: Boots, no MR/port in pmaports
Amazon Fire 7 (2015)
Amazon Fire 7 running Weston and it's demo programs
Amazon Fire 7 running Weston and it's demo programs
Manufacturer Amazon
Name Fire 7 (2015)
Codename amazon-ford
Released 2015
Hardware
Chipset MediaTek MT8127
CPU Quad-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A7
GPU Mali-450MP4
Display 600x1024 IPS
Storage 8GB, expandable up to 256GB with microSD card
Memory 1GB
Architecture armv7
Software
Original software Fire OS 5 (based on Android Lollipop)
postmarketOS
Category testing
Pre-built images no


Contributors

  • reon0

Users owning this device


Unlock the bootloader

Before installing pmOS, you will need to unlock your bootloader by following the instructions here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/amazon-fire/development/unlock-fire-t3899860

Entering recovery mode

  • Press and hold the power button and the left volume button until the device powers on. The Amazon splash screen should be visible, with the addition of text on the left side of the display reading "=> RECOVERY MODE...".

Installation

Booting into TWRP and flashing a pmOS zip made with 'pmbootstrap install --android-recovery-zip' works. Fastboot has not been tested yet.

What works

  • Installing via TWRP
  • USB Networking
  • Touchscreen (needs configuring, read Issues section)
  • Display (works but needs msm-fb-refresher)
  • Wayland
  • XWayland
  • Battery
  • USB OTG (tested with USB sound card and external keyboard)

What doesn't work or hasn't been tested

  • Wi-Fi (no driver)
  • Bluetooth
  • FDE
  • Audio from the internal speaker and headphone jack
  • Cameras
  • Anything else that isn't filled in

Kernel compilation issues when using ggow's amazon MT8127 kernel

  • virtual_sensor_cpufreq_cooling.c in drivers/thermal needs to be modified to use #include "thermal_core.h" instead of #include <thermal_core.h>
  • tpd_debug.c in arch/arm/mach-mt8127/ford/touchpanel needs to be modified to use #include "tpd.h" instead of #include <tpd.h>
    • Without these two changes to the kernel source, the kernel will fail to compile.
    • The only kernels from ggow's "android_kernel_amazon_mt8127-common" repo that work with these fixes are cm-12.1 and amazon-5364.
  • The kernel can only be compiled with gcc6 or gcc4.
    • Note: It seems like this no longer works (latest gcc, gcc6 or gcc4 with either branch):
tools/include/tools/be_byteshift.h:4:10: fatal error: linux/types.h: No such file or directory
    4 | #include <linux/types.h>
      |          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.

Other issues

  • The touchscreen will be flipped vertically even though the screen itself is in a horizontal resolution. This can be fixed by creating '/etc/udev/rules.d/90-android-touch-dev.rules' and appending these lines to the file:
ENV{ID_INPUT}="1", ENV{ID_INPUT_TOUCHSCREEN}="1", \
ENV{LIBINPUT_CALIBRATION_MATRIX}="0 1 0 -1 0 1"
  • The screen will not refresh on a fresh install. 'msm-fb-refresher' can be installed to fix this issue.

Links