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Microsoft Lumia 950 XL (microsoft-cityman)

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Microsoft Lumia 950 XL
Lumia 950 XL booting Debian with Bluetooth status shown
Lumia 950 XL booting Debian with Bluetooth status shown
Manufacturer Microsoft
Name Lumia 950 XL
Codename microsoft-cityman
Released 2015
Type handset
Hardware
Chipset Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 (MSM8994)
CPU Cortex-A53 (4)
Cortex-A57 (4)
GPU Adreno 430
Display 1440x2560 AMOLED
Storage 32GB eMMC and SD card slot
Memory 3GB
Architecture aarch64
Software
Original software
The software and version the device was shipped with.
Windows Mobile 10
Extended version
The most recent supported version from the manufacturer.
Windows Mobile
postmarketOS
Mainline
Instead of a Linux kernel fork, it is possible to run (Close to) Mainline.
no
pmOS kernel
The kernel version that runs on the device's port.
mainline
Features
Flashing
It is possible to flash the device with pmbootstrap flasher.
Broken
USB Networking
After connecting the device with USB to your PC, you can connect to it via telnet (initramfs) or SSH (booted system).
Broken
Battery
Charging and battery level reporting works
Broken
Screen
Display works. Ideally with sleep mode and brightness control.
Works
Touchscreen
Works
Multimedia
3D Acceleration
Broken
Audio
Audio playback, microphone, headset and buttons.
Broken
Camera
Broken
Connectivity
WiFi
Partial
Bluetooth
Partial
GPS
Broken
Modem
Calls
Broken
SMS
Broken
Mobile data
Broken
Miscellaneous
FDE
Full disk encryption and unlocking with unl0kr.
Broken
Sensors
Accelerometer
Auto screen rotation works in desktops e.g. Phosh or Plasma Mobile
Broken

Contributors

Maintainer(s)

Users owning this device


How to enter flash mode

Windows Phone flash mode can be entered using WPInternals, thor2 or Windows Device Recovery Tool.

Most WoA images have USB mass storage mode available with Power + VolDown key sequence on boot. Alternatively, enter USB mass storage mode via WPInternals.

Because Lumia 950 XL uses standardized UEFI firmware, it is not necessary to flash the device once it is unlocked. Simply install boot-shim and the UEFI firmware similar to the way installing Windows 10 ARM on Lumia 950 XL, partition (Do not delete any partitions before and including EFIESP) and copy files to the device and it will boot.

Warning: Do not touch anything inside DPP partition or it will cause permanent damage to the device

Progress

A slightly patched kernel is available at https://dev.azure.com/imbushuo-personal/_git/Kernel.

A more patched and more functional kernel is available at https://github.com/WOA-Project/linux.

Although Lumia 950 XL supports ACPI, the arm64 ACPI support for Qualcomm platforms is limited to Windows-only. Hence a device tree is necessary for successful bring-up. The current device tree is available at here (old) or right there.

The progress is generic for all Linux distros.

  • Processor bring-up and reset using PSCI (EL1) or spin-table (EL2, WIP!)
  • I2C, GPIO, UART and a few more simple low-speed I/O
  • GCC clocks
  • Synaptics Touchscreen via I2C
  • FrameBuffer via UEFI GOP @ 1080x1920
  • Bluetooth via UART. Need rampatch and TLV firmware blobs similar to other QCA6174 chipsets.
  • PCIe Root Port, the QCA6174 Wi-Fi NIC is visible, ath10k driver starts but currently stalls the system. Need rampatch and TLV firmware blobs similar to other QCA6174 chipsets.

Booting

  • Unlock the device using WPInternals
  • Install boot-shim and UEFI firmware
  • Partition the device, create a new ESP partition for aarch64 (keep the ARM32 one) and a partition for the root filesystem
  • Unpack root filesystem, install GRUB ARM64, kernel and device tree into the new ESP partition

A reference boot entry:

linux /vmlinuz-4.18.6-lumia-950xl-uefi nomodeset acpi=off video=efifb boot_delay=200 root=UUID=<Root Partition UUID>
initrd /initrd.img-4.18.6-lumia-950xl-uefi
devicetree /msm8994-microsoft-lumia-950xl.dtb

See also