Microsoft Lumia 950 XL (microsoft-cityman)

From postmarketOS Wiki
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 Windows Mobile
Original version 10
postmarketOS
Category testing
Pre-built images no
Mainline yes
postmarketOS kernel mainline
This device has been tested with postmarketOS, but its device package has not yet been added to the postmarketOS repositories.
This means that it cannot be selected in pmbootstrap.
Status: Kernel compiles and boots. Bringing-up other components
Features
Flashing
Broken
USB Networking
Broken
Internal storage
SD card
Battery
Broken
Screen
Works
Touchscreen
Works
Multimedia
3D Acceleration
Broken
Audio
Broken
Camera
Broken
Camera Flash
Connectivity
WiFi
Partial
Bluetooth
Partial
GPS
Broken
NFC
Modem
Calls
Broken
SMS
Broken
Mobile data
Broken
Miscellaneous
FDE
Broken
USB OTG
HDMI/DP
Sensors
Accelerometer
Broken
Magnetometer
Ambient Light
Proximity
Hall Effect
Haptics
Barometer
This device is a Windows Phone.
See the Windows Mobile page for common tips, guides and troubleshooting steps
This device is a Windows Phone.
See the Windows Phone page for common tips, guides and troubleshooting steps

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

Retrieved from "https://wiki.postmarketos.org/index.php?title=Microsoft_Lumia_950_XL_(microsoft-cityman)&oldid=65674"