Samsung Galaxy A51 (samsung-a51)

Features
Flashing	Partial
USB Networking	Works
Internal storage	Works
SD card
Battery	Works
Screen	Works
Touchscreen	Works
Multimedia
3D Acceleration
Audio
Camera
Camera Flash
Connectivity
WiFi	Works
Bluetooth
Ethernet
GPS
NFC
Modem
Calls
SMS
Mobile data
Miscellaneous
FDE
USB OTG
HDMI/DP
Sensors
Accelerometer
Magnetometer
Ambient Light
Proximity
Haptics

Samsung Galaxy A51
	; Samsung Galaxy A51, running postmarketOS with XFCE 4
Manufacturer	Samsung
Name	Galaxy A51
Codename	samsung-a51
Model	SM-A515
Released	2019
Type	handset
Hardware
Chipset	Samsung Exynos 9611
CPU	4x 2.3 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4x 1.7 GHz Cortex-A53
GPU	Mali-G72
Display	1080 x 2400 Super AMOLED
Storage	64GB / 128GB / 256GB
Memory	4GB / 8GB
Architecture	aarch64
Software
Original software	Android
Original version	13
postmarketOS
Category	testing
Pre-built images	no
postmarketOS kernel	4.14.113
Unixbench Whet/Dhry score	0.0

Contributors

manoedinata

Users owning this device

Manoedinata (Notes: Screen replaced.)
SeMi2309

How to enter recovery/Odin mode

Press and hold Bixby Key + Volume Down simultaneously while device is powered off, then plug USB cable in for Odin mode.
Press and hold Bixby Key + Volume Up + Power simultaneously while device is powered off for recovery mode.
Press and hold Volume Down + Power simultaneously for 7-8 seconds while device is powered on to force reboot. Once time is up immediately release the keys and press one of combinations above before boot logo appears, otherwise device will boot normally.

Installation

Use pmbootstrap to build your own installation image. The device configuration will also build firmware package, which contains required proprietary blobs for Wi-Fi.

Heimdall installation is untested. Use Installation_from_recovery_mode instead.

Particularly for this device, ADB Sideloading through TWRP may cause the installation process to hang after finishing the installation. Install postmarketOS with TWRP's Install GUI instead.

Known Working

Touchscreen
Display (with Samsung's DECON driver)
Framebuffer (additionally with msm-fb-refresher to refresh the screen)
Charging & battery status
Volume (tested on XFCE)
Screen brightness changing (partially)
Wi-Fi (partially, with firmware package)

Notes

USB Networking

The device isn't detected on the computer while plugged in through USB cable. dmesg on host shows nothing related to new device being connected. While similar device like Samsung Galaxy Note 9 (Exynos) (samsung-crownlte) and Samsung Galaxy S8 (samsung-dreamlte) uses additional initramfs hook, that doesn't help at all - nothing in dmesg on PC.

USB Networking works without any additional setup by enabling CONFIG_USB_ETH (and additionally CONFIG_USB_ETH_RNDIS).

Wi-Fi

Although the required proprietary blobs are loaded and Wi-Fi did turn on, it can't connect to any available network. This assumption is based on attempt to connect to an AP through NetworkManager (on XFCE 4). Needs more investigation.

To enable Wi-Fi, these proprietary blobs are required to be loaded:

vendor/etc/wifi/mx
vendor/etc/wifi/mx140.bin
vendor/etc/wifi/mx140_wlan.hcf
vendor/etc/wifi/mx140_wlan_sw.hcf

These files are pulled and packaged already in firmware-samsung-a51 pmaports package.

Framebuffer

Some patches are required for framebuffer to fix some issues, e.g. swapped color, missing fb0 device, etc. The last one is required to boot framebuffer-based or text interfaces with CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE, or if you want to display kernel console to the screen, otherwise the kernel panics with null pointer dereference.