Samsung Galaxy Ace i (samsung-cooperve)

From postmarketOS Wiki
Icon WARNING: This device is not recommended for future use with postmarketOS due to its armhf architecture. Alpine Linux (the distribution that postmarketOS extends) pmaports#599 has been considering dropping it.
The processor of the device may support the armv7 architecture. If so, you can modify the device package and change the architecture accordingly.
Samsung Galaxy Ace i
S5830i Black
S5830i Black
Manufacturer Samsung
Name Galaxy Ace i
Codename samsung-cooperve
Model GT-S5830i
Released 2011
Type handset
Hardware
Chipset Broadcom BCM21553
CPU ARM11 @ 832MHz
GPU VideoCore IV
Display 320 x 480
Storage 512 MB
Memory 362 MB
Architecture armhf
Software
Original software Android
Original version 2.3.6
postmarketOS
Category testing
Pre-built images no
Features
Flashing
Partial
USB Networking
Works
Internal storage
SD card
Battery
Works
Screen
Partial
Touchscreen
Partial
Multimedia
3D Acceleration
Audio
Broken
Camera
Partial
Camera Flash
Connectivity
WiFi
Works
Bluetooth
Partial
GPS
NFC
Modem
Calls
SMS
Mobile data
Miscellaneous
FDE
HDMI/DP
Sensors
Accelerometer
Magnetometer
Ambient Light
Proximity
Hall Effect
Haptics
Barometer


Contributors

  • takluyver
  • teddynight
  • Mabope

Users owning this device

Entering Recovery Mode

Press Power + Volume Up + Home to start the phone into recovery mode.

You can choose the items with Volume Up and Volume Down and enter with the Home button

Entering flash Mode

Press Power + Volume Up + Volume Down to start the phone into flash mode

Installation

  • The previous port from 2018 was outdated (using former APKBUILD format) so a new port was started. We did not achieve to flash the bootimg + intramfs on the device, even if this was stated as working in the previous port (see error in Heimdall below). Any information on how to perform this step is very welcomed. Also keep in mind that the information is not consistent : some information in this page may still reflect the status of the previous port (device booting, kernel flashing etc ...) whereas this section clearly states that we can not get pass the flashing step. If it is confirmed that this step does not work, someone should move this device to the "not booting" section and homogenize this page's content. - Mabope - December 2020

You need Pmbootstrap installed.

Building the kernel (working)

pmbootstrap init # select samsung-s5830i
pmbootstrap kconfig check
pmbootstrap checksum linux-samsung-s5830i
pmbootstrap build linux-samsung-s5830i
pmbootstrap checksum device-samsung-s5830i
pmbootstrap build device-samsung-s5830i

Flash the kernel to the phone (not working)

This phone is not compatible with fastboot. The kernel was not successfully booted yet, but here are the explored leads.

With heimdall

Heimdall (XDA Forum, gitlab) is the open-source alternative to Odin.

First, enter the flash mode and flash the kernel into the phone. Then, install rootfs to the sdcard. (As there is not enough space on the phone.) 

pmbootstrap install --sdcard=/dev/mmcblk0
pmbootstrap flasher flash_kernel

Problem: flashing the kernel fails at the step Setting up interface with error error [op_set_interface] setintf failed error -1 errno 110, you can refer to the 6 years old gitlab issue on heimdall.

Possible workaround: there is a workaround patching heimdall for bypassing libusb checks, more info in comments of github issue: https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/Heimdall/issues/340

With Odin

Odin is a proprietary software from Samsung to flash Samsung phone. A community forum started in May 2020, with an explanation of the interface.

Create an Odin-compatible file with the following commands. 

pmbootstrap install --sdcard=/dev/mmcblk0
pmbootstrap export --odin

Then run the exported file samsung-s5830i.tar.md5 in Odin using the BL section.

Problem: Odin fails with the following log 

<ID:0/005> KERNEL.bin.md5
<ID:0/005> FAIL!

It may come from bad values in the deviceinfo file.

With recovery

You can flash Clockworkmod Recovery (CWM, discontinued in 2016), which enables to flash a zip from sdcard. For S5830i there is only CWM 5.0.2.8 available (maybe others ?), which does not feature sideloading. So you have to export the zip file pmos-*.zip, copy it to the sdcard and install it in recovery mode.

To create the zip use 

pmboostrap install --android-recovery-zip
pmbootstrap export

The problem is the size of the android internal partitions. From start you have the following: 

$ df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
tmpfs                   144.6M     52.0K    144.6M   0% /dev
tmpfs                   144.6M         0    144.6M   0% /mnt/asec
tmpfs                   144.6M         0    144.6M   0% /mnt/obb
/dev/stl9               219.0M    151.2M     67.8M  69% /system
/dev/stl10               35.4M      4.0M     31.4M  11% /cache
df: /mnt/.lfs: Function not implemented
/dev/stl11              187.3M    130.5M     56.7M  70% /data

And the zip file is 158.9MB so it does not fit into the internal storage.

Note Possible solution: find a way to extend the storage or to export only the kernel to zip while the rootfs is on the sdcard (similarly to Odin and Heimdall method).

What works

What does not work

  • No way to flash the kernel on the phone yet

See Broadcom_chipsets

Additional info

Information about this phone is sparse, there is one place with somewhat complete data about that device:

http://specdevice.com/showspec.php?id=3b87-5692-0000-00000033c587

There are different kinds of BCM21553 (thunderbird, athena-ray, cooperve, ...), as seen in the list of configs, for this phone the kind is cooperve.

Discontinued port

On-going port

Possible base kernels

Kernels from CM11 are good candidates, corresponding to version 2.6.35. They are built with GCC6 (not tested with more recent GCC versions).

Possible candidates:

See also

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