Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Value Edition (samsung-serranove)
Also known as the Galaxy S4 Mini Plus, this little phone was available in Europe and has a very similar design to the Galaxy S4 Mini variants. The display and back enclosure for all 2013 models are incompatible with this device.
It recieved no software updates since release, and a curse to run ARMv7 only.
This is peak Samsung. Be aware of that.
This page is about the dedicated port of this device. There is also an optional generic port available for this device - see Generic MSM8909 (qcom-msm8909). |
![]() Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Value Edition | |
Manufacturer | Samsung |
---|---|
Name | Galaxy S4 Mini Value Edition |
Codename | samsung-serranove |
Model | GT-I9192I, GT-I9195I |
Released | 2015 |
Type | handset |
Hardware | |
Chipset | Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 (MSM8916) |
CPU | 4x 1.2 GHz Cortex-A53 |
GPU | 400 MHz Adreno 306 |
Display | 4.3 inch 16:9, 540x960 AMOLED |
Storage | 8 GB EMMC 4.5 |
Memory | 1.5 GB 533 MHz LPDDR3 single-channel |
Architecture | armv7 |
Software | |
Original software The software and version the device was shipped with. |
Android 4.4.4 |
Extended version The most recent supported version from the manufacturer. |
Android 4.4.4 |
Optional software | Android (LineageOS) (Unofficial) |
FOSS bootloader | yes |
postmarketOS | |
Category | community |
Pre-built images Whether pre-built images are available from the postmarketOS Installation page. |
no |
Mainline Instead of a Linux kernel fork, it is possible to run (Close to) Mainline. |
yes |
pmOS kernel The kernel version that runs on the device's port. |
Mainline |
Unixbench score Unixbench Whetstone/Dhrystone score. See Unixbench. |
886.7 |
Optional Generic Port | Generic MSM8909 (qcom-msm8909) |
Device package |
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Kernel package |
![]() |
Firmware package |
![]() |
Flashing Whether it is possible to flash the device with pmbootstrap flasher . |
Works
|
---|---|
USB Networking After connecting the device with USB to your PC, you can connect to it via telnet (initramfs) or SSH (booted system). |
Works
|
Internal storage eMMC, SD cards, UFS... |
Works
|
SD card Also includes other external storage cards. |
Works
|
Battery Whether charging and battery level reporting work. |
Works
|
Screen Whether the display works; ideally with sleep mode and brightness control. |
Works
|
Touchscreen |
Works
|
Multimedia | |
3D Acceleration |
Partial
|
Audio Audio playback, microphone, headset and buttons. |
Works
|
Camera |
Broken
|
Camera Flash |
Broken
|
IR TX |
Broken
|
Connectivity | |
WiFi |
Works
|
Bluetooth |
Works
|
GPS |
Works
|
NFC Near Field Communication |
Untested
|
Modem | |
Calls |
Works
|
SMS |
Works
|
Mobile data |
Partial
|
Miscellaneous | |
FDE Full disk encryption and unlocking with unl0kr. |
Works
|
USB OTG USB On-The-Go or USB-C Role switching. |
Works
|
Sensors | |
Accelerometer Handles automatic screen rotation in many interfaces. |
Works
|
Magnetometer Sensor to measure the Earth's magnetism |
Works
|
Ambient Light Measures the light level; used for automatic screen dimming in many interfaces. |
Broken
|
Proximity |
Broken
|
Hall Effect Measures magnetic fields; usually used as a flip cover sensor |
Works
|
Haptics |
Works
|
This device is based on the Snapdragon 410. See the SoC page for common tips, guides and troubleshooting steps |
Note: Even though MSM8916 SoC is capable of aarch64, the firmware of this device was never updated with aarch64 support. Therefore, this device can only boot mainline on armv7 at the moment. See #Development for fun. |
Contributors
Users owning this device
- Bastindo (Notes: White GT-i9195I, works, good condition)
- Jakko
- Kreyren (Notes: Mint condition including the original box and flip case, projected to be used as a part of every day carry emergency kit and subject to NixOS contribution)
- Madhaxbro (Notes: GT-I9195I, runs lk2nd + TouchWiz Android + TWRP. Ready for testing. Weak battery. Limited UI choice for now, occasional mobile data issue. Classic design. Well supported.)
- Minecrell (Notes: GT-I9195I)
- TryzenAlpensky (Notes: GT-I9195)
Model variants
Galaxy S4 Mini Plus / Galaxy S4 Mini Value Edition (VE) "Serrano v2?"
- GT-I9192I (Global, 3G, Dual SIM) - Untested?
- GT-I9195I (Global, 4G, NFC) - Works.
- Any more? Needs more research.
Note: It may not be easy to obtain a 3G variant. It should exist. Also, 3G is getting dropped in some countries. |
Galaxy S4 Mini (Duos) (LTE)
- Any other GT-I959xx. - Incompatible!
- Also some China and US variants.
See #Similar devices for more details.
Note: Some parts appear to be the same for this device. The SoC is different. Needs investigation. |
Boot modes
Fastboot (lk2nd menu) - hold $ fastboot reboot bootloader
on a connected USB host, or (also lk2nd) - select it on the bootloader menu by pressing or three times, then confirm using
Recovery (using lk2nd) - hold
during boot, or - enter Fastboot mode and select it on the bootloader menu by pressing twice, confirm usingRecovery (using Samsung bootloader) - hold Home+Volume Up+Power, or (with USB debugging enabled) - execute $ adb reboot recovery
on a connected USB host
DFU (Odin/Download) mode - hold Home+Volume Down+Power, or (with USB debugging enabled) - execute $ adb reboot download
on a connected USB host
Installation
lk2nd is a secondary bootloader that provides a standard fastboot interface, which can be used to boot postmarketOS without Android boot
flashed or pmbootstrap flasher flash_kernel
.
- Download lk2nd-msm8916.img from Releases page on Github.
- Boot your phone to bootloader (Odin/Download) mode by holding and while powering up.
- Follow lk2nd instructions to install lk2nd. Basically flash it to the boot partition (
heimdall flash --BOOT lk2nd-msm8916.img
) - Follow Qualcomm_Snapdragon_410/412_(MSM8916)#Installation to install postmarketOS.
Note: Enter lk2nd fastboot mode by pressing only | + (without ). Pressing additionally will bring you to the Samsung Download mode.
Audio
Only PulseAudio is working. Automatic device switching is unreliable. See Systemd/audio for details.
Audio input devices
- Primary microphone (Mic1) - Works.
- Secondary microphoe (Mic2) -Works.
Audio output devices
- Earpiece playback - Works.
- Speaker playback - Works.
WARNING: The speakers are rather loud on 100% volume and may produce distorted sound that may damage your speakers after long use. Please make sure to use reasonable volumes - your ears and your speaker will thank you! |
Bluetooth Audio
Works. Has no known? issues.
DSP
See Qualcomm_Snapdragon_410/412 (MSM8916)#Audio.
Display
Display variants
- Needs more research.
At least one common aftermarket display has been verified to work, using the packaged driver. This cannot be guaranteed for all replacement parts that appear to work.
Brightness
Works.
WARNING: Beware "burn in" when using an (AM)OLED display on high brightness! Permanent discoloration can occur after consistent long use. Especially on some low quality OLEDs. |
Touch keys
Works. See Tm2-touchkey.
Battery
Battery variants
- BI919BBE (I9195I, NFC) - 2015? No manufacture date printed on label.
- B500BE (I9195x, NFC) - 2014 More dates?
- Probably more.
Charger
Works.
Fuelguage
Works.
WARNING: Be careful with degraded batteries. They may cause issues. Also note that some UIs will not power the device off automatically on low charge. |
Camera
Currently unsupported. You are welcome to try it!
The camera subsystem requires a lot of work. Needs more investigation. |
Image sensors
- Needs more research.
ISP
Currently unsupported. See Qualcomm Snapdragon 410/412 (MSM8916)#Camera.
Flash LED
Currently WIP. It can be controlled with SG Micro SGM3140 charge pump LED driver[1].
Note: Driver seems to be abandoned as of 2025. Needs to be completed. |
Modem
Calls
Calls are working. You may need to switch the audio device manually when using PulseAudio. Also see #Packages.
Note: USSD output currently has no UI in GNOME Calls. Codes get passed to the modem and they do work. |
SMS
SMS is working. Text messages can be recieved and listed twice. (ModemManager) This is purely visual and can be ignored. Needs more research.
This could be a firmware safety feature. It may be worth integrating for verification. |
MMS
Requires APN credentials to use. Untested?
Mobile data
Requires APN credentials to use. Mobile data is currently unreliable. It drops randomly and will require a reboot to work again. Also, disabling and reenabling the cellular connection after noticing, will require you to both reboot and unlock your SIM, twice. Needs investigation. Observed using Linux 6.12.1-msm8916 on I9195I with 4G LTE (also EU 5G) SIM. Can become annoying. Especially when it happens twice in a row! Phosh does warn you after a minute.
Note: This could also be related to use of weak batteries. It seems to happen more frequently below 50% charge. Could also be caused by changing to a non existent 3G network while active. Or, possibly by code pieces meant for 3G devices. Needs more testing. |
Wireless connectivity
Bluetooth
Works. Has no known? issues.
FM Radio
Currently unsupported. See #Notes
GPS
Works. Needs more testing.
IR transmitter
Currently unsupported. See Infrared. Needs investigation.
NFC
NFC on I9195I remains untested, since neard is not packaged in armv7 at the moment. Everything seems to be in the sysfs. Needs a battery for I9195, I257M, or I9195I to work.
Note: GT-I9192I could still include the required controls. Needs investigation. |
WiFi
Works. 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks are supported.
CPU
Suspend
Suspend is not yet fully implemented. It's recommended to disable suspend. This should be done automatically for most UIs. See Qualcomm_Snapdragon_410 (MSM8916)#Suspend for instructions.
Note: Has only been veriefied to work on Phosh. Should work on most. |
Clock speeds
Like other MSM8916 devices, the highest CPU clock speed is 998MHz for now. Setting the governor to performance can improve usability. To make this permanent, add cpufreq.default_governor=performance
to the cmdline in /etc/deviceinfo and regenerate the initramfs. See #Useful software, Qualcomm Snapdragon 410/412 (MSM8916)#Troubleshooting.
GPU
Video
Hardware accelerated Video playback is almost unusable. Even at the device's native resolution. Needs investigation. Caused by driver or battery?
Hardware Acceleration in Firefox
As of 04.01.2024 it was observed on phosh that firefox-esr has a broken UI on launch, this has been linked to the hardware acceleration currently tracked on #2332!pmaports and including a hotfix and on https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/10374.
OpenGL ES 3.0 bugs
In v25.06, GNOME and Plasma are affected by the same glitches as Firefox.
- GNOME is currently unusable.
- Phosh appears to work fine.
- Plasma Mobile flickers like crazy.
- SXMO is hard to crash. Untested.
Note that edge seems to have this fixed already. Needs more testing. Additonal software can be affected as well. See Qualcomm Snapdragon 410/412 (MSM8916)#GPU.
Notes
Not working
- Proximity/Light sensor is not working. Needs a driver. And more research.
- Camera: Needs more research. Unclear if it could work, the ISP seems to work partially.
- Infrared transmitter: Driver should be added if missing. Needs investigation.
- Broken RTC?
hwclock -w
fails with /dev/rtc0 missing. Needs investigation. Also see Shutdown-clear-rtc-wakealarm. - FM Radio: Appears to be unsupported. Needs more research.
Development
- Some components cannot be fixed, due to lack of firmware source code and signing keys from Samsung. Including the limitation to use armv7 instead of aarch64 (ARMv8) architecture. Possible exploit?
- The panel for I9195 connects and the display image does work, the touchscreen is possibly only missing a driver. See #Similar devices for a list of possible configurations. Some of the drivers for serranolte could be added to make different panels work on serranove. Needs extensive testing. And more research.
Official Support Checklist
- Fix pmaports#2332 (To be decided, if it turns out to be a mesa bug then it would have to be fixed otherwise minor issue)
- Scaling in
/etc/phosh/phoc.ini
is unnecessary at this point. It mostly fights with the new options in gnome-settings. - Investigate the modem issue mentioned above. Possible regression. Needs more testing. See #Mobile data.
- Complete the missing flash LED driver.
- Should we change the name for this board to Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Plus (samsung-serranove)? This one is simpler and fits well.
Hardware details (hwtest
) for GT-I9195I
Category | Model | Path | Status | Value |
---|---|---|---|---|
framebuffer | msmdrmfb | /sys/class/graphics/fb0 | Working | |
drm | /sys/class/drm/card0-DSI-1 | Working | 540x960 | |
magnetometer | yas537 | /sys/bus/iio/devices/iio:device1 | Working | -0.18, -0.53, -0.34 gauss |
accelerometer | lsm6ds3_accel | /sys/bus/iio/devices/iio:device3 | Working | -3.49, -7,78, 4.89 g |
gyroscope | lsm6ds3_gyro | /sys/bus/iio/devices/iio:device2 | Working | -0.08, 0.1, -0.17 rad/s |
temperature | yas537 | /sys/bus/iio/devices/iio:device1 | Working | 28.1 deg C |
vibrator | pm8xxx_vib_ffmemless | /dev/input/event6 | Working | |
input | pm8941_pwrkey | /dev/input/event0 | Working | |
input | pm8941_resin | /dev/input/event1 | Working | |
input | GPIO Buttons | /dev/input/event2 | Working | |
input | GPIO Hall Effect Sensor | /dev/input/event3 | Working | |
input | Zinitix Capacitive TouchScreen | /dev/input/event4 | Working | |
input | tm2-touchkey | /dev/input/event5 | Working | |
input | msm8916 Headset Jack | /dev/input/event7 | Working |
Browser ratings
Firefox
Rating: Works. Glitches make it difficult to use.
- Performs well enough in terms of speed.
- Very uncomfortable settings page, even with mobile-config-firefox installed.
- Still has the graphics issue.
Chromium
Rating: Works. Somehow slick and clunky.
- Best performance, runs great on old SoCs.
- No phone UI, controls are tiny.
- Actually has good touch navigation.
- Needs the scaling set below 150%. Or else!
- Submenus will extend outside the screen. Unless you like ant mode.
- Two windows at once may crash your entire desktop. Understandable.
- Parts of the GTK UI can become transparent. It remains usable, menus can be difficult to read.
Epiphany (GNOME Web)
Rating: Works. (Someone please unf*** WebKit!)
- Full mobile UI, swipe navigation and proper scaling, clean and simple to use.
- Best WebApp integration of any browser. (I mean any platform!)
- As of v25.06, it has a horrible delay when scrolling. (Last year it was fast, on stericsson!)
- Crashes sometimes. (Persistent graphics/rendering issue? It also happens with the free NVIDIA driver on PC, possibly related to some OpenGL ES 3.0 feature. I've not looked into this, could it be the same Mesa bug?)
- Experimental support for Firefox addons can be enabled in dconf settings.
Angelfish
Rating: It does work, if you are not epileptic.
- Runs fast, no complaints there.
- The UI is desiged for mobile and works well.
- Plasma does not like to exist.
Useful software
Bootloader builds
- Latest official lk2nd build Required to boot mainline. Can also boot Android.
Recovery builds
- Latest unofficial 32-bit TWRP build Use this version if you want a booting device.
- Latest official 64-bit TWRP build It does exist. Be careful when trying this version!
Android builds
- Latest unofficial build of LineageOS Maintained by mernurisha on XDA.
Packages
postmarketos-base-ui-audio-pulseaudio Recommended way to set up Audio.
postmarketos-base-ui-audio-pipewire This can cause trouble. Use the former instead. See #Audio. Remove using apk, then add.
pulseaudio Required if you want Audio.
pipewire Lists only a dummy output.
cpufrequtils Use this to change the CPU governor manually. See #Clock speeds.
heimdall Tool for dealing with Samsung's Odin protocol. Used to install firmware.
Device support
linux-postmarketos-qcom-msm8916 Mainline kernel fork. Well supported. DT.
device-samsung-serranove Deviceinfo.
device-samsung-serranove-phosh Custom scaling for Phosh. Optional. Unnecessary since v25.06. Deprecate?
firmware-samsung-serranove Firmware.
device-samsung-serranove-nonfree-firmware Additional non-free frimware. Required for Modem/WiFi/BT/GPU. Technically optional.
firmware-samsung-serranove-wcnss-nv
Links
Source code
Instructions
- Samsung Galaxy A5 2015 (samsung-a5)/Custom Partitioning The same partitions are safe to remove on serranove. Save the partition sizes before trying this! You may get into trouble. Should apply to all "Samsung Galaxy" MSM8916 devices.
Specifications
Similar devices
- Samsung Galaxy A3 2015 (samsung-a3) Same SoC. Well supported.
- Samsung Galaxy A5 2015 (samsung-a5) Same SoC. Well supported.
- Samsung Galaxy A7 2015 (samsung-a7) Same SoC. Well supported.
- Samsung Galaxy E5 (samsung-e5) Same SoC. Not packaged yet.
- Samsung Galaxy E7 (samsung-e7) Same SoC. Well supported.
- Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini LTE (samsung-serranolte) Different SoC. Similar design. Can use the battery and cover of this device. Possibly other parts as well.
References