Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite (samsung-gta7litewifi)

Features
Flashing	Works
USB Networking	Works
Internal storage	Works
SD card
Battery	Broken
Screen	Partial
Touchscreen	Broken
Multimedia
3D Acceleration	Broken
Audio	Broken
Camera	Broken
Camera Flash	Broken
Connectivity
WiFi	Broken
Bluetooth	Broken
Ethernet	Works
GPS	Broken
Miscellaneous
FDE	Works
USB OTG	Works
Sensors
Accelerometer	Broken
Magnetometer
Ambient Light	Broken
Proximity
Hall Effect
Haptics
Barometer
Power Sensor	Broken

Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite
	; The postmarketOS "Loading..." screen on a Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite
Manufacturer	Samsung
Name	Galaxy Tab A7 Lite
Codename	samsung-gta7litewifi
Released	2021
Type	tablet
Hardware
Chipset	MediaTek Helio P22T (MT8768)
CPU	ARM Cortex A53 MPCore
GPU	PowerVR GE8320
Display	800x1340 TFT LCD
Storage	32GB or 64GB, depending on the specific model
Memory	2GB, 3GB, or 4GB, depending on the specific model
Architecture	aarch64
Software
Original software	Android (One UI)
Original version	11
Extended version	14
FOSS bootloader	no
postmarketOS
Category	testing
Pre-built images	no
Mainline	no
postmarketOS kernel	4.19.191
Unixbench Whet/Dhry score	0.0

WARNING: Make sure that you are prepared to lose functionality before installing postmarketOS. Samsung Knox will blow an efuse when the OS is modified that will permanently disable Knox-only features like Samsung Pay, and you will NEVER be able to use those features again.

WARNING: Make sure to create a backup of the internal storage on your device before proceeding!

While the kernel compiles and flashing is available, this device is in an extremely early state of development. Here Be Dragons

Contributors

hexaheximal

Users owning this device

Hexaheximal (Notes: maintaining the postmarketOS port, 3GB RAM 32GB eMMC model)
Zillion (Notes: T220, Currently running OneUi for kernel development)

Status

This postmarketOS port is incredibly buggy, but does boot.

The only known working desktop environment option is i3, but the touchscreen does not work. XFCE just causes a crash-reboot.

Unlocking the bootloader

At least at first, the Android settings app does not allow you to enable bootloader unlocking. (On some devices it requires that it can connect to Samsung's servers first, but I would not recommend ever connecting it to the internet on stock Android)

However, it can be done with mtkclient:

$ mtk e metadata,userdata,md_udc
$ mtk da seccfg unlock

If it worked you should see a warning like this:

Do not panic! Your device is not broken!

If you *don't* see that warning, then it didn't work.

You can safely skip the warning, although on stock Android it might fail to boot in which case you will need to choose the factory reset option to clear userdata etc. again.

Installation

Install pmbootstrap and then run the following commands:

$ pmbootstrap init
$ pmbootstrap install
$ pmbootstrap flasher flash_kernel
$ pmbootstrap flasher flash_rootfs

Reading logs

Before reading the logs, make sure to install mtkclient and then erase the expdb partition so the existing boot logs don't get mixed in and get confusing:

$ mtk e expdb

Once you have done that, boot the device. As soon as it powers off during a bootloop (and if it doesn't, hold down Power + Volume Down for ~10 seconds), run these commands:

$ mtk r expdb /tmp/expdb.bin
$ mtk reset # turns the device off, optional
$ cat /tmp/expdb.bin

Please note that the kernel part of the logs is quite a mess - it does not use proper newlines and instead uses what seems to be null bytes.

Downstream kernel status

The downstream kernel is surprisingly capable, but still lacking in many ways. For example, audio is currently broken and the touchscreen does not fire any events. However, if you use a USB-C OTG dock to connect it to a keyboard & mouse, it works perfectly fine. Ethernet works fine if you do it that way too.

Mainline kernel status

The MT6765 close-to-mainline kernel does not boot due to the android bootloader refusing to boot with a dummy dtbo.