Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e Wi-Fi (gts4lvwifi)

From postmarketOS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e Wi-Fi (SM-T720)
File:Gts4lvwifi.jpg
Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e Wi-Fi
Manufacturer Samsung
Name Galaxy Tab S5e Wi-Fi (SM-T720)
Codename samsung-gts4lvwifi
Released 2019
Category testing
Pre-built images no
Original software Android
Original version 9
Extended version 10
Hardware
Chipset Qualcomm Snapdragon 670 (SDM670)
CPU Octa-core Kryo 360 (2 x 2.0 GHz & 6 x 1.7 GHz)
GPU Adreno 615
Display 267.2mm (10.5 inch) 1600x2560 (WQXGA) 287 PPI Super AMOLED
Storage 64/128 GB
Memory 4 GB
Architecture AArch64
This device is marked as not booting.
Features
USB Networking
Flashing
Touchscreen
Display
WiFi
FDE
Mainline
Battery
3D Acceleration
Audio
Bluetooth
Camera
GPS
Internal storage
USB OTG
NFC
Sensors
Accelerometer
Magnetometer
Ambient Light
Proximity
Hall Effect
Barometer
Power Sensor
Misc
Built-in DVB
Camera Flash
Keyboard
Touchpad
USB-A
HDMI/DP
Ir TX
Ir RX
Stylus
Memory Card
Haptics
Ethernet
FOSS bootloader


This is the Device page for the "Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e Wi-Fi" (model SM-T720; codename gts4lvwifi), which should not be confused with the similarly-named "Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e LTE" (models SM-T725, SM-T727; codename gts4lv).

Contributors

  • Mparker17

Maintainer(s)

Users owning this device


How to enter flash mode

(note that Samsung calls this "Download mode")

  1. Power off the device
  2. Plug in the device.
  3. Hold Power + Volume Up + Volume Down until the screen turns blue.
  4. Follow the instructions on screen (it will probably tell you to press Volume up to continue, i.e.: to flash mode)

You will need to use something like Odin, Heimdall, etc. to flash postmarketOS. See Manual flashing for more.

Installation

As of 2021-03-18, pmbootstrap flasher flash_rootfs does not work, as Heimdall v1.4.2 does not know how to talk to the device (it returns ERROR: Failed to send handshake!ERROR: Protocol initialisation failed!). On 2021-06-29, the patch to Heimdall at https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/Heimdall/pull/478 fixes the connection issue.

Odin 3.13.1 can successfully install Samsung's default firmware, TWRP, and LineageOS; but installing PostmarketOS with Odin (i.e.: after exporting the files with pmbootstrap export --odin) has not yet been attempted as of 2021-06-29.


Build notes

Overall, Mparker17 found this pretty straightforward using the Porting to a new device instructions.

For a host machine, Mparker17 used Ubuntu 20.10.

For pmbootstrap init, Mparker17 used:

Channel [edge]: edge
Vendor [samsung]: samsung
Device codename [gts4lvwifi]: gts4lvwifi
Username [user]: user
User interface [weston]: weston
Additional options: extra free space: 0 MB, boot partition size: 128 MB, parallel jobs: 9, ccache per arch: 5G, sudo timer: False
Change them? (y/n) [n]: n
Extra packages [none]: none
Choose default locale for installation (y/n) [C.UTF-8]: C.UTF-8
Device hostname (short form, e.g. 'foo') [samsung-gts4lvwifi]: samsung-gts4lvwifi
Would you like to copy your SSH public keys to the device? (y/n) [n]: n
Build outdated packages during 'pmbootstrap install'? (y/n) [y]: y

... and the boot.img from LineageOS' build for the device (specifically, lineage-17.1-20210222-nightly-gts4lvwifi-signed.zip)

When editing cache_git/pmaports/device/testing/linux-samsung-gts4lvwifi/APKBUILD, Mparker17 didn't have to add any patches; but did have to remove the following 4 patches:

 gcc7-give-up-on-ilog2-const-optimizations.patch
 gcc8-fix-put-user.patch
 gcc10-extern_YYLOC_global_declaration.patch
 kernel-use-the-gnu89-standard-explicitly.patch

For pmbootstrap kconfig, Mparker17 had to fix the following issues documented on the kconfig page:

WARNING: linux-samsung-gts4lvwifi/config-samsung-gts4lvwifi.aarch64: CONFIG_ANDROID_PARANOID_NETWORK should *not* be set. See <https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/kconfig#CONFIG_ANDROID_PARANOID_NETWORK> for details.
WARNING: linux-samsung-gts4lvwifi/config-samsung-gts4lvwifi.aarch64: CONFIG_DEVTMPFS should be set. See <https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/kconfig#CONFIG_DEVTMPFS> for details.
WARNING: linux-samsung-gts4lvwifi/config-samsung-gts4lvwifi.aarch64: CONFIG_SYSVIPC should be set. See <https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/kconfig#CONFIG_SYSVIPC> for details.
WARNING: linux-samsung-gts4lvwifi/config-samsung-gts4lvwifi.aarch64: CONFIG_VT should be set. See <https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/kconfig#CONFIG_VT> for details.

... after fixing those, the kernel appeared to build successfully.

Mparker17 has not had a chance to try this out on the device yet.

Device notes

Some of the gts4lvwifi devices originally shipped with Android 9. LineageOS worked on those devices until sometime in 2020-Q4; after that LineageOS stopped upgrading. The solution for this was to install Samsung's stock firmware for Android 10, and re-flash LineageOS - after that it continued working. Mparker17 recalls this had something to do with Android 10 device drivers, and speculates it might have something to do with LineageOS's kernel fork or device configuration (which we use, see #Build notes above), and therefore, similar issues might happen with postmarketOS as well. However, Mparker17 doesn't know how to restore the original Android 9 firmware to verify this. So Mparker17's advice is, make sure you've upgraded to the latest official Android 10 firmware before trying to install PostmarketOS.

See also