Volla Phone (volla-yggdrasil)

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

Volla Phone
	; Booted early mainline kernel v6.1-rc5 with Sxmo!
Manufacturer	Volla
Name	Phone
Codename	volla-yggdrasil
Released	2020
Type	handset
Hardware
Chipset	MediaTek Helio P23 (MT6763V)
CPU	Octa-core Cortex-A53 @ 2.0 GHz
GPU	ARM Mali-G71 MP2 (Bifrost, v6) @ 770 MHz, 2 cores
Display	1080x2340 6,3"
Storage	64 GB eMMC
Memory	4 GB
Architecture	aarch64
Software
Original software	Android
Original version	9
Extended version	12
Optional software	Ubuntu Touch
FOSS bootloader	no
postmarketOS
Category	testing
Pre-built images	no
Mainline	yes
postmarketOS kernel	6.1_rc5
Unixbench Whet/Dhry score	4393.6

How to enter flash mode

Fastboot: Power on the device with both Power and Volume Up buttons held down. Then select Fastboot by pressing Volume Up and confirm with Volume Down.
Recovery: Do the same as for Fastboot, but select the Recovery option in the menu instead.
MediaTek Preloader: The preloader triggers automatically everytime the phone turns on or reboots.

Installation

Follow the usual flashing guide via pmbootstrap.

NOTE: fastboot booting is broken on this device, so e.g. pmbootstrap flasher boot won't work and as such kernels will always have to be flashed to the boot partition of the device.

Mainline kernel

There is some early mainline support being worked on for the MT6763 chipset; see the MediaTek Helio P23 SoC page and Volla Phone (volla-yggdrasil)/Hacking for more details.

Please note that as eMMC internal storage access isn't yet working you'll have to Netboot a postmarketOS rootfs over USB RNDIS!

As pmbootstrap flasher flash_dtbo is a pre-requisite to booting mainline please backup your existing dtbo partition contents to be able to boot downstream kernels/recovery images again with e.g. mtk r dtbo dtbo-backup.img using mtkclient!

NOTE: Currently mainline ONLY boots with the (Android 9) firmware & bootloader that Ubuntu Touch also uses, so flash that beforehand through the UBports installer! Needs investigation what changes are required to boot with Android 10 bootloader...

Patches of interest

Himax HX83112b touchscreen driver (also used on the Fairphone 3 (fairphone-fp3)!): https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-input/cover/20221107105604.26541-1-job@noorman.info/, will in v6.2-rc1 :)

Partition layout

volla-yggdrasil:~# fdisk -l -o Device,Start,End,Sectors,Size,Name /dev/mmcblk0

Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 58.24 GiB, 62537072640 bytes, 122142720 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Device              Start       End   Sectors  Size Name
/dev/mmcblk0p1         64      6207      6144    3M proinfo
/dev/mmcblk0p2       6208      8255      2048    1M boot_para
/dev/mmcblk0p3       8256     73791     65536   32M recovery
/dev/mmcblk0p4      73792     74815      1024  512K para
/dev/mmcblk0p5      74816    115775     40960   20M expdb
/dev/mmcblk0p6     115776    117823      2048    1M frp
/dev/mmcblk0p7     117824    183359     65536   32M nvcfg
/dev/mmcblk0p8     183360    314431    131072   64M nvdata
/dev/mmcblk0p9     314432    379967     65536   32M metadata
/dev/mmcblk0p10    379968    396351     16384    8M protect1
/dev/mmcblk0p11    396352    425983     29632 14.5M protect2
/dev/mmcblk0p12    425984    442367     16384    8M seccfg
/dev/mmcblk0p13    442368    540671     98304   48M persist
/dev/mmcblk0p14    540672    544767      4096    2M sec1
/dev/mmcblk0p15    544768    675839    131072   64M md1img
/dev/mmcblk0p16    675840    708607     32768   16M md1dsp
/dev/mmcblk0p17    708608    710655      2048    1M spmfw
/dev/mmcblk0p18    710656    712703      2048    1M sspm_1
/dev/mmcblk0p19    712704    714751      2048    1M sspm_2
/dev/mmcblk0p20    714752    747519     32768   16M gz1
/dev/mmcblk0p21    747520    780287     32768   16M gz2
/dev/mmcblk0p22    780288    911359    131072   64M nvram
/dev/mmcblk0p23    911360    913407      2048    1M lk
/dev/mmcblk0p24    913408    915455      2048    1M lk2
/dev/mmcblk0p25    915456    980991     65536   32M boot
/dev/mmcblk0p26    980992    997375     16384    8M logo
/dev/mmcblk0p27    997376   1013759     16384    8M dtbo
/dev/mmcblk0p28   1013760   1023999     10240    5M tee1
/dev/mmcblk0p29   1024000   1048575     24576   12M tee2
/dev/mmcblk0p30   1048576   2686975   1638400  800M vendor
/dev/mmcblk0p31   2686976  10027007   7340032  3.5G system
/dev/mmcblk0p32  10027008  10911743    884736  432M cache
/dev/mmcblk0p33  10911744 122109918 111198175   53G userdata
/dev/mmcblk0p34 122109919 122142686     32768   16M flashinfo

Community Info

postmarketOS users that own the device

Comcloudway (Notes: running /e/OS)
Cvbnm90i
Danct12
Deathmist (Notes: Working on mainlining)
Eriki73 (Notes: Working on mainlining)

Maintainer(s)

No one currently; feel free to pick up the remains under the See also section!