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Sony Xperia E Dual (sony-nanhu)

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Sony Xperia E Dual
Sony Xperia E Dual
Sony Xperia E Dual
Manufacturer Sony
Name Xperia E Dual
Codename sony-nanhu
Released 2013
Hardware
Chipset Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 (MSM7227A)
CPU 1.0 GHz Cortex-A5
GPU Adreno 200
Display 320x480 IPS
Storage 4 GB
Memory 512 MB
Architecture armv7
Software
Original software
The software and version the device was shipped with.
Android 4.0.4 (Linux 3.0.1)
Extended version
The most recent supported version from the manufacturer.
Android
Mainline
Instead of a Linux kernel fork, it is possible to run (Close to) Mainline.
no

Contributors

  • Nicknack

What works

  • Compiling the kernel

What does not work

  • Flashing, there are problems with Sony's boot image format

The built kernel boots with a black screen and no further sign of acitivity. Fastboot flashes without errors but flash offsets are probably wrong. Only known working kernels have a different ELF file format.

Boot image format

There is one tool avaiable for unpacking Sony's ELF boot format into the normal ANDROID format:
libbootimg

Sadly, even unpacking and repacking a working prebuilt kernel doesn't seem to work.

I had more luck with mkelf.py script from Sony. You can loosely follow the tutorial here. This time unpacking a working kernel elf image and repacking it with mkefl.py worked. Needed to change only a few bits with vbindiff. Now we only need to find a working set of offsets and image parts to do the same with a custom kernel!

Here are some links describing the problem with Sony's boot format:

Next possible steps

  • Try booting pmOS with a prebuilt kernel.
  • Try repacking built kernel into ELF format
  • UART debugging?

Links