Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Value Edition (samsung-serranove)

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Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Value Edition
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Value Edition
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Value Edition
Manufacturer Samsung
Name Galaxy S4 Mini Value Edition
Codename samsung-serranove
Released 2015
Category community
Pre-built images yes
Original software Android
Original version 4.4.4
postmarketOS kernel Mainline
Hardware
Chipset Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 (MSM8916)
CPU 4x 1.2 GHz Cortex-A53
GPU Adreno 306
Display 4.3 inch 16:9, 540 x 960 AMOLED
Storage 8 GB
Memory 1.5 GB
Architecture ARMv7
Type handset
Unixbench Whet/Dhry score 886.7
Features
USB Networking
Works
Flashing
Works
Touchscreen
Works
Display
Partial
WiFi
Works
FDE
Works
Mainline
Works
Battery
Works
3D Acceleration
Partial
Audio
Works
Bluetooth
Works
Camera
Broken
GPS
Works
Mobile data
Works
Internal storage
Works
SMS
Works
Calls
Works
Sensors
Ambient Light
Broken
Proximity
Broken
Hall Effect
Broken
Misc
Camera Flash
Broken
Memory Card
Works
FOSS bootloader
Works
This device is based on the Snapdragon 410.
See the SoC page for common tips, guides and troubleshooting steps
Note Note: Even though MSM8916 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.


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)
  • Minecrell (Notes: GT-I9195I)
  • TryzenAlpensky (Notes: GT-I9195)


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.

  1. Download lk2nd-msm8916.img from Releases page on Github.
  2. Boot your phone to bootloader (Odin/Download) mode by holding Volume Down and Home while powering up.
  3. Follow lk2nd instructions to install lk2nd. Basically flash it to the boot partition (heimdall flash --BOOT lk2nd-msm8916.img
  4. Follow Qualcomm_Snapdragon_410/412_(MSM8916)#Installation to install postmarketOS.
Note Note: Enter lk2nd fastboot mode by pressing only Volume Down + Power (without Home). Pressing Home additionally will bring you to the Samsung Download mode.


Touch keys

For configuration of the touch keys, see Tm2-touchkey.

Display brightness

The brightness of the display can't be adjusted, this is not available yet.

Flash LED

Currently WIP. It can be controlled with SG Micro SGM3140 charge pump LED driver[1].

Suspend

Suspend is not yet fully implemented. It's recommended to disable suspend. See Qualcomm_Snapdragon_410/412_(MSM8916)#Suspend.

Display sleep issue in X11

Note The following issue was solved in postmarketOS "edge" channel when upgrading kernel "linux-postmarketos-qcom-msm8916" to version 6.5.2-r0. In the postmarketOS "stable" channel v23.06 this issue still persists as it uses kernel "linux-postmarketos-qcom-msm8916" version 6.3-r0.


This device is known to have this common issue where in X11 user interfaces like Xfce4 and MATE, when the screen blacks out after a while of inactivity it can't be woken up anymore. As a workaround, set display sleeping time to "never" in the power management settings. To solve this issue properly, work on the Qualcomm DRM Driver is needed. See the github issue on the our msm8916 kernel fork to learn more.

Mirrored screen on Plasma Mobile and GNOME mobile

On samsung-serranove the display natively shows everything in flipped/mirrored way. To compensate this, the cmdline in /etc/deviceinfo contains video=540x960,reflect_x. In Plasma Mobile the screen handling is done by KScreen. As KScreen doesn't support flipping/reflecting, everything is shown mirrored. There is currently no solution, work on the panel driver would be needed, see pmaports#1340.

As it turned out, also GNOME mobile is affected by this. While Phosh and GNOME use "mutter" as a Wayland compositor, GNOME mobile uses "mutter-mobile", which is in an experimental state and currently not capable to flip the screen.

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.

Official Support Checklist

1. Fix pmaports#1340 (Breaks gnome, gnome-mobile and plasma-mobile usability)
2. 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)

Other 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 architecture

References