Database Users

[Q] [Bootloader] Status of U-Boot

Hi !
It's quite a shame I can't post that question directly on the good thread, but well, it's how this forum is done.
So, I'd like to know what became of the u-boot bootloader that sp3dev did try some months ago:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=23004214&postcount=53
Is it part of the V3 bootloader ? Has it been abandoned ? Does it actually work ?
The goal would be to be able to boot a simple Linux kernel from USB, and from there to try various Linux "products": Mer/Nemo, PlasmaActive, etc. All of that, without losing the possibility to have a custom Android recovery + Android installed on eMMC.

Switch b/w Ubuntu / Android and Dual Boot

Hello,
Running i9250 on stock 4.2 android.
Want to try the Ubuntu stable build on it. I can see the Ubuntu Installation steps on Ubuntu website.
However just want to know what would be the way back to android. Would I be able to keep CWM recovery partition and restore an old nandroid backup. ?
Secondly is it possible to run Android and Ubuntu in a dual boot mode..
Thanks for your replies.

HyperEscape said:
Hello,
Running i9250 on stock 4.2 android.
Want to try the Ubuntu stable build on it. I can see the Ubuntu Installation steps on Ubuntu website.
However just want to know what would be the way back to android. Would I be able to keep CWM recovery partition and restore an old nandroid backup. ?
Secondly is it possible to run Android and Ubuntu in a dual boot mode..
Thanks for your replies.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
at least for 2012 Sony Xperias (S, Acro S and ION) there exists a dual boot tool by @letama, which can be found here and is verified to run the Ubuntu OS as one of the two roms (or both, whatever sense that should make...).
Of course this specific minikernel will not help you directly, but maybe it'll point you in the right direction to continue your search. Maybe you can find out, whether a similar tool can be made / exists for your device in the thread mentioned.

HyperEscape said:
Hello,
Running i9250 on stock 4.2 android.
Want to try the Ubuntu stable build on it. I can see the Ubuntu Installation steps on Ubuntu website.
However just want to know what would be the way back to android. Would I be able to keep CWM recovery partition and restore an old nandroid backup. ?
Secondly is it possible to run Android and Ubuntu in a dual boot mode..
Thanks for your replies.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I installed the stable version on my I9250. I'm not sure about the dual boot as this was not my daily driver.
From my experience after installing I could not go back to a CWM ot TWRP back up.
I had to do a reinstall a fresh 4.2.2 and then re-root.
I tried to restore back up from TWRP, but for some reason I had issues with a complete restore.
it was no biggie for me, since it was not my daily driver, but I made sure to back up the data I had on it just in case.
My experience.

Bricked Tegra Note 7

EVGA Tegra Note 7
4.3 jelly Bean
Used the Super Tool to flash drivers and unlock bootloader.
Installed TWRP Recovery
Rooted using SU
Everything is working great, at this point.
Failed to back anything up
Flashed Shaky's custom Kernal and I couldn't get past the tegra note 7 screen. - at this point I probably could have saved it but doing anything other than what happens next.
Flashed 4.4 stock Rom which has to have reset the Recovery and Debugging is now off.
Do not do what I did. Brick. Any ideas? I can still get into bootloader which is unlocked but my computer no longer recognizes it. Pretty much lost hope on this one. Surprise me if you feel inclined.

I've been trying to sideload via externalSD, the stock 4.3 ROM from the "Tegra Note Discoveries" thread. It actually gets halfway though installation then fails for reasons I can't begin to understand. Most likely because it's rooted and I'm flashing a stock rom. If anyone can find a way to flash the stock Kernel and 4.3 rom I would be grateful.

share_needles said:
I've been trying to sideload via externalSD, the stock 4.3 ROM from the "Tegra Note Discoveries" thread. It actually gets halfway though installation then fails for reasons I can't begin to understand. Most likely because it's rooted and I'm flashing a stock rom. If anyone can find a way to flash the stock Kernel and 4.3 rom I would be grateful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In the recovery environment , ..... you are inside the ram disk of, whatever recovery you are running and root status of your system ROM doesnt matter .
Since from the 1st post you have recovered it to the point where you can access the recovery, I think its just matter of getting the correct backup re-installed.
You can request someone with same Branding ( there are 6-7 avent, XOLO etc ) to upload their cwm backup ( minus data, cache ).
Lack of developer / geeky user community is what you get when companies lock their bootloader under disguise of Warranty n stuff.
I havnt been able to gather the courage to play with TN7 like i do with my Nexus7, nexus 4 and Xperia J . ( XJ has some great XDA community btw even after closed BL)

kapil.git said:
In the recovery environment , ..... you are inside the ram disk of, whatever recovery you are running and root status of your system ROM doesnt matter .
Since from the 1st post you have recovered it to the point where you can access the recovery, I think its just matter of getting the correct backup re-installed.
You can request someone with same Branding ( there are 6-7 avent, XOLO etc ) to upload their cwm backup ( minus data, cache ).
Lack of developer / geeky user community is what you get when companies lock their bootloader under disguise of Warranty n stuff.
I havnt been able to gather the courage to play with TN7 like i do with my Nexus7, nexus 4 and Xperia J . ( XJ has some great XDA community btw even after closed BL)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea I jumped in the deep end without doing enough research. I have rooted and installed custom ROMs on my android phone without issue but I've never messed around with kernals or had to dig myself out of a device stuck in boot-mode. Instead of learning about a device then modding it, I forced a situation where I modded now need to learn how to fix it.
As novice as I am, still working on getting the correct drivers installed to sideload a backup. My computer will not recognize the ADB device in the stock bootloader but when I boot into recovery it does recognize it so there is definitely a driver issue there.

By kapil.git
You can request someone with same Branding ( there are 6-7 avent, XOLO etc ) to upload their cwm backup ( minus data, cache ).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think more like a dozen brands of TN7.
You should at least tell your brand, would make it less mysterious.
Advent has a stock 4.3 install install via APX mode (although you seem to be only able to use it once, then it locks
the nvflash stuff).

I apologize I have the EVGA Tegra Note.

share_needles said:
I apologize I have the EVGA Tegra Note.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you are lucky ... this thread has many posts of the same branding EVGA..
Top posts & stickies also have a AIO post about recovering a unlocked BL device.. download and do it OP.

Hi Guys. Tablet is working fine now. I used multiple files from multiple sources to get this going. Here were the commands to get me back to stock. Obviously there was a lot of playing with commands etc that I cut out. I truly believe this device is unbrickable. I was just stuck in a bootloop.
in short, the issue was with the boot after a kernel flash. The TWRP recovery was flashed back to stock.
Got the drives from SDK download because I'm not slick enough to be able to do it myself.
In fastboot, make sure you have the fastboot file in the folder with your boot.img , recovery.img
fastboot boot boot.img ----got me out of the bootloop temporarily without flashing anything unnecessary
fastboot flash boot.img, flashed the boot.img from Vega Note 7 source files that are out there, I recommend every download those now.
fastboot boot TWRP_recover.img -----messing around be led me in a good direction
From there, I installed the below file from XDA User e8hffff
Forum post and links: forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2580287
Backupfile name: productionbl_signed_tn7_114gp_2923379__4.3.zip
I believe that was a full backup of a 4.3 Evga Tegra Note 7 stock. This really helped me out a lot.
Thanks everyone for the help. You can see by the very few command that got this device up and running I am a total noob but I'm figuring it out little by little.
If anyone is in a similar circumstance in the future send me a PM and I may be able to assist you.

Looking for a group of Ubuntu Touch devs to join

Hi,
I have some free time and would like to join a group of Ubuntu Touch devs. Is this a good place to ask or should I re-post on Canonical?

You can attempt to re-post on Canonical's forums, but the Ubuntu Touch Google+ Community is pretty active with both developers that work on Ubuntu Touch and consumers. I know I've seen Canonical's Michael Hall post in there as well as a couple others at some points.

https://ubports.com
This might be the place for you. They are asking for devs.
Good luck. I hope you start with the shamu (Nexus 6)

kidhudi said:
https://ubports.com
This might be the place for you. They are asking for devs.
Good luck. I hope you start with the shamu (Nexus 6)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a Nexus 5 and I want to dual boot Ubuntu with Android. There are 2 instructions on ubports.com but the one using MultiROM(to dual boot) has no link! I followed other guides with MultiROM but Ubuntu won't boot. Android's still working fine, though.

Matrixians 14 said:
I have a Nexus 5 and I want to dual boot Ubuntu with Android. There are 2 instructions on ubports.com but the one using MultiROM(to dual boot) has no link! I followed other guides with MultiROM but Ubuntu won't boot. Android's still working fine, though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You will likely need to look into the official Ubuntu Dualboot solution and adapt that for the hammerhead. Ubports ROMs are intended to be installed via the ubuntu-device-flash commands only and are likely not supported under MultiROM easily.
That said, if you have an UBports system image installed via MultiROM, and it appears via multirom, you can always check /proc/last_kmsg after a failed Ubuntu Boot (while in multirom's boot manager) to see where the boot went bad, you could also open the ROM under MultiROM's recovery and hit Patch init and see if that helps.
Other than that, I'm afraid the only supported installation method for the community ports are the instructions listed on the page. You may also have some luck looking for KDE Plasma Mobile tutorials (which use a standard Ubuntu Touch image for their basic installation, not sure if they do the same thing as ubuntu-device-flash though).
One last thought, have you tried MultiROM manager? It may have images for your system (I recommend going no further than rc-proposed, devel does not run many apps from the Store and is based off Xenial, sp there's some library incompatibilities with apps installed from the Ubuntu Store. Devel branches are also not guaranteed to boot, however rc-proposed and stable should at least boot for you unless their builds are fundamentally broken, in which case, you should bring it up with the maintainer)

Thanks, but now Ubuntu Touch worked. I installed the dual boot app and added the channels for hammerhead. But now Everytime I boot into Ubuntu it removes my custom recovery. Instead of booting into the recovery, it boots into Ubuntu Touch, and it only happens if I reboot into Ubuntu Touch, so I basically have to reinstall recovery after using Ubuntu, which is very inconvenient.

Matrixians 14 said:
Thanks, but now Ubuntu Touch worked. I installed the dual boot app and added the channels for hammerhead. But now Everytime I boot into Ubuntu it removes my custom recovery. Instead of booting into the recovery, it boots into Ubuntu Touch, and it only happens if I reboot into Ubuntu Touch, so I basically have to reinstall recovery after using Ubuntu, which is very inconvenient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I replied on the G+ page too, but figured I'd post here as well so others may benefit if I'm right here. -SNIP-
Edit: I just realized how the dualboot utility works.. It is likely the application overwriting your recovery image. If you want to keep MultiROM, I'm afraid you'll need to reinstall Ubuntu with MultiROM manager as the dualboot utility writes Ubuntu's boot.img to the recovery partition to boot Ubuntu.

Yeah, thanks, but it only works with the dual boot utility. I have my issues with MultiROM if you've read the first post on G+. But now I restored my system to a previous state when there was no dual boot utility so I don't want Ubuntu Touch anymore. Linux Deploy would do the trick, but now even IT has problems installing trusty. After the installation, I reconfigured it from the Linux Deploy menu and when I start it, it failed to start the VNC server and I don't know why. Is it the architecture of Trusty that i chose?

I did see your post, my apologies that MultiROM isn't booting for you, I ran into this weird issue myself on the Flo, normally it can be solved from trying other revision numbers in either the stable or rc-proposed channel. Sadly, through the Dualboot installer, there's no way around this (bar writing an /etc/init.d script for Android that automatically flashes the TWRP image when Android boots back up)
It may very well be the architecture of trusty. I would recommend trying vivid, saucy, wily or xenial. (any of the more recent versions, trusty is rather old at this point and you would've been getting Vivid [15.04] via Ubuntu Touch)
That said, you'll get much more performance using XServer XSDL from the Play Store and setting Linux Deploy to use it (X Server -> Use XServer XSDL), it also allows you to use any X application remotely or locally (on a remote machine you'd do export DISPLAY=[Tablet IP]:0)
As for Ubuntu Touch, if you go back through and attempt MultiROM again, start with the latest revision (I recommend staying far away from devel and devel-proposed unless you are purposely wanting to develop applications for Xenial, most applications targeting Vivid here don't work.) and then if the latest fails to boot, try the next one down the line. Another issue here could be a kernel that doesn't properly support KEXEC, have you tried MultiROM with a different KEXEC compatible kernel? I honestly can only recommend two different configurations, the singluar installation (Ubuntu being the only OS, gives you the most storage space) or MultiROM :\ I don't have much experience with the Dualboot app.

need help with recovery

hi everyone,
i have a couple of questions and i favor i would like to ask from anyone who sees this.
i currently own the sony xperia e4 phone which as of right now , doesnt have any development for it since there is no custom recovery yet.
the problem is that the device doesnt have a stock recovery (and no recovery partition).Secondly it has a non-standard boot.img so mkvendor.sh script doesnt work.i am able to get the info myself (base adress, kernel adress etc.) but i dont have a pc atm so i cant compile it and it doesnt have a
recovery partition so i t cant be flash that way. i read something about flashing xperia recoverues on the fotakernel but im not sure if some modifications are needed to do so.
if anyone with a build enviroment and time would like to compile the recovery themself (i will provide files such as the boardconfig myself)pm me.
any help is much appreciated.
Mod edit:
Thread closed as the cross-dev section is not the place for this
Try asking here
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/xperia-e4