I've been following the development board now for some time, but I'm just curious about something that I think would tie a bunch of loose ends. Does the kernel occupy an entirely different space on the phone than does the flashed ROM? Or, is the kernel a subset of the ROM, that is, is the kernel a replaceable component within the ROM? When you flash a ROM, or firmware, does the ROM flash the kernel too, or is kernel generally left untouched?
It depends on the ROM that you're flashing, some ROMs replace your kernel, some ROMs don't.
Wikipedia/Google is your friend
Android Runtime
Android includes a set of core libraries that provides most of the functionality available in the core libraries of the Java programming language.
Every Android application runs in its own process, with its own instance of the Dalvik virtual machine. Dalvik has been written so that a device can run multiple VMs efficiently. The Dalvik VM executes files in the Dalvik Executable (.dex) format which is optimized for minimal memory footprint. The VM is register-based, and runs classes compiled by a Java language compiler that have been transformed into the .dex format by the included "dx" tool.
The Dalvik VM relies on the Linux kernel for underlying functionality such as threading and low-level memory management.
Linux Kernel
Android relies on Linux version 2.6 for core system services such as security, memory management, process management, network stack, and driver model. The kernel also acts as an abstraction layer between the hardware and the rest of the software stack.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, it only took 2 years lol!
What is Kexec?
Kexec (kernel-execute) is a function of the Linux kernel that allows it to act as a bootloader to boot other kernels. Unfortunately, the standard implementation of kexec doesn't work quite right on most ARM devices due to poor driver support for hardware resets. The workaround is kexec-hardboot, a patch set that allows a kernel to be staged in RAM before performing an actual hardware reset through the phone's bootloader. Upon reboot the kexec-supporting kernel will check the magic location in RAM to see if a previously stored kernel is available, and if so, it will transfer execution to that kernel instead of booting itself.
Why use Kexec
It's a second-stage bootloader. The standard Android bootloader only allows two kernels to be installed at once - boot and recovery. This means that if you want a working recovery, you're only allowed one real OS kernel. If you want to dual-boot (or tri-boot or more) you're screwed. Kexec provides an answer to this. By replacing the boot kernel, kexec (with the kexecboot GUI) acts as a "second stage bootloader" allowing you to boot any number of kernels from any available storage devices. For instance, you have kexecboot in your boot partition and you can keep a kernel for Android installed in your Android system partition as well as an Ubuntu kernel and root filesystem on your SD card and be able to switch between Android and Ubuntu at boot time.
What is kexecboot
http://imgur.com/4GYomKX
Kexecboot is a graphical front-end for kexec. I have modified it to work with the kexec-hardboot patches. It scans all available storage devices for a boot.cfg file in which you define kernels, ramdisks, and kernel commandlines. You control it using volume up and down to move cursor, power to select.
Download
Get it here: https://mega.co.nz/#F!0ct3EaTD!wHWnGo1M_2smyKdzGMIYmw
The code
Kernel builder: https://github.com/CalcProgrammer1/kernel_quincyatt_kexec
This repository contains all the things you need to build a flashable kexecboot/kexec-hardboot enabled kernel image. It contains the ramdisk with the kexecboot binary and a script to package a flashable zip file. Included as submodules are the kernel source itself (kexec-hardboot branch, required to build the image) and the kexecboot source (optional, not used by default as you must build it using an ARM system, a pre-built binary is included if you don't want to build your own). The kernel source includes a defconfig called kexec_quincyatt_defconfig that sets the required config options for building a kexec-hardboot kernel.
Kexecboot Configuration File
Kexecboot replaces your boot kernel, so when you power up your phone it will go straight to the Kexecboot screen. The issue is now to provide kernels for kexecboot to boot into. This requires some work on your part, as you will have to store the kernel files (zImage and initrd) in a partition and write a configuration file to tell kexecboot where they are. This configuration file may contain multiple kernels, allowing you to have several different kernels available for the same OS or multiple OSes entirely. If you're coming from an Android system that distributes their kernel as a boot.img, you can use the abootimg program to extract it into a separate zImage and initrd.img binary.
The configuration file must be located on the path /boot/boot.cfg. This is relative to whatever partition/disk you are on, so for instance if you're setting up Android to boot from kexecboot, you would put your configuration file in /system/boot/boot.cfg (/data/boot/boot.cfg would work as well). You can also put a boot.cfg file on your SD card as long as you follow the /boot/boot.cfg path. Kexecboot automatically scans all available partitions for a boot.cfg file before it starts and builds a list of all available kernels across all detected boot.cfg files, so you may have Android in your /system partition and Debian on your SD card and both kernel lists will be shown together.
The Kexecboot web site provides a nice tutorial: http://kexecboot.org/documentation/how_to_write_config
The Note i717 bootloader passes a fairly long string of kernel arguments to the boot kernel. Since kexecboot overrides this for the kexec-booted kernel, you must provide this boot string in your boot.cfg file. Additionally, you may edit or add arguments to the command string here (such as setting console=tty0 instead of the default console=null so you can use the framebuffer console).
For example, here is my /system/boot/boot.cfg for CyanogenMod 11 (with kernel and initrd.img, extracted via abootimg, in /system/boot/)
Code:
# kexecboot configuration file
# CM11 default kernel
LABEL=CyanogenMod 11
KERNEL=/boot/zImage
INITRD=/boot/initrd.img
APPEND="androidboot.hardware=qcom usb_id_pin_rework=true no_console_suspend=true zcache [email protected] [email protected] sec_debug.reset_reason=0x1a2b3c00 pmem_sf_addr=0x7a000000 pmem_sf_size=0x6000000 console=null sec_debug.enable=0 sec_debug.enable_user=0 appsbark=0 msm_watchdog.enable=1 msm_watchdog.bark_time=30 msm_watchdog.bite_time=31 vmalloc=512m hw_rev=12 lpj=67702 androidboot.emmc=true androidboot.serialno=32c245ca androidboot.baseband=csfb"
I'm not sure how much of that you actually need, but you do need at least some of it because with an empty APPEND= it does not boot. You also do have to put the quotation marks around it or else parsing of one of the options will fail.
I'll admit limited understanding of what you're accomplishing here, but seems to me that this could lead to dual booting on the Note. Nice work.
Good luck.
Nice work! Thanks for the work you've done thus far. Unfortunately I have no way to help you out other than morale support! :highfive:
lactardjosh said:
I'll admit limited understanding of what you're accomplishing here, but seems to me that this could lead to dual booting on the Note. Nice work.
Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty much what it comes down to, testing kernels and roms without having to flash into nand. I can't wait for dualbooting from Sd on the Note.
I have ORD , please help!!
My main goal here is native Linux, but if kexec works then you can boot custom Android dev kernels, native Linux kernels, other mobile OS'es, etc. The SGSIII team seems to have found some interesting kexec solutions for the Verizon SGSIII due to its locked bootloader. They've posted a good deal of kexec patches which I'm trying to bring to the Note, including a custom kexec-hardboot option that fully reboots the device into the new kernel (apparently to make sure the radio and such are working).
CalcProgrammer1 said:
My main goal here is native Linux, but if kexec works then you can boot custom Android dev kernels, native Linux kernels, other mobile OS'es, etc. The SGSIII team seems to have found some interesting kexec solutions for the Verizon SGSIII due to its locked bootloader. They've posted a good deal of kexec patches which I'm trying to bring to the Note, including a custom kexec-hardboot option that fully reboots the device into the new kernel (apparently to make sure the radio and such are working).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wonderful, wonderful work!!! :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
Uh...It all sounded like this:
dual kernel (i'm gonna brick) kexec will allow (me to brick my phone).....with native linux applications ('im gonna brick my phone cause i'm stupid)....LOL
while i know what your doing, that in no way means i will ever understand it...LOL
But i will thank you in advance for what sounds like a sick mod for our notes...
Many thanks Dev !!!!
Kexec is actually (if done right) a good way *not* to brick your phone. To run kernels, you usually have to flash them to a restricted boot section of the memory, and if you flash all non-working kernels (to download, recovery, and main) then you have no way to use your phone, as it won't boot up. If you use kexec, your working kernel is safely stored on the boot partition and your development kernels can be wherever, and if it doesn't boot you can just hold down POWER to hard reboot into your good kernel.
The problem is that it doesn't seem to be working, I think I have the kexec support built properly but haven't been able to boot any kernels without it crashing.
CalcProgrammer1 said:
Kexec is actually (if done right) a good way *not* to brick your phone. To run kernels, you usually have to flash them to a restricted boot section of the memory, and if you flash all non-working kernels (to download, recovery, and main) then you have no way to use your phone, as it won't boot up. If you use kexec, your working kernel is safely stored on the boot partition and your development kernels can be wherever, and if it doesn't boot you can just hold down POWER to hard reboot into your good kernel.
The problem is that it doesn't seem to be working, I think I have the kexec support built properly but haven't been able to boot any kernels without it crashing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know you'll crack it ....
And when you do ....you'll be the galaxy note GOD !!!....LOL
your effort is much appreciated Sir ....even if I'm scared to use it , but will anyway ...lol
So I'm still confused as to why my kexec didn't work. I'm going to build a TouchPad kernel with it enabled and repeat the test on it, since I have a known-good kernel to boot against. I'll let you know how that goes.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717
Ok, so long-time-no-see but I'm reviving this post! Now that my Note 3 is happily running Cyanogenmod I have no urgent need for my Note 1 and can hack on it!
So far I haven't gotten kexec working, but I do have:
1. Kexecboot (graphical kexec frontend) is working, detects OS images appropriately
2. Framebuffer Console (text-mode display, USB OTG keyboard supported for interactive command line)
3. Overriding bootloader command line (to enable the fbconsole you need console=tty1 but the bootloader passes console=null)
4. Framebuffer console rotation (boot up in landscape or portrait, no way to switch without recompiling at the moment)
5. Most of kexec-hardboot ported from the HP TouchPad port, no clue if it's promising or not as so far it just crashes after a while of nothing
6. Ubuntu 13.04 (desktop edition) rootfs installed on SD card in a chroot, also taken from HP TouchPad
What I'm working on:
1. Kexec-hardboot port (needed to use kexec properly and boot kernels)
2. Fixing fbconsole glitching (framebuffer console displays garbled text that slowly clears up, no clue why...reading /dev/fb0 repeatedly clears up the display immediately and is a dirty hack that works well enough for testing)
3. Networking (either USB Ethernet or integrated WiFi, going to try backported brcmfmac driver)
4. Ubuntu (that's the long-term plan here)
5. Note 3 S800 port if I get everything figured out here
CalcProgrammer1 said:
Ok, so long-time-no-see but I'm reviving this post! Now that my Note 3 is happily running Cyanogenmod I have no urgent need for my Note 1 and can hack on it!
So far I haven't gotten kexec working, but I do have:
1. Kexecboot (graphical kexec frontend) is working, detects OS images appropriately
2. Framebuffer Console (text-mode display, USB OTG keyboard supported for interactive command line)
3. Overriding bootloader command line (to enable the fbconsole you need console=tty1 but the bootloader passes console=null)
4. Framebuffer console rotation (boot up in landscape or portrait, no way to switch without recompiling at the moment)
5. Most of kexec-hardboot ported from the HP TouchPad port, no clue if it's promising or not as so far it just crashes after a while of nothing
6. Ubuntu 13.04 (desktop edition) rootfs installed on SD card in a chroot, also taken from HP TouchPad
What I'm working on:
1. Kexec-hardboot port (needed to use kexec properly and boot kernels)
2. Fixing fbconsole glitching (framebuffer console displays garbled text that slowly clears up, no clue why...reading /dev/fb0 repeatedly clears up the display immediately and is a dirty hack that works well enough for testing)
3. Networking (either USB Ethernet or integrated WiFi, going to try backported brcmfmac driver)
4. Ubuntu (that's the long-term plan here)
5. Note 3 S800 port if I get everything figured out here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Long time in the making. Glad to see you're still at it. Hope you are able to get it working. Would be pretty cool. Good luck
If you can get this working up to kernel with freedreno I'd be all over working on getting Plasma Active onto this thing. I've missed having a real linux phone since my n900 died.
Got Bluetooth working from the command line!
Code:
# rfkill unblock all
# hciattach /dev/ttyHS0 any
# hcitool scan
It detected my Note 3 which I had set to visible! Hopefully I can pair a BT keyboard with this and lose the USB OTG dependency. Still working on figuring out WiFi, I have the brcmfmac driver from 3.13 backports compiled and loaded but the WiFi chip isn't being detected so the driver never creates an interface for it. The chip is a Broadcom BCM4330 WiFi/Bluetooth chip, and although both WiFi and Bluetooth share the same chip they use different interfaces to the SoC (UART for BT and SDIO for WiFi).
I plan on doing more research into getting the hardware working before I do any more work on kexec. It will be much easier to debug kexec I think knowing how to use WiFi/BT/USB/etc. The only hardware I'm not going to attempt at all is the modem as I don't use this device as a phone anymore and don't have a SIM card in it. That said, all the rmnetX entries that I think are modem interfaces show in ifconfig -a so maybe it is working.
My kernel source is here:
https://github.com/CalcProgrammer1/ubuntu-kernel-quincyatt
The kexec branch will have the kexec hardboot patches once I figure them out. I've also got a folder set up with a script to automatically build the kernel zImage, build the modules, build the backport driver modules, build the ramdisk from a ramdisk root folder, build the boot.img, and then package that up in a flashable .zip. I'll upload parts of this system as I complete them. I also have an Ubuntu rootfs on my external ext4 (or was it 3?) SD card that I ripped straight off my TouchPad. For now I'm just using a busybox shell in my ramdisk, dropping out of kexecboot into ash, setting up a chroot for the SD card, and chrooting into the Ubuntu rootfs that way. It's not ideal since Ubuntu's init process doesn't run but it does allow me to run all the installed utilites from said rootfs.
Edit: Rii Mini Bluetooth Keyboard paired and working! It was a roundabout way of doing so because dbus and upstart don't work in chroot so I had to use an old package called bluez-compat which provides the hidd command. I sideloaded the .deb with a flash drive. The command to pair a keyboard:
Code:
# hcitool scan
Scanning ...
XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX Bluetooth device name
# hidd --connect XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX &
XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX will be a hex value that is your keyboard's address. You find the address with the scan command and enter it on the hidd command to connect. I didn't have to enter any kind of passcode or pairing key, after running hidd it just started working.
http://imgur.com/2sV3TJr
I got it! I finally managed to get kexec hardboot working! I had to rewrite a bit of code in the kexecboot program to support kexec-hardboot better but I now have a bootloader that is working correctly, if slowly. I'll be posting my kernel source soon (it's a branch off of CyanogenMod's msm8660-common kernel) as well as my modifications to kexecboot itself. The kexec-tools binary I took out of the HP TouchPad port unmodified so I don't have the source for that (though it shouldn't be hard to find). I'll be looking into a Note 3 port soon, basically used the Note 1 as the guinea pig for this experiment.
If, somehow, you could adapt this for the ATT Mega 6.3 so as to bypass the locked tight bootloater.....you would be considered a hero!! People would build statues of you....write songs and name their children after you!!!!!?
Sent from my SM-T310 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Unfortunately you require an unlocked bootloader to install the kexecboot kernel. This isn't going to be a magic bullet for locked bootloaders. People have tried. For devices with exploitable bootloaders, it may help as you won't have to fake-sign kexec-booted kernels though.
CalcProgrammer1 said:
Unfortunately you require an unlocked bootloader to install the kexecboot kernel. This isn't going to be a magic bullet for locked bootloaders. People have tried. For devices with exploitable bootloaders, it may help as you won't have to fake-sign kexec-booted kernels though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Grasping at straws, My Friend. Hoping that maybe this could be something like SafeStrap and could be d/l and installed as an APK.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I527 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Got Debian booting! I also figured out how to get WiFi working from a non-Android Linux OS so this is definitely on track towards a full desktop OS!
To-do:
* X server, preferably with Freedreno GPU driver eventually
* Audio (q6.* firmware files and possibly an ALSA config)
* Startup scripts for Bluetooth initialization
* Figure out how to rotate the screen
dparrothead1 said:
If, somehow, you could adapt this for the ATT Mega 6.3 so as to bypass the locked tight bootloater.....you would be considered a hero!! People would build statues of you....write songs and name their children after you!!!!!?
Sent from my SM-T310 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wont be having anymore children to name, but I can do a dog. He is too stoopid to know the difference. I can say aluminum foil and he will come running.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I527 using XDA Free mobile app
Hi,
First of all, I've been "read only mode" for a long time on XDA forums looking for rooting, unlock, and so many other things, but it hasn't been until now that I really need some help from real proffessionals from Android scene (given the fact that i need some android knowledge I lack )
I'll try to explain what I need to do, and hopefully someone will be able to help me find the right forum where i can post it, and maybe join me in my adventure! (I was tempted to create the thread in "Xperia Neo Android development", but I'm not sure its the right place, given the fact that i'm talking about almost "pure" linux here)
I changed my 3 neo phones , so I had 3 spare android phones to make some R&D. So I split my boot.img, recreated a minimal initrd, rejoined with android 2.6.32 kernel and flashed it.
Simultaneously bootstrapped a debian 7 into an sd card, and pointed initrd "init" call to the debian, so it booted linux.
Needless to say, getting modules and wifi working was such a pain, because debug (without fbcon working on that kernel) was based in: boot kernel / extract sd from mobile / insert sd on pc / analyze logs / understand why it wont boot...
Finally it worked, and now I have a 1ghz "debian 7" box, with ~ 380MB ram, ready for everything.
WIP - Need help here! :
- Getting some drivers working on linux (mainly battery charger, so it can be a "small server")
- HDMI driver, so can be carried on pocket and connected to TV, keyboard and mouse.
- Freedreno driver for Xorg. (out of time, need to compile or cross-compile)
- Mainline kernel 3.4 rc already contains MSM driver, so perhaps could change to a full linux kernel, but I think its not needed
- Recompile current kernel decreasing protected memory (is it saved for camera bursts?) so we can have more than 380MB effective.
Already working:
- Cpufreq, so cpu is working at 100mhz when idle
- Wifi module from Texas instruments, ported "as-is" from android filesystem
- Battery level decrease being broadcasted to syslog (but unable to charge...)
So please if any mod can move it to the right place, i'd be very happy
PS: If someone wants some info, ask and i will develop a longer answer.
Not even a mod telling me if its the right forum to post?
Anyone able and willing to help?
In this post, I would like to explain what kexec-hardboot patch is.
@kernel developers: I would like to ask you to merge this patch to your kernels, because it is essential part of MultiROM - it allows me to boot any kernel without changing the boot partition. I realize that it is no small request, but the patch is not big, touches relatively stable parts of kernel and should not cause any problems. Thank you.
What is kexec?
It is syscall of Linux kernel, which allows you to boot another Linux kernel without restarting the device - "Linux boots itself". The functionality is equivalent to fastboot -c *cmdline* boot zImage initrd.img, but without PC and fastboot. It is fairly known thing, so more info at wikipedia and man kexec.
Standard kexec call unfortunatelly does not work on Nexus 6. It freezes somewhere, and it is very difficult to find out where - probably some of the drivers are not shut down/re-initialized properly, it is a common thing among Android devices, which is why kexec-hardboot was made.
What is the difference between normal and hardboot kexec?
Kexec-hardboot patch adds a real device restart to that process, so that all the drivers can be properly reinitialized. It stores new kernel to RAM, reboots the device as usual, and kernel from boot partition immediately jumps to the one which was stored to RAM before reboot.
Unlike grouper's kexec-hardboot patch, this one only requires the host kernel to be patched. This is one of the improvements I made, and I think it is pretty significant.
To summarize the process:
kexec --load-hardboot.... is called and kernel it loaded into RAM.
kexec -e is called. Special info is written to memory (to area which is not overwritten on reboot) and the device is rebooted.
After reboot, very early in the boot process, kernel checks if that special info is present in RAM and if so, it loads new kernel from RAM and jumps to it.
Kexecd' kernel starts and boots.
For more info, read the original thread.
Patches:
Kernel patch: https://gist.github.com/Tasssadar/757c939f2d028c00d089, 5.1 AOSP kernel repo
This is the kernel patch. Only the host kernel needs to be patched.
Related CONFIG options:
CONFIG_KEXEC=y
# CONFIG_ATAGS_PROC is not set
CONFIG_KEXEC_HARDBOOT=y
CONFIG_PROC_DEVICETREE=y #this one is turned on by default
All these options must be enabled.
Userspace kexec binary: https://github.com/Tasssadar/kexec-tools
I had to change some things in kexec userspace binary because of some kernel bugs, complete description is in that repository.
Usage:
Once you have the kernel patches and kexec userspace binary in place, just run following command to boot into new kernel:
Code:
kexec --load-hardboot zImage --initrd=initrd.img --mem-min=0x20000000 --command-line="$(cat /proc/cmdline)" --boardname=shamu --dtb
kexec -e
Note the command line parameter - cmdline from bootloader is not added automatically, you have to put it there by yourself.
Authors:
This patch was made by Mike Kasick for Samsung Epic 4G. Since that, it was ported to several devices, one of them is Asus Transformer TF201 - I used patch from TF201 and modified it a bit (basically just changed few SoC specific constants). People at #ubuntu-arm helped me out with that, thanks.
For hammerhead, I've improved the patch a bit - only the host needs to be patched now and I've added support for DTB.
For shamu, it's pretty much the same as for hammerhead.
@Tasssadar, I'm trying to incorporate the patch in my kernel (LiquidSmooth, which I compile in-line with the ROM - sources below), but I'm having issues actually booting into the secondary ROM.
Here is the portion of the log that contains the kexec call failure.
I just can't seem to figure out what my issue is - any ideas?
My device tree
My kernel source
Other potentially relevant info:
- Building the kernel in-line (using "make bootimage" for kernel incremental testing purposes)
- 5.0.2 base for host (my) kernel
- Using standard GCC for builds
- Updated to most recent MR TWRP and zip releases
Any help you might have to offer would be awesome!
CPA Poke said:
@Tasssadar, I'm trying to incorporate the patch in my kernel (LiquidSmooth, which I compile in-line with the ROM - sources below), but I'm having issues actually booting into the secondary ROM.
Here is the portion of the log that contains the kexec call failure.
I just can't seem to figure out what my issue is - any ideas?
My device tree
My kernel source
Other potentially relevant info:
- Building the kernel in-line (using "make bootimage" for kernel incremental testing purposes)
- 5.0.2 base for host (my) kernel
- Using standard GCC for builds
- Updated to most recent MR TWRP and zip releases
Any help you might have to offer would be awesome!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like you didn't enable the config options mentioned in the first post. Also, please don't merge my hack to force-enable serial console, it doesn't play well with multirom. Also, you can enable the console by running "fastboot oem config console true", which I didn't know when I made that commit.
Tasssadar said:
Looks like you didn't enable the config options mentioned in the first post. Also, please don't merge my hack to force-enable serial console, it doesn't play well with multirom. Also, you can enable the console by running "fastboot oem config console true", which I didn't know when I made that commit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
[emoji33] [emoji40]
I literally can't even right now. Can't believe I missed that...rebuilding now, hopefully that takes care of it.
And thanks for the fastboot tip, I'll revert that hack.
Please keep the thread on topic for the section. If you aren't sure, read this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6/devs-only/section-guidelines-read-t2959988
@Tasssadar, would this be better here in dev discussion (where I'm supposed to be an anal retentive moderator) or in "original development"? The reason for my asking is that your message states it's a release, as opposed to a discussion of the process of creating.
In the meantime, I've cleaned the thread...
Take care
Gary (posting as moderator of the dev discussion section.)
I put the patch here because it is quite different from most things posted in original development. It's pretty much for kernel devs only, and putting it in this section ensures it won't get lost (after couple of initial comments, there usually isn't any discussion related to this patch) and filters out most "thx" and "lolwhatsthis" posts (although obviously not all of them). I honestly didn't look up what's the exact goal of this section, it just seemed just right for this kind of thing. If you think it belongs to original development, feel free to move this topic.
Tasssadar said:
I put the patch here because it is quite different from most things posted in original development. It's pretty much for kernel devs only, and putting it in this section ensures it won't get lost (after couple of initial comments, there usually isn't any discussion related to this patch) and filters out most "thx" and "lolwhatsthis" posts (although obviously not all of them). I honestly didn't look up what's the exact goal of this section, it just seemed just right for this kind of thing. If you think it belongs to original development, feel free to move this topic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey I don't know if you compile with ndk or cross compile for arm (statically or ndk) but I had to add some missing includes in *kexec/arch/arm/Makefile for kexec-tools to compile with the new board option. Just thought I'd mention.
https://github.com/Surge1223/androi...mmit/4b4629db76d64b7048274748d3e3366b52e1017d
Also, Ignore the other stuff. Testing kexec via module for locked devices so I have quite a bit of changes compared to regular kexec-tools.
Hello XDA developers,
First of all my motivation to write here is to create a commandline GNU/Linux-like UI (and maybe add desktop GUI later) on the Asus Zenwatch 2, so I could see the kernel messages at bootup and use Midnight Commander without starting the entire main system (for example, get a text-mode shell and stop after every devices got initialized, firmwares got loaded, but before loading any Surfaceflinger and Dalvik stuff). I did similar thing on an Android tablet before by writing my own keyboard and touchscreen handlers based on Yaft. But that didn't help with boot-time kernel messages and the built-in framebuffer console in the kernel is probably much better. It's not enabled in the stock kernel, so I tried to recompile the Sparrow kernel from source (I didn't modify the default configs yet). After some tweaks to the kernel-source (which doesn't compile without them) I could build the Momentum-kernel and the stock Sparrow-kernel too using the provided .config files (e.g: make sparrow_defconfig). I used Android NDK's r13b gcc on Lubuntu 18.04, because an earlier attempt with NDK r18b wanted to use clang and compilation stopped early with errors.
My problem is that despite the kernel finally got compiled it doesn't seem to start at all. (I had similar experience with the Android-kernel in the past, but more success with Raspberry PI)...
I used mkbootimg to repack the generated zImage-dtb and the previously decompressed initrd into a boot.img, and ran fastboot boot on it, but booting simply stucked at fastboot screen, the animated ASUS logo never came in.
Can anyone point me into the right direction how I could troubleshoot further why the kernel doesn't work?
(I assume the 4.9 gcc isn't the issue here, though I got a zImage with slightly different filesize. I've read somewhere the earlier 14.04 Ubuntu and 4.8 gcc is advised for Sparrow kernel compilation but do these versions matter here? Should I replace the modules too on the system partition with their newly built versions, as the zImage changed?)
I know others managed to build a working kernel, for example TWRP has its own custom kernel and it works fine on the Sparrow watch... Is there any step I might have missed? Is there a debug-tool or logging which helps me to find out why the kernel doesn't boot? Something to troubleshoot the kernel-loading and booting? (A simulator for example? Or how do the experts do it in practice?)
I hope I declared every aspects to get some help. If for some reason I don't succeed I might try to make more linux-like AsteroidOS or PostmarketOS to get my complete Linux console on the smartwatch. The thing is that these don't support all hardware on the watch, that's why I'm trying with Android in the first place.
I guess if I'll be able to compile and then run the stock original kernel somehow the rest will be easy. (To enable framebuffer-console, set governors, remove unnecessary drivers, etc.)
Thanks in advance for the help, XDA gurus...