/e/OS on Samsung Galaxy J5 2017

Not exactly confident in my ROM. I guess I’ll have to by a new /e/OS phone first, so that I could use my current one as a scratchpad - dedicated to science…

hi. just wanted to say I will start building for that device soon :slight_smile:
I ported together with nailyk LOS to that device but haven’t done anything since then.
@julek so you did some stuff already, can I find everything at your github?

Yes I have created a script that automates the building process and makes it much easier to do than with the official documentation, and I have a patched kernel because some of the makefiles were broken and some files were missing as well. All is on my github. However my script does not do magic and the toughest work is still to create a custom roomservice.xml or sometimes patching the code.

Entry point is :

Samsung has released a security fix this June for this phone, still on Android 9. I guess it would be possible to port the kernel sources from repo Exynos7870 to /e/OS but no confirmation at all. We need first to start making all work with Android 8.1 and maybe later Android 9. I don’t really care of the Android version, but I do for security fixes.

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thx dude.

I am using another approach for building:

and I’ve updated my j5y17lte manifest including all the RIL fixes which are missing on nailyk’s repos here:

https://code.binbash.rocks:8443/MVA-VoLTE/local_manifests

I had to first sort everything but the manifest repo is now clean (haven’t build yet though :wink: ). If you want to use my manifest and do not want to create or link an account on my git server then ensure you comment these lines and instead remove the comment tags from here . That is not needed when you have an account on that server and SSH key set though. If you like I can add your account then for commit access as well…

anyways now that I have finished my /e/ builds for the LG G4 I begin with that one here :slight_smile:

Thanks ! If it works I’m interested :slight_smile:

looks good so far :slight_smile:

EDIT 2020-08-04:

haven’t found any issues yet. RIL working fine, Cam (pic and video rec) working fine, audio works, screen lock works, fingerprint works, sync with /e/ is working fine as well. ah well and GPS is working good as well (just a quick test with the F-Droid app “GPSTest”)

Next thing will be be backporting the security patches to the kernel and making a current TWRP build.

GPS tested on my bike tour for 2 hours. worked fine.

EDIT 2020-08-05:

custom build + TWRP is online. Details can be found here: [CUSTOM BUILD][OREO] Samsung J5 2017 - SM-J530F (j5y17lte)

Great thing !

One thing would be to have reproducible builds (a make build is by definition not reproducible since it could build on your env but not on mine for example).

what exactly do you mean by that?
it is reproducible. take the manifest follow the guide to add vendor/e and build :slight_smile:
its 100% the same unless you change anything else.

I’m kinda purist towards C-I servers. Part of my day-to-day job. :wink:

I use jenkins for that :slight_smile:

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But the make approach takes far less time when it comes for debugging and things like this - with docker it can be painfully slow.

everything is better using the make approach :slight_smile: IMHO the only reason NOT using it is when you never build before and do not want to spent any time on learning (much)

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I learnt quite a lot by patching the kernel (okay, a change in a makefile, diagnosing error messages, adding missing sources) and playing with the resourcemap.xml file. But even with that I hardly scratched the surface.

Hi Julek
I have a J5y17lte and want to help with your build.I am a noob but eager to help. Maybe you can work with me? if you are interested let me know.

Hi Karol,

Looks like someone already has a working build - check there :

As of now I put my own experiment on hold since I badly need security updates and cannot afford either to brick my phone or to let it with big security holes. This was my primary motivation to switch to /e/OS alongside having a Google free phone, but on the other hand a working phone is still better than a bricked one. I will first by an /e/OS S7 and then be back to my J5 dedicated to science. :slight_smile:

Thanks for the prompt reply.
I bought a second phone as a testbed but I found it was blocked and it doesnt work with a SIM. However I managed to install an unofficial build of LineageOS on it and it worked fine through WiFi.
I now have an unofficial build of /e/ on it. Not sure where i got that from without checking… It might be the same as above but i was just thrashing around the internet and thought I would give it a go. i figured I couldn´t do a lot of damage given that the phone is pretty borked without a SIM.
The unofficial /e/ build does work on WIFI so I tested all that I could. However I am waiting for an official build before I install it on my main phone.
So thanks for the link i will head over there and try to see if i can help, in some small way, to get it up to official status.
I hope you get your new phone soon, please feel free to contact me when you come back to this IF you think i can be of any help.

for those interested: [UNOFFICIAL BUILD][Q][A10] Samsung J5 2017 - SM-J530F (j5y17lte)

already claimed to go official. just need some more user feedback on this build.
here it works very stable plus tested by 1 other user.

Wow great news ! Once my problems with my S8 (from /e/store) are all sorted out I guess I know what to do. :slight_smile:

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Hello.

It’s an Exynos 7870 CPU & Mali-T830 MP1 GPU , like my a3y17lte…

Perhaps it would be possible to port this build for whole this familly of devices…

Thanks a lot, anyway.

Hi,

Sadly not possible. I went through this as well but the devices should be considered completely differently as there may be undocumented differences between them (and there probably are).