[UNOFFICIAL BUILD] Samsung Galaxy S6 (zerofltexx)

Good morning/afternoon/evening @itsclarence!

I’ll get the S6 charged up and take the new build out for a trial run today- I i’ll let you know how it goes.

Thank you again for keeping this device alive within the /e/OS universe! :beers:

Smakelijk, @itsclarence.
Actually, I just wanted to do a ‘dirty flash’ from e-0.15-q to e-0.16-q. However, I didn’t pay attention and instead of just deleting the cashes I swiped the factory settings. Well, no big deal, it’s just a test device.

In the near future, can we also expect to see signed builds with our private keys?

e.g.: Signing Builds
Generating the keys

Please @itsclarence: Stay healthy. Stay alert.

Well @itsclarence I performed a dirty flash with no issues whatsoever. Build recognized WiFi and SIM immediately and MicroG self-check is good. As @SuzieQ noted, SELinux is disabled, but all Android patches show “up to date”.

I’m going to “walk around” with it for a while and report back, but initially all systems are go and this build looks like another success! :slightly_smiling_face: :relieved:

Thanks again for maintaining this device within the /e/cosystem and be well. :beers:

I installed @itsclarence e-016-1-20210323 unofficial on SM-920W8. The ROM changes the phone into SM-G920F

Unfortunately, there is no audio during phone calls. It appears to make and receive calls. But no audio either way.

Is anyone else experiencing no audio?

That’s interesting- didn’t know/think that the “W8” variant of the S6 would load /e/OS. I believe this may be the first time I’ve come across this. @oneearth you are on the well past the “cutting” edge and at the very “bleeding” edge of /e/OS operability!

Audio issues plague the S6 with AOSP OSes (such as /e/). A work-around some have used with success is to replace the default dialer with the app Simple Dialer which can be found on f-droid. This didn’t work for me though- the only work-around I have found is to use the calling capability of Signal and Telegram exclusively and not use the native phone at all.

Let us know how you make out and good luck.

I might have accidentally loaded a ROM not meant for SM-G920W8 and that’s why it got changed to G920F.

The current state of @itsclarence 202010323 unofficial is close to making the S6 a daily driver. The major obstacle is that attachments cannot be sent or received via text/SMS.

A workaround would to use email instead of text/SMS.

A tolerable bug is that one has to go into recovery mode in order to be recognised by the computer.

Otherwise, contrary to my previous post above, audio is working during calling. Yay! I might have not had the Canadian build loaded at that time.

Same for me. I’ve installed 4 different ROMs on an S6, /e/ being the last one that my dad now uses. Many of the ROMs recognized the phone as the F (international) model.
Man that phone gives me nostalgia, even though it wasn’t that special.

Greetings!
First of all, Thank you clarence for keeping the phone alive! Found out about it through channel48 on youtube.
Waiting for a motherboard ( got the rest of the parts for sm-g920f). Going to flash e-0.16-q-20210323-UNOFFICIAL-zerofltexx.zip. Will post about bugs and issues. As a matter of fact I do have experience with fullstack programming on python and also have xeon with quad channel 32gig memory so technically I can build images at a fairly reasonable speed and participate actively If you are willing to cooperate. Been flashing images to phones for the last 10 years ( starting with nokia symbian) , however never participated in active development of a ROM. I assume I have to clone the e foundation repo. Running arch so I am familiar with building from source. The part about device specific config is what I do not know. I assume I have to clone android_device_samsung_zero-common from gitlab. Generally need an 101 on building device specific roms, patch merges, debugging.

1 Like

Clarence, check out my recent message in the thread. Curently syncing repo. Which kernel and common trees you used to build ?

2 Likes

But replace https://github.com/Exynos7420/android_device_samsung_zero-common in
https://github.com/itsclarence/android_device_samsung_zero-common or you will probably get a build-error

2 Likes

Nice thank you for a tip. I see you set selinux to permissive and adjusted gralloc.
According to https://doc.e.foundation/how-tos/build-e its built via docker. Are you doing it the same way or like in https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/zerofltexx/build ? A bit confused. If you have spare time I would like to kindly ask you to talk via discord ( or any other platform ). MOBO will arrive in 10 days.

1 Like

Telegram is ok…@itsclarence

Most of the time I use this build-script.

1 Like

I assume that you change most of the vars to fit the release. Do you change CUSTOM_PACKAGES or leave it completely empty? I saw in thread that SIGN_BUILDS is false for now. Do you remove OpenDelta from build ?

No I did not…

I did change that in true…
My main problem was that selinux was disabled. I didn’t know how to change that into permissive or enforcing. I can certainly use your help with that. You’re the pro…

1 Like

Hardly a pro :joy: First time building a ROM so my guess you got more knowledge on the subject :slight_smile: My background in IT does help but still to make a stable build and then debug is a challenge.

1 Like

Hi, Do you think this build can be used everyday or not ?
( I don’t know the exacts limitations of unofficials builds…)
Thanks for keeping S6 alive !

OK so far i can report this:

e-0.16-q-20210323-UNOFFICIAL-zerofltexx.zip

Again - Thank you itsclarence
SM-G920F SER region.
Booted very fast after clean flashing ( less than 30 seconds )

COFIRMED ISSUE
Echo problem. Simple dialer also with echo. The person on the line hears his own voice clearly with a delay of a few seconds.
CURRENTLY WORKING ON A FIX
Already have significantly reduced echo confirmed. Tweaking configs to make it disappear (or at least minimize it to barely noticable levels). The volume of recieved voice by the other party is reduced . Talking via speaker is still with echo.
This issue is present on all AOSP based ROMs on s6/s6 edge/s7 (Even s7’s which were officially sold via /e/ store https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/backlog/-/issues/503 ). In my humble opinion this might be one of the major reasons official support was dropped since the issue is not resolved.

This is due to proprietary noise cancelling samsung code, at least according to XDA forums. There is even a topic called “THE ECHO” [sic]

Looked through enesuzun2002 lineage github repo ( person who maintained s6 [Exynos7420] android_device_samsung_zero-common.
His tweaks ( commit/c754e7b30ed47e83106dff468c2279f9162bc7d7 )
seem to reduce the echo but still at levels which are not acceptable.
Since I cannot find any proper documentation about this functionality I have tried adjusting values in question by intuition. So far the echo is much lower but results seem to be inconsistent. Further adjustment is required but since its my only current device which is in use, more time is needed to resolve.

UPDATE
After analysing logs during call I can see that selinux might be working even if it is reported disabled from system settings. If it is in fact true then all adjustments had no effect, and the inconsistency is due to some sort of adaptive volume control by the OS which works incorrectly.

audio@2.0-servi: type=1400 audit(0.0:2781): avc: denied { read } for name="mixer_paths_0.xml" dev="sda15" ino=143138 scontext=u:r:hal_audio_default:s0 tcontext=u:object_r:media_rw_data_file:s0 tclass=file permissive=1

BT audio works correclty both during call and media playback.
Both cameras and proximity sensor - working as intended.
Gyroscope ( auto rotate ) - works as intended
Fingerprint lock - works as intended.
Wifi - works as intended.
GPS - works as intended. Found my location in about 10 seconds in the building. The magic earth is outdated so it wont load maps correctly. Magic earth app can be sideloaded or installed via 3rd party app store.
Wireless charging - works as intended.
Screen and sound record - works as intended.
Default apps ( calendar , calculator , weather , clock , contacts etc. ) - so far no issues.

Default theme switching functionality - after picking font, color, iconset, name and pressing save, Settings app hangs. Stopping the app resolves the issue and the saved theme is availible.

@oneearth wrote about attachments via MMS - works correctly in my case. I can attach a file and send MMS.
SIP calls also working with the standard dialer. Connected a SIP account to my server.
In built system VPN works ( At least pptp ) .
Mobile hotspot works, and the feature which allows hotspot clients to use active system VPN also works.
Audio via 3.5 Jack works.
LED indicator works:

  • when missing calls or sms are present.
  • Battery below 15% slow red blink
  • During charge ( both wireless and wired ) stays red

Miracast - sees the TV to connect but goes into reboot ( e logo ) during connection.
Will post more while testing.
@Clem22 I am considering to use this everyday. So far the Miracast is an issue for me. But as soon as I will be able to build it myself I will try to combat the issue with it since i know how this can be fixed via edits to build.prop

Right now I am redownloading ( For some reason my build fails nearly immideatly) the repo to attempt to build this…

6 Likes

August 31, 2021 Update for those still engaged: Just installed @itsclarence’s most recent 0.18 build without incident. Initial notes: LTE now shows instead of 4G and UI seems more responsive. Will check back in this thread as I get a chance to test.

As always, a big THANK YOU to @itsclarence for keeping this device relevant. :+1:

3 Likes