Project

General

Profile

Samsung Galaxy S3 recovery.img installed, phone doesn't restart.

Added by Noah Neuhoff about 9 years ago

As the subject states, I just installed the recovery.img, my phone reboots, and nothing happens. The "Samsung" logo appears, but that's as far as it gets. I haven't used this phone in awhile, as I went back to my Nokia N900, but I'm wondering if I did something wrong. I've been running C-ROM on it for the past year or so, if that could be the issue. The phone can reenter the "download" state, and I've tried again several times but with no luck. Could this be a hardware issue? It's a really beaten up phone.

Anyway, I'm in no hurry, but I'd like to figure out what's wrong so I can have a semi-free phone handy. Thank you in advance.


Replies (7)

RE: Samsung Galaxy S3 recovery.img installed, phone doesn't restart. - Added by Paul Kocialkowski about 9 years ago

Please double-check that your device is GT-I9300 and not another device sold under the same "Galaxy S 3" name.

RE: Samsung Galaxy S3 recovery.img installed, phone doesn't restart. - Added by Noah Neuhoff about 9 years ago

I just checked. It seems like it's SGH-1747 (or i747?). Which could explain why C-ROM ran poorly for me and crashed a lot.

Is there any way to still install Replicant to this device, or is it bricked for good? I can't seem to find CyanogenMod support for it (but I have installed CyanogenMod to it before, i9300 worked well). Could I use a non-free recovery image and still install Replicant on top of it or would that not work? Or could another device's recovery image work?

Should I just no longer worry about this freedom-disrespecting phone and throw it in the same drawer as my other spy devices?

RE: Samsung Galaxy S3 recovery.img installed, phone doesn't restart. - Added by Paul Kocialkowski about 9 years ago

Is there any way to still install Replicant to this device, or is it bricked for good?

See http://www.replicant.us/about.php#not-listed-install

Your device is not bricked as long as you can access Download mode! Just flash a working system for the correct variant.

Should I just no longer worry about this freedom-disrespecting phone and throw it in the same drawer as my other spy devices?

If you wish to run Replicant, you'll have to get one of the supported devices. If you are not going to use this one anymore, I suggest that you bring it back to a working state, sell it and get a Replicant-supported devices!

RE: Samsung Galaxy S3 recovery.img installed, phone doesn't restart. - Added by Noah Neuhoff about 9 years ago

Your device is not bricked as long as you can access Download mode! Just flash a working system for the correct variant.

I didn't think of that, thank you.

If you wish to run Replicant, you'll have to get one of the supported devices. If you are not going to use this one anymore, I suggest that you bring it back to a working state, sell it and get a Replicant-supported devices!

Thank you. However, I wouldn't like to sell proprietary software to anybody; plus, this phone is really beaten up. It would be really hard to sell it.

I was hoping it could be an easy port, with the SGH-1747 only having slight variations, but it seems to be quite different according to this. What should I do? Is there any possibility of a port?

RE: Samsung Galaxy S3 recovery.img installed, phone doesn't restart. - Added by Paul Kocialkowski about 9 years ago

Thank you. However, I wouldn't like to sell proprietary software to anybody; plus, this phone is really beaten up. It would be really hard to sell it.

I understand, though you could make it clear that is has non-free software in it, so that people bidding on the item are fully aware of the consequences. I'm not sure it makes it okay though.

I was hoping it could be an easy port, with the SGH-1747 only having slight variations, but it seems to be quite different according to this. What should I do? Is there any possibility of a port?

It is indeed a totally different device. It is a Qualcomm device, which we usually consider to be a bad target for privacy/security. The situation for software freedom is also far from ideal (proprietary and signed bootloaders and lots of proprietary firmwares and blobs). Nobody has worked on Qualcomm devices for Replicant since the Nexus One and having anything remotely close to usable would certainly take a big amount of work (writing a RIL at the very least).

RE: Samsung Galaxy S3 recovery.img installed, phone doesn't restart. - Added by Noah Neuhoff about 9 years ago

I understand, though you could make it clear that is has non-free software in it, so that people bidding on the item are fully aware of the consequences. I'm not sure it makes it okay though.

I don't think that would be morally right.

It is indeed a totally different device.

I think it's really misleading of Samsung to make two identical devices of the same public name but totally different hardware. It should be illegal.

It is a Qualcomm device, which we usually consider to be a bad target for privacy/security. The situation for software freedom is also far from ideal (proprietary and signed bootloaders and lots of proprietary firmwares and blobs).

Qualcomm don't have many public documents, right? It may be bad for privacy and security, but that doesn't affect how free the software is. I like that the Replicant project takes that into account, but the larger focus should be free software on more devices. Even Stallman believes that privacy is important, but not as important as free software.

I've been wanting to help the project out for awhile, but I didn't know where/how to begin. This could be a good start, I assume. Is there anything already free about this device which could serve as a foundation, besides small things?

Nobody has worked on Qualcomm devices for Replicant since the Nexus One and having anything remotely close to usable would certainly take a big amount of work (writing a RIL at the very least).

Is that because of the privacy and security issues, or was it difficult to reverse-engineer? Or something else? Also, what does RIL stand for?

RE: Samsung Galaxy S3 recovery.img installed, phone doesn't restart. - Added by Paul Kocialkowski about 9 years ago

I think it's really misleading of Samsung to make two identical devices of the same public name but totally different hardware. It should be illegal.

I agree it is very misleading. What they call Galaxy S 3 really comes down to a description of the plastic case… This is why all our official documentation mentions the codename associated with each device.

Qualcomm don't have many public documents, right? It may be bad for privacy and security, but that doesn't affect how free the software is.

The biggest problem with Qualcomm is that the bootloaders cannot be freed, because they are signed. I have decided not to spend any more time on such devices. This is, however, the same as Exynos devices we already support.
Then, Qualcomm platforms have the modem included with the SoC, which is a fatal flaw for privacy/security (but does not affect freedom). Many loaded firmwares are usually required, which could render many of the basic features (e.g. audio) unusable out of the box. On the bright side, there should be free graphics acceleration with freedreno, which would require adapting mesa for Android, something doable and that was already started.

One would also need to write a RIL for the Qualcomm modem protocol, QMI. There is documentation about the protocol and a free library implementation, libqmi, but this has to be turned to a RIL.

I like that the Replicant project takes that into account, but the larger focus should be free software on more devices. Even Stallman believes that privacy is important, but not as important as free software.

I personally value freedom more than privacy/security as well (but since freedom is required to have privacy/security, both seldom contradict). While we try to select devices that are also not fatally flawed for privacy/security, this is not the reason why I decided to avoid working on Qualcomm platforms.

I've been wanting to help the project out for awhile, but I didn't know where/how to begin. This could be a good start, I assume.

You are free to work on whatever you want, but I would suggest working on other devices, that are better for both freedom privacy/security and easier to port to Replicant. I think that would be a greater contribution to freedom on mobile devices, but the choice is up to you.

Is there anything already free about this device which could serve as a foundation, besides small things?

Of course, there is already some free software support for that platform from CyanogenMod. Perhaps start looking at the device source trees from cyanogenmod (and especially the proprietary blobs lists).

    (1-7/7)