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WIFI not working on Galaxy S3

Added by Marc Johnen over 10 years ago

Hi everyone,

great project, thanks for your work.
With all governments spying on their citizents,
I appreciate a more trustworthy system.

I installed replicant on a galaxy s3 an hour ago,
but can't get wifi to work. I go to the settings
and click on wifi (WLAN) and the on/off button.
Then it says "wifi being activated..." (WLAN wird aktiviert...),
but nothing happens.

Any idea what's going wrong?

Greetings
Marc


Replies (11)

RE: WIFI not working on Galaxy S3 - Added by Paul Kocialkowski over 10 years ago

Take a look at ReplicantStatus: WiFi is not working without non-free firmwares, that are not shipped pre-installed with Replicant. If you want WiFi, you'll need to install these firmwares at the correct location on the phone (see GalaxyS3Firmwares). We do not provide such instructions since the WiFi firmwares are non-free and we do not encourage the use of non-free software.

RE: WIFI not working on Galaxy S3 - Added by zorg ! over 10 years ago

I had the same issue on a Galaxy S2. I searched the web for the firmware file names and finally found the files on GitHub. I placed them in the /system/vendor/firmware/ directory. WiFi and bluetooth then started working. I've been using Debian for many years. Debian is also opposed to proprietary software. But the Debian repositories still contain 'nonfree' drivers to help people make their devices work. In my opinion that is the right approach.

RE: WIFI not working on Galaxy S3 - Added by Paul Kocialkowski over 10 years ago

Then we fundamentally disagree. By hosting these firmwares and distributing them through their repos, Debian is encouraging the use of non-free software, which is very different from being neutral. This is why there will never be instructions on installing the firmwares in the Replicant wiki.

RE: WIFI not working on Galaxy S3 - Added by Sil Emmo over 10 years ago

I had the same problem you should put in uppercase red WIFI DOESN'T WORK lol. But thanks for the work thats awesome. Have you any ideas if someone is working on it ? Or when a free alternative will be available ? I am ready to test any beta or alpha drivers but unfortunately I dont know how to code. Thanks again for the great work and devotion.

RE: WIFI not working on Galaxy S3 - Added by Paul Kocialkowski over 10 years ago

I had the same problem you should put in uppercase red WIFI DOESN'T WORK lol.

I should think of making the Status page accessible from the blog. Also we should probably disable the pages on the blog, which are useless since all the content is on the wiki anyways.

Have you any ideas if someone is working on it ? Or when a free alternative will be available ?

I am not aware of any work on freeing the wifi firmwares on that chip. You have to understand that this is a very heavy task that requires very deep knowledge and may even not be doable because of the lack of proper ways to debug code. Hence very few people attempt to do it, and they very rarely succeed. This does not compare to writing cpu-side driver replacements, which is way easier.

RE: WIFI not working on Galaxy S3 - Added by Sil Emmo over 10 years ago

Ok thanks for your answer. I am in a dilemma right now. I am against consumerism and I also am eclogical. But I am for freedom. So if I want freedom I have to throw away my phone and buy one fully compatible with replicant (but none is). So I have to compromise, I have to accept some non-free things for my wifi to work. Is this argument valid ? Or not ? Maybe not because I can choose to not use any non-free phone and keep my S3 as a souvenir from my past slavery. I tried to find on the internet how to use replicant and install just the non-free stuff for wifi no success. I guess replicant is not very famous. So i will stick to cyanogenmod is better than stock i guess. I feed very bad doing that, but if someone can send me a personal message and guide me how to keep replicant and just install non-free things for wifi that will be great.

Thanks again for your work.

RE: WIFI not working on Galaxy S3 - Added by Paul Kocialkowski over 10 years ago

I am not a big fan of consumerism and massive consumption either (which sometimes makes me feel guilty about owning so many phones). Now you already have a Galaxy S3, which is the currently best-supported device, so I don't see why you'd have to buy anything else. If you cannot avoid the use of WiFi, then I agree it is better that you use Replicant with the WiFi firmwares rather than CyanogenMod. However we are not going to provide instructions on behalf of the Replicant project, because that would be encouraging the use of proprietary software and it goes against the very principles behind this project. However, as individuals, we are free to help you there, especially if it'll lead to more freedom for you. So the right solution here is that you get help from an individual. Basically, try to find my email address somewhere, ask me there and see.

I don't answer that sort of requests every time I'm asked, but I understand your dilemma and feel like it's worth helping you there.
By the way, I may put the instructions on my personal website at some point so that I don't have to give the instructions privately every time.

RE: WIFI not working on Galaxy S3 - Added by Anders Ekman about 10 years ago

I have a similar question and chose to add my question to this thread.

I had a major problem with my stock Android OS in my Samsung Note II a couple of days ago and since I am eager to reduce my exposure to the Google proprietary software I found it a good occasion to replace stock Android with an alternative OS. To this end I was very happy to see that now also Replicant is available for Samsung Note II (7100). The installation went smoothly and anything that the OS was supposed to do it did well. Great effort on your side Paul (a donation is submitted)!

Now, my Note II is a critical tool at work where I have been relying on wifi (to keep data costs down - particularly when traveling abroad and being subject to roaming) and on bluetooth (to connect my bluetooth headphones when driving). To not harm productivity or budget I am willing to compromise slightly by using the proprietary drivers for wifi and bluetooth.

I was able to find the relevant drivers on github, place them in the indicated catalogue on my phone and reboot the phone but still the phone is unable to use wifi and bluetooth. Many thanks in advance for any reference or advice on what else to do to make wifi and bluetooth work (if this is the wrong place to ask questions regarding proprietary drivers then maybe someone could kindly direct me to a forum where it can be discussed).

RE: WIFI not working on Galaxy S3 - Added by Paul Kocialkowski about 10 years ago

The proper documentation to do that is available at: https://code.paulk.fr/article16/missing-proprietary-firmwares-in-android-systems

The Replicant project does not recommend nor endorse these instructions. Be certain to know and understand that you're about to install proprietary unethical software on your device.

RE: WIFI not working on Galaxy S3 - Added by plfe9o 2r4ceb5jqg4k4 over 2 years ago

Hey there,
my new i9300 arrived recently, and i plan on diving into android development!
Cause of multiple attacks in the past/imei randomization (legal where i live) i dont use sim cards on my device, rather i use a mobile lte router to which i connect through wifi!
Cause i first of all wanted to tinker around for some time in the user perspective with replicant, even as a secondary device for some specific usages which arent security-dependent, i wanted to use wifi.

I found this older page: https://web.archive.org/web/20131112005112/http://redmine.replicant.us/projects/replicant/wiki/GalaxyS3Firmwares
and also sourced all the binarys from cm-10.1.3-i9300, but in the newer android 6 it seems there is a different way for loading them!?!
(i dropped everything into "\system\vendor\firmware" and rebooted, as advised on multiple old blogs!)

If i want to work on foss replacements one day, i also need to get this to run first, so i hope someone here could link me to something helpfull.

I also sourced CM13 files, but there doesnt seem to be any of the bin blobs in expected paths/listed in "proprietary-files.txt".
But somehow, at least i suppose, wifi works in cm13! Maybe just the dirs changed?

Edit0: i wont be able to get a proper external wifi dongle in the next months!

Edit1: someone suggested dropping the bin files to: "\system\etc\wifi" which didnt help.

Edit2: On some blog they suggested replacing "dhd.ko" which some slightly smaller one, no idea ...

Edit3: "\system\etc\wifi\" also wont work

    (1-11/11)