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LinuxSupportedDevices

Smartphones and tablets with a free software bootloader and work in progress upstream Linux support

Formfactor Vendor Product Linux dts Linux status Verdict
Smartphone LG Optimus Black omap3-sniper.dts no display(no driver), very few peripherals Too much work required
Tablet Amazon Kindle Fire (first generation) omap4-kc1.dts no display(no driver), very few peripherals Too much work required
Smartphone GTA04 A3 omap3-gta04a3.dts http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-kernel/page/UpstreamStatus/ Good fit: Free software bootloader, very few parts not upstream
Smartphone GTA04 A4 omap3-gta04a4.dts
Smartphone GTA04 A5 omap3-gta04a5.dts

Replicant supported Samsung Exynos devices

Formfactor Vendor Product Linux dts Linux status page Issues Verdict
Smartphone Samsung Galaxy S (i9000) s5pv210-galaxys.dts https://github.com/PabloPL/linux/wiki (needs verified, but looks right) * Probably has a signed bootloader. See the bootloader status below for more information on it.
* Has shared memory between the modem and the processor running Replicant
* Is supported by Replicant 4.2 but not Replicant 6.0
* Barely meets Android 9 requirements
Smartphone Samsung Galaxy S II (i9100) exynos4210-i9100.dts * See the Samsung_Galaxy_SII_(samsung-i9100) page on the PostmarketOS wiki for more details.
* This work was based on a 4.20 downstream kernel
* JustChrono is regenerating some history / splitting the 4.2 port into smaller parts since there is not much history in the other repo
* yurnam also has some recent commits
* Probably has a signed bootloader
* Attempts were made to get Samsung IPC modem support via oFono from this patchset but it was not accepted and does not build
* postmarketOS is seeking help to support the modem
Smartphone Samsung Galaxy S III (i9300) exynos4412-i9300.dts https://blog.forkwhiletrue.me/pages/midas-mainline/ + patch required for Samsung bootloader (reference) The first stage is signed. See the bootloader status below for more information on it. Good fit: Only the modem, touch keys, and small parts are missing upstream but are available as patches on top of it
Smartphone Samsung Galaxy Note 2 3G (N7100) exynos4412-n710x.dts (needs to be modified to exynos4412-n7100.dts via this patch.) Good fit: the LCD, the modem, touch keys, and small parts are missing but are available as patches on top of it
Tablet Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 (N51XX) The platform is kona, not midas, but it might be fairly easy to port to mainline since it uses the same SoC, same fuelgauge, same audio, same radio chip, and maybe other parts apart from LCD and touchscreen as the i9300 and n7100 * The bootloader is most probably signed. See the bootloader status below for more information on it.
* Soldered battery => Shops might be able to replace it
* Need to find a way to get access to the serial port => The special connector might have serial on it

Replicant supported Texas Instruments OMAP4 devices

Formfactor Vendor Product Linux dts Linux status page Issues Verdict
Smartphone Samsung Galaxy Nexus (I9250) None * Status on PostmarketOS wiki
* mainline fork DTS
? ?
Tablet Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (P31xx) None * Status on PostmarketOS wiki
* mainline fork DTS
* Soldered battery => Shops might be able to replace it
* Need to find a way to get access to the serial port => The special connector might have serial on it
?
Tablet Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 (P51xx) mainline fork DTS

Other devices with some upstream support.

Formfactor Vendor Product Linux dts Linux status page Issues Verdict
Tablet Difrnce DIT4350 sun5i-a13-difrnce-dit4350.dts
Tablet Empire Electronix D709 tablet sun5i-a13-empire-electronix-d709.dts
Tablet Empire Electronix M712 tablet sun5i-a13-empire-electronix-m712.dts
Tablet Gemei G9 Tablet sun4i-a10-gemei-g9.dts TODO in the dts Missing touchscreen
Smartphone Samsung Galaxy SIII 4G (i9305) exynos4412-i9305.dts https://blog.forkwhiletrue.me/pages/midas-mainline/ + patch required for Samsung bootloader The bootloader is signed. See the bootloader status below for more information on it. Good fit:
* Not fully supported by Replicant because it lacks modem support but the work can be reused by the Galaxy SIII, Galaxy SII, Note 2, Note 8.0, and Note 10.1 (2012 edition).
* touch keys, and small parts are missing upstream but are available as patches on top of it.
Smartphone Samsung Galaxy Note 2 4G (N7105) exynos4412-n710x.dts needs to be modified to exynos4412-n7105.dts via this patch since it has a different modem than the n7100. Good fit: the LCD, touch keys, and small parts are missing but are available as patches on top of it. The modem might be in mainline, but probably lacks firmware loading.
Tablet Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2012 edition) exynos4412-p4note-n8010.dts Support matrix: https://viciouss.github.io/static_pages/galaxy_note_10_1_mainline/
Blog post: https://viciouss.github.io/2020/11/18/note-10_1-journey/
A developer, Viciouss, is working to add upstream to this device.
Smartphone Nokia N900 omap3-n900.dts https://elinux.org/N900 * Has a signed bootloader
* Has only 256M of RAM
Bad fit: not enough RAM
Smartphone Nokia N9 omap3-n9.dts https://elinux.org/N9 * Probably have a signed bootloader
* The touchscreen 'firmware' is just some calibration data that can be generated with free software
Some upstream support (missing display?), though not a lot seem left. See also the PostmarketOS and elinux.org wiki pages
Smartphone Nokia N950 omap3-n950.dts https://elinux.org/N950
Smartphone Motorola Droid 4 (XT894) omap4-droid4-xt894.dts http://elektranox.org/droid4/ Probably has a signed bootloader, may have a signed kernel requiring kexec Bad fit: requires a signed Linux kernel in the boot chain
Smartphone Nexus 7 (2012) qcom-apq8064-asus-nexus7-flo.dts Qualcomm SOC (signed bootloader, unknown modem isolation) Bad fit:
* Would need more guarantees requarding the modem isolation on recent qualcomm SOCs
* Would need more research to on the state of free software for more recent qualcom SOCs
* Not enough support in the Linux kernel for devices with Qualcomm SOCs
qcom-apq8064-sony-xperia-yuga.dts
qcom-msm8974-sony-xperia-amami.dts
Tablet Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet qcom-msm8974-sony-xperia-castor.dts
qcom-msm8974-sony-xperia-honami.dts
Smartphone Nexus 5 qcom-msm8974-lge-nexus5-hammerhead.dts
Smartphone Samsung Galaxy S5 qcom-msm8974-samsung-klte.dts
Fairphone 2 qcom-msm8974-fairphone-fp2.dts
Tablet MSI Primo81 sun6i-a31s-primo81.dts
Tablet Yones TopTech BS1078 v2 Tablet sun6i-a31s-yones-toptech-bs1078-v2.dts
Tablet Allwinner? Q8 A13 Tablet sun5i-a13-q8-tablet.dts
Tablet Utoo P66 sun5i-a13-utoo-p66.dts
Tablet Primux INet-98V Rev 02 sun5i-a13-inet-98v-rev2.dts
Tablet Primux INet-86DZ Rev 01 sun8i-a23-inet86dz.dts
Tablet Wondermedia? WM8650-MID Tablet wm8650-mid.dts
Tablet Wondermedia? WM8850-W70v2 Tablet wm8850-w70v2.dts
Tablet Colorfly E708 Q1 tablet sun6i-a31s-colorfly-e708-q1.dts
Tablet Polaroid MID2407PXE03 tablet sun8i-a23-polaroid-mid2407pxe03.dts
Tablet Polaroid MID2809PXE04 tablet sun8i-a23-polaroid-mid2809pxe04.dts
Tablet Allwinner? Q8 A23 Tablet sun8i-a23-q8-tablet.dts
Tablet Allwinner? Q8 A33 Tablet sun8i-a33-q8-tablet.dts
Tablet TBS Biometrics A711 Tablet sun8i-a83t-tbs-a711.dts
Tablet iNet Tek iNet Q972 tablet sun6i-a31s-inet-q972.dts
Tablet Allwinner? GT90H Dual Core Tablet (v4) sun8i-a23-gt90h-v4.dts
Tablet Allwinner? GA10H Quad Core Tablet (v1.1) sun8i-a33-ga10h-v1.1.dts
Tablet Allwinner? INet-D978 Rev 02 sun8i-a33-inet-d978-rev2.dts

More upcoming Exynos related mainlining work could potentially be discovered at this Tizen wiki page

Allwinner devices

Devices with Allwinner SOCs are an interesting targets because:
  • Many of them do not use signed bootloaders.
  • Many of the SOCs and various devices using them have good Linux and u-boot mainline support

For instance the Lime 2 from Olimex is pretty well supported and is easy to find.
However this device is a single board computer and, as such it doesn't have the have the usual peripherals that are commonly found in tablets and smartphones. This makes a port on this device less relevant and less useful.

Some research is needed to identify which devices are easiest to work with. Tablets that don't have a modem seem to be better than smartphones, as supporting the modem would require to have it supported in Linux and the userspace libraries. This might even require to write and upstream a Linux driver for the modem.

A good tablet for this task should have:
  • A SOC that has good mainline support, see the Linux mainlining effort page on linux-sunxi for more details.
  • A Free software bootloader, or the ability to easily add support for the tablet to a free software bootloader.
  • The ability to power and use an USB WiFi card or chip that is compatible with the ath9k_htc driver.

It would also be better if the chosen tablet doesn't use an AllWinner SOC with a PowerVR GPU, as MALI GPU have more probability to be usable with free software in the future.

Rockchip devices

Formfactor Vendor Product Linux dts Linux status page Issues Verdict
Tablet Acer Chromebook Tab 10 D651N-K9WT - codenamed Scarlet (earliest EOL is Aug 2023) rk3399-gru-scarlet.dtsi The Asus Chromebook Flip C101PA (codenamed Bob) has the same RK3399 SoC and was recently added to mainline u-boot. RK3399 in upstream u-boot doesn't include these tablets yet. These tablets, like the C101PA, ship with Coreboot bootloaders. Google used the Depthcharge payload in Coreboot to boot Android on the Pixel C, which has a different SoC, but also shipped with Coreboot. Upstream Coreboot repo Android specific code in Depthcharge payload u-boot README.rockchip u-boot README.rockusb rkdevelopmenttool First (and only?) XDA thread about porting AOSP/CyanogenMod to a Chromebook These devices have ARM Trusted Firmeware support
Tablet Asus Chromebook Tablet CT100 - codenamed Dumo rk3399-gru-scarlet.dtsi (needs to be verified, but both device's Board Names and Base Boards are codenamed Scarlet)
Tablet CTL Chromebook Tab Tx1 - codenamed Druwl

External links

Updated by Kurtis Hanna over 2 years ago · 6 revisions

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