Xperia 10 II + SFOS

Hardware Adaptation
#166

I would love to, I will get the phone for other means most likely on the next sale. But without the basic official support (android in primis) the phone with SFOS is pretty much useless for me. Would make more sense to try to get the Android 10 hybris up to speed for the XPeria x perhaps instead :stuck_out_tongue: (Yes, I am aware that the kernel would need quite a bit of loveee). Considering the license is tied to the device; if (hypothetically) I would be to bump the android layer to 10, and have a working kernel; would that enable my license? Considering opensource licensing, I’d assume this to be the case (at least to some extent).

Edit: there seems to be an updated kernel for XPeria X in the 4 series; that would probably help alot?

2 Likes
#167

This is something I’ve been wondering about as well:

  • Sailfish X is running on Xperia X kernel 3.10, but Xperia X has kernel 4.4 and 4.9 officially available.
  • If a community member would want to put in the work to get Sailfish running on the newer kernel, would Jolla officially support it?
  • If a community member would want to put in even more work to replace the Xperia X’s old aliendalvik (which only supports Android applications up to Android 4.4) with the new method used in the Xperia XA2, Xperia 10 and soon Xperia 10 II, would Jolla support this endeavour? This would allow Android applications up to Android 9 to run on the Xperia X, which would future-proof the device for many more years to come, as the most common minimum version these days is Android 5.0.

I can’t attend the community meetings, but if someone would want to bring this up in my stead, please do.

9 Likes
Community meeting on IRC 8th Apr 2021
#168

let’s face it, it is unrealistic

#169

There’s been an effort here https://github.com/vknecht/droid-hal-sony-loire but as far as I see that has come to a halt.

3 Likes
#170

Loire being the older kernel, right?
What we would need here, I guess, is hybris for the 4 series kernel; and build it on top of the XPeria X kernel (assuming the Vanilla Sony kernel does not require any mods to compile in order to work with hybris).

#171

Loire is the whole Xperia X platform consisting of the F5121 (Xperia X) the F5122 (Xperia X dual SIM) and Xperia X compact. It’s been a while that I read the HADK, but as far as I remember you need LineageOS or AOSP from which you want to port.

1 Like
#172

Sony ships aosp as well, so that would be covered too:
https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/guides/aosp-build-instructions
I guess that means then that:

  • patches for the kernel might be necessary for hybris
  • patches for AOSP might be necessary for hybris/Android support?
    Come to think of it, n00b question:
    does MER require AOSP ? If hybris (as I understood) is managing the compatibility between glib & android drivers in the kernel; theoretically, the AOSP is necessary “only” for the android support?
1 Like
#173

I was looking at what Vknecht posted on:
http://merproject.org/logs/%23sailfi…05-02.log.html
respectively:

https://build.merproject.org/project…qualcomm:f5121

also a pie based port which works better, but only boots correctly sometimes:
https://build.merproject.org/project…:hw:sony:loire

because of:
https://github.com/sonyxperiadev/dev…6c494ecad6875e

I would like to try any of these ports but I need some guidance like step by step sequence of actions.

3 Likes
#174

No. By tthe way there had been a “Community initiative” already, which got abandoned.

2 Likes
#175

how is the backport for audio to be applied ?

#176

Oh, so someone already got it to work with an even more recent kernel version, that’s interesting. It’s a shame that person seems to have stopped working on it. @vknecht, if by any chance you read this, do you intend to continue your project?

1 Like
#177

Thanks for the interest in Oreo/Pie based ports for Loire, and I understand how important it looks to SFOS on Loire users/fans. Sadly, it seems to be a dead end since Jolla :

  • never really acknowledged this work (like for all community devices/ports)
  • never agreed to provide/allow AlienDalvik for community devices/ports

so there’s no real benefit to it except maybe more recent kernel (and new problems/incompatibilities to solve), but even Sony’s 4.9 kernel branch (LE.UM.2.3.2.r1.4) is almost dead now and not update-able anymore.

Future is in getting Loire devices mainlined, that is, integrated in Linus Torvald’s Linux tree.
And thankfully there is a team working on it which already mainlined Nile/XA2 : https://www.somainline.org/
That way, no need for binary blobs anymore, and it opens gates to newer and native Android or SFOS ports.
Also, Anbox seems to be better supported on mainlined OS/devices.

14 Likes
Community meeting on IRC 22nd Apr 2021
#178

Thank you for replying so quickly! Mainline kernel support for mobile phones sounds incredible, but I guess a lot of work will still be needed to make sure those phones can function like a proper phone, with decent battery life and functional sensors.

#179

Indeed, Jolla does not support community ports more than on the tech side.
Premium aspects (Alien Dalvik, predictive text etc) are not available.
Which is why I was wondering if updating the kernel would yield at least a better AOSP.
But perhaps that’s not enough.

I am not looking for (yet) another open source project aimed at saving the mobile world (Jolla gracefully demonstrated this to be not a feasible solution already); I just want a sustainable (from user perspective) phone with SFOS :). The XPeria X is an excellent HW, and actually quite reliable.
If there’s not a better alternative available by the EOL of it, there might be better options around. Will see!

1 Like
#181

One step further. readme

13 Likes
#182

Did you try it? :grimacing: But we would need a “ready made” Image to flash, right?

1 Like
#183

Thanks for the reply. I’ve checked the IRC meetup logs and thanks for the clarifications there too. I’ll wait hopefully for an official release for Xperia 10 II if that happens.
Slightly sad that the shift is towards B2B customers, but hopefully one day the momentum will be back again for providing phones/OS for end-users as first-party too (not just developers and testers).
For the moment, the only real alternatives for Android/iOS are you guys at Sailfish and the other Linux phones. Sailfish being the most mature and stable of the Linux ones.

10 Likes
#184

Would this work right now? Amazing news!

1 Like
#185

I just noticed the repository for this now has a branch for ‘upgrade-4.1’. So maybe SF 4.1 will arrive at the same time as this :slight_smile:

In any case I picked up a phone the other day. Now sitting unopened on the shelf in the hope it will be able to enjoy some Sailfish love soon.

3 Likes
#186

Test it on Android. If you find some fault you can have it repaired or exchanged under warranty.

6 Likes