Hi,

Not strictly a replicant question, but I can't think of a better place
to ask.  If people here can't help probably no one can.  I would love it
if this phone could run replicant.  Has it been tried?  What are the
possibly incompatible devices/firmware?

The phone in question is a Samsung Galaxy S6, model SM-G920T (the
T-mobile version).  It is unlocked (the OEM Unlock option is visible
under "Developer Options" and I have found the latest official software
(Android 7) here:

https://desktop.firmware.mobi/device:412/firmware:15952

The upgrade to the official latest software was completed after a few
protocol errors and hard resets.  The official software consists of 2
files:

recovery.img and boot.img.  These were installed with:

heimdall flash --RECOVERY recovery.img --no-reboot
heimdall flash --BOOT boot.img

The phone reports "official" after installing these.

There is also a rooted recovery.img and cache.img at the above link.

These I installed like this:

heimdall flash --RECOVERY recovery.img --no-reboot

This command appears to have succeeded, but when I tried the next one:

heimdall flash --CACHE cache.img

it failed.  Turned off the phone (the only way was to press the 3 keys for a
few seconds).  Then put it back in DL mode and tried:

heimdall flash --CACHE cache.img

With these the phone reports "Custom".

The first time I tried this it succeeded and then rebooted immediately.
During reboot a lot of messages came up: patching ..., installing super su,
etc... and then something about installing standard recovery.  Weird.  I
can still not run adb root (not allowed in production environment, but if I
do adb shell and from there type su it does work.  I get the # prompt.

This was then.  When I tried doing this again after a factory reset (the
only way to get rid of a continously running media app that was making
the phone very hot and drained the battery in an hour [1]), flashing the
cache doesn't do any of the above, I only see a red message briefly that
says "RECOVERY IS NOT STANDARD ENFORCING" and then the phone boots
normally.  Of course if I do "su" from adb shell, it claims "su not
found".  So now I can't get back to even the result achieved the first
time.

What am I missing?  Is the order these files are flashed critical?  The
first time (in the order described) it worked, at least to get su from
adb shell.  But why didn't "adb root" work? ("adbd cannot run as root
in production builds").  Do I need to select some obscure option? All
the commands above eventually completed without error, the only strange
behavior was having to do a hard reset (vol down/home/power) for quite
a few seconds after flashing recovery.img or the next file would give
protocol errors.  I have read that the turning off immediately after
flashing recovery.img is important or the system will reinstall the
original.  Is this what seems to have happened?  How do I prevent it?
But then, the phone reports "Custom" so it must have taken.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I am getting a second phone in a
few days (same model) so I could experiment in case replicant seems possible.

Augustine

1 - After a lot of research I found some mention that mp3 files can make
the media app behave like this.  I had installed a ring tone in mp3
format and the factory reset got rid of it.
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