Getting Started
So I recently decided to get more involved in the Android world and came about a ’new’ type of OS, known as Ubuntu Touch. I thought a bit on it and decided to start the porting process for it for my device Realme GT Neo 2 [codenamed:bitra].
I started with the official documentation of UBports where in they gave some good amount of introduction on how and why certain things needed to be done.
The guide mentions the use of GSI for devices with Android 8+ and, as my device is indeed treble supported, I think I will head to using GSI only.
Standalone Kernel Method (Halium 9 and newer) is very interesting as it seems to be the least tiresome way for porting among all of the 3 mentioned methods. So I started with this and did the steps as mentioned in the guide.
The defconfig that i had to use is the sm8250_defconfig. Next i made a halium.config file as prompted.
Next, i had to fill in the deviceinfo file. For this purpose, I used the Poco X3 Pro device branch as a dummy template and started filling stuff according to it and the guide.
But I got stuck on the deviceinfo_bootimg_prebuilt_dtb step as i was not sure where to find my dtb. So i asked this question in the telegram group of Ubports and was recommended to run a script on the boot.img which i had extracted.
The script was by LOS. It can be found here [use it through curl -O options]. And it worked! I was able to get the output from my boot.img using the script by running this command : python unpack_bootimg.py --boot_img boot.img
The script’s output in normal format.
But then, i was recommended to add the option --format mkbootimg along with the above command to get the outputed text in terms of mkbootimg arguments, as it would output the values that were expected for the deviceinfo file.
Unfortunately for me though, adding that option to the command gave me an error : error: unrecognized arguments: --format mkbootimg
I then thought and checked the latest LOS branch from where i had got that previous script. And i did find an updated script from LOS21 that did have those options that i needed for mkbootimg format. The new script can be found here
After this, i ran the command again, now with the additional parameters to it and was indeed able to generate the output in mkbootimg format without any errors! The updated command : python unpack_bootimg.py --boot_img boot.img --format mkbootimg
The script’s output in mkbootimg format.
This has given me alot to work with now. I will be looking forward to progress even further and complete the deviceinfo file.