@“Sailfish enthusiasts”: Can you explain how the whole ROM build process works with Sailfish?
I found this but how does this all work compared to android?
Questions:
Can a user build his own rom from source (if the binary blobs for the SoC are available?) or does the user need more magic? Like Jolla bin-blobs as well, like the alien-dalvik for supporting android apks … what else?
How is Jolla ported to a new SoC? Adapting mer, I assume?
What kind of support is needed from the SoC IP side? (just the android bin blobs in the right directories?)
The above will take you through the whole process, step by step.
You need Device and Kernel repos as a minimum, which blobs and other things you need is largely device specific and depends on what/how the manufacturer has chosen to release stuff.
Generally speaking the rule is, if there is a CyanogenMod port for your device (up to cm12.1), then a sailfishos port should be achievable with the same sources.
Alien-Dalvik is unavailable on community ports unfortunately, although a community-based effort to provide a replacement is in the works but is currently at the experimental stage.
If you are serious about giving this a go, I highly recommend joining us on IRC in #sailfishos-porters on irc.freenode.net, there’s many people in there who can help you at any stage of the process.
EDIT: Sorry i’m being slow, this is the about the Fairphone…
To build Sailfish OS for Fairphone 2 we will need to wait for Sledges to release what he has done with the base android repos, as there’s a whole lot of patching in there needed for hybris to work
Update for everyone testing the community port: If you have upgraded your FP2 with Android 1.2.8 and flash Sailfish OS on that, it’ll cause the camera and mp3 not to work on alpha1 port (one service refuses to start, causing a problem with decoder). You have two options: Downgrade to earlier Android before flashing, or wait for the next Sailfish OS image to be shared. Credits to the the main porter “mal” for sharing this info, I’m just happy to deliver it here. Feedback from testers is always welcome so that other possible issues can be hunted down before the next release.
EDIT: There’s now a downgrade step added in the installing guide, tested as great workaround for the above issue while waiting for the next port. Happy testing!