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annotate doc/Compal-FFS @ 619:f82551c77e58

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libserial-newlnx: ASYNC_LOW_LATENCY patch reverted Reports from Das Signal indicate that loadtools performance on Debian is about the same as on Slackware, and that including or omitting the ASYNC_LOW_LATENCY patch from Serg makes no difference. Because the patch in question does not appear to be necessary, it is being reverted until and unless someone other than Serg reports an actual real-world system on which loadtools operation times are slowed compared to the Mother's Slackware reference and on which Slackware-like performance can be restored by setting the ASYNC_LOW_LATENCY flag.
author Mychaela Falconia <falcon@freecalypso.org>
date Thu, 27 Feb 2020 01:09:48 +0000
parents 6585c21cc4d4
children bed7981ac8ca
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1 FFS usage on Compal phones
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2 ==========================
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3
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4 All Compal phones (Motorola C1xx and Sony Ericsson J100) use a flash file system
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5 (FFS) structure for user data. On all currently known models with the single
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6 exception of Mot C155/156, this FFS is in our familiar TIFFS format - see the
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7 TIFFS-Overview article. Mot C155/156 uses a different FFS implementation with
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8 a completely different and incompatible on-flash format; it appears that the
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9 name of this C155/156 FFS implementation is FMGR, as evidenced by the strings
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10 found in the firmware image.
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11
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12 The location of FFS within the flash on various known models is as follows:
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13
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14 * On Mot C11x/12x phones with 2 MiB flash, the FFS is at 0x1F0000, using 6
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15 sectors of 8 KiB each;
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16
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17 * On Mot C11x/12x phones with 4 MiB flash, the FFS is at 0x370000, using 3
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18 sectors of 64 KiB each;
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19
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20 * On Mot C139/140 and SE J100 phones (4 MiB flash), the FFS is at 0x370000,
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21 using 5 sectors of 64 KiB each;
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22
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23 * On Mot C155/156 phones (8 MiB flash), the FFS is at 0x700000, using 13
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24 sectors of 64 KiB each - but the format is FMGR, not TIFFS!
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25
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26 In *all* of the listed cases, this FFS (be it TIFFS or FMGR) is used *only* for
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27 user data, and not for anything essential. On all of these phones you can get
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28 in with fc-loadtool (our raw flash manipulation tool), erase the flash sectors
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29 belonging to the FFS, exit fc-loadtool and boot the phone's regular fw with
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30 totally blank FFS sectors - the fw with do a fresh FFS format (it even displays
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31 a message on the LCD as it does so), and then the phone will function completely
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32 normally, but be "brand new", without any previous user data. Compal's
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33 firmwares also do the same thing (automatically reformat the FFS on the first
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34 boot, blowing away any old one) if you reflash from one fw version to a
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35 different one, even if you don't erase the FFS sectors explicitly - Compal's
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36 FFS stores the fw version that created it, and when their fw boots and sees
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37 that the FFS is from a different version, they automatically do a full reformat.
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38
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39 The fact that the FFS on these Compal phones is strictly non-essential and can
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40 be trivially blown away and recreated implies that it does NOT store any vital
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41 data: no IMEI, no RF calibration values. Instead the IMEI, the RF calibration
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42 values and a bunch of other records which we are not able to understand are
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43 stored in a completely different flash data structure of Compal's own invention:
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44 see our Compal-calibration article.
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45
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46 Language reset
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47 ==============
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48
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49 There is, however, one additional issue which you need to be aware of if you
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50 are going to erase the FFS and have the firmware reformat a new one: when the
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51 firmware formats and writes a new FFS, the UI language is set to the firmware's
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52 default, and in some fw versions it is not English. (Both Motorola and Sony
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53 Ericsson firmwares have "language pack" and "flex" parts in addition to the
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54 main fw body proper.) Sometimes one can get lucky and the default fw language
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55 is English, other times the default language is non-English but still
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56 intelligible enough to navigate through the menus to change it to English, but
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57 I got one C118 on which the default fw language is Chinese, and I had no luck
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58 in navigating through the menus to change it to English. On that phone I had
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59 to flash back the original FFS which had the English UI language setting.