sailfishx-patcher-f5321

This repository contains a tool that permits to apply the Xperia X Compact compatibility layer on top of official Sailfish X images.

To keep things simple and clean, this guide will show how to patch inside a Vagrant environment.
You can run it as well without vagrant, but is not recommended. Please read anyway the Vagrantfile to get the required dependencies.

The following may also work on Windows and macOS machines, but it hasn't been tested (testers welcome!).

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How does this thing work?

A: droid-compat-f5321 is a compatibility layer that I've developed in order to use official Sailfish X images on the Xperia X Compact.

This layer works by overriding some hardware specific parts of the Xperia X adaptation with the ones of the Xperia X Compact, and where the override operation is not applicable, the patched files are applied via a diversion, using a rudimentary tool called rpm-divert.

The kernel image is patched, so the whole official adaptation is working on the X Compact.

The kernel patch is done with another tool that I've developed, yabit.

Q: What Sailfish X images are supported?

A: Sailfish X for Xperia X Single Sim (F5121). Currently the following images have been patched successfully:

• Sailfish X F5121 2.1.3.7
• Sailfish X F5121 2.1.4.14
• Sailfish X F5121 2.2.0.29

Q: What doesn't work?

A: The only things that don't work are:

• USB OTG (the Xperia X kernel does not supply the driver for the USB Type-C controller of the X Compact)
• Some secondary sensors (magnetometer, gyroscope, pressure, step counter). This is temporary until I narrow down a battery drain issue I experienced with those.

Q: What about those secondary sensors?

Note

If you patched before 2018-09-09 and upgraded to 2.2.1 Early Access, there can be inconsistencies on the secondary sensors diversions (i.e. the sensors show as diverted, but in reality they're not).

To fix that, run the following commands:

devel-su
zypper ref
zypper in rpm-divert
rpm-divert unapply --package droid-compat-f5321-hybris-libsensorfw-qt5
rpm-divert apply --package droid-compat-f5321-hybris-libsensorfw-qt5

Answer

A: I have experienced spikes in CPU usage by sensorfwd during the early days of this patch. Those were hard to reproduce, and I haven't had the time to properly debug them (it may very well be an issue of my device).

Disabling those sensors helped, and I haven't experienced the problem since.

Those sensors are disabled by default, and it's done with diversions made by the droid-compat-f5321-hybris-libsensorfw-qt5 package (as far as I know, Sailfish OS 2.2.1 now allows to disable sensors from a configuration file, but a diversion is just as effective).

You can check if you have the diversions applied with the following command:

rpm-divert list --package droid-compat-f5321-hybris-libsensorfw-qt5

You can unapply them all (and thus restoring their functionality) using

devel-su rpm-divert unapply --package droid-compat-f5321-hybris-libsensorfw-qt5

You can also selectively unapply them with

devel-su rpm-divert unapply --source /usr/lib/sensord-qt5/libhybrisgyroscopeadaptor-qt5.so

(this will re-enable the gryoscope sensor, change accordingly with what you want to enable)

If after enabling the sensors you experience the aforementioned battery drain, you can reapply every diversion (and thus disabling the secondary sensors) using

devel-su rpm-divert apply --package droid-compat-f5321-hybris-libsensorfw-qt5

NOTE: You need to restart the sensors daemon after applying/unapplying diversions. You can do so using

devel-su systemctl restart sensorfwd

Q: Is it stable?

A: I'm using a patched image on my daily driver since April 2018. Before I was running a custom-built 2.1.2 image and I've yet to notice differences stability-wise.

Q: Do I have access to the Sailfish X licensed content (aliendalvik, text prediction, etc)?

A: If your Sailfish X license is valid, yes. Jolla will see your device as a standard, single-sim, Xperia X.

Alien Dalvik and the other 3rd-party content work fine.

Q: Are Sailfish Over The Air (OTA) updates safe?

A: They should be. The compatibility layer has been developed with OTAs in mind.

So far I haven't had any issues with upgrades. My daily driver has had the following updates since April:

2.1.3 (start) -> 2.1.4 -> 2.2.0 -> 2.2.1

Q: Does this mean that I can run official Sailfish X on other Xperia devices?

A: No. The Xperia X and the Xperia X Compact are so similar that an approach similar to mine can work. Other Xperias (X Performance, XZ*) do not share anything about the hardware so unfortunately things can't work.

But I expect that a similar approach can be taken to patch the Sailfish X images for the XA2 for the XA2 Plus and Ultra.

Q: Hey, I like what you've done! Can I buy you a beer?

A: Sure! Head up here. Thanks!

Requirements

• An official Sailfish X image, for the Xperia X Single Sim (F5121)
• vagrant
• virtualbox
• ~15 GB of disk space

How to patch

First of all, clone this repository and its submodules:

git clone https://github.com/g7/sailfishx-patcher-f5321.git
cd sailfishx-patcher-f5321
git submodule init
git submodule update

Then, install (if you haven't) the vagrant-vbguest plugin:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest

Bring up the vagrant environment. This might take a while:

vagrant up

If everything went well, copy the official Sailfish X image to the sailfishx-patcher-f5321 directory, then start the actual patching process:

vagrant ssh -c "/vagrant/patch.sh -a f5321 -i /vagrant/Sailfish*.zip"

Note: Do not change the "/vagrant" directory! It already references the sailfishx-patcher-f5321 directory where you copied the zip file.

If everything is successful, you should get a patched zipfile in the very same directory.

You can use the official Sailfish X installation instructions to flash to your device. Enjoy!

To destroy the vagrant image, simply execute

vagrant destroy