Getting started Guide ?

[sivansh11]

is there any getting started guide for this (or in general) ? I wanna try porting it for my device!

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Lite
gts10litewifi
Exynos 1380
s5e8835

I am new to this, so looking for resources. (I understand you might not be able to help me directly)

[Zendelfur]

I am facing the same situation as you :
I want to port it to my device but I have no idea how this works 🥲
Is there, at least, a matrix channel or a discord server for us to get help ?

[sivansh11]

which device are you trying to port @Zendelfur ? would you like to connect on discord ?

[Zendelfur]

I would love to join the Discord if there's any !
My device is :
Samsung galaxy Tab 2016 (SM-T580)
gtaxlwifi
Exynos 7870

[akku1139]

I ported uniLoader to two devices (blackview tab 15 pro, amazon echo show 1st gen - checkers)
The way I do it is below

1. add basic files
   copy from other board

• board/[vendor]/board-[name].c (shold add license header)
• board/Kconfig, board/Makefile, README.md (add your device's entry)
• soc/Kconfig (if your SoC is not listed, in most case not required to write SoC specific code)
• configs/[name]_defconfig

license header example:

/* SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-only */
/*
 * Copyright (c) 2026, your name <your email>
 */

defconfig example:

CONFIG_MT8163=y (your SoC)
CONFIG_SIMPLE_FB=y
CONFIG_AMAZON_CHECKERS=y (your board)
CONFIG_TEXT_BASE=0x40080000 (basically bootloader loads uniLoader to this address)
CONFIG_PAYLOAD_ENTRY=0x50000000 (uniLoader locates kernel here)
CONFIG_RAMDISK_ENTRY=0x60000000 (uniLoader locates initrd here)
CONFIG_LINUX_KRNL_HEADER_IMG=y (optional)

let's get the addresses from iomem

checkers:/ # cat /proc/iomem
10006000-10006fff : /soc/scpsys@10006000
10007000-10007fff : /soc/toprgu@10007000
(snip)
11250000-11250fff : /soc/mmc@11250000
13040000-13043fff : 13040000.gpu
14000100-1400010f : mmsys_cg_con0_base
14016000-14016fff : /soc/larb@14016000
14017000-14017fff :
15001000-15001fff : /soc/larb@15001000
15004000-1500cfff : 15004000.ispsys
16010000-1601ffff : /soc/larb@16010000
17001000-17001fff : /soc/larb@17001000
40000000-42ffffff : System RAM <- physical DRAM base address
  40080000-40d2ffff : Kernel code <- set to CONFIG_TEXT_BASE
  40df0000-4100efff : Kernel data
43030000-7effffff : System RAM <- physical DRAM end address
checkers:/ #

(akku1139/linux#6)

CONFIG_TEXT_BASE, CONFIG_PAYLOAD_ENTRY, CONFIG_RAMDISK_ENTRY:
I recommend keeping these as far apart in memory space as possible (ref: #103 (comment))

about CONFIG_LINUX_KRNL_HEADER_IMG:
on most devices, it doesn't matter whether you set it y or not,
bootloader jumps the head of loaded kernel (or uniLoader), don't check kernel header,
however, adding this will not cause any problems. the image just gets a little bigger

(there were big changes in driver api recently, don't reference old pull requests)

2. build it
   https://github.com/ivoszbg/uniLoader#building-example

3. check framebuffer region and format,
   there are some ways to get it

• cat /proc/iomem (old MediaTek devices)

# cat /proc/iomem
11006000-110060ff : mtk-uart.0
11007000-110070ff : mtk-uart.1
(snip)
15000000-1500e000 : camera-isp.0
  15000000-1500e000 : camera-isp
80000000-bf5fffff : System RAM
  80008000-8090bfff : Kernel code
  80942000-80c2b52f : Kernel data
bf600000-bfffffff : mtkfb.0 <- here

(https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Lenovo_YOGA_Tablet_8/10_(lenovo-blade)#Memory_Map)

• check ATAG (TODO: write details)
  Dump the ATAG and compare it with the kernel's structs

• check device tree
  eg https://github.com/akku1139/blackview-tab15pro/blob/5689952a59b92b7928841a9625f019f56c970010/device.dts#L6152-L6155

and try various formats
uniLoader uses .stride as bpp
if you get correct font but different color ([INFO] is orange, [ERROR] is red, normal text is white),
trying other pixel formats (https://github.com/ivoszbg/uniLoader/blob/master/lib/simplefb/simplefb.c)
if your device's bpp=16, format is rgb565 in most cases, bpp=24 -> rgb888
if bpp=32, it's difficult. try many formats.
if your device is ABGR8888 but you set BGRA8888, orange -> black, white -> pale red

notes that some devices has panel with a different orientation than the specs (eg. checkers)

enjoy porting!