Replicant project

Replicant 4.0 0003 images release

PaulK — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:31:21 +0000

It has been two months since the last images release and we decided that it was time to release another batch of images. These are still based on Android 4.0. First, it comes with support for the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 & 7.0 tablets, both in GSM/3G versions: these tablets are pretty much phones with bigger screens. There is still room for improvement regarding these tablets in Replicant, but they have reached a state of usability, even though they are particularly slow in portrait mode.

Other minor fixes for other devices are included in this release, especially stability fixes regarding the Radio Interface Layer. The full changelog is available for more details.

We are now working to bring Replicant support to other devices such as the Goldelico GTA04.

You can download the images from the ReplicantImages page and find installation instructions as well as build guides on the Replicant wiki.

Replicant 4.0 0002 images release

PaulK — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 22:19:14 +0000

Since some progress was made lately, we decided to release a new set of images.

The new features available in this release are mostly camera support for the Galaxy S2, accelerometers support for the Nexus S and Galaxy S2 and RIL (telephony) improvements for all devices. A more detailed changelog is also available.

We are working to bring Replicant 4.0 support to more devices, such as the Goldelico GTA04 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (both 7.0 and 10.1 GSM versions).

You can download the images from the ReplicantImages page and find installation instructions as well as build guides on the Replicant wiki.

Replicant 4.0 SDK release

PaulK — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:22:00 +0000

It was brought to our attention that the Android SDK is now being released under an overall proprietary software license. In the past, we already had to release a free software SDK, back in Replicant 2.2 times, because the Android SDK was shipping with the non-free Google APIs. More recent SDK updates made these APIs only plug-ins that weren’t shipped with the SDK and it was made clear that these components were non-free while all the license files we could find on the Android SDK package were free software licenses.

However now Google decided to put an overall non-free license for the SDK, which brings back the need of having a fully free Replicant SDK. Since our only SDK release is getting old (it was API level 8), we built an SDK package from Replicant 4.0 sources, that is API level 15.

You can download the SDK from the ReplicantSDK page, find an installation and usage guide as well as the build instructions on the wiki.

Replicant 4.0 0001 images release

PaulK — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 15:26:22 +0000

After months of working hard to bring Replicant to the next upstream release, we are proud to announce the release of the Replicant 4.0 0001 images. This new release comes with support for both new devices, such as the Galaxy Nexus or the Galaxy S2 and devices that were already there in Replicant 2.3, like the Nexus S and the Galaxy S.

Aside from the new Ice Cream Sandwich user experience, that we tried to make as good as possible without any non-free blob, most devices have better hardware support than before, such as Galaxy S which now has working camera, or the global improvements that were made to make telephony more stable and reliable. Even though it’s not perfect yet, we are proud of the result, that many of us use daily. If you encounter a particular problem with our software, do not hesitate to report the issue via our tracker, or give feedback when a problem was resolved.

We are indeed writing hundreds of lines of code to have more hardware supported and with a better state, replacing non-free components, step by step. Keep in mind that Replicant has a very small core team, we’re just two people doing this on our free time: that means we can’t work on every side of the project at the same time and have to make choices. This is why we will always welcome serious new contributors who’d like to get involved in the project.

You can download the images from the ReplicantImages page and find installation instructions as well as build guides on the Replicant wiki.

Replicant 2.3 0005 images, fixing the USSD vulnerability

PaulK — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 10:55:20 +0000

Earlier this week, we were noticed that an USSD vulnerability was discovered in Android. After doing a bit of research, we came to understand the nature of the vulnerability: intents can basically dial a number and start a call without asking confirmation to the user. That could seem harmless at first sight, but it turns out it also works with USSD codes, and some of them are very powerful. This is mostly the case of vendor-specific USSD codes (that are not included in Replicant), which could erase the phone’s user data.

What’s also problematic about this is that web pages can trigger such intents (through an iframe with the tel: prefix for instance).
Since this vulnerability was present in our Replicant images (although the damage was reduced as we don’t include vendor-specific USSD codes), we decided to include the fix in our code base and release new images. That’s nearly the only new feature of these images (Galaxy S also got a nasty graphic bug fixed).

You can download the images from the ReplicantImages page and find installation instructions as well as build guides on the Replicant wiki.

Replicant 2.3 0004 images release

PaulK — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 20:17:30 +0000

Even though we didn’t update the homepage for a long time, we are still actively working!
Lately, a big part of the work was focused on adding support for the upcoming Goldelico GTA04. We strongly encourage the use of the GTA04 since it features nearly-zero known freedom issues (the only exception being that the WiFi chip needs a loaded firmware). Porting Replicant to the GTA04 helps making the device more usable for everyone, thanks to the Android user experience.

Not so much changes were added for other devices, though Samsung devices now have stable data (3G/GPRS, etc). We are also working to reach a state of completeness on these devices. On the other hand, we are also starting the port to Replicant 4.0, based on CyanogenMod 9, introducing newly-supported devices such as the Galaxy S2 and the Galaxy Nexus.

Regarding the new Replicant 2.3 0004 images, you can download them from the ReplicantImages page, find installation instructions as well as build guides on the Replicant wiki.

Nexus S/Galaxy S privacy issues

GNUtoo — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 20:22:12 +0000

We found out that on the Nexus S and the Galaxy S the modem could possibly spy the main CPU(where Replicant runs).
We are currently trying to see if that can be fixed(by loosing about 80M of ram) or not.

More details are available on our wiki

New set of Replicant 2.3 images, including Galaxy S support

PaulK — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 17:53:19 +0000

As it was announced a few weeks ago, we are now releasing a new set of Replicant 2.3 images including Galaxy S support. Nexus S support was also improved, mainly on the modem part (there is now basic data support). Data should also be fixed on Nexus One with this release. More details are available in the detailed changelog.

You can download the new set of images:

Via the Download page
Via the new ReplicantImages wiki page

Our Wiki was also updated with new pages regarding Galaxy S:

Device page: GalaxyS
Device status: ReplicantStatus
Installation instructions: GalaxySInstallation
Build instructions: GalaxySBuild

Galaxy S support is upcoming

PaulK — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 13:42:29 +0000

Back when we were just getting started with Nexus S, a lot of people asked us to add support for Galaxy S, which is a very popular Samsung device running Android. It was quite hard to handle porting multiple devices at the same time. Though, now, a lot of work for Nexus S is over: we fixed graphics to make it usable, we wrote software to support the accelerometer chip, fixed camera (there is still work to do there) and, improved the very first fully free and usable implementation of the Samsung IPC modem protocol in order to successfully place calls, send text messages and connect to data via 3G (among other things we implemented). That was a lot of work and by now, many of us are using Nexus S as a stable daily-phone.

So, what’s the good news for Galaxy S owners? Well, most of the work we’ve done for Nexus S works as well on Galaxy S! Of course, there are still low-level adjustments to make to have it working as well, but it’s doable. A few weeks ago, I bought a Galaxy S device and slowly started the work. I was able to get the following features to work: graphics (as good as Nexus S), sound, calls, SMS, FM radio and accelerometers. The main problem I faced is installation: flashing the images via heimdall doesn’t work but it goes fine with CWM recovery, with all the correct image formats.

I think we will be able to release a new set of images for Nexus S, Galaxy S and Nexus One (hopefully with fixed data) and then, it’ll be time to start the work on GTA04 the amazing new replacement for the GTA02/Neo Freerunner board. Having Replicant running on GTA04 is the goal we’ll try to reach as hard as possible. We encourage you to help the GTA04 project with donations to fund the effort or by subscribing to the group tour to get your device at a lower price.

Wiki and tracker are now powered by Redmine

PaulK — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:58:51 +0000

Replicant web services are kindly hosted by the Oregon State University Open Source Lab.
Recently, they asked us to consider switching from trac, which was powering our wiki and tracker, to redmine, another engine providing the same services. The reason is that redmine is easier to manage for them than trac. As a result, a few weeks ago, Replicant devs agreed and we started the migration process.

Bug reports, wiki pages and user accounts were migrated successfully, but it wasn’t be the case of the users passwords, which are in a different format from trac to redmine. As a result, if you had an account on trac and want to be able to use it on redmine, you’ll have to leave a mail at: contact@replicant.us in order to let us know and reset your password so that you can set the password you want.

From now on, use the following addresses:

Redmine instance: http://redmine.replicant.us/
Wiki: http://redmine.replicant.us/projects/replicant/wiki
Tracker: http://redmine.replicant.us/projects/replicant/issues