Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
Manufacturer

Samsung

Name

Galaxy A5 (2017)

Identifier

samsung-a5y17lte

System Type

android

SoC

exynos-7880

Architecture

aarch64-linux

Supports Stage-0

no

Source

Mobile NixOS repository

Builds

Hydra (default build)

Building

This will build the default output for your Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017).

$ nix-build --argstr device samsung-a5y17lte -A build.default

Installation

The device will need to be booted in its bootloader, or odin, mode.

The boot image can be installed using the following command, assuming it was built using the previous command.

$ result/flash-critical.sh

If you have a system image (system.img) built, you can use heimdall to flash it to the device. Note that it might be too big to fit over the SYSTEM partition. In such case, it can be flashed on the USERDATA partition.

Warning
 This will erase everything on the partition. Additionally, the common backups methods, e.g. TWRP, will not backup the USERDATA partition. 
$ heimdall flash --USERDATA system.img

Device-specific notes

Force-rebooting

To force-reboot the device, hold Volume Down + Home + Power for a couple of seconds.

Odin mode

Holding Volume Down + Home + Power during power-up will go to the Samsung specific bootloader mode.

Recovery

Holding Volume Up + Home + Power during power-up will boot the recovery boot image.

Flashing system image

Using heimdall to flash system.img, either on the USERDATA or on the SYSTEM partition seems to fail, for unclear reasons.

One can use TWRP to flash the partitions:

 $ adb shell dd of=/dev/block/platform/13540000.dwmmc0/by-name/SYSTEM bs=8M < .../system.img
 $ # or
 $ adb shell dd of=/dev/block/platform/13540000.dwmmc0/by-name/USERDATA bs=8M < .../system.img