Flashing Android devices with OpenBSD?

[jkl]

Hi,

considering I'd like to use my OpenBSD machine for flashing my Android smartphone: Is there a "Google ADB" driver for OpenBSD?

[jggimi]

The Android Debug Bridge has been ported. I don't believe the complete set of functions are available; you'd have to test your particular uses.

devel/adb

[jkl]

Well, that's the userland application; I was wondering if OpenBSD actually recognizes a device in "bootloader mode".

[jggimi]

I doubt it. There are only three Android devices even listed in usbdevs to begin with.

The application was discussed on ports@ here.

[jkl]

Oh, OK. Thank you though.

[joekiser]

You can use adb to send/retrieve files from an Android device, but you would still need fastboot to flash the rom.

[jkl]

adb alone requires that the device is actually recognized though. I could live with having to copy the ROM zip files via adb and use TWRP to flash them, but I need to get there first.

[joekiser]

OK, thought you were flashing a stock device. I've used adb successfully on OpenBSD in the past. Just to be sure, USB debugging is already enabled on the phone?

[jkl]

Yes, it is.

[bradley]

There is adb available on OpenBSD and I noticed that android-tools-fastboot is available for FreeBSD.

On the ports page it says: "While tested mainly on FreeBSD and DragonFly it may also work on
NetBSD and OpenBSD which use reference libusb implementation."

Did anyone maybe test it on OpenBSD already?

If someone is not familiar with these tools, here is a short summary: "ADB (Android Debug Bridge Utility) is a command-line development tool that is used to communicate with your Android device."
"Fastboot is generally a diagnostic tool that is required to modify the Android file system in Bootloader mode. The tool only works if your Android phone is in fastboot/bootloader mode. It sends the command to the bootloader to install or modify the firmware on the Android file system."

[jggimi]

There was a recent thread on the ports@ mailing list discussing adb. The short version is that it is outdated, unmaintained, and unusable.

https://marc.info/?t=163526771600001&r=1&w=2

[bradley]

Thank you for the hint. Thinking about a workaround, if usb passthrough to a VM would work (I saw someone mentioning it on a custom kernel), it might be possible to use Linux or FreeBSD in a VM with those tools.
Otherwise, if it's only about transfering files (in that thread simple-mtpfs is mentioned), also syncthing might get the work done.

[jggimi]

I use simple-mtpfs when files I wish to transfer are in storage locations inaccessible from Airdroid.