Re: [HOWTO] Comprehensive Firmware Flashing Guide for Jolla
 

Wouldn't the easiest way to use netcat over the tcp connection (which is already there)? Than you don't have to go the way over the sdcard?

Re: [HOWTO] Comprehensive Firmware Flashing Guide for Jolla
 

That is not a bad idea, there is a somewhat big concern for me in this.
If connection is lost it breaks everything (EDIT: doesnt do any harm, just need to run backup again). Also, errors in transmission might cause a faulty backup. This could be evaluated by md5sums of course.
Feasable though, even if connection breaks, it wont do much harm as we would not be touching bootloader.
Also, bear in mind, that backing up 16G worth is gonna take hours.

Re: [HOWTO] Comprehensive Firmware Flashing Guide for Jolla
 

Connection problems shouldn't be a real concern. USB Network seems quite stable. Also TCP does a fair amount of integrity check.

Same error could happen with sdcards. I think both methods are ok, my method of backup at the jolla beginning was per sd card. Today I would probably do it pre nc

Re: [HOWTO] Comprehensive Firmware Flashing Guide for Jolla
 

so, I have dd of /dev/mmcblk0p28 (sailfish) partition (comparable with system on Android) as sailfish.img
but, block size is wrong and
img2simg -C 512 sailfish.img
gives me incorrect block size error (4096)
suggestions are welcome ;)

http://pastebin.com/hD34Zuua

Re: [HOWTO] Comprehensive Firmware Flashing Guide for Jolla
 

Besides, may it be better to backup and restore from recovery mode, using normal tools?

E.g. only use fastboot to flash whatever images are required to boot to recovery, then boot into recovery, connect via telnet/nc/whatever and flash the image back using dd.

This way one has more control over the process, can skip buggy bootloaders, and may even use a simple .tar.gz containing the rootfs (plus mkfs.btrfs and a script to create the subvolumes, instead of a disk image).

Re: [HOWTO] Comprehensive Firmware Flashing Guide for Jolla
 

Yes, the recovery works well, even we can dd back an image.
However, what will you do when you can ONLY enter fastboot ? (not recovery) ?

Re: [HOWTO] Comprehensive Firmware Flashing Guide for Jolla
 

I just can't see how would flashing the "sailfish" partition help if your bootloader is broken up to the point you can't boot to recovery.

If fastboot works but recovery partition or kernel is damaged, you have two options. either flash those only, or boot your own kernel with a recovery initrd with ssh, telnet, whatever.

If fastboot doesn't work, you're fscked. I don't know how to fix that (basically we only know how to fix that for the N900). I don't know what kind of damage you have to do in order to break fastboot, either.

Re: [HOWTO] Comprehensive Firmware Flashing Guide for Jolla
 

good point, perhaps it makes better sense to create a flashable recovery image.
This is also redistributable and is not a huge image ...

Re: [HOWTO] Comprehensive Firmware Flashing Guide for Jolla
 

And if one uses the .tar.gz file instead of disk images, one might even separate it into jolla-propietary-crap.tar.gz and sailfish.tar.gz. The later can be freely distributed, while the former can be either created from a running system, or "found in popular pirate sites" (because I suspect its size will be < 50MB).

Btw, anyone tried if you can flash images with locked bootloader?

Re: [HOWTO] Comprehensive Firmware Flashing Guide for Jolla
 

to use fastboot bootloader must be unlocked