[Replicant] Is the i9300 still the best phone for running Replicant? (and a few other questions)

[Sophie Hamilton]

Hi there. Apologies for the delay in responding!

On 26/10/2021, doak <doak+list at posteo.net> wrote:
[...]
>> Is my diagnosis of the problem correct, or is there something else
>> going on here?
>
> I would say you guess is quite good.
> I had the same as you described in the second point some years ago (already
> with Replicant 6.3).
> I figured out that it only happened with 3G, hence setting the preference to
> 2G was a quick
> workaround. Since I knew that it had worked before and I switched the
> hardware (another i9300)
> my best guess was that it has to be caused by an older or more buggy
> baseband firmware.
> If I remember correctly updating that one fixed the issue. You may check
> your baseband firmware
> revision. Mine is 'I9300XXUGNA8'.
> Updating the baseband needs Windows tools, at least as far as I know. But
> perhaps there are
> alternatives.

Thank you for sharing that. I think you're onto something because I
just tested this workaround with my partner and for the first time in
a long time we've been able to talk with each other on the mobile, so
it appears that this is indeed the problem, especially as my baseband
version is also 'I9300XXUGNA8'.

Unfortunately, I probably cannot update the baseband even if I wanted
to because the power button on this phone can no longer be pressed,
and if the phone turns off for any reason at all (which I'd probably
need to do at some point during the firmware update process), it will
be impossible for me to switch it back on. I have workarounds for
unlocking the screen (using the home button), locking the screen again
(adding the icon to do so to the widget buttons in my notification
drawer) and rebooting the phone (either back to the OS or to TWRP -
and *technically* to the firmware updater but as far as I know there's
no way for me to reboot back to the OS from there without using the
power button), but yeah.

It's only a matter of time before the phone becomes a paperweight,
essentially, which is why I've been very eager to get another phone.
(I do have full backups of all internal storage, thankfully, and I was
able to use TWRP to back up the rest and return to the main OS without
the need of the power button. It's surprising how much you can do,
actually.)

In any case, it sounds like the i9300 is my best option if I want to
run Replicant. Which leads me to another question for the list - is
there any way I can help to bring Replicant to a somewhat more modern
device? What devices are currently being targeted? It may be worth my
while to get a daily driver but also get a dev phone for myself if I
know what phones are being worked on.

In the meantime, of course, I would be using Replicant 6 on my daily driver.

Thank you,

 - Sophie.