Galaxy S T959 preliminary research to attempt replicant installation

[A. F. Cano]

Greetings all,

I was given a Samsung Galaxy S T959 (US version for T-Mobile) and quickly
realized that, being used to Debian, the Android OS (2.1-update1) is very
locked down and totally unusable without depending on google and cell phone
service, which I don't want to sign up for at this point (I use Verizon).
This one being the first smart phone I've been able to play with, there
was quite a learning curve and lots of research, during which I found
(and please correct me if I'm wrong) that Android 2.1 cannot be rooted.
I have tried rageagainstthecage-arm5.bin but it had no effect.  Certain
directories are not even readable with adb, so I can't even do a full
backup of the whole system.  I have looked around and found the firmware
files in /system/firmware:

$ adb shell ls -l /system/firmware
-rw-r--r-- root     root           17 2010-06-22 23:19 CE147F02.bin
-rw-r--r-- root     root       809088 2010-06-22 23:19 CE147F03.bin
-rw-r--r-- root     root        18834 2010-06-22 23:19 CE147F01.bin
-rw-r--r-- root     root            4 2010-06-22 23:19 CE147F00.bin

Obviously, I would like to backup anything that might be important,
such as ALL the firmware, before the replicant installation wipes the
phone clean.  Is this all the firmware?  The names don't match the
names on the replicant web site for the Galaxy S.  Any other files
I should look for?

I'd rather not have to go to google for other apps, and that seems
to be what's necessary.  Besides, side-loading from the usb connection
seems to be impossible without rooting the phone, as the /system FS is
read-only.

$ adb shell mount
rootfs / rootfs ro 0 0
tmpfs /dev tmpfs rw,mode=755 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,mode=600 0 0
proc /proc proc rw 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw 0 0
/dev/block/stl6 /mnt/.lfs j4fs rw 0 0
tmpfs /sqlite_stmt_journals tmpfs rw,size=4096k 0 0
none /dev/cpuctl cgroup rw,cpu 0 0
/dev/block/stl9 /system rfs ro,vfat,log_off,check=no,gid/uid/rwx,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /data rfs rw,nosuid,nodev,vfat,llw,check=no,gid/uid/rwx,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/block/mmcblk0p3 /data_tmo rfs rw,nosuid,nodev,vfat,llw,check=no,gid/uid/rwx,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/block/stl10 /dbdata rfs rw,nosuid,nodev,vfat,llw,check=no,gid/uid/rwx,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/block/stl11 /cache rfs rw,nosuid,nodev,vfat,llw,check=no,gid/uid/rwx,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/block/stl3 /efs rfs rw,nosuid,nodev,vfat,llw,check=no,gid/uid/rwx,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/block//vold/179:1 /sdcard vfat rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,uid=1000,gid=1015,fmask=0102,dmask=0002,allow_utime=0020,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0
/dev/block//vold/179:9 /sdcard/sd vfat rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,uid=1000,gid=1015,fmask=0000,dmask=0000,allow_utime=0022,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0

The goal is to do without google.  Ultimately, I'd like to install
replicant and then secure the phone per this page:

https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy

I have read that the gps would be unusable due to no firmware being available.
I also read that besides cosmetic differences, internally the T959 is identical
to the i9000, for which there is a replicant file.  Has anyone actually
installed replicant on the T959 variety?  I suspect not, or it would be
documented, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

I have also tried to backup user data (call logs, contact list, etc...) because
eventually I would like to sync the phone with the KDE apps (Kaddressbook,
Korganizer, etc...) via the usb cable, but that seems like it's going to be
another project made difficult by how much the phone is locked down.  I suppose
I could eventually find the files where that info resides if I go looking
file by file.  Does anyone know where all that user data is?  I don't want to
depend on the cloud/google for backups and sync.  In the days of the Palm PDAs
it was a matter of one button to sync.  Is anyone aware of scripts to do
this? (sync with KDE)  All I could find was advice to do file-by-file copy.

So, given the apparent impossibility to root Android 2.1, it looks like all
I can do is manually find each file I want to backup (assuming they are
readable) and then proceed with the latest replicant installation and hope the
phone doesn't get bricked.  Any advice/reassurances anyone can give?  What
files do I need to extract from the existing android 2.1 and possibly restore
once replicant is installed?

Thanks for reading this far and for any help/advice.

Augustine