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Missing proprietary firmwares in Android systems

Written by Paul Kocialkowski 65 comments

Firmwares are programs that do not run on the main processor of a computer: instead, they runs inside separate chips that have a dedicated functionality. Most of the time, firmwares are proprietary programs, which do not respect the user's freedom. When they are not already installed in the chip they run in, the main processor has to load them into the chip, which requires the firmware to be distributed as a file. Since they are proprietary software, I think firmwares shouldn't be shipped with any operating system, not should any operating system ever advise the user to install them.

However, people sometimes need a functionality that depends on proprietary firmwares so bad that they would rather use a system that ships and encourages the use of proprietary software, including the needed firmware, over a free system. In that case, it is better for their freedom that they use a free system with only the proprietary firmware installed, over another system that contains dozens of other proprietary pieces, including ones that also run on the main processor and are able to compromise the whole system (from a security point of view), on top of not respecting the user's freedom.

On Android devices, people are often facing this choice and look around for instructions on how to install only the missing firmwares so that they can avoid installing a system that contains even more proprietary bits. While these instructions cannot be released on free system's official documentation pages, for the sake of not encouraging the use of proprietary software, it makes sense for me to publish such instructions on my personal pages. I have written scripts that extract the firmwares from CyanogenMod installation zips for a few Android devices and push them to the device: cm-firmwares.git

The procedure to install the firmwares is the following:

  • Grab the CyanogenMod installation zip matching the needed version from the CyanogenMod Downloads website (make sure to select the stable release).
    For instance, the CyanogenMod 10.1.3 installation zip for the Galaxy S 3 (I9300) is at:
  • Clone the cm-firmwares git repository, with the branch matching the CyanogenMod version.
    For instance, for CyanogenMod 10.1.3:
    git clone git:// -b cm-10.1.3
  • Connect the device via USB, make sure ADB is enabled and allowed to run as root on the device. Check that the device is connected and allowed:
    adb devices
    If not, it might be necessary to run the process as root (or prefix the following commands with sudo).
  • Run the script (on the host computer) with the device codename as first argument.
    For instance, for the Galaxy S 3 (I9300):
    ./ i9300
  • Alternatively, it is possible to create a zip containing the firmwares and install it afterwards, using recovery.
    For instance, for the Galaxy S 3 (I9300):
    ./ i9300 zip

If you wish to push only certain firmwares, feel free to edit the text file matching the device codename to remove the ones that are not needed before running the script.

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