This guide should (hopefully) help you on getting your trees building.

Table of Contents

• Prerequisites
• Preparing your environment
• Getting a base tree
• Fixing it to make it build
• Building
• Flashing and Testing

Prerequisites

What you will need

• Ubuntu 20.04 LTS+ (or any distro, you are on your own)
• A beefy machine (16gb ram, 4 cores minimum)
• An android device with its ROM files¹
• Time
• Brainpower

Preparing your Environment

Preparing git and repo

Git

On your shell, type this command:

$ sudo apt-get install git -y

Repo

On your shell, type these commands:

$ mkdir -p ~/.bin
$ PATH="${HOME}/.bin:${PATH}"
$ curl https://storage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo > ~/.bin/repo
$ chmod a+rx ~/.bin/repo

Preparing build dependencies

On your shell, paste this command:

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get full-upgrade -y && sudo apt-get install bc bison build-essential ccache curl flex g++-multilib gcc-multilib git git-lfs gnupg gperf imagemagick lib32readline-dev lib32z1-dev libelf-dev liblz4-tool libsdl1.2-dev libssl-dev libxml2 libxml2-utils lzop pngcrush rsync schedtool squashfs-tools xsltproc zip zlib1g-dev --install-recommends

Preparing TWRP manifest

On your shell, paste these commands:

$ mkdir twrp && cd twrp
$ repo init --depth=1 -u https://github.com/minimal-manifest-twrp/platform_manifest_twrp_aosp.git -b twrp-12.1
$ repo sync

Getting a base tree

Remember the ROM .zip you have? We’re gonna dump it!

How to dump using OkBuddyGSI’s bot

1. Upload your ROM onto any filehost.
2. Join the OkBuddyGSI group here.
3. On the chat, type /dump and then paste the file URL after. It should look like this:

/dump https://cdnorg.d.miui.com/V12.5.12.0.RCOEUXM/ginkgo_eea_global_images_V12.5.12.0.RCOEUXM_20221127.0000.00_11.0_eea_fdd5e37d21.tgz

Of course, the URL will be different from this example.

After dumping, grab the dumps URL and clone it. You should have your device’s dump in your current directory.

Uploading the tree to git

After cd’ing into the dump, follow these steps:

1. cd into twrp-device-tree/vendor/codename vendor will be the OEM, in this case, moondrop codename will be the device’s codename, in this case, MD_PH_001

2. Initalize a git project inside the twrp tree

git init
git add *
git commit -m "Import tree"
git branch -M twrp
git remote add origin https://git.service/user/repo.git
git push -u origin twrp

git.service will be what git server you use, user is your username in that server, and repo being the repo name

Fixing it to make it build

Common Problems

add_lunch_combo is deprecated

vendorsetup.sh

- add_lunch_combo twrp_MD_PH_001-userdebug
- add_lunch_combo twrp_MD_PH_001-user
- add_lunch_combo twrp_MD_PH_001-env

AndroidProducts.mk

+ COMMON_LUNCH_CHOICES :=  \
+     twrp_MD_PH_001-userdebug \
+     twrp_MD_PH_001-user \
+     twrp_MD_PH_001-eng

PRODUCT_STATIC_BOOT_CONTROL_HAL is obsolete

device.mk

diff --git a/device.mk b/device.mk
index b61e3dc..f7ef666 100644
--- a/device.mk
+++ b/device.mk
@@ -16,16 +16,13 @@ AB_OTA_POSTINSTALL_CONFIG += \
 # Boot control HAL
 PRODUCT_PACKAGES += \
     android.hardware.boot@1.0-impl \
+    android.hardware.boot@1.0-impl.recovery \
+    bootctrl.mt6877 \
+    bootctrl.mt6877.recovery \
     android.hardware.boot@1.0-service
 
 PRODUCT_PACKAGES += \
-    bootctrl.mt6877
-
-PRODUCT_STATIC_BOOT_CONTROL_HAL := \
-    bootctrl.mt6877 \
-    libgptutils \
-    libz \
-    libcutils
+    bootctrl
 
 PRODUCT_PACKAGES += \
     otapreopt_script \

Building

On the same twrp folder we made, paste these commands:

$ export ALLOW_MISSING_DEPENDENCIES=true
$ . build/envsetup.sh
$ lunch twrp_<device>-eng

<device> (without the brackets) should be your device’s codename.

If lunch is successful, continue with building by typing

mka <target>

Target will differ on different devices.

If BOARD_USES_RECOVERY_AS_BOOT is present in your BoardConfig.mk then bootimage is your target.

Else, its either recoveryimage or vendorbootimage.

Flashing and Testing

Fastboot

Once you’re in fastboot mode, open up a shell and then:

# For bootimage
$ fastboot flash boot boot.img

# For recoveryimage
$ fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

# For vendorbootimage
$ fastboot flash vendor_boot vendor_boot.img

After flashing, manually restart to recovery or Android will override recovery(!!!)

Odin/Heimdall

After getting the recovery.img, open up 7zip and archive as a tar. In Odin, flash as AP. After flashing, manually restart to recovery or Android will override the recovery(!!!)

You should now have TWRP held on by hopes and dreams!

Footnotes