Help building SM-x115 galaxy tab A9 lte one ui 6.1 android 14 mediatek helio G99 custom kernel nethunter, lxc, docker kvm etc.build guide please. i have rooted it with magisk and have stock firmware, kernel version 5.10.198 android 12 -xxxxxx build

[Anmol6002]

I want to customise the possibilities of my device's kernel like how much customisation is available and possible.

So this tab is a government device but I flashed stock firmware somehow I managed so it would not be getting admin control and flashed a boot.img from AP slot in odin and installed magisk to get root from my friends laptop and maybe i don't have access to it anymore because it's his father's work related laptop.

And I have removed knox using termux su commands completely

I want to build a kernel on my other android device poco m6 pro 5g 8gb ram 256 gb storage variant i tried with first of all using chat gpt and GitHub actions it didn't work because I never had access to a Tutorial like this one you have created so it failed at some points and didn't give any output i even solved some issues it faced because of codes in different files in kernel-5.10 that's where we have to run build from I have uploaded it in two different repo two times first when I was building from actions and another again using different yml code and method i thought it's not compling because of code changes maybe but it wasn't the matter it still was the same those issues were still there so first one I fixed was going great like one error still persisted though I wasn't able to solve it .and then running actions one after another consumed time I had access to in a month maybe or something so build never got completed. Kind of

And then I tried with termux and proot ubuntu i kinda tried to use the build_kernel.sh from samsung but it didn't work so I did everything one by one it was going smoothly and the menuconfig opened. I added CAN support related to nethunter in the kernel source tree where it needed to be added like before starting the build procedure. I did this in actions one too i mean it's not a problem just feature. And I have a .config file including extra config I want to add in my kernel alongside the base that device needs to be working in meaning adding or enabling available extra kernel features is building a custom kernel i guess.

And then again it kind of stopped not really i guess or completed but nothing in out directory no image, modules etc. or whatever output expected.

And I came to the conclusion that I need to know how to build a gki kernel I watched a lot of videos but there were none related to what I needed and then I found out this tutorial.

So if you can please guide me to build a custom kernel and flash it using magisk maybe or any kernel flashing app etc. or via termux.

I have downloaded the kernel source X115_SWA_14_Opensource.zip from samsung open source.

Extracted zip has :-

1. Kernel.tar.gz
   2.Platform.tar.gz
   3.README_Kernel.txt
   4.README_Platform.txt

Extracting both tar.gz

And from Kernel.tar.gz has:-

1. kernel
2. kernel-5.10
3. vendor
4. build_kernel.sh

And from Platform.tar.gz has:-

1. art
2. external
3. frameworks
4. libcore
5. system
6. vendor
7. build_64bit.sh

So according to the tutorials you have mentioned like for a mtk device we have to do
Something to make hardware work correctly and keep the device from hard bricking.

This is the mention in this tutorial

⚠️Caution

DO NOT FLASH GKI Image ALONE WITHOUT VENDOR DRIVERS — ESPECIALLY ON SAMSUNG DEVICES

These GKI build scripts only compile the kernel Image from source. They may NOT include:

OEM out-of-tree drivers (e.g., Samsung's sec_*, EFUSE triggers, TrustZone handlers)
Vendor-specific modules built only via official OEM build systems.

Flashing this Image as your first custom binary after unlocking the bootloader can permanently hard brick your device — especially on Samsung MediaTek GKI 2.0+ models.

Why? Because missing security drivers may prevent proper EFUSE handling, and the system may treat your flash as a tamper violation, leading to irreversible brick.

I’ve already bricked a phone this way — so take this seriously.

✅ If you still want to proceed and learn how to build a safe and bootable GKI kernel, especially for Samsung MTK devices, refer to my SM-A166P repo:
👉🏻https://github.com/ravindu644/android_kernel_a166p

I visited this above repo there's no guidance and tutorial.

Please guide me or add tutorials in the repo given above related to things so I don't brick my device.

[ravindu644]

Hey there..!

First, I suggest you to don't build this kernel as your first 😅

Start with a random non GKI kernel, no matter what the device it. Just try to cook it by deeply understanding this guide.

Once you mastered it, you have to write your own build script for this MTK kernel.

I'm afraid to tell you "yo, just grab the build 5.10 script and cook the image" because I have okme PTSD about what happened to my first MTK GKI phone in the past 😅

So, if you really want to build the kernel, jump to my a166p repo, go to its commits, scroll down to the last commit, read every commit I've made from the bottom to the top. It will be your only guide for now.

I documented everything with proper commit messeges, so you'll understand them.

[Anmol6002]

Hey there..!

First, I suggest you do don't build this kernel as your first 😅

Start with a random non GKI kernel, no matter what the device it. Just try to cook it by deeply understanding this guide.

Once you mastered it, you have to write your own build script for this MTK kernel.

I'm afraid to tell you "yo, just grab the build 5.10 script and cook the image" because I habe skme PTSD about what happened to my first MTK GKI phone in the past 😅

So, if you really want to build the kernel, jump to my a166p repo, go to its commits, scroll down to the last commit, read every commit I've made from the bottom to the top. It will be your only guide for now.

I documented everything with proper commit messeges, so you'll understand them.

Okay thanks lemme cook

[ravindu644]

This is difficult because of GKI, but I actually did it with my own device:

https://github.com/ravindu644/android_kernel_a166p

I had to replace all the compiled kernel modules and the kernel to make the device boot.

Precision is crucial here.

TL;DR: You have to replace all the Samsung-compiled kernel modules with your compiled ones, then build the vendor_boot, vendor_dlkm, and boot images, and flash all three at once to boot the device!