Do not use this yet.

[stevenh512]

The kernel builds and boots. The proprietary files are pulled from a working device and are my best guess based on KonstatT's kis3 device tree (as was about 98% of the initial commit) and inspecting the filesystems on my phone.

Todo:

• [x] Get TWRP booting
• [ ] Write instructions to build, flash and boot TWRP
• [ ] Get other recoveries building and booting
• [ ] Build the ROM
• [ ] Verify that I have pulled all of the necessary binaries

I know of no way to unlock the bootloader on this device, no fastboot, but there are ways to get root long enough to flash a recovery by hand and/or permanently root the phone without using recovery.

UPDATE: [04/18/2017] - TWRP builds and boots. Everything I've tested works, including internal storage and external SD card.

[BiatuAutMiahn]

Any updates?

[stevenh512]

Unfortunately no, the laptop I was working on at the time suffered a hard drive failure. Since then I've upgraded to a better phone and haven't had much reason to download the Android source code again (which takes quite a long time when you live in a rural area with slow internet, I'm talking about days).

For what it's worth, the N817 is seriously underpowered, in my experience it didn't have enough RAM to use it as anything more than a basic phone. Rooting it, adjusting the zram size and adding a swapfile in /cache helps but you can only do so much with it. You have to root the phone (I used something I found on GitHub based on dirty cow) to flash TWRP since there is no fastboot and no way to unlock the bootloader.

If you or anyone else wants to fork it and run with it, feel free, it's opensource. If I remember correctly, the kernel builds and boots TWRP. Pretty much everything in TWRP works as expected but there were some SELinux issues when flashing things that modify the /system partition (like SuperSU). I never got around to building a ROM and trying to flash it. I also never tried building and flashing a new boot image and without knowing anything about the bootloader or being able to unlock it I don't know if that would work or if it might brick the phone (my gut feeling is it should work, the bootloader didn't care that I changed the recovery image).

[BiatuAutMiahn]

Would you happen to know of any other ROMs besides stock? its really buggy

[sreehax]

I have a decent internet connection (150 Mb/s). I have begun work on building android oreo go for the ZTE n817 wellington. It could take a long time though, since I do this in my spare time. You can root the phone using this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIwLeUgOiTM, and install twrp using this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-OXL2JnqVw. I am modifying the manifests to use lineage-15.1 instead of cm-14.1, and solve any immediate errors

[racheljmartin]

Any luck on the Lineage Rom?