[PROGRAM] Heimdall - Open-Source Cross-Platform Flashing Suite (1.3.0 Available)

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Original Thread:

What is Heimdall?
Heimdall is a cross-platform open-source tool suite used to flash ROMs onto Samsung Galaxy S devices.

How does it work?
Heimdall uses the same protocol as Odin to interact with a device in download mode. USB communication in Heimdall is handled by the popular open-source USB library, libusb-1.0.

Why “Heimdall”?
The flashing software Odin is named after the king of gods in Norse mythology. Loke, the software component on the Galaxy S that provides functionality to flash, may also to be named after an important character in Norse mythology, often translated as Loki. As such I have named my flashing software Heimdall, after the Norse god, and guardian of the Bifrost Bridge.

What platforms does Heimdall run on?
Linux, OS X and Windows (XP, Vista, 7 etc.)

Why use Heimdall when we can use Odin?
Odin is generally unreliable and only runs on Windows systems. Furthermore, Odin is leaked Samsung software that is not freely available or well understood by the community.

Is Heimdall safe?
No matter what method you chose, flashing firmware onto your phone has a lot of potential for disaster. We have tested Heimdall with a variety of phones flashing several different firmware versions resulting in a 100% success rate. As such we believe that Heimdall is generally reliable. However keep in mind, just like any flashing software, Heimdall has the potential to brick your phone if not used correctly.

How do Galaxy S phones get bricked when flashing?
Besides the inherent risks like power outs, accidental removal of the USB cable etc. The Galaxy S appears to be running extremely unreliable USB control software.

A failure to flash does not automatically equate to a bricked phone. However if you're extremely unlucky and the flash fails whilst transferring the primary boot-loader, secondary boot-loader or params.lfs (all quite small) than you've got yourself a paper weight that you're hoping Samsung will replace.

Please be extremely careful mixing files from different firmware releases. Don't do so unless you're certain it will work!

What Galaxy S variants has Heimdall been tested with?
We’ve tested Heimdall with a Galaxy S GT-I9000 (8 GB) from the United Kingdom and Galaxy S GT-I9000 (16 GB) from Australia. We don’t personally have access to any other devices to test with, however users have confirmed Heimdall functions correctly with the AT&T Captivate, Bell Vibrant, Telstra GT-I9000T, Epic 4G and the Galaxy Tab.

Enough talk, where can we get it?
The latest release is available here. Please read the instructions and README files included in the archives.

I love you, man. Will you have my baby?
No, but I will very gladly accept donations. If you appreciate my work and would like to support future development you can make a donation here. If you think you have something else to offer, then feel free to shoot me a PM or contact me via the contact form on the Glass Echidna website.

Haven't seen this thread get too much attention, but it is a really cool idea especially for non-windows users. Just to kick it off:

Phone Name: Samsung Captivate (JH3 Firmware)

Country: United States

Carrier: AT&T

Hardware IDs:
USB\Vid_04e8&Pid_681c&Rev_0400
USB\Vid_04e8&Pid_681c

It would be nice if someone was willing to see if the Captivate works with this app. Having a cross-platform standardized program is a good idea.

Right now there seems so be a number of different ways to achieve a goal. What we need is a standardized app that devs can make "packages" for where we can select what we want and a rom, zip file or whatever could be built on the fly. easy peezy I say.

Phone Name: Samsung Captivate (JH2 Firmware)

Country: United States

Carrier: AT&T

Hardware IDs:

USB\Vid_04e8&Pid_681c&Rev_0400
USB\Vid_04e8&Pid_681c

Phone Name: Samsung Captivate I897 (JF6)

Country: USA

Carrier: AT&T

Hardware IDs:

venim@venim:~$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 027: ID 04e8:681c Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd

seems all of the captivate IDs are 681c, which mirrors the international version.

Just to throw in my 2 cents:

I'm a linux user (have windows on dual boot on one machine, but hate going into it just to flash), so I really hope this project moves forward. I'd be willing to test any early linux builds once they're ready.

Phone Name: Samsung Captivate
Country: USA
Carrier: AT&T
Device ID: 04e8:681c Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd

If we had some documentation for the bml devices, it might be possible to provide a utility that could flash kernels from an update.zip. There its a flashing utility, vmlwrite, for the Moment, and it even runs on Galaxy S, but whatever mechanism it uses to map labels to partitions doesn't work. I've been looking for sources to see if they can be modified for our use, but I haven't found anything yet.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Just thought I'd drop by and let you all know a stable beta has been released. I've only personally tested with two GT-I9000's (UK and Australian models) so I'm not 100% certain what Galaxy S derivatives will work.

This release includes source code and Windows binaries. It compiles and runs brilliantly on Linux but unfortunately I haven't been able to get phones detected on OS X. If someone else would like to give it a try that would be great.

Please post any questions in the official thread so I can keep track of them.

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Phone Name: Samsung Captivate i897

Country: USA

Carrier: AT&T

Hardware IDs:
USB\VID_04E8&PID_681C&REV_0400
USB\VID_04E8&PID_681C

I have been following and posting on the original thread. Windows 7 and Windows Vista pcs and a captivate-i897.

As i posted, i had a few problems at first,, but successfully used this to flash today. Will continue testing and reporting.