In this guide, we will show you the steps to flash the PenguinOS on your Sony Xperia 1 III and then lock the bootloader as well. While the devices from the South Korean giant aren’t among the most active players in the custom development yet they are blessed with some intriguing goodies at regular intervals. Be it custom recoveries, ROMs, or modules, there are quite a few tweaks that you can welcome abode onto your device.
The latest one to make its way is the PenguinOS which offers a clean stock usage experience and a slew of noteworthy features up its sleeves. The best among them is the fact that you can even lock the bootloader after flashing the ROM [all thanks to the developer’s signed avb_custom_key]. As a result of this, you wouldn’t have to face any caveats that are associated with an unlocked bootloader. So on that optimistic note, let’s get started with the steps to flash the PenguinOS on your Sony Xperia 1 III right away.
Table of Contents
How to Flash PenguinOS on Sony Xperia 1 III and Lock Bootloader
The below process will wipe off all the data from your device, so take a complete device backup beforehand. Moreover, you should not disable the OEM Unlock toggle under any circumstances whatsoever. This is because if something goes wrong in the near future, such as your device ends up in a bricked or bootlooped state, then you can easily bring it back to life by unlocking the bootloader in the Fastboot Mode and then flashing the stock firmware [the former will only be possible if the OEM is enabled beforehand].
Apart from that, please do not relock the bootloader on the following carrier models: SO-51B, SOG03, A101SO. Droidwin and its members wouldn’t be held responsible in case of a thermonuclear war, your alarm doesn’t wake you up, or if anything happens to your device and data by performing the below steps.
IMPORTANT NOTES
Here are some of the prerequisites and important points that you need to check off the list:
- First and foremost, you need to flash the stock Android 13 firmware before flashing this ROM (61.2.X.X.XXX)
- Moreover, if you came from a SODP-based ROM, then you need to go back to the official Android 13 firmware and boot until you get to the Xperia Launcher.
- After flashing the ROM, disable Pause Charging to enable charging (Settings > System > Xperia Settings > Battery Care > Pause Charging (H.S. Power Control on newer versions), or from the QS toggle with the same name).
- You may need to disable/enable 360 Upmix and Dolby Sound for the sound output to work after a clean flash.
- For the Camera button, the developer suggests Installing Key Mapper and then configuring it as in this and this picture picture. (Screen-off button detection is only available for rooted users)
- Last but not least, set the “Unrestricted” App battery usage profile to the following apps (Settings > Apps > See all apps > 3 dot menu in the top right > Search for Subsystem 1 and 2 and Game Enhancer and set them to Unrestricted under App battery usage).
BUGS
Here are some of the known issues that you might across while using this ROM:
• Switching too fast/often between resolutions causes a soft reboot • Wi-Fi calling seems janky • Sometimes volume control may be delayed • Issues with Game Enhancer/Side Sense
DOWNLOAD
You may now get hold of the ROM ZIP the partition IMG, and the pkmd-signed.bin files from the below link [Credits: XDA Senior Member Sakuu]
DOWNLOAD LINK
FLASHING INSTRUCTIONS
- To begin with, download and extract Android SDK Platform Tools on the PC.
- Then enable USB Debugging and OEM Unlocking and unlock the bootloader.
- Next, transfer the partition IMG files and the ROM ZIP file to platform tools.
- Then open the Command Prompt inside platform-tools and boot to Fastboot:
adb reboot bootloader
- Set your active slot to A and flash the rest of the files via the below commands:
fastboot --set-active=a fastboot flash boot_a boot.img fastboot flash vendor_boot vendor_boot.img fastboot reboot recovery
- From the recovery, do a reset via Factory Reset > Format Data/Factory Reset.
- Then go to the sideload mode via the Apply update > Apply update from ADB
- Now type in the below command in the CMD window to sideload the ROM file
adb sideload rom.zip
- Wait for the flashing to complete. Once done, finally select Reboot System Now.
BOOTLOADER RELOCK
The below process will wipe off all the data, so take a backup beforehand. Moreover, as mentioned before, please keep the OEM Unlock toggle enabled at all times. Not to mention the fact that relocking the bootloader is completely optional. You can use this ROM on an unlocked bootloader as well. Most importantly, relocking is not possible on the following carrier models: SO-51B, SOG03, A101SO. So keeping all these in mind, let’s get started.
- To begin with, transfer the pkmd-signed.bin file to the platform tools.
- Now boot your device to Fastboot Mode [blue LED Mode] and type in:
fastboot flash avb_custom_key pkmd-signed.bin
- Then type the below command to relock the bootloader on your device
fastboot oem lock
- Finally, reboot your device to the ‘locked’ OS via the below command:
fastboot reboot
That’s it. These were the steps to flash the PenguinOS on your Sony Xperia 1 III and then lock the bootloader. If you have any queries concerning the aforementioned steps, do let us know in the comments. We will get back to you with a solution as soon as possible.
