While users of the Qualcomm variant are just getting root under their belts, let alone a bootloader unlock, XDA user sktjdgns1189 has apparently managed to get the Exynos variant of the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge to play nice with CyanogenMod 13. While there are pictures that allegedly prove that the build boots and the touch screen works, there is no video to show as such. That being the case, this could easily be a hoax perpetuated by simply showing some screenshots of CM13’s initial screens on an S7 Edge, but, being that this was found on XDA, it could just as likely be the real deal, especially given the terminal output in the background of one of the pictures; astute root users and developers will tell you that is a logcat, a live log of everything going on in an Android device, and the one shown looks convincingly live.
If this is for real, it faces some real issues. While sktjdgns1189 says in their post that sound works well, not much else seems to have been tested. If the pictures are real, this would mean that the basic drivers, the display, and touch are working, leaving a long list of other things yet untested. Back in the Galaxy S2 days, Samsung promised to release the source code for their Exynos line of processors, but never did, spurring many a would-be Samsung developer to jump ship and making development for Exynos-based devices incredibly difficult. Some of the usual suspects like graphics optimization and Bluetooth could prove troublesome with this build.
It should be noted that, encouraging as it may be to see development this early on, a similar event took place with the Exynos variant of the Galaxy S6, only for development to ultimately hit a wall and come to a screeching halt until very recently. Although custom ROMs were booting back in December for the phone, none were considered stable enough to be daily drivers, and such may be the case for the Galaxy S7 Edge. All is not lost, of course; XDA user westernmg kindly pointed out that the Exynos-based Galaxy Tab S2 has decently stable custom ROMs. The community’s consensus was that a good development team, not an individual maintainer, would likely be needed in order to get favorable results for owners of the Exynos variant of Samsung’s newest darling.
