Argh, I am not a techie. How do I find help for installing?

no video tutorial available, because reading is much better :wink:

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jUsT rEaD iT!1!!!

Dude, for the third time, I HAVE READ IT. And I don’t understand it. It’s not me. It’s bad instructions. There is lingo that doesn’t make sense. The advice skips steps, assuming that people know them, because they assume a developer audience.

How’s this, for example, as one of the bad instructions: “Download the zip and extract it somewhere - for example, ~/adb-fastboot”

Extract it… “somewhere…”?

Very precise, very helpful… not.

I tried all kinds of things to follow this step, with no success. I typed the ~/adb-fastboot into the search bar, and into the terminal, and got no results. I opened the .zip package, and saw all the files, but nothing is happening with the Samsung device. The things that the instructions say are supposed to happen… are not happening. So, what now?

“Add the following to ~/.bash_profile”… Where is that, exactly? Again, I searched all kinds of places for this term, and didn’t find anything.

I know the f*** how to read. However, I don’t have a background in development or coding. Hence the (very unhelpful) post.

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I’m sorry for you. But for flashing a rom on a phone a little commandline knowledge is needed.

If the instructions on e wikki are so bad, search the wrb for a better. Flashing a custom rom is ALLWAYS the same.

Hi @abigail82, as @Manoj suggested: There is a Telegram Group “/e/ community dedicated support” with a lot of tech-guys around. They might assist you in your process flashing /e/.
Flashing is not complicated once you have done it a few times, but until then it is indeed a bit challenging.
Telegram: https://telegram.org/
The group: https://web.telegram.org/#/im?p=s1159413728_5467279341815616346

What phone are you using?

could be that this is more readable for you ?? https://www.lineageosrom.com/2017/07/how-to-flash-custom-rom-via-odin.html

But for this and further questions: pls write which phone you are using

The biggest challenge that I faced was working around this bug. Still open in Gitlab at this time.

what does i have to do with he topic of this post ?? I think it should be located on the related post.

Isn’t it part of the getting-started-with-/e/ process?

no, he have problems flashing a custom rom. You are talking of an issue which is discussed in several other post https://community.e.foundation/search?q=contact%20import

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Guys,
(I’m 99% sure that you are all guys…)

/e/ will fail unless you can make yourselves reasonably accessible to the general public. That includes (among other things) instructions that are thorough, accessible, easy to read, and that actually work. If someone who is educated and reasonably intelligent is telling you that your instructions don’t make sense, maybe… I don’t know, here’s a wild thought… listen? Instead of dismissing them and continually insisting that they DO make sense? Or telling them to do a web search to find something better? That really makes you seem like a—holes, sorry.

I write instructions for a living. I can tell you, these are bad instructions.

I spent over 6 hours working on this (not exaggerating), and made 0 progress. That is 5 hours and 50 minutes longer than the vast majority of people would be willing to spend on something like this.
I have a fairly high tolerance for frustration. In general, when I want something, I persist until I get what I want. I tried, very hard, to make this work, because I want to achieve the goals of /e/, and I couldn’t do it.

Just to update you, in case anyone cares (which I doubt)… I finally found someone at my work who regularly flashes phones and knows what he’s doing. He tried, and then told me my phone cannot be flashed. Even though I bought a Samsung S7, which was listed on the site as compatible with /e/, it turns out there are US models of the S7 and European models of the S7. The European models can be flashed, the US models cannot. That was a nasty surprise. That would have been nice to know before I bought the phone, eh?

All that work, money, effort, for nothing. Thanks /e/.

Again… your project will fail unless you figure out how to reach regular people who don’t have programming or engineering (etc.) backgrounds. :woman_shrugging:
Bye.

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Sure, instructions can be better. I even feel your frustration, a lot of jargon is used. I never flashed a phone before when i discovered /e/. /e/ sell’s pre-installed phones now here.

No doubt, the instructions could be better.

Which I don’t understand: The S7 models supported by /e/ OS are clearly labeled.
Samsung Galaxy S7 (herolte) models are:
SM-G930F
SM-G930FD
SM-G930S
SM-G930K
SM-G930L
SM-G930W8

Samsung Galaxy S7 (USA) models are:
G930A (AT&T, Cricket)
G930P (Sprint, Boost, Virgin Mobile)
G930V (Verizon)
G930T (T-Mobile, Metro PCS)
G930R (US Cellular)
G930U (Unlock model)

The differences in model names are small, but not to be overlooked. On this point /e/ is not to be blamed!

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Hello @abigail82, I have to agree the instructions for flashing /e/ leave a LOT to be desired, and this is from someone who has been tinkering with tech stuff for longer than I care to admit. I found using both /e/ and LineageOS instructions in parallel helped, though it does not fix the issue with instructions which are incomprehensible to non-tech users. Ideally /e/ will end up with an automated installer like Ubuntu Touch uses.

As for model numbers it is very unfortunate that this was not made clear. @Manoj could we perhaps do something to highlight that not all versions are supported, a “(not all models)” added to the name in the list of devices?

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Device code names can be very confusing and when you add to that the different variants specific to regions and countries it makes it all the more difficult.
We are updating the wiki to be more specific.

/e/ may not be to blame, but it is still very much /e/'s problem. The real issue is that unless you know to look for the small variations in the device codes, you will almost never find them when purchasing a device at Amazon/eBay or other online retailers. I know that from a marketing standpoint, it’s not ideal, but the wiki should probably state all the variants of a particular phone that are NOT compatible and make sure users see this up-front. Losing @abigail82 as a user is a big fail, even if it is not due to any technical flaw in the instructions.

Good morning @ecs

Yes, there’s still a lot to do at /e/, I guess we all agree on that.

First, let’s first have a look at LineageOS and the supported devices . The data are clearly less specified than with /e/ wiki . I don’t want to talk about LineageOS-for-microG.

It is a typical feature of users to first look for the cause on the other side when errors occur.

The user should first critically question his actions before blaming others. “The greatest risk is sitting in front of the computer” is a well-known finding from the computer world.

Everyone is responsible for his own actions!

Sorry, I think that is ridiculous, but I guess I am older and came from a US culture of “the customer is always right.” And in any case no customer should ever be told “blame yourself first,” particularly in times when the big tech culture is “let’s treat our customers like beta testers.” I hope Abigail can get a refund on her device or EBay it to someone else with minimal loss, and, if she still desires, gets support to enter the /e/ community.


“The customer is always right”, leads quickly to irritations, because customers are naturally not always right. For me, the sentence is hypocritical and contrasts with my personal integrity.

Customers are people, just like suppliers or salespeople. People are wrong. People see the situation from different perspectives. Due to different experiences, people have a differentiated opinion about what something has to be like. In addition, some people confuse their expectations with actual circumstances, results or solutions.

Especially the opinion “The customer is always right” leads to the fact that customers come again and again to the conviction that they can be wrong, but that does not matter, because they are right nevertheless! I don’t support something like that.

With us in good old germany it is right who gets right. So is our usual jurisdiction.

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On one side someone is writing about “I have a fairly high tolerance for frustration. In general, when I want something, I persist until I get what I want.”

On the other side ALL that is necessary in this case is to put a phone on an auction site and get a different model and flash it. I’m not saying the points mentioned should be ignored, but if someone chooses to fail, you cannot do anything about that.

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