/e/ OS “easy” installer: development thread about adding new devices

[Ingo_FP_Angel]

@ff2u

btw.: I didn’t find any hint to that information on Contribute to the Easy Installer. I think it should really be added there, too…

I have to admit I don’t really understand how the docs page generation works, otherwise I would add it myself (well, create a merge request…), but https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/documentation/user/-/blob/master/htdocs/pages/easy-installer-contribute.md seems to be the meta data of the page, not its contents (where are those?).

@ff2u

There’s a problem: I don’t know how to check if user has successfully finished “fastboot flashing unlock_critical” as there’s only a bootload variable “unlocked” but none “unlocked_critical”…

I don’t know either. Maybe the check can be done sort of implicitly by trying to flash one of the critical partitions and if that returns an error, assume the “unlock_critical” has failed/hasn’t been done yet?

@Manoj

are there any suggestions from Fairphone on how to resolve this issue.

I haven’t seen any. If I remember correctly I’ve seen two people reporting on the Fairphone forum that they ended up in a state they haven’t been able to fix yet. And other people more knowledgeable than me assume it can only be done by the company and not with tools freely available. But then, all this low-level stuff is nothing I know about.

[ff2u]

@Ingo_FP_Angel

Maybe the check can be done sort of implicitly by trying to flash one of the critical partitions and if that returns an error, assume the “unlock_critical” has failed/hasn’t been done yet?

That’s a good idea. And I’d start with that before flashing any other (“uncritical”) partitions so system is still unchanged if it fails.

[petefoth]

@Ingo_FP_Angel

I have to admit I don’t really understand how the docs page generation works, otherwise I would add it myself (well, create a merge request…), but htdocs/pages/easy-installer-contribute.md · master · e / documentation / user · GitLab seems to be the meta data of the page, not its contents (where are those?).

Docs pages are generated using an app called jekyl (details here). Great for generating flashy web pages, useless for writing and maintaining document content.

Better to use wiki pages, (gitlab wiki pages work quite well). Much easier for contributors, who can submit content or changes as plain text or markdown, as patches or MRs. Users can also see stuff like page history, known / outsanding / solved issues with the content.

I’m working on some docs that will be published that way. With luck, /e/ can be persuaded that wikis are a better way of doing user documentation than the current solution

[ff2u]

Do you remember if there was any special reason why you asked the user to start “fastboot mode” manually (by turning off the phone and pressing power and vol down to start fastboot) before the unlocking precedure? You might have used adb reboot boatloader instead to start it automatically (as adb control should be enabled at that step anyway)?
Thanks.

[Ingo_FP_Angel]

That was because I kept close to the example of the initial Samsung models. On top of my head I don’t really know if that is still in the early steps of the easy-installer that’s the same for all models. And honestly I didn’t know how to modify the UI workflow (I still don’t as I haven’t looked into the sources for about a year I guess).