My wife and I bought the Fairphone 5 some time ago and would love to use it as our daily driver, leave the Apple eco-system and start using /e/OS. We want to be sure that we will only have to reconfigure our entire phones once (in terms of installing OS and al settings and apps).
We have been waiting for a while now for Fairphone 5 to appear in the published list on https://doc.e.foundation/devices. I have been keeping a close eye on the posts, and see that enough ‘stable’ builds have been released, but only available via the testing community. I also read that users who bought Fairphone directly through Murena now have a stable versions on there Fairphone 5’s.
Question 1: I was wondering if there’s reason it’s not officially published on the site yet?
Question 2: Is this possible at the moment to install it and start using it as daily drivers, with risk of few bugs, but don’t have to reinstall it again (or do we just have to wait patiently)?
Question 3: If so, how does it work with updates? If I simply leave off the Staging OTA server, will future stable builds be pushed to our devices?
Question 4: And if yes, which ‘stable’ build would you guys recommend, and in combination with which recovery version? Simply the lastest?
I hope I don’t overlooked topics on for any answers. O and: I’ve got experience with installing e/OS/ on older Samsung phones, and reading carefully, so installing it wouldn’t be the issue I guess. Btw. love to see how this community helps each other in constructive ways.
@Manoj When I installed eOS on a few FP3s back in the day I ended up with the dev version and had to do a complete data backup on them due to the forced wipe when moving to stable. Do you think when users start using the FP5 community test session now (which is called “stable”, even though it still has issues) that they will have to go through the same procedure (backup due to wipe) when they move to an officially available eOS stable version later? Or will it be a seamless upgrade or is it simply not certain which way it’ll go yet?
The test build and the stable build are different builds and not the same. We build dev, test or stable builds using different keys, so while switching between dev and stable you have to do a format and reinstall. This will mean taking backups before proceeding.
Builds which will have rc mentioned in the file name are test builds.
Always download the builds available on this page. Each device has an info page which links to an installation guide. You can download the official build, both dev and stable were available from that link.
The instructions for Fairphone 5 are clear. Happy to announce that I managed to install the first ‘official’ stable version of /e/OS on my Fairphone 5. I’m not really an expert, but just securely followed the step by step instructions. Thanks again, @Manoj and /e/OS building team, great job! Peace out, Robert
Hi, Manoj,
I am also happy to manage the change to the Murena-Version
Works good and with some additional apps - ready to work as my daily driver
Thanks to all how did the work!
Best regards
Anton (Tony)
Hi everyone,
I’ve just got my hands on the Fairphone 5 and I’d really like to install /e/OS as soon as possible, so I have 2 simple questions which I guess you people in this thread will be able to respond, the first one for sure:
should I install -and you can confirm it to be working fine- the “T stable” build despite on the website at https://doc.e.foundation/build-status it says These builds are currently only available on the Murena smartphones? This sentence on the documentation is confusing and should be updated, as anyway the build are now accessible to everyone and it won’t also be true if the build works on devices not sold from eF, otherwise one should use the “T dev” build which I’m still not sure if it can be considered stable for a daily driver (or you are running that one just fine?)
can I test the SMS and phone calls (as suggested by the install guide) of the FP5 stock system while avoiding to actually insert SIM into it? Mine here is a privacy issues, as I do not want to let any google service (enabled on the stock OS) to confirm I’ve loaded my SIM into a new device, limiting this personal data to be collected by the ISP at worst… if this concern of mine has no actual base please tell me and possibly elaborate so I can understand why it’s not as I think
The first question is more relevant to the topic, so please just a reply for it would be nice, however you @telematik.toni or Roberto who have installed it already (and Manoj as a support member ofc) might accidentally have the answer also for the second and I’ll appreciate it much in case!
Hi there! Nice that you want to install /e/OS on your fairphone 5!
Yes, T stable works fine in my experience! On this page you can see there is an official stable version: https://doc.e.foundation/devices.
I dont know about the privacy issues here, but maybe you can use a sim card of a friend or a buy a prepaid card? So you can check if this (hardware) function of your FP5 works.
Thanks again, Manoj!
