Fairphone - FP4 - FP4 - Documentation Suggestions

amir · October 15, 2022, 11:06am

my FP4 now is booting with /e/OS!
thanks e-foundation and all of you on this forum for your valuable tips! i couldn’t have done this without you.

couple of points:

i installed adb and fastboot from the link provided in the guide. thats important to use to ensure the latest version.
for whatever reason could not get PATH to adb/fastboot when updating my.bashrc file so ran all the required commands from the dir where i installed the tools.
locking the crtical partition and bootloader i did after i installed all my apps etc on my phone.appears that it reset everything to default /e/OS settings so i needed to the apps installs again.so best to lock before you personalize.

bjoern52 · October 22, 2022, 2:53pm

From Ancient Greek κῦδος (kûdos, “praise, renown”).

zykure · November 17, 2022, 2:12pm

Hi! I just got a new (stock) Fairphone 4 and would like to try /e/OS before I start migrating data from my old phone. Hence I’m less worried about losing data for now, and I could easily roll back to stock OS if necessary.

I’m following the guide at Install /e/OS on a Fairphone FP4 - “FP4” which is pretty clear.

But I’m a bit worried about the “security patch level” and do not want to brick my device. There doesn’t seem to be any up-to-date information about the patch level in the /e/OS factory image (the page says 2022-08-05 which I don’t think is correct).

However I found that I can grab the patch level from the image file simply by running (on Linux)

$ strings super.img | grep 'ro.build.version.security_patch='

which gives me 2022-10-05 for the 1.51 image (dev release).

Can someone confirm if that’s actually the patch level that I need to compare with the version installed on my phone to avoid bricking?

Also, if I understand this thread correctly, my phone wouldn’t brick itself even if I install an older patch level, as long as I don’t relock the bootloader after installation. Is this correct?

EDIT: There’s also ro.vendor.build.security_patch=2022-09-05 in the same image file. In addition I found that Releases · e / os / releases · GitLab also lists 2022-09-01 as patch level for the v1.5 so that is probably the one I need. (But then why does the image file show higher/different patch levels than the releases page?)

zykure · November 21, 2022, 9:55am

Thank you @confu!

I was also able to install /e/OS on my new phone without any issues. I think the most “official” way of getting the patch level is indeed the releases list on GitLab, but the documentation on the install guide needs to be updated.

For now I switched back to stock Android because I wanted to test and compare the camera apps. It is really unfortunate that the wide angle camera is not supported yet in /e/OS (or is it?) Maybe this should be mentioned somewhere too? Info about Fairphone FP4 - FP4 does not say anything about this limitation.

jobal · November 21, 2022, 7:47pm

I have a FP4 A12, eOS v. 1.5 and my wide angle works. I think you have to switch on the API2:

And then, in the main camera app, switch between the lens, changing the camera ID:

jobal · November 21, 2022, 7:50pm

Here are two screenshots, take in the same position:

jobal · November 21, 2022, 8:14pm

The only one camera option we can’t use is 48Mpixel. There’s an open thread in Gitlab: FP4 - camera output is limited to 12MP when sensor and stock is 48MP (#4714) · Issues · e / Backlog · GitLab
Let’s hope for the future

18yt8zhg · November 22, 2022, 8:22am

God damn, thanks for this tips

AnotherElk · November 22, 2022, 10:05pm

The FP4 info page https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP4 says “RAM 6 GB” and “Storage 128/256 GB”

According to https://shop.fairphone.com/en/buy-fairphone-4 the 256 GB storage variant has 8 GB RAM, so it should be “RAM 6/8 GB” on the info page.

Manoj · November 23, 2022, 8:00am

This correction should be visible now.

zykure · November 28, 2022, 8:46pm

@jobal Thanks, that’s great! Can confirm it works on my FP4. Unfortunately now that the wide angle camera is working, the front camera does not - I get an error “failed to open camera”" although it works flawlessly in GCam. This is pretty weird, but at least I have 2 apps now that each do 2/3 of their job so I’m good

I actually switched back to /e/OS after checking that my most important apps work correctly, currently my only issue so far is PayPal which just crashes on start. Hopefully that’s only temporary.

stanwood · December 11, 2022, 5:41pm

Hi all, It seems that the guide to manually upgrade / update FP4 is wrong.

According to this guide:

https://doc.e.foundation/devices/FP4/upgrade

This procedure doesn’t work to upgrade manually the device. Indeed, “adb sideload” action can’t perform the IMG-e build here:

https://images.ecloud.global/stable/FP4/

Error message warns a “mismatch signature” See logs in attachment.

Currently only OTA upgrade is possible unless unlocking bootloader and wipe all data.

Maybe this guide would need to be removed while a new corrected one is published.

Thank you beforehand.

milto · January 4, 2023, 8:22am

I’ve just installed /e/ thanks to the easy-installer and following the instructions was straightforward for me. But I got stuck at the unlock phase, in fact fastboot was waiting endlessly. So I tried the command-line version instructions and I saw that in the terminal < waiting for any device > when I tried to unlock.

It seemed that the problem was the USB port on the computer side which should preferably be a good old USB 2.0 port. Changing the port made everything works like a charm.

So it could be nice to add a notification in the easy-installer and the command line instruction list to check the USB port chosen on the computer and maybe advise the user to change its port if stuck.

wiz · January 4, 2023, 6:42pm

Hello there
as stated in this guide I’d like to share my feedback.
I assume that I installed successfully e/os - at least it is running fine until now.
The only line which made me hesitating during the installation was that the guide states this:
“”"
Confirm that extracted directory contains following content:
bin-linux-x86 directory - which contains linux tools including fastboot and adb
…
“”"
But in my bin-linux-x86 directory was no “adb” file included.
Is this expected?

Thanks!

fp31 · January 25, 2023, 3:23pm

The patch level of /e/OS should be updated to 2022-11-05.

Manoj · January 25, 2023, 10:35pm

For the FP4 v1.7 it will be 2022-10-05 for the v1.8 the November SPL will be available.

fp31 · January 25, 2023, 10:59pm

Hm, the image file has the patch level date 2022-11-05 when using

$ strings super.img | grep ‘ro.build.version.security_patch=’

Also, I did not brick my device (tested tonight) when switching from fully updated stock Android with November patch level to stable 1.7.

rubydesign · March 11, 2023, 1:04pm

So i just got my new FP4 which has Android 11 SP 11-5-2022
It tells me i could update to SP21.B.0048 which i think is Android 12 (?)

The docs talk in detail about security patches, but not major versions. Now e has only 12/S for download and i am not sure if i can flash that on my Android 11.

Or should i do the latest system update and wait for the next e ?

stanwood · March 11, 2023, 5:00pm

Have you got /e/OS running on your Fairphone 4?
You should have Android 12 now.
You can get the latest build in “Settings” => “Update Manager”.
The latest /e/ OTA release is 1.8.1 - S (Android 12).

rubydesign · March 12, 2023, 2:06pm

@stanwood I did not update to Android 12, because that is more recent than the 1.8.1
On the fairphone forum someone says it is safe to install 1.8.1 on android 11, i guess i’'l try that now.