Galaxy A3 2017 (Treble) SM-A320FL

/e/OS Devices Samsung
86

I see, that there are 2 LOS versions for the A3 2017:

  1. [ROM][A320FL/F/Y] LineageOS 15.1 | XDA Forums
  2. [UNOFFICIAL][ROM][A320FL/F/Y] LineageOS 17.x [10.0][64 BIT][Treble] | XDA Forums

The 1st seems to have less “bugs” and is stated OFFICIAL
What is the advantage, that you prefer the 2nd here?

87

The second would be Android 10. Installing that was quite messy and requires repartitioning the file system. Then you can’t install sub-10 android versions until you flash the firmware, which can be quite difficult because the right version is hard to find.

I remember the rom itself running well, but it wasn’t much different from a more stable lower android version.

88

Are you sure you can’t flash sub-10 android ? The repartitioner instructions state “You can flash any rom later, with or without vendor support”.
Still anyway, that’s why a good backup of the firmware is needed. Plus it’s quite easy to do as far as I remember.

89

You might be able to flash sub-10 android, I assumed once the partitioning is changed to android 10 it won’t fit sub-10 any more. I didn’t have a backup of my old firmware, so I had to download one. I just remember spending a lot of time with this phone, because these files are slow downloads and usually once you get them you find out it’s the wrong version. You might be lucky that it works out easily for you, but I had all sorts of issues. I had the damn phone bootlooping for months several times only to figure out how to fix it and then something else not working. Just installing android 10 was the easy part.

1 Like
90

Is that correct? :
LOS 15 is Andriod 8
LOS 17 is Android 10
Do you know a smart site about the differences of those versions?

Would it be neccessary and possible to go back to the old partitioning, when I want to go back to LOS 15 ore stock Android 8?

91

Is this a different task: flash ROM ./. flash Firmware?
Is there a documentation, how to backup the given original ROM (and maybe what else)?
What you suggest? In case, using the backuped ROM or download it from Samsung?

As I got my A3 2017, there was Android 7 on it, but I updated to Android 8 by the phone provided procedure.
How can I check, if my device already contains Treble?
There seems to be a tool, but I neither find the “/e/OS default Apps Store” nor “treble info”.

And for what is “GSI” standing?

92

There are 2 pages within https://doc.e.foundation/support-topics on Generic System Image (GSI)

The A3 2017 is perhaps not a typical phone for GSI; this topic goes back some time (things may be done a bit differently now) but I think it is important to understand the concept introduced back at Post #8 that the device has to be “made treble compatible”.

93

@UlfZibis: The version numbers are correct. LOS seems to always be 7 more. All I really know about android versions is that “newer is better” according to Google, but all they changed since Android 7 is the UI, which became ever more plasticy and annoying. Oh, and I guess they spy on you more.

You go back to the old partitioning when you flash the stock firmware.

You can pretty much always just google search these questions. “How to do this or that”. That’s pretty much what we do. :wink:

94

Much thanks for your valuable evaluation.

95

Few updates on my side:

  • Bluetooth file sharing: it works if I select more than 1 file
  • Bluetooth calls: on some cars it works without troubles, on some others (at least mine) it works also if you follow the procedure on post #64
  • Video: ‘Expose Aux camera’ and ‘Force Enable Camera2API HAL3’ it works randomly, mainly does not work correctly.
  • WiFi: on some networks it tends to disconnect from the WiFi when I lock the screen and it re-connects when I unlock it.

Still I keep using it as my only smartphone.