Glaxay S9 - e version confusion

eggzenbeanz · June 22, 2020, 7:30am

Hello,

I’m a bit confused about the S9/9+

I’m looking to purchase a new S9 and install /e/ however the download section states the ROM would be Oreo 8. But the older S8 is on Pie 9. Is that correct? https://doc.e.foundation/devices/

But both S8 & S9 are “official” phones - How can the older phone have a later OS base than the newer phone?

I cannot see the S8 as a LOS supported phone on their site, but I can see the S9 supported with LOS 17.1 nightlies. So I am confused!

My concern is that I buy the S9 and it ends up not being supported after 18 months and I end up with a dead duck because only the S8 is updated.

Any clarification would help

Manoj · June 22, 2020, 7:35am

Phones which are sold through the eShop will be supported. LOS support or not. We have FP3 which is not on the official LOS supported list to the best of my knowledge.
Regarding the Pie , Oreo debate …I just got off a call and we might even have Q versions being rolled out for supported devices. It may be a bit difficult to drop devices which are popular and widely downloaded like some of the samsung models.

eggzenbeanz · June 22, 2020, 8:23am

Thank you @Manoj - So there is no meaning or reason for the S9 being on an older ROM version than the older model being on a new ROM version?

Popescu · August 4, 2020, 12:33am

That’s good news, could we please get an estimated time of arrival for the update to android 9 and 10 for the s9 phones?

Manoj · August 4, 2020, 12:57am

Since Pie is no longer supported on Lineage the /e/ efforts will require a porting. Not sure that will commence immediately. The Oreo build is under testing at the moment. Should be released in a week if there are no issues with it.
The Q port would require the completion of /e/ source code to Q. This is still in progress. Expect at least two months more. The S9 is one of the devices on our road map to be upgraded to Q.

Popescu · October 2, 2020, 8:25pm

I see that the S9 is currently still under Oreo. Are you planning to upgrade it immediately to android 10 then?
Now that two months have passed would it be possible to have an estimated time of arrival for the upgrade to android 10 (and pie if you plan to release it anyway), please?

Anonyme · October 3, 2020, 11:24am

Android 10 for the Fairphone 3 (and Fairphone 3+) is planned for the end of October. It gives you an idea. I heard nothing about a immediate upgrade on Android 10 for the S9, so it might come later.

Popescu · October 3, 2020, 4:25pm

Thank you for your answer but I was asking about the S9.

Anonyme · October 4, 2020, 10:08am

Yes for the S9 (I edited).

Popescu · October 4, 2020, 2:06pm

Oh alright so if android 10 will come later for the S9 then about when should the OTA upgrade to pie come for the stable branch?

eggzenbeanz · October 4, 2020, 10:55pm

Doubt the S9 will get pie. Probably leap to Q/10 from current Oreo support

Popescu · November 23, 2020, 11:22am

Now that december is almost there, could we please know when android 10 will finally arrive for /e/ on the S9?

eggzenbeanz · November 23, 2020, 12:41pm

It’s all about the FP3 now, way more PR gold in that

Popescu · November 24, 2020, 12:51pm

Still, the S9 is being sold directly by themselves from the beginning and still running the outdated android oreo. It’s disrespect for all their backers and customers that bought it from them thinking they’d get a device that was going to be updated when other devices they don’t even sell are currently running more up to date android versions.
That’s really sad, the same with their S7 still stucked on nougat (no OTA update) for the people who bought it from /e/

cornfarmer · November 25, 2020, 6:53pm

Any official update / response @Manoj ? I am interested in buying the S9 and switching over fully to /e/ - but if it’s being left behind I am not even going to bother anymore. I tried /e/ with an Essential a short while ago and I don’t want to have another negative experience.

Manoj · November 25, 2020, 11:33pm

The issue for us still remain how to safely update the OS with an OTA build. There is a test build of the S9 on /e/ Q which one of our developers has been using. The updater does not allow for a upgrade … if you try it an error pops up… Something like this

If that is not bad enough look at the url in the error , it takes you to a page on the LineageOS wiki

On that page you are warned that the updater has blocked a version upgrade and proceeds to give you information about how to manually upgrade.

A sizable group of our users who bought from the eShop do not have the skills to install the device themselves. They would prefer to have someone do the installation for them. We have to solve this bug with the updater first. The easy installer is an update option but that needs to be tested.

cornfarmer · November 27, 2020, 6:17pm

Thank you for the response @Manoj - when do you think this will all be sorted out for the S9?

Manoj · November 27, 2020, 11:36pm

The issue with the updater has been around for a long time. A developer had worked on it for sometime and got some success in updating one of the Samsung devices. In that he was able to get his test phone to update OTA. Due to lack of resources to carry on the effort it was dropped. I can check on the latest status of this effort and revert by early next week.

cornfarmer · November 28, 2020, 12:48am

Thanks @Manoj , you’ve been helpful. Does /e/ honestly plan to continue updating/supporting the S9 at this point? It’s the latest Samsung device /e/ sells in their store and seems like a popular choice. Or are the Fairphone and other devices higher priority?

I’m not trying to pester you and really like the idea of /e/, but as you may understand I’m trying to make it work for me as best as possible for my situation - and knowing that ____ device will be at least supported on some level makes switching over to /e/ more attractive.

Manoj · November 28, 2020, 1:13am

There are two categories of devices in the eShop.
The brand new phones and the Refurbished ones.
All our Samsung model are refurbished. The availability of these phones depends on the vendor being able to source them for us in large quantities and in A + quality.
The other set of phones the brand new one include the FP3 , FP3+ and soon to come GS290.

For both categories of phone we will provide support as long as we have users. There is no difference in priority for either of these phones.

The only pain point we have at this stage is our inability to upgrade the OS OTA for our users. This has tied up some of the initial users on nougat build. The lack of security or vendor patches for nougat is another issue which makes us look at an OS upgrade.

How to achieve that with minimum discomfort for the users is what we need to address.
In the previous post I have commented on the development effort we tried on this.
The Easy Installer is another option we are looking at to ease the task of OS upgrades.