Glaxay S9 - e version confusion

Since the easy installer concept is working,
a dirty flash upgrade feature without loosing data is a very good option as OTA is hard to obtain.

If that is the solution you choose to address this problem, could you please share a guide about how to do it?

Is it really a safe way to upgrade without risks to lose data?

The easy installer is at this link - I will be trying it once I obtain an S9:

https://doc.e.foundation/easy-installer

Hopefully it will work for me, as the other /e/ install guide(s) I’ve read for the S9 look very convoluted, compared to the Lineage install I just did on my Essential, but that’s a different story.

@Manoj thanks again for the forthright information.

I agree it’s pretty bad to not ship up to date devices… assuming someone has flashed lineageOS and TWRP before, how hard would it be to do so on a fresh new S9 phone, regardless of the devices shipped by /e/? I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be easier for me to just get the device from a corner electronics store instead of going through the trouble of getting an (outdated) one here…

Last time i tried to flash LOS on a Samsung device (a samsung tablet), I couldn’t get root in the bootloader, so I didn’t get very far… how are things nowadays with Samsung phones?

thanks

1 Like

https://doc.e.foundation/easy-installer

The official documentation is not relevant, but good source of information :
https://doc.e.foundation/devices/starlte/install

yeah so I’m familiar with the “stock” flashing instructions. my main problem happens when the procedure deviates from there. i don’t exactly recall what the problem was but I couldn’t sideload TWRP last I tried… i got the OEM unlock, but it would complain about the signature being wrong.

i suspect that recent phones and tablets have protections about that kind of stuff, which is why i’m asking.

Don’t use sideload for installing TWRP, flash it with

$ heimdall flash --RECOVERY twrp-3.3.1-0-starlte.img --no-reboot´

sideload is for installing the system.zip if you choose this method.

@Popescu
The « /e/asy-installer » is a guideline

yeah well, that works super well when Heimdall works. Not so much when you’re not supported. :stuck_out_tongue:

Out of the easy installer,
it seems there are two specifics additional steps for the /e/ installation on the galaxy s9 :

after flashing TWRP
reboot to TWRP, do the wipe things,
and before installing the /e/OS_build.zip.
You have to install :
no-verity-opt-encrypt-samsung-1.0.zip
and
VENDOR-27_ARI9.zip

Now you can install the device specific image of /e/OS
build for the ROM of your specific device from :

Thank you for your answer. Yes, I’ve used it to flash a S8 and it worked well.
My concern is that I know how to use it to install /e/ from zero but not how to use it to simply upgrade it without any loss of data.

Just don’t format or wipe /data and /internal storage
Only wipe /Dalvik Cache and /Cache