[Proposal] Some more details for install guide

/e/OS Devices Fairphone
1

Hi,
I just successfully installed /e/ on my FP2 and, as a ROM flashing beginner, would like to give some info that was not provided by the official guide which would’ve saved me quite some time if it was included (so I hope the admin would consider adding them for future users like me) :

  • First simple thing : the guide highly recommends to set up an /e/ account but doesn’t mention that it’s just a Nextcloud account. In my case (and probably many others), I already have one so I don’t need it. Now I have to contact the admin to delete it. Simply precising that the /e/ account is nothing more than a Nextcloud account would prevent that.

  • Second simple thing : fastboot only worked with sudo or root privileges for me. If that’s how it’s always supposed to be used, a simple # at the beginning of each fastboot command would make it clear right off the bat.

  • Third, less simple thing : in step 6 of the custom recovery installation part, the /e/ guide simply says:

    1. Now reboot into recovery to verify the installation

    It does not say how and most importantly, it doesn’t warn you that, as the Fairphone 2 page for TWRP states:

    many devices will replace your custom recovery automatically during first boot

    This was the case for me and I couldn’t understand why my flashed TWRP version number didn’t match the one I was booted on.
    So, to prevent this automatic replacement, right after flashing TWRP, I followed the instructions on the same paragraph as where the above quote is (I needed one hand on my keyboard and one hand on my phone ready to push buttons at nearly the same time). To be more precise:
    I typed sudo fastboot reboot, hit Enter and immediately (a fraction of a second after) push the key combination to boot in recovery mode on the phone (for the FP2, that’s Power and Volume Up pressed at the same time).
    Only then did my flashed TWRP boot properly, which solved an issue I previously had and didn’t quite understand (the stock TWRP didn’t detect my system partition).

    From there I personally installed the /e/ zip image directly from TWRP instead of using adb sideload by copying the image in my microSD card (but I assume it would’ve worked just as well with adb sideload) and /e/ finally was installed.

Hope that helps and thank you for this awesome OS (which I haven’t yet tried actually)
Cheers

3 Likes
2

Thank you !! You saved me today, I was stuck because of not knowing how to reboot properly the device. This definetely needs to be added to the doc.

1 Like
3

Also, I think it would be great to add screenshots to the guide. With it, I would have quickly realized I wasn’t using the correct restoring mode. I explain:

  • I was seeing a rather minimal restore screen with options quiet close to what the guide was talking about. So I followed with that but everytime I wanted to install the e os img it was giving me an error. This was because I was on the regular recovery mode.

  • Once I read your post and I managed (by chance!) to have my phone boot again on Android. Which took 15 minutes after rebooting, be patient. It’s not broken, it’s just resetting Android. Then I finally applied instruction from here and I magically saw TeamWin stuff!

I had to go to a tutorial on youtube about TeamWin to understand I wasn’t on the right interface. A screenshot would have saved me 2 hours on that.

hope this feedback helps and team will take this into account in order to update documentation :slight_smile:

That aside, my phone is now happily on e and I’m very very happy :slight_smile: Thank you for the work!

4

Ho there, one month later guide is not updated yet. Everything is here, there’s just a copy/paste to do. Why isn’t it taken in account?

5

That is because we are upgrading the ROM for the FP2. The documentation for a number of devices will need to be updated.

6

I understand, this is cool news. Still, during that period people risk bricking their FP2, imagine the huge deception for these people. It takes 1 hour max to review doc and update it, think about all the benefit and the great experience for people coming onboard. My 2 cents. Cheers @Manoj