Regarding /e/OS updates

/e/OS Devices Fairphone
,
1

Hello,
I have a Fairphone 4 with /e/OS 1.18 based on Android 12 and as of today I have two OS updates available on the phone: version 1.19 and version 1.20.

My question is about how the OS updates work and what might be a good practice to follow in terms of OS updates.

In case I’d want to update, should I install both the updates (1.19 followed by 1.20) or could I only install 1.20 knowing that the changes of 1.19 are also part of 1.20?

I tried searching this forum (and also forum.fairphone.com) but didn’t find my answer, could anyone shed some light and/or point me to the eventual relevant documentation?

Thank you

Best Regards

2

Read the Development Updates every week, and accept your OTA updates when they arrive approximately every month.

To ask about your actual situation (if there is any reason for it to be unusual) you would need to define the version more fully [HOWTO] Give complete /e/OS version info easily for support, answers, comparison etc – as lots of people are asking about OTA Upgrades, which only happen for devices running a stable build. I think maybe you do have stable ?

If you miss a simple update, it is fine to jump a build, every update is a full ROM, they are not incremental.

1 Like
3

Hello aibd,

Thanks for your feedback.

Yes it is a stable version: 1.18-s-20231207360611-stable-FP4

Going back to my situation, did I understood correctly your “every update is a full ROM, they are not incremental” that I won’t miss anything by, for instance, skipping 1.19 and going directly to 1.20?

Not that I want to do it, I’d simply like to understand how updates work.

4

Yes, you can go direct to latest even comming from a very old version… (even 0.23 if vendor parts are unchanged)
Generally latest is the best, even you can install the one you want as

It contire and will replace the entire content of /system partitions,
(when user activity result, will stay untouched on /data partition)

5

Hi Piero,

Thanks for the info.

Unfortunately they are a bit too technical and since I am not used to these terms they are not fully clear to me.

I am still not able to understand if I will miss something important (for the /system partitions of my phone or elsewhere) by, for instance, skipping 1.19 and going directly to 1.20.

6

It is also useful to have bookmarked the source repo for one’s device, FP4 stable is https://images.ecloud.global/stable/FP4/.

So 1.18-s → 1.19.1-s → 1.20-s are what I called simple updates (my use of simple has no real meaning other than uncomplicated). However 1.19-s looks like it was withdrawn.

Correct.

The /system partition is described as a “layer” in the image on this page https://developer.android.com/guide/platform.

Because of /e/'s close working relationship with Fairphone updates may in addition contain “vendor parts” which can be kept up to date with Fairphone development.

To see more of this more complex part you could (for educational purposes only) download your ROM and inspect the contents with a tool like payload-dumper-go. [Walkthrough] Extract eRecovery and boot images using payload-dumper-go.

Having prepared this answer, I see you asking again! Perhaps I made it more complex ! :blush:

7

Hi aibd,

Yes you made it more complex but I also got the answer to my question and, more importantly, your feedback and Piero’s one adds context and helps me in slowly expanding my view and in starting to get used to /e/OS and FP4 which are both brand new to me.
On top of this there is the fact that I am not particularly tech savvy for smartphones and their OSs: before the FP4 I always had a normal (not smart) cell phone.

Thank you

2 Likes
8

For your information :

9

This topic was automatically closed after 30 days. New replies are no longer allowed.