S8 excellent surprise!

/e/OS Foundation & Community /e/OS experience
#1

Hello,

I have been using /e/ since 2018 and one of the first “mainstream” beta versions. First on a Leeco 2 then an S7. I’ve seen the project evolve and improve. The experience has always been very satisfying, but some annoying bugs persisted (especially the echo when calling on S7).

Following an accident, my S7 is down. So I hesitated on the model and finally I turned to an S8… I must say that to this day I am surprised by the quality of /e/ (0.13, android9). Except for a few problems with sliding the notification bar in case of a notification (which sometimes requires turning the screen off and on again), everything seems to work perfectly!

In front of the many critics I have read on this forum, I want to testify that on the S8 the experiment is complete !

On the other hand, I still have to improve the installation via “easy installer”, because I could not achieve the complete installation with this method … Too bad…

Best regards

6 Likes
#2

I’m on S8 as well, SM950F, same android an release. Would you please so kind to verify if tasks works with DAV servers?
Mine is only local

#3

Unfortunately, I don’t use TASK and moreover, the app is uninstalled…

#4

Hi,

A friend om my is selling his 18 monts old S8 for a reasonable price.
I am using /e/ about 18 months now on a old Nexus 5.
Would it be a good idea to switch to a Samsung S8 (is the image stable enough)?

Regards,
André

#5

Yes, it is. I am using the S8. No issues. The S8 is one of the sold phones by e. This means most stable builds and long term support of the OS. They will even upgrade from pie to Q once Q gets stable for the S8.

1 Like
#6

Here on S8 some annoying issues such as “tasks” only local and some other minor annoyances.

I’ve never experienced a crash

#7

Just to be sure…

Could you be more specific?
Tomorrow I will receive an almost brand new S8 and it seems that the Heimdall binaries are a small handicap for a smooth manual installation. So the easy installer sounds like a good option for installing /e/.

Regards,
André

#8

The “uneasy” installer is actually quite easy. The trick is the proper tuning in pressing the variious buttons

#9

OK. I assume the proper tuning is documented?

Reading the documentation again I see that under Windows I have to use ODIN instead of Heimdall.
I am in doubt wether I should use the Easy Installer or the manual installation using ODIN and TWRP. At the moment I have a Nexus 5 with TWRP and it feels very comfortable.

#10

I’m not using Windows since ages. Heimdall is for Linux. Since you mentioned it I assumed you are not scared by terminal and commands.

Myself, a Linux user, followed the directions reported on the /e/ site without problems.

As I already said, it"s a matter of timing.

If you miss the timing, you have to start the procedure of installing TWRP again. Not a big deal.

As an addiitive measure to avoid problems, please check that the USB cable is a Samsung one. Samsung phones seems to be picky on USB cables.

#11

Thanks, very reassuring.

#12

/[HOWTO] install /e/ on a Samsung device from a GNU/Linux PC successfully

/[HOWTO] Install /e/ on a Samsung smartphone with Windows easily

#13

Hmm, I am in doubt what to do. Either the suggested way as documented above.
Or using the ‘new’ Easy Installer. I’ll think about and report it back.
Whatever solution I take, both methods will use TWRP at the end.

#14

I just installed the easy-installer on Windows 10. Before installing I de-activated Windows Defender.
The menu did NOT get populated with a link to Easy Installer.
So I started the programma manually using ‘easy-installer.bat’. That worked fine.
After starting the software I was presented with 5 important advices.
Advice number 4 is to backup the device to be installed with /e/.
Pardon me asking how to make a complete backup of my device.
And with a complete backup I mean a complete image of the device.
Just in case I want to re-install the stock ROM.

#15

Do you already have TWRP installed? Then you can reboot into recovery and do there a backup.

#16

Hi Nottolino,

I just finished installing /e/ on my Samsung S8 using the Easy Installer.
The installationprocedure worked without any problem for me.

There is one thing, one problem, that took me some time to solve.
I bought a 2nd hand S8. Of course the former user deleted all data and accounts. And I decided to reset the S8 to the factory settings. But if you come to the point in the installation that you have to use ‘OEM unlock’ button you will not find the OEM unlock button. Samsung provides the S8 user the OEM unlock button only after 7 days of using your phone.
There are many solutions to get the OEM unlock button without waiting 7 days on the internet all based on the same procedure:
Disable autoupdates and automatic time, put back the date minimal 7 days before the actual date. Finally reboot the phone. That should do the trick. But how can the phone be aware that it is 7 days behind today? The answer is so easy and logical: connect to the internet. It took me more than half an hour to find this final and necessary hint to the solution.

Resuming: the Easy Installer worked perfectly for me.
May be I missed it, but I did not find a hint to this OEM unlock problem on the site of the e.foundation.
Anyway, anyone installing on a ‘fresh’ S8 and reading this is capable of solving the problem.
I expect that this problem goes voor other Samsung devices as well.

Kind regards,
André

#17

I also bought a 2nd hand S8, bit it was factory resetted by the previous owner.
So I did not stumble on the problem you are reportng.

#18

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