Share your Questions about the Easy Installer

Community Easy Installer
1

As some of you may be aware we have an Easy Installer to help flash the /e/OS on a set of 6 devices.

Fairphone 3/Fairphone 3+
Samsung Galaxy S9 – Exynos only
Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus – Exynos only
Samsung Galaxy S7 – Exynos only
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge – Exynos only
Samsung Galaxy S8 – Exynos only

There is a guide available here with some additional documentation on how to install the Easy Installer on Linux and Windows system.

That being said there are a lot of questions which we keep getting from users on the Easy Installer

We want your help in building a FAQ about the Easy Installer.

For that we need you to help us with the questions you want answered regarding the Easy Installer.
This is an editable wiki where you can share some of your questions on the Easy Installer for which we will get the responses from the developers.
…
You can list out your questions here

  • Where can we upload the logs when asking for help in the forum? The log is too long for the forum and also for several pastebin services. Additionally, posting several logs via a pastebin service tends to trigger the spam detection.
  • What to do if the process crashes?
  • How to check if your phone is compatible ?
  • Why my phone is not among those proposed by the easy installer?

:construction: Broken link: Related Issue on gitlab X

2

When will the easy installer get a total revamp?

I tried the easy installer about a month ago with an S9 via Windows. The documentation was not very helpful, and even the terminology used within the installer itself seemed wrong. Specifically, I remember it saying ‘hold down the home button…etc’ whereas the S9 doesn’t have one. Somewhere further in the process it seemed to finish successfully, but there was no prompt as to what to do after that IIRC.

The user would benefit from more clearly written and better implemented hand-holding, especially if you’re going to call it the ‘easy’ installer.

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3

Maybe it’s a good idea to create a new issue at https://gitlab.e.foundation/groups/e/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=✓&state=opened&label_name[]=Easy-installer for any real error like the example you gave about the S9 not having a home button while the installer tells you to press it.

4

Aren’t they already aware of the installer’s shortcomings? It may have already been reported here:
https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/backlog/-/issues/1296

5

Hi - using the easy installer

get as far a “Downloading e-latest-starlte.zip”

shows it has downloaded 724.4MB/724.4MB

and stays like that -

only option is try again - and keeps on trying

6

Hi, I’m having the same problem with the easy installer except I’m trying to download ‘flame’ for a Pixel 4. The download bar counts to 1.25G (it takes a couple of minutes, no more) bounces back and forth for a couple of seconds, and tells me to try again. (15-20 times over the course of an hour.)

I’m using Ubuntu 22.04

Thanks in advance for any info., Anyone!

7

Hi @tnex welcome to the /e/ forum.

I just downloaded flame -- no issues with the image ...

$ cat e-1.2-r-20220727206630-dev-flame.zip.md5sum
eb37a3f3c6a2910044f002b71c4f512f e-1.2-r-20220727206630-dev-flame.zip
$ md5sum e-1.2-r-20220727206630-dev-flame.zip
eb37a3f3c6a2910044f002b71c4f512f e-1.2-r-20220727206630-dev-flame.zip

… except that the ROM is a dev build. I will have to leave it to an Easy Installer expert to confirm, but Easy Installer may require a stable build. (FYI https://doc.e.foundation/build-status.)

If there is an issue with the image I would expect it to be revealed in the log. Howto troubleshoot issues with the easy-installer

Edit in hindsight: This post would have been better worded to include that the url of the Stable build is not shown (as usually seen) in the section

Downloads for the flame on the page Install /e/ on a Google Pixel 4 - “flame”

8

Hello to all,

I used the easy installer at the time, but I have to say that everything did not go as planned (I did not press the right volume button at the right time, idiot :wink: ). Maybe put a more explicit infographic with screenshots of what is supposed to happen?

For the moment, as @manoj said, it supports only 6 devices, it could be interesting to propose an official tutorial video for these 6 devices or at least for the FP and Samsungs.

Wouldn’t it be possible to propose a .zip file for all the drivers and other third party software needed for the flash process to work properly? For Samsungs it seems to me from memory that it is quite simple but if ever other phones are added it could be nice.

Among the community I’m sure there must be some good video maker :wink:

Concerning the FAQ (some examples):

  • What to do if the process crashes?
  • How to check if your phone is compatible ?
  • Why my phone is not among those proposed by the easy installer?
  • …
9

Hi @aibd !

Thanks for the welcome, the timely reply and the troubleshooting you did for me.

You may have already pushed me outside my base of knowledge: I understand the words but don’t have much in the way of contextual understanding to know if trying to install /e/ without the installer is more likely, because of this error, to end in a torrent of foulness & tears

…which isn’t to say I wouldn’t be up for it. And so!

I tried again just now with the Easy Installer. No luck: hastebin

I began to look more closely at the docs and look here: Try the Easy Installer beta

It says Pixel 4 is coral and Pixel 4XL is flame, when in fact the 4 is flame and 4XL is coral.

I wonder if it’s possible that, even though the Easy Installer tells me it downloads flame, it instead downloads coral, and runs into trouble only after the download is complete?

I first ran the Easy Installer to displace whatever Android came with the phone, and most recently to displace the Calyx I installed when I couldn’t get the Easy Installer to work.

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10

From your log it seems Easy Installer is not downloading an /e/ image which matches its sha256sum; installing this image will be impossible for Easy Installer.

I think this is the significant area from your log:

2022-08-05 14:52:36,053 DEBUG [Thread-28] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] downloadFile(https://images.ecloud.global/stable/flame/e-latest-r-flame.zip.sha256sum, /home/taryn/snap/easy-installer/common/sources/flame/e-latest-r-flame.zip.sha256sum)
2022-08-05 14:52:36,054 DEBUG [Thread-28] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] local file exist, size is 87
2022-08-05 14:52:36,055 DEBUG [Thread-28] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] last modified date = Fri Aug 05 14:48:06 EDT 2022
2022-08-05 14:52:37,074 DEBUG [Thread-28] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] response code: 200, OK
2022-08-05 14:52:37,075 DEBUG [Thread-28] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] remote fileSize = 87.0
2022-08-05 14:52:37,076 DEBUG [Thread-28] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] full file size = 87.0
2022-08-05 14:52:37,079 DEBUG [Thread-28] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] validChecksum(/home/taryn/snap/easy-installer/common/sources/flame/e-latest-r-flame.zip.sha256sum)
2022-08-05 14:52:37,081 DEBUG [Thread-28] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1]   ChecksumLine = de14901868e7f1afe664cc581e543fb15090fb0a7a60bef8b6789852c88eab2a  e-latest-r-flame.zip
2022-08-05 14:52:37,082 DEBUG [Thread-28] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] createFileChecksum()
2022-08-05 14:52:40,660 DEBUG [Thread-28] e.e.i.t.DownloadTask [null:-1] compare checksum: 7ba7afaf2b6f7c068fe6c879140827ce37941e64511acbf02e36add862b0f6e2 vs de14901868e7f1afe664cc581e543fb15090fb0a7a60bef8b6789852c88eab2a

It would appear that Easy Installer closes immediately after attempting the above 4 times

I downloaded the mentioned file and confirmed the result:

$ cat e-latest-r-flame.zip.sha256sum 
de14901868e7f1afe664cc581e543fb15090fb0a7a60bef8b6789852c88eab2a  e-latest-r-flame.zip
$ sha256sum e-latest-r-flame.zip
7ba7afaf2b6f7c068fe6c879140827ce37941e64511acbf02e36add862b0f6e2  e-latest-r-flame.zip

To get an expert answer to this one would https://doc.e.foundation/support-topics/report-an-issue

I will just draw the attention of @Manoj as this as the device is “new to Easy Installer.”

Indeed: https://doc.e.foundation/devices/flame

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11

Thanks for pointing the error out @tnex and @aibd in the device names. Will have that corrected ASAP.

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12

I see the change to Try the Easy Installer beta , but the text now reads

Google Pixel 4 flame coral

… but I was really drawing attention to my assertion that there is a fault within the repo.

I see a similar issue in coral

$ cat e-latest-r-coral.zip.sha256sum 
84bab64a43c0f940d9873fdc8efca1c5466552ce479bcd1ae6ceda238afc8bb9  e-latest-r-coral.zip
$ sha256sum e-latest-r-coral.zip
8634952683fd706d099e16d1b1e665370fad2ddcba9325153fc36a5c10c6c44e  e-latest-r-coral.zip

I have created

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13

Today I retested and updated and closed the issue above with

Today

wget https://images.ecloud.global/stable/flame/e-latest-r-flame.zip.sha256sum
wget https://images.ecloud.global/stable/flame/e-latest-r-flame.zip

Resolved without error.

1 Like
14

Getting stuck on the download, too.
Would be great if i could point to a file on my desktop :pray:

15

Where to get log at runtime

Windows: C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Local\easy-installer

linux : ~/snap/easy-installer/common/

16

I think for Arch Linux also an AUR package exists and when the Linux version is not installed via snap, the log file should be in /tmp/easy-installer IIRC.

But I assume the post by 888 is a suggestion that the installer should be able to use images a user has downloaded manually in case the automatic download by the installer fails.

17

Yes …probably … this is reported to be feasible in this [Solved] thread.

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18

Why is the easy installer for Linux only available as a snap package? The distribution of this package format is controlled by Canonical (the company which releases Ubuntu) and therefore not really free. It would be much more helpful to make a flatpak for the easy installer, or create .deb and .rpm packages for the most popular Linux distributions.
Additionally, in my experience, snap packages use so much more storage/ram (or even cpu) than normal packages, so something in that format makes them really slow (even compared to flatpak, which has lots of overhead compared to shared libraries as well).

With easy installer only available as a snap package, the easiest way for me is to install from a command prompt. The only hard part in that (and it really is different in almost every device) is to get the device to shut off or boot right into recovery, after having flashed said recovery, instead of booting the stock OS and therefore overwriting the newly flashed recovery. However, I can hardly imagine that this step is much different with easy installer…

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19

I definitely agree with you. I’m not as good yet with mobile OS and I wanted to install /e/OS on a Pixel 5, using the Easy Installer. I did it, but I “had” to install Snap on my Debian - I don’t like Snap - just to use the installer. I will uninstall it then later. A Flatpak version will do the job, even better, and will enlarge - as noted also elsewhere in the forum - the number of people potentially using the installer and the the /e/OS.
I really hope someone is considering to do this in a short time, not so much work I think.

20

What do you think about AppImage as format for distribution?
I tried it out a couple of months ago and for me it was working fine.
Wouldn’t be too hard to integrate IMHO
https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/devices/easy-installer/-/merge_requests/217

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