Loving /e/OS so far but I’d like to switch from the “community” version to the “official” version, preferably without having to re-unlock the bootloader, etc. It seems that this should be possible via the built-in updater, since it provides a local update option where you can select an update file to use. Is this a reasonable expectation? I’ve tried downloading the latest official version both with and without the IMG- prefix but the updater fails to import the update.
Is there a secret-handshake to doing this or does the updater actively keep you from switching builds? If so, is there a way around it like renaming the official file to community or something like that, or editing a tag within the file or are there too many incompatibilities to do this safely? Seems like it should be safe to do since the official version apparently just goes through some additional testing.
That is certainly not the only thing. I do not know for certain how far official and community diverge but for one thing official allows lock bootloader and community does not.
The updater does certainly only allow a fully matching build to be used to update.
The official advice to change from one build type to another is to treat it as a new install with Format data. A clean install is always the best secure and long term strategy.
Thanks for the reply. I was able to re-lock the bootloader after installing it so that’s interesting. If that’s truly the case then I wonder if the ability to do that was taken away after I installed it.
Builds subsequent to the first you installed have not included the exact spec to relock, but it was present in dev=community builds until “quite recently”; maybe sometime early 2025 (??).
If experimenting, the ROM with the IMG- prefix is not an OTA image one can only experiment with images from the ota server.
Thanks for the info. The version I’m running as per the updater:
/e/OS
2.9-t-20250325478876-community-FP5
I flashed the phone to e/OS in late Mey or June, I think. The bootloader is locked.
I seem to recall there being 3 different builds: dev, community and official. Community was what I flashed but I do seem to recall some overlap with community and dev, but I just can’t remember the details so take my claims with a grain of light salt…
On an unrelated note: I replied to another poster about 10 or 15 minutes ago and the system made me wait another 10 or 15 minutes before posting this reply here. I realize that I’ve only posted a few times here but I joined the forum months ago so that’s seems pretty extreme, someone with administrative rights might want to take a look at the forum settings and consider making things a bit more reasonable.
No, it isn’t.
Switching the build type was always a new install. User data will not be kept. You can try to use the updater, it may do the install (I don’t know), but if so, it should force a factory reset upon first boot of the changed build type.
dev was simply renamed to community.
stable was simply renamed to official.
Details … Different Build Types
This difference should be gone since Android 12 (S) …
