For “reasons” I had to reinstall a entirely different galaxy A40, I’m having this weird behavior : I can’t write to the file system, the photo app fails to take pictures, the file app can’t create a folder, in adb shell I can’t find a place which is read/write for the “normal” user
a40:/ $ id
uid=2000(shell) gid=2000(shell) groups=2000(shell),1004(input),1007(log),1011(adb),1015(sdcard_rw),1028(sdcard_r),1078(ext_data_rw),1079(ext_obb_rw),3001(net_bt_admin),3002(net_bt),3003(inet),3006(net_bw_stats),3009(readproc),3011(uhid),3012(readtracefs) context=u:r:shell:s0
did I mess something up in the install procedure ?
Ok, sorry for the previous post, I missed the “Format” step in TWRP, which formats the encrypted /data and replaces it with a non encrypted /data. Rebooted, works.
Been using it for a few days, installed it on my a20e, loving it so far! Everything works except for the calendar app, i believe it is due to the outage. I have disable it for now, I will try again when the server is back.
First time I installed a custom ROM. I lost quite a time and for me, the format in TWRP was what I missed in the procedure, as stated in the @sethdot `s post.
There are many outdated guidelines on the net and none mentions the format data step.
Luckily I found your post by chance, it was not easy tbh.
Will keep you posted, my phone is flying
This looks like a great community, happy I have found you! Thanks a ton for your work.
I am sharing the detailed procedure I followed for a20e, I will use it to prepare a video. My target group are newbies like me. Please share your feedback @piero@ronnz98@sethdot or move it to a beetter place if needed. I will probably update it to make it better soon. Have you thought of a dedeicated little site like gitbook for sharing guidelines for unofficial builds? The forums are simply too difficult to follow sometimes and you get lost quickly, you may miss important information on the way. Lets see how it will go with the video. I am open to suggestions.
Installing /e/ OS on a20e
Preparation
Approach: Install /e/ OS from a SIM card to Samsung a20e with Odin and TWRP.
Hardware
Samsung a20e phone
micro SD card for the phone with at least 1.5 GB free. It is safer and easier than installing from internal storage. If you don’t have one, just get one. It is very handy for this phone because of low storage capacity.
Windows PC recommended, for the ease of use of needed tools.
Software downloads
Odin latest version, the “stable” one is fine. This is the tool you will use to install TWRP on your phone. Download and Install on Windows.
TWRP last version: download for phones in Americas or Europe. TWRP is the tool used to flash the /e/ OS file to your phone. TWRP will replace the default Recovery software on your Samsung phone. If you want to understand more what you are doing: what is UEFI/EFI for windows/linux, that is TWRP for android. Download on Windows. Download the file on your Windows.
/e/ OS Unofficial community build from the /e/ OS Community forum. Look for the latest version in the comments. This is the OS file that will replace the Samsung’s android on your phone. Download on your phone and transfer/move the file to your phone’s SIM card.
Samsung USB drivers, download and install on Windows
vbmeta.img file for this phone. I followed chatgpts advice for this: You need to download the latest a20e firmware from sites like SamMobile, Updato, Frija or SamFirm and extract the vbmeta.img file from the firmware. The original firmware is a large file, so the download will take some time. Just use the latest firmware version for a phone that is closest to where you live. You must flash this file together with the TWRP if you want your phone to boot after TWRP installation. Download on Windows
Create a normal back up of your phone
First Steps
Prepare your Samsung phone
Activate Developer Options: Go to Settings->About phone->Build number and tap 7 times
Go to Settings->Developer Options and enable the option USB debugging
Under Developer Options still, enable OEM unlocking and accept.
Under Developer Options still, go to Default USB configuration and enable File Transfer
On your phone, download the /e/ OS unofficial build a20e file (around 1GB) and transfer/move it to your SIM card
Make sure your WIFI connection is active
Unlock the bootloader on your phone
OEM unlocking is not enough to unlock the boot-loader. To do that, you will need to follow this procedure, after you prepared your phone:
Power off your phone
Connect your USB cable to your PC
Hold the VOLUME UP and VOLUME DOWN buttons on your phone together and while you do that, connect the other end of the USB cable to your phone.
This will bring you to the recovery menu on your phone, you will need to use VOLUME UP and VOLUME DOWN buttons to navigate. To unlock the boot-leader, select the second option and select the option Device unlock mode. The phone will issue several warnings and will try to change your mind while doing this It is up to you to accept or to ignore them.
Once you unlock the Device boot-loader, restart.
Install TWRP from your PC to your phone by using ODIN
Once you have unlocked the boot-loader, you can now install TWRP on your phone.
Enter into Download Mode of your phone.
Power Off.
Start, and hold VOLUME UP and POWER together. You will be warned that the phone is unlocked.
When the Samsung Logo appears, continue holding ONLY VOLUME UP button.
You will get into the Recovery mode.
Select second option, Reboot to bootloader. This is the “Download Mode”
TWRP installation with ODIN:
Open Odin by going to the downloaded file, extracting it and launching the Odin app
Connect your phone. If the procedures before were correctly followed and done, the phone will be recognized by Odin.
If the phone is recognized, Click on AP and enter the path to your downloaded TWRP file
Click on CP and enter the path to the extracted vbmeta.img app
Click on start and wait while the procedure is completed.
If everything was ok, you can now boot into TWRP.
Flash /e/ OS with TWRP
Now the most important.
Boot into TWRP
Power Off.
Start, and hold VOLUME UP and POWER together. You will be warned that the phone is unlocked.
When the Samsung Logo appears, continue holding ONLY VOLUME UP button.
You will get into the TWRP.
Install /e/ OS with TWRP
Go to WIPE and click on Format Data
Once you format, go to the home page of TWRP click on reboot and chose reboot to recovery
GO to WIPE again and Click on Advanced Wipe
Select Dalvik, Cache, Data, Product, System and Vendor
Swipe to Wipe the selected data
Go to TWRP home then click on Install
Click on Chose Storage and select SD
Select the /e/ OS unoffical build for a20e file you have previosly moved to your SD card
Click on Install Image
At the end select to Wipe the cache.
Reboot to system
Thats it! Now you need to be ready for the first boot into /e/ OS.
Once you log into your new /e/ OS on your a20e, note that there is no keyboard installed in the latest build at the time of writing this guide. If it is stil the case, just log into your new OS and download a keyboard from the Apps app.
In several places in your tutorial you wrote SIM card instead of microSD card.
Vbmeta part is not necessary on this phone and it could confuse people because they would need to know how to download excately their AP file (others won’t work) and how to extract vbmeta.img from it. I would suggest removing that part.
But in gereal, it’s very good, thanks for detailed tutorial.
omg I used SIM card instead of SD card. What a mistake.
I can no longer edit the post
For the vbmeta, my phone actually asked for vbmeta.img file when i installed TWRP and booted the first time. It seemed like i couldnt continue without installing it.
recovery.img and vbmeta.img are bundled together in tar file so you just have to install twrp through odin and that’s it.
Odin is also included as well as magisk files for those that want to root the phone.
Thank you @sethdot. I used the TWRP file that is on the TWRP website, the latest.
Great, that facilitates the procedure a lot.
But you see, I couldn’t find your post in the xda forum when i was looking for help while installing /e/ os. Tbh, I didn’t yet understand what xda forum is at the time.
I haven’t touched Magisk at all during my procedure. Can you confirm please so I can include that in the procedure, if I understand well:
if we add Magisk and all the content from your Zip, we are rooting the phone. In that case we use all your zipped files.
If not, like I did, then the phone is not rooted, but we still can install /e/ os in an “unrooted” way. In this case we only need to flash the TWRP file from the zipped folder and that’s it?
I volunteer to prepare a guide with a video, but we need some appropriate online page to add it, not the forums. Is there such a place? Can e/ foundation provide such a page, dedicated to unofficial builds? As you see above, searching through the forums is not easy and you often end with outdated content from what I experienced installing the OS.
You are right, magisk is completely optional and it’s in the seperate folder in the zip file.
So if you don’t want to root the phone, after formatting data and installing e/os/ from twrp, just reboot to system.
If you want to root, after installing e/OS/, boot into twrp recovery once again and flash magisk zip. Reboot into system and you will get the prompt to install magisk to gain root access.
It’s not easy to make universal tutorial for all the unofficial builds because the installation method differs a lot. But they usually have a link in the initial post that leads to installation tutorial, I know that @ronnz98 always includes one (and that is always from the source of e/os/ so the procedure is the same).
So it’s always the best to post tutorials like yours on dedicated topics like this in my opinion.
I finally succeeded installing e/os on a a20e. It was the first time I did some tricky manipulations with a smartphone, and it took me hours and hours to read all the doc and advices online, and fix all the bugs I encountered.
In the end what worked was to quite simple, it was to follow sethdot instructions. But there was some subtleties.
In odin, my phone was not detected but I followed the video " DEVICE NOT DETECTED BY ODIN FIX | SAMSUNG DEVICES" by Pops Production Tech, to install drivers and then my phone was detected.
I didn’t know how to do step number 12 to put the zip file on the phone, but what worked was to enable MTP in the TWRP interface, and connecting my device to an ubuntu computer, typing in a terminal > adb push e-2.0-t-20240514-UNOFFICIAL-a20e.zip /sdcard.
The adb devices command is not consistent. Sometimes it shows something, sometimes not, I still don’t understand exactly why.
I put the a20e.zip file in the external SD card and folllowed digitao instructions to install e/os, but while installing I got the message error “Zip file is corrupt”. Actually putting the zip file in the internal storage via adb push solved the problem.
When I was in TWRP I also did some advanced wipe as recommended step 8 here community.e.foundation/t/howto-an-unified-install-guide-project-for-e/36234/4 or by digitao, and I have no idea if it helped or not.
Thanks you all for doing an amazing job ! I might come back in few weeks or months to feedback my experience.
Regarding this, after you format data and reboot to recovery again, you will see your phone storage in your OS (Linux or Windows) and then you can simply copy-paste zip to phone storage.
It is expected on Samsung device !
You can use Odin3 (windows) or Odin4 (Linux) as Heimdall could be outdated…
Ok thanks, I didn’t know Odin was available on Linux !
Regarding this, after you format data and reboot to recovery again, you will see your phone storage in your OS (Linux or Windows) and then you can simply copy-paste zip to phone storage.
Oh I tried this, but when the phone was connected on my Linux it was detected but I couldn’t enter in the Internal Storage icon, and I had an error message when connecting the phone, “cannot access to path/of/the/monted/phone”. But adb push worked.
Once my phone was in e/os (or in Android), it showed all folders correctly on the computer (Alarms, Android…).
Now I have a big problem, my SIM card doesn’t work well. The 3G/4G network never worked (it showed “no connection”), and I could’nt send nor receive SMS (message not send, try again). When removing and putting back the SIM card several times, sometimes I was able to send or receive one message, and I could call someone but I couldn’t receive calls. I tried with another SIM card and had the same problem. Both were with the operator Free (a French operator). Also the network bar did showed one or two bars.
Ok, however it should the same device than sethdot, an a20e, so it should behave the same.
When I went into the APN settings, it was written “e/os access point names are not available for this user e/os”. I still could write into the APN settings but not save them.
Also what is weird is that it sometimes worked, I could send or receive one message or two, but it was not consistent at all.
I thought maybe it is because I flashed an Android phone with Android 11, and e/os is version 13. I read that e/os should be installed with the same version of current Android in the phone. But the official latest version of Android is 11, so if I wanted to start from Android 13, I should flash a custom ROM.
To the people who succeeded installing e/os, from which Android version did you start ?
I found the solution to make SMS and 4G work ! I feel a bit stupid because it was quite simple, but you know, sometimes it’s hard to search for the good keywords on a browser or to see what is right in front of one’s eyes.
So even if there was an error message of “e/os access point names are not available for this user e/os”, it was possible to add an APN. Last time try I tried I modified APNs and went back to menu and nothing happened. But what I should have done is type on the free dots and the top right an type on save. Then it works. Yep…
It is up to you to accept or to ignore them.
omg I used SIM card instead of SD card. What a mistake.