Xiaomi - Mi 5 - gemini - Documentation Suggestions

Please add your suggestions to improve the documentation for the Xiaomi - Mi 5 - gemini here …

I have just upgraded my gemini to e-0.14-q. The upgrade went well and everything works, but the documentation could be improved.

  • Android Firmware - The docs say the phone should be running Android 10 stock firmware before upgrading to /e/. The latest stock Android for gemini is Android 8. Instead the docs should say the gemini should be running the latest stock Android 8.

  • Recovery Image - The docs say to download and install TWRP. However e-0.14-q provides a recovery image that can be used instead of TWRP, and which I can confirm works perfectly well. The docs should therefore suggest using the /e/ recovery by default, and point out that TWRP may be used if preferred. Usage of the recovery image is much the same as TWRP.

  • Installing /e/ from /e/ recovery - The sequence to install /e/ from the /e/ recovery (starting from stage 3) is.

  1. In /e/ recovery select ‘Factory Reset’.
  2. Now select ‘Format data/factory reset’.
  3. Select ‘Format cache partition’.
  4. Select ‘Format system partition’.
  5. Sideload the /e/ .zip package.

Tip: Sideload requires actions in two places to be done. One on your phone in the /e/ recovery UI and secondly on the connected PC which should have adb enabled. Also note the sideload process while running may stop abruptly around 50%. The console would show a message Total xfer: 1.00x. This would mean that the transfer has successfully completed.

On the device in /e/ recovery, select Advanced, Enable ADB.

On the host machine, in the console , start the sideload of the package by typing
adb sideload filename.zip

Tip: Change the filename to the name of the file you downloaded

  1. Once installation has finished, return to the main menu, tap ‘Reboot system now’.

Experience using e-0.14-q-20210204100104-dev-gemini
0.14q for gemini works pretty well. I only experienced one problem which concerns the file manager.

If an app requires selecting a folder or a file, it will open up the file manager. However it is not possible to select a folder because the colour scheme of file manager uses white text on a white background for the select option. The workaround is to either guess where the ‘OK’ button is located, or to switch to the dark theme in the system Settings>Display options.
Hopefully this will soon be fixed in an update.

It doesn’t work for me with the /e/ recovery image:

$ adb sideload e-0.16-q-20210414110657-dev-gemini.zip
adb: sideload connection failed: closed
adb: trying pre-KitKat sideload method...
adb: pre-KitKat sideload connection failed: closed

It works when using TWRP, but then still e-0.16 boots but is not usable. I’m guessing due to a write permission problem? Not sure. But it sideloads with TWRP, and with /e/ recovery it does not.

Could you please detail your /e/ recovery problem in a Gitlab issue ?