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Regain your privacy! Adopt /e/OS the deGoogled mobile OS and online services
Hello,
I found a couple of points in the guide that I don’t understand and I would like to ask for a clarification:
- In section “Flashing additional partitions”, it is instructed to flash the vendor_boot partition. However, no vendor_boot image is provided: only the regular boot image is provided in the recovery zip. As you mention in the same document, the files that are not available in the recovery zip can be obtained from LineageOS wiki install page for the device… but this device is not supported by LineageOS, according to their documentation. What would be advisable here? Flashing the boot image in the recovery zip onto the vendor_boot partition? Flashing the boot image into the boot partition and forget about vendor_boot? Getting a vendor_boot image of a different device in the LineageOS wiki and use it for this one?
- In section “Unlocking the bootloader”, point 4, it is instructed to “Insert a SIM into your phone”. Unfortunately, this is a tablet with no SIM slot. What is the alternative for this particular device?
Sorry if these are basic questions, but I am new to flash ROMs into smart devices and, since this is a process with risk of bricking the device, I prefer to avoid risks. Thank you for the support.
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Hello,
I want to share my experience with installing /e/OS on nabu, highlighting some missing or incorrect points from the official documentation (I hope this may also help you @mixi ).
DISCLAIMER: despite being a longtime computer enthusiast, I’m not an IT expert and this was my first time flashing a custom ROM on an Android device, so you should assume that there may be some mistakes here.
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Concerning the bootloader unlocking:
It’s clearly unnecessary to insert a SIM card in this case (that is required only for devices with a SIM slot).
It is often recommended to activate the Find Device function from the Xiaomi Cloud Services to perform the unlocking. In my experience this is unnecessary and potentially problematic, as it can trigger the Mi Account Lock (however this is not a big problem for the installation of /e/OS, see below).
The documentation talks about MIUI unlocking, while latest updates for this device upgraded the OS to HyperOS 1, which has introduced few more steps to achieve the goal. In particular you have to apply for bootloader unlocking in the official Xiaomi Community app, but this step seems to be almost impossible as designed by Xiaomi (only few users per day from all over the world can apply). Some users have developed a script to bypass this step, named HyperSploit (I’m absolutely NOT recommending an unauthorized tool, just saying for completeness
). -
Flashing partitions:
It shouldn’t be required to configure the device again and re-enable USB debugging after unlocking, as stated in the documentation. You can immediately enter fastboot mode and perform later steps.
This is the most confusing part of the documentation; it is stated that you should flash dtbo.img to dtbo, vendor_boot.img to vendor_boot and recovery.img to boot, but the recovery zipped folder contains no vendor_boot image and includes an additional boot img (boot.img doesn’t flash onto vendor_boot as it’s bigger than the partition).Below is the configuration I’ve found working (real filenames are slightly different):
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dtbo ← < dtbo >.img
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vendor_boot ← < recovery >.img
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boot ← < boot >.img
I strongly believe that the file recovery.img is supposed to be flashed to the vendor_boot partition as it perfectly matches the partition volume; however I’ve also tried to let the stock vendor_boot untouched and it also worked perfectly, with no noticeable problem. The only thing I’m sure about is that flashing recovery.img to the boot partition (following the device doc) doesn’t work, as it doesn’t load any custom recovery.
Additional notes:
- This device doesn’t have a GPS in it, so geolocation relies entirely on BeaconDB, that is much less precise than the stock geolocation service, especially in areas with a low density of wireless devices.
- If the device underwent a heavy deabloating, a factory reset may be required in order to bind your Mi Account to it.
- Activating Find Device can trigger the Mi Account Lock (“This device is locked” screen) during boot; in this scenario, unlocking the bootloader can potentially lead to the impossibility of log in to your Mi Account and bypass the lock. If you only care about flashing /e/OS, you can ignore this message and directly enter fastboot mode; otherwise, the only way to solve the problem is visiting i.mi.com and removing the Xiaomi Pad 5 specifically from the Find Device page (that is different from removing it from the “My Devices” section).
I hope this may be helpful, let me know if you find any inaccuracies!
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Hey!
I wanted to write this message mainly to thank @g14n about the contribution!
Also, I wanted to complement your message with a links to the official Xiaomi forum where the unlocking documentation is, which may be useful while the main documentation is ready:
In my case, I have been trying to apply to get my bootloader unlocked quite regularly since I posted my first message with no luck. But I am completely sure that the next time is the charm! 