Thanks to the newly available TWRP with encryption support I recently took it upon myself to test the FP Open 17.02.0 release. I don’t use the Fairphone additions in FP OS and see most stuff as bloatware anyway, but I do want GAPPS included.
Preparations I’ve made:
- Flashed the 3.1.0 version of TWRP with encryption support (https://forum.fairphone.com/t/pencil2-porting-twrp-recovery/)
- Made a full encrypted backup of the existing FP OS
- Put the OTA switchers FP OS > FP Open and FP Open > FP OS on the sd-card (https://code.fairphone.com/projects/fp-osos/user/fairphone-open-source-os-downloads.html)
- Put the latest gapps ARM 5.1 pico release on the SD card (http://opengapps.org/)
- As stated at code.fairphone.com your /data/media will be erased. I thought this was included in the TWRP backup, but this isn’t (per design). BACKUP THEM MANUALLY or else you will lose your photo’s (DCIM is located there for instance).
Going to FP Open is simple as can be:
Go into TWRP, queue the FP Open and the GAPPS package and flash! Afterward you can re-enable encryption in the OS again.
Going back is even easier:
Restore the backup created earlier. Everything will be there except the contents of your /data/media (old internal storage / sd-card).
The FP Open is now my favorite ROM because:
- It’s pre-rooted (go into developer mode and enable). I had to flash a rooted boot.img on FP OS (https://fp2.retsifp.de/) after every update.
- Less bloated with launchers / apps I don’t use: iFixIt, Peace of Mind and other stuff is missing. It’s pure AOSP.
- The camera has VVS protection built-in (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt9zSfinwFA)
- I can choose the version of GAPPS. Pico has the bare framework and you can choose to install additions through the store (Calender, YouTube, Inbox for instance). The OK Google spyware isn’t included.
- All the apps I use work under FP Open as well.
- It feels as, or even more, stable as FP OS. But this can just be because the ‘fresh’ install.
YOU should switch to Open OS now! (+Why & How)