/e/ for FP3 (Google free OS)

VolvoX it’s definitely interesting!
Anyway I can’t find many informations on the supported applications, for instance, do you know if the F-Droid ‘repository’ is supported?
That was the case with Fairphone Open on the FP2s (and 1), and there are a couple of ‘must-have’ apps over there for me, like Signal and OsmAnd.
Any info on ths would be dearly appreciated!
Hervé
(10mn later)
Indeed F-Droid runs on it, and also one can install directly APKs, like the one for Signal (that in fact is not on F-Droid)
So it is an even more excellent news :smiley:

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@Herve5: F-Droid and Aurora Store install perfectly well on /e/.
There is a /e/ Apps Store that I don’t use, because I’ve made my life with a lot a F-Droid and as few Aurora as I can.

I have switched to /e/ yesterday on my FP3, and I find back what I had on my beloved (but betrayed :pensive:) FP1 with no google apps installed (but with microG to use some apps depending on these Google services).

So yes, Signal works, OsmAnd as well.

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Thank you thib!
As I read your post it indeed reminds me all the trouble I had, long ago, with the FP1s and microG : how is this on the FP3 /e/ ? Is there something already preset, that’d help converging faster on the GPS for instance?
Thank you!
H.

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indeed… I am not a crazy user of GPS for several good reasons, one of the first being that my 1st smartphone, the FP1, was not dealing properly with it.
I’ve just tried right now the GPS with the FP3 and /e/. Went in the garden. Got a first fix after around 1 min.
I think /e/ does the same job as the standard Google OS. But as I am not using actively the GPS, don’t take my words as an absolute reference.

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If you get a fix in 1mn for the fist time you launch the GPS that’s rather good. On the FP1 it took way longer, specially the first time :wink:
I see some phones converging in mere seconds nowadays, but this is (a) not their first convergence and (b) visibly, they use Google databases of wifi and GSM signals (which was the purpose of that damned microG at the time)…

MicroG is installed in /e/ and makes it easier to use some apps. I didn’t saw improvements for the gps fix time (I use osmand a lot) from fairphone open os to /e/.
But I am now able to use some banking apps like twint that work “out of the box” and that didn’t work well on fairphone open os.
Want to add that /e/ is more degoogled than fairphone open os is. The aim of the project is to provide a privacy focused android alternative with cloud services (e foundation provides a mail and a nextcloud server for free with basic use linked to the phone e account - not mandatory, you can use /e/ smartphone without e account) to non technical users.

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Hey @VolvoX if you want to post about /e/ on your FP3, please use this topic, not the one about Fairphone Open OS.

Ok, sorry, I was writing in the same time you were merging… :wink:

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Created a new thread at the /e/ community in order to ask about that totally new installation instructions and whether the /e/ builds still support Treble:

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Hi,
will the phone pass the former known security check by certain apps like banking-TAN apps?

I just think as soon as you unlock the bootloader some apps may not work cause they tell the phone unsecure.

The /e/ install instructions finish with locking the bootloader again.
And Apps don’t only judge security by an unlocked bootloader.

Many Apps rely on Google SafetyNet for judging security.
There are no Google services on the phone. /e/ uses microG as a replacement, but microG always has to catch up with changes Google applies to its services. So even if Google-dependent Apps might work, this can break at any time for an unknown period of time.
If you are relying on Google-dependent Apps 100% working, then /e/ will not be for you.

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Hi,

I am aware of that. :wink: But I did not know thet /e/ locks the bootloader again.

I would love a google free FP3. Perhaps I ll give it a try.

So, will it be “recognized” as a Custom Rom?

Depends on the method used to detect that by the App in question, and depends on whether changes in Google services break microG, which happens from time to time.

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From Fairphone’s official announcement on their blog:

When we asked the Fairphone community to choose an alternative operating system for the Fairphone 3, /e/OS was the clear favorite.

Does anyone here remember where and when this happened? I would really be curious about this.

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Found this, but not sure Fairphone would phrase it like they did given it was @paulakreuzer who created the poll:

:fr: If you speak french, I have made a tutorial on /e/OS.
Here : http://blog.liberetonordi.com/post/eOS

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It was obviously this poll as it was mentioned a lot in the /e/ forum, e.g. here in Gaëls post

(although more than one year later it didn’t come with FP2 but FP3).

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Yeah, I remember the poll.
But that’s probably not the only thing that made Fairphone choose /e/.
As much as I like Lineage (I have 2 FP2s and one Samsung GS5 running on it in my household), it is entirely community based and relies solely on the goodwill of a limited number of people.
/e/ is a “real” company, albeit small and probably financially fragile (as is Fairphone!), with an operational team and a long term project with goals they have set and actually reached so far. It is easier to engage in an official partnership with an established company than with a group of volunteers whom you don’t know if they will still be there in a couple of years.
I’m just trying to put myself in the shoes of the people at Fairphone who realised one day they wouldn’t be able to keep up with the open source software development project and had to engage in a partnership with someone else if they wanted to keep on offering a Google free alternative OS. It’s just easier to engage in that kind of long term partnership with a company like /e/ than directly with the community.
I see /e/ more and more as a kind of software couterpart of Fairphone : the first concentrates on the software and the latter on the hardware.
Again, please don’t think I’m being critical of Lineage, Sailfish and others. I think they’re really important and necessary and I keep in mind, for example, that /e/ is largely based on Lineage. So one can’t exist without the other and the fact that /e/ exists should, in fact, be seen as a fantastic success for Lineage.

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@tomgey: fully agree with all these points.

This kind person summed it up;

This little programmer will happily continue on cleaning up the LineageOS 16 port. :wink:

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