Fairphone’s approach to root on the Fairphone 2

@freibadschwimmer great to hear. I might do it that way. But I would feel better with a offcial solution if possible.

I don’t think that there will be an official way to root the stock ROM. However, with waiting for an official build of the FP-osos you’re not alone.
Also: Firefox OS is already in beta phase and available for testing, and also Sailfish OS is expected to be released soon. So lots of alternatives to the stock ROM that’s exciting to look forward to :smile:

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Especially Sailfish OS is very inetersting for me. Very exiting :slightly_smiling: I just feel so good to find a community which is not just using a phone but which is considering all causes and opportunities a phone and its software might have!

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The only disappointment I’ve had so far with my FP2 is that there’s no possibility of handling apps’ permissions (like Cyanogen does). I come from a rooted S3, running CyanogenMod, and most of all I need to be able to control my data, and what my apps do and don’t do. I am surprised to FP2 default OS does not have this feature, which to me is extremely basic.
Is there any reason why FP2 doesn’t come with it?

I have just received my new FP2. I am not yet using it because I’m concerned about my privacy. So I looked to XPrivacy as a means of gaining that control over data and apps, and that’s mainly why I need to root my phone. Personally, I think FP made a good choice not rooting the phone by default (OK for most people), and in parallel providing an alternative (when it happens) the gives users more freedom and control.

That said, I am not very happy having to break the safety model to gain a feature I think every user should have (permission control).

So my question is: Will FP updates will come with Permission Control features?

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Basically i agree with you, i also perceive a proper permission management important, but the stock ROM is based on Android 5 which does not have one included. This only comes with Android 6, which is why i hope it won’t take too long until it will be available for FP2.

So far xprivacy seems to be the way to go, but it is unfortunately also tricky to install it, so be careful. Installing the xprivacy installer alone won’t help. For more see here: https://forum.fairphone.com/t/flashing-xposed-framework-to-the-fp2-without-custom-recovery/12642

As I remember from @keesj’s talk on FOSDEM, right now they have no concrete plans to offer Android 6 for the FP2 but rather Focus on getting FP-OSOS up and running and support it along with the current stock rom. He said there might be an option to upgrade to a higher version of Android in the future, but it didn’t sound like it would come in the next few months…

To my knowledge there even isn’t an ETA on the FPOSOS but a vaguely “first quarter”. Besides that, a gapps free version is one thing… an officially supported recovery image is another. :worried:

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Hello
Same for me. I’m not a pro at all with phones, but I don’t want gapps to scan all my contact and stuff. I was trying to install Xprivacy when I discover it wasn"t root like the FP1 and I’m really disapointing. So I search for a solution and come to this thread… I hope FP didn’t sale his soul to google. It’s very sad. I hope guys will find a way to root it as for now I didn’t install any app cause I don’t want to sell my privacy. So I can phone with it… but I was abble to do it with a simple phone.
As a lot of people, I defend a lot FP and talk about it to a lot of people, some bought on (like my son), but with that, I really start to reverse my opinion… ok for the making but for the ‘philosophie’ after, there’s a lot to prove.

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I was like you and didn’t install any of the messenger, because I didn’t want to give all thos companies all my data. Luckily I only had to wait for about 5 days after my FP2 arrived to get root. By now we even made a wiki article with detailed instructions here: https://forum.fairphone.com/t/pencil2-howto-root-with-superuser/12375
Just follow the B) variant and you’ll have a rooted FP2 in about 15 minutes :slight_smile:

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Wonderfull !
I will give the page to my wife, she’s the personn in charge ! :slightly_smiling
Thanks a lot.

Hi everybody,

@anon90052001, a month after, is Fairphone having at least a timeline to announce in providing an acceptable “yours to open” rooted and easy to switch to, operating system for FP2 ?

Ok, Fairphone was 2 months late delivering wrong colored devices, but I was trusting you not to jail me. The right way to describe the problem is : How to jailbreak FP2 ? I would not imagine having this to search over the net the day after having receive my phone.

I now see how laughable I was, advocating FirefoxOS or other free alternatives… Fairphone seems to willingly ignore that fair software or not is what their customers are experiencing everydays after a purchase, while alleged origin of materials keeps abstract.

If I am to struggle for freedom against my provider, I would be better returning the FP2 and buy a cheap Wiko instead (~100€). It would require me the same amount of time to put in escaping from Google.

With Fairphone, everyone in the supply chain is treated well, but customers are imprisoned.

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I have my FP2 since 2 weeks. One hour after I unpacked it it was rooted and google-free. All I had to do to root it is here in the forum, I just had to read a bit …

Rooting FP2 is very easy!
Spielmops

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Still, I bought this expensive phone because the provider would do the liberation job for me. It is a political position. At least… it was, with the previous model.

It’s this I was wanting to support (for at least 50%) with my money.

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They never said that they would provide a way to root the FP2, only that it will be easy to root it. Also they never said that a OS without GAPPS will be available at the release date, only that they will be working on it later and I’m sure they are.

You’re not the only one who assumed that you’ll be able to root and ungoogle the FP2 right away, but they actually never gave any reason for that assumption.

I started advocating OS freedom here in august 2014, and may have taken my dreams for reality while this poll was conducted : Closed Poll: Future Fairphone OS Development
71% of 400 respondants chose « Open source / Community developed OS (i.e Firefox OS, Cyanogenmod etc) »
So I’m surprised when @keesj speaks about a “vocal group of people”, like if it was a annoying minority poping out of the blue. I think that Fairphone customers are buying a better world, but not just for the supply chain.

Nowadays, Mozilla stops FirefoxOS for smartphones, and Jolla hardware is outdated and discontinued if I’m right…

So, if I may, I’ll stay a little longer here, and install back my 50 f-droid apps when FairphoneOSOS or SailfishOS will be available.

As the Fairphone way looks like being : “with important delays but well served”, I’m wondering about what kind of delay we’re currently speaking :slight_smile:

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71% of 400 respondents here on the forum is how much % of all FP1-owners? :wink:

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It’s a shame. But I guess it’s hard to build a ‘fair’ phone for the masses using of the shelf hardware and with google in your back. And you don’t make any money building Android devices anyway, it’s just a game for Sony, Samsung and two or three other players buying and selling each others hardware with proprietary software and googles data collection code.

I’m still waiting for the last official 4.4.4 release for the FP1. But have you tried this approach? It doesn’t take as long and so many resources as building the full ROM yourself.

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I’ve read that @paulakreuzer bricked his phone some times, but I’m still interisted in this method.

I was happily surprised that I did pretty much what is explained here : Living without Google 2.0 - A Google free FP2 but it’s just a luck.

It’s takes so long to study and learn all this, while I thought I bought this work from a company…

I’m not sure what @paulakreuzer did, I’m talking about @Max_S approach. But I admit that I haven’t read the whole thread, but most people on the top seemed to be happy.

So better get started :slight_smile: The company is understaffed and has a lot of goal conflicts, so it’s better to support them right now I guess … I assume you want a Google phone and root from the company? I guess those times are over, if I understood @keesj correctly. Only the google free version will be rootable and only this version may be offered by FP later. But you can install GAPPS on top of it later if you want to.

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I bricked the phone by using root to delete google apps. But it as easy to fix with a hard reset and a software reinstall.