I recently replaced my 8 year old FP2 with an FP4, and would like to install /e/OS on the old FP2, to use this with apps I don’t want on my new phone.
On the FP2 I am running Android 10 with Fairphone Open build number 23.02.0-rel.0. I have enabled Developer options.
I have read the installation instructions for FP2 on both the e.Foundation website and this guide on the Fairphone site. I have also looked at another related thread on the community forum.
These are all slightly helpful, but also confusing, because they mix together instructions that are relevant for an installation using a Windows PC, and Linux/Unix instructions, so when I run into a problem, the solution generally involves Linux, which I don’t use and am totally unfamiliar with (also Unix coding replicators like Git Bash).
I am trying to run the installation from a Windows laptop. Initially I tried from a Windows 7 machine, with no success (phone not recognised using adb devices command).
I have now tried using a Windows 10 laptop, and got as far as the device being recognised with adb devices (I cleared the “unauthorized” status) and getting the phone to bootloader mode using the adb reboot bootloader command.
I am unable to get the phone recognised using fastboot devices at this point, and any other commands (e.g. flash…, adb reboot recovery) get a “no devices/emulators found” message.
I have tried downloading and installing USD drivers for the FP2 on my laptop, but Windows 10 insists I have the most up to date driver (MTP), and will not install any of the Google USB drivers I have downloaded.
I tried installing Git Bash but I have no idea how to get this to work, there is no adequate explanation of even basic commands (such as change directory), so this option is not worth pursuing.
I have installed e/OS on my FP4 and this was reasonably painless (still took 2 days and required me reverting to my Windows 7 laptop to complete the process), but this came with a Windows installer so not so hard.
Are there any unambiguous installation instructions written entirely for Windows machines (i.e. that don’t ask you to enter “subo” as part of a command line) that anyone could point me towards ?
As an alternative I could try and install the original Fairphone Google OS, which is not my preferred option, but if this is easier and doesn’t require extensive programming language knowledge, I can try that.
Any help gratefully received.