Official LineageOS 17.1 for Fairphone 3/Fairphone 3+

Wow, does that mean you are already preparing LOS 18.1 for the FP3?

Not quite yet. I am prepared to work on a future 18.1 version for FP3. However, that will probably require an Android 11 release for the stock Fairphone OS including updated vendor blobs - which we would then in turn incorporate in our LineageOS 18.1.

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@dk1978 17.1 is merged - thanks so much! :grinning: Does it build before next monday?

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Great work you are doing - really amazing! i am also interested in Lineage >= 17.1 on my FP3+
i find it a bit confusing to read this thread to know whats the current state as of user perspective.

may i suppose to open some space/page whatever, where there is the content of this thread and some others put together, as of:

  • Which Version of Lineage is current on FP3 and which on FP3+
  • Where to get them and how
  • What Works, what does not work on which phone (only major issues)
  • And just maybe some donation- option for those wiling to contribute your work?

This would help to get a faster overview if and how to get it startet.

Or maybe there already is?

woow, answering this by myself:

and for FP3:
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/FP3

sometimes as you are writing your wishes come true :slight_smile:

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Thanks. I installed this img thing but maybe the android nomenclature is different from mine :slight_smile:
I just replicated from the lineageOS page and so it may also be a temporary install. Somehow, an overview / picture for the flash partitions and theyr purposes would be fine, especially on an A/B device. So that it is clear what happenes if ā€œdataā€ partition is flashed or what exactly is locked if you lock s.th. have a nice start into 2021!

Hi dk1978. I just installed this one. Thank you very much for it. Unlocking the boot loader was a bit tricky at first and I indeed needed to connect the stock Android 10 with WLAN cause otherwise the OEM unlock was grayed out. But well, stock Android 10 on this phone is no more.

I flashed by booting into TWRP and flashing from there. For some reason after the first flashing it did not recognize that there would be an operating system on it. Since there was also some error regarding the data partition we decided to adb reboot bootloader and fastboot boot twrp-3.4.0-0-FP3.img again and flashed another time. This time no error message and TWRP did not complain about a missing operating system afterwards.

Regarding this inofficial image, it is safe to just start using it, installed apps and migrating data to it, or is it better to wait for the official image to pop on LineageOS download server? I am asking whether this inofficial image can be made to update against the official servers or whether an update can be in-place without wiping apps.

As I now know how to flash the phone, I can wait for the official image of course and flash it then.

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I built LOS 17.1 with your three repos five days ago and have had no problems using the phone so far. Thank you so much for your work on this!

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Iā€™m using dk1978ā€™s ROM for 10 straight days now as a daily driver (without reboot). No real problems so far, only thing I observed is that after a short time it doesnā€™t know the built-in sounds any longer, only as a number. But playing they areā€¦

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That is a good question. What you do depends on your needs and your experience. If you are a casual user or always need a working phone + data and apps, then I recommend you wait for the official LineageOS build, signed with LineageOS keys. If you use the Micro-G patches (I do) then I would wait for the LineageOS + Micro-G-build here. Either way, the normal OTA updates should then be pointing at valid servers and you can get updates without the fastboot + adb manual flashing hastle. Using an official build will also eliminate the nagging warning about using the default developer keys to sign the build (you could sign your own build if you want).

If you are into building yourself, then you are free to use anything you like. My own unofficial builds were only meant for early testing and I will not do anything to maintain continuity there. I have patched my own build with the Micro-G stuff manually and will continue using that for day-to-day stuff now. I will apply updates with adb sideloading. I donā€™t believe it will be easy to make your own build update with an official build. You would need to set a property to define the build server URL and find a solution to bypass the signature verification step.

Whatever route you chose, I guess it is better to choose early and stick with it to avoid wasted time and lost data. Many things can go wrong and the Android world is constantly changing.
Backing up data is still an issue. I have yet to see a working Seedvault backup. :neutral_face: Using TWRP backup and recover does 90% of the job, but there are some apps, e.g. Signal Messenger or andOTP that rely on the Android Strongbox keystore. Those keys are stored in a trusted hardware component and cannot be recovered (by design) if you wipe the system. That means that these apps will typically crash and have lost data when you run your TWRP-recovered data. Same holds for some of my banking app stuff. If my analysis is incorrect or anyone knows solutions, I would be grateful to know about it.

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I didnā€™t find a solution, either. The keys for decrypting anything in android keystore are lost, and canā€™t be restored with TiBu.
Signal and Threema, though, allow an export of chats and data, and the restore works ok
But beware, if youā€™re using vanishing messages with signal, looks like they donā€™t appear in the backup. I didnā€™t investigate it further, but it somehow sounds consequent to me

So, my current setup is: LOS 17.1 as GSI.
Do you think it might be possible to not format /data when changing to the official build to (hopefully) preserve the keys from Exposure Notification (I use the German Corona Warn App from f-droid)? Or to backup with TWRP and restore it once the official build is installed?

i did ask the developer for thatā€¦ answer is, if you can backup and restore the exposure.db, you can migrate your data to a new installation (using the de.corona.tracing, the clone of the official app). Only cosmetic problems the first 14 days in the message (Risikoermittelung war fĆ¼r x der letzten 14 Tage aktiv). you can see your keys in the settings)

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@dk1978 thanks for all the work on LOS 17.1! :slight_smile:

I just got my new FP3+ this week coming from FPOOS on FP2, looking forward to install LOS+MicroG.

Will there be a microG build directly on the official LOS website or should I use the fork from the MicroG download page? (as soon as a 17.1 build is available there)

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Dear dk1978. Many thanks for your detailed answer which gives me a clear picture. As I like this Fairphone 3+ to be my main handy for private use Iā€™d rather go with the official image. I intend to play around with Plasma Mobile some day, but that would be on another (used) phone.

I think I go without MicroG, as I am not sure in what use case it would actually benefit me. Okay, may be that Conversations can go with push messages then, but as far as I understood its just the client implementation that is free software with MicroG and it would still be using Google services. And I do not like Google to know when there are new XMPP messages waiting for me. So I am willing to go with a slightly higher battery usage.

I will also go without rooting the device and like lock the bootloader again, once I flashed the official image.

Thank you very much for your work.

Ah, about this one, I intend to just setup accounts with AndOTP on the new Fairphone 3+ manually again, logging in with the old AndOTP and FreeOTP+ accounts on the Fairphone 2 I used before.

I believe I should be able to export SMS from Silence, I have been using it before. I never heard about SeedVault backup. I think I did a kind of a backup with adb some time. At least Nextcloud client already stores my photos and contacts on my Nextcloud. I donā€™t think there is much more critical stuff on the Fairphone 2 and I likely have the opportunity to keep both phones for a while, so I can still copy things over in case I miss anything.

Have a happy, peaceful, healthy and abundant new year everyone!

AndOTP actually defaults to not using then Android Keystore, and does not recommend it. My guess is that if you use the other method labelled ā€œPassword / PINā€, then you will be able to restore the tokens from a backup. No experience with this yet.

Actually, now that I read this, I remembered I donā€™t use full microG right now :slight_smile:
I just use the standalone microG UnifiedNLP for a faster location fix (offline backend)

So I guess the best approach for me is to get the official LOS17.1 as soon as itā€™s available and install UnifiedNLP (No GApps) on that.

Iā€™ve seen this howto and an older FP forum topic about this.
Anyone knows whether this adb method is still necessary for system registration, or does the current 17.1 build support UnifiedNLP installation in userspace from F-Droid?

Hi Daniel,

Thanks a lot for your work towards LOS 17.1 for Fairphone 3+! Itā€™s very much appreciated! Canā€™t wait until itā€™s officially released. Hopefully on Monday? :grinning:

I saw your discussion about backup of AndOTP. I faced the same issue and actually came up with the following solution: Using KeePassDX instead (which also supports OTP) and synchronizing the KeePass DB via Syncthing (of course also works with Nextcloud etc.).
Maybe this helps :slightly_smiling_face:

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Iā€™m 99,9% sure that there will never be a MIcroG-enabled ROM on the official LOS page due to the reasons described by MicroG.

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