The camera related changes are in the middleware level and allow using more of the features available in the Android camera drivers. The community camera app is still a very much work in progress (only photos using the main camera). Sources of the app can be found at https://github.com/piggz/harbour-advanced-camera and I have prebuilt package available at https://build.merproject.org/project/show/home:mal:testing which can be installed using the following commands:
Any help developing the app would be very much appriciated.
I have planned to move to Android base when it’s available but currently the sources for it are not yet publicly available so I cannot build it. The reason for moving to Android 7 is mainly security updates because Android 6 base is no longer maintained. Of course I will test the new base thoroughly and if there would be random crashes I would rethink using it as base for Sailfish OS.
Today I flashed my FP2 again with SFOS and so far it seems rock-stable, as every time you offer an update
Unfortunately I can only help testing and provide logs for the camera application, as I cannot do more than some “hello world” in several languages…
I don’t know if all people are affectedby those reboots in Android 7, but if not (and if your testing device isn’t) I can offer to test and provide logs when needed for testing purposes,
Could you build Sailfish on Halium-7.1 ? It was recently ported to fairphone 2 by the UBports team, as can be seen in their life porting session !
Will it be a good substitute to the Android 7 sources you’re waiting for??
Sorry for the delayed answer. In linked post it says that Halium 7.1 is not ready for FP2 and Halium hasn’t really been used as base for Sailfish OS for some reason. I could of course use Lineage OS as base for FP2 port of Sailfish OS but decided originally to use the official AOSP base. There isn’t that much difference which base to use, I could test how latest supported Lineage OS works as a base, it would probably take only a couple of hours to make a test build with all features working.
Thank you for your work!! Since my last google-free smartphone with OS Symbian Ana, many years ago, I am looking for a smartphone with Open Source. I want to install Sailfish on my FP2, but I am still not sure I manage. I am looking for all relevant information on the forum.
I do not want to bother mal because I am quite the beginner.
I reached the first step and have now Android 6.0.1 (18.04.1 release) on a brand new FP2. I installed adb and fastboot in the terminal of my Ubuntu laptop. Now I am stuck because ‘adb devices’ returns only ‘List of devices attached’ and nothing else when I link the FP2 by USB cable (choosing ‘loading mode’, not ‘data transfer mode’).
I read that I need to switch to debugging mode but I could not find how to do this on my FP2
I really want to succed myself because I find it important that not only computer nerds can use FP without g00gle.
Check that the device is detected with fastboot devices
fastboot flash modem ./BP/NON-HLOS.bin
Extract filesystem images from Android zip on your computer.
Enter fastboot mode on your phone by turning off device, when device is powered down press and hold volume down button and then plug USB cable.
Open a terminal on your computer and go to the folder where you extracted the file system images.
Check that the device is detected with fastboot devices
fastboot flash system system.img
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot reboot
It seemed okay, but following the reboot (which had some hickups but managed in the end without me doing anything) it has been nearly two hours showing “android is being updated - Settings are being prepared”.
While waiting I found the Fairphone Installation guide for Open OS where the package name is the same as the one on the Mer Wiki except it has “switcher” in it: fp2-sibon-18.04.1-manual-switcher.
I switched the FP2 off now because I am thinking of trying the process stated on the Fairphone guide, but it will not stay off, it is in a loop: starting until “change is in your hands”, and starting anew until…
What do you think?
I think the instructions on Mer are a bit confusing. The only file you use from FP2-gms59-1.5.1-manual.zip is NON-HLOS.bin (notice the instructions for this file are all sub-points; the instructions them jump back up a level to refer to 18.04). If I read through what you did, I get the impression you also used system.img and recovery.img from P2-gms59-1.5.1-manual.zip. If this is the case, the best way forward would be to follow mal’s comment above:
In short:
Install Fairphone Open OS / Sibon using fastboot and this file: fp2-sibon-18.04.1-manual.zip. You can use the Fairphone instructions for this, as mal mentions the whole installation can be done.
Unpack FP2-gms59-1.5.1-manual.zip, and flash the NON-HLOS.bin file that’s part of the extracted data via fastboot. fastboot flash modem ./BP/NON-HLOS.bin looks okay as a command, though I’m not 100% sure of the exact path.
Continue from Sailfish OS installation in the instructions on Mer Wiki.
After restarting, the phone stated (as in the first round) ‘optimizing x apps out of 72’, which took some time, and now it is again ‘android is being started - Settings are prepared’.
I am running out of time, I will leave the phone on for another 2 hours and then switch it off and continue at the weekend.
No, I did only the one command fastboot flash modem NON-HLOS.bin from the directory with the unpacked[FP2-gms59-1.5.1-manual.zip].
What I did wrong is to do step 2 first, and only afterwords did install Fairphone OOS (step 1) because in the beginning I thought I already had that. However, to do step 1 (following finishing step 2), I started from another directory with the unpacked fp2-sibon-18.04.1-manual so I used this unpacked file for system.img and recovery.img. I have screen shots but I do not know how to put them here.
I will start the whole process again at the weekend, this time starting with step 1! Over the years I learned that with computers, you need patience and try again.
Thank you for your help up to now! I will switch my FP off now, it is still struggling to start android…
I have been thinking, it seems to me that my poblem starts right when the command line ‘sudo adb devices’ and ‘… fastboot’ don’t return the FP (but only the SD-card which I put in the FP). Now I found a good thread for me (it’s in French, sorry) at: 🇫🇷 Mise à jour du FP2 vers Open Fairphone OS impossible
I will follow this up at the weekend. I am really happy about this forum, thank you to all those who contribute!
Actually, you don’t need to boot to your OS at this point! Once you flashed the system.img and the NON-HLOS.bin, just reboot to TWRP recovery and install the sailfishos zip.
As Fairphone announced the next beta with a lot of bug fixes (e.g. switching off with new camera modules and so on), a build.on the basis of the coming version could be a good idea.
