A post was split to a new topic: Does Encryption work with Lineage OS?
LineageOS will be officially supported by the LineageOS team:
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Well yes and no, because my question was: if fairphone will support it officially as well? For people with a technical background it is seriously cool to be able to use lineageos now but what about the other people, who are scared to crush their phone during the switch?
Any updates @Douwe?
The most important fact is that fairphone could extend the usability/security of the software for years and is not any longer limited to any bulshit deadlines from Google.
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At Fairphone we are very impressed by the work of the community and we believe that their work is a huge contribution to the longevity of the Fairphone 2. Successful alternative OS’s for the FP2 will enable users to keep the phone longer and prevent ewaste.
That said, there are currently no plans to support LineageOS officially. The team has their hands full supporting the existing two OS’s and has no resources to support another one. Let alone the required pressure it would put on the legal, product, communications, marketing and support team if Fairphone start supporting a third OS…
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I think this is not a problem, as long as the community Fairphone supports and Fairphone the community supports. Thanks to all the helping hands!
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Sorry, didn’t wanted to ask if FP wants to continue the development of LOS for FP2.
I just wanted to know if a plan exist to offer a nice and easy installation(/-guide) for everybody with interest in LOS. I mean sure thing, if you did install it once, it might seem easy at the end, but I remember well the first time flashing LOS on my FP2. I thought quite a while about the risks and got feared by the fact of possibly bricking my everyday phone, until I actually did it.
And couldn’t you even advertise this additional OS-option? Sure as a community project, but still many people like the idea of LOS, which extends the longevity of phones, and just buy supported phones.
One more thing. What happened to the official FP-apps/widgets? Are they already completely open source and on F-Droid? Because with these apps, people can theme their official community LOS like the official FPOS/FPOOS.
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Installation instructions can be found in the LOS wiki: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/FP2/install
I think that you don’t need to advertise LineageOS. Those that already know LOS will find out eventually that FP2 is supported.
This discussion happens over there:
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That’s quite right, but does not - in my humble opinion - address the concerns of @bastoGrande completely.
That’s especially so with regard to the fact, that all the information you are referencing is available only once you get to the forum.
The FP-support page does not list Lineage. Sailfish and Firefox are hyperlinked to external pages and Ubuntu is mentioned but not even linked to the forum.
To us the forum is second nature, but that is not necessarily the case for interested customers searching the FP-homepage.
[quote=“Stefan, post:31, topic:28945”]
I think that you don’t need to advertise LineageOS. Those that already know LOS will find out eventually that FP2 is supported.[/quote]
Are you serious? You do not really think, that it’s enough to rely on those people that already know about LOS and are convinced that it’s a good idea.
Stopping advertising does mean to not show new FP-owners how good a choice LOS is and persuade them to give it a try.
And not everyone wants to start an in depth research. Even if someone wants specifically to have a phone he can use LOS on, he takes a look for a list of phones and when he/she finds one and if FP happens to not be on that list, that’s it.
So @Douwe or @Joana_Moreira - just maybe - some editing of the support page about FP OSs might be helpful for popping up on internet searches (esp. for Lineage or Ubuntu) as well as for showing new possible customers how much of a fair and open phone the FP is.
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Hopefully at one point we will have a proper fairphone.community landing page, which contains all that information. Until then there is the #oslist. (Maybe that’s something that Fairphone could link to in one of their support articles. There is also the community list of headphones, for example.)
Only a few people buy a phone because it runs LineageOS. That’s why the CyanogenOS phones did not become a success. People want Android with Google. Most people don’t even care for updates. (And that’s the reason why Samsung & Co can still sell loads of phones that will never get an update at all.)
I agree with @bastoGrande and @BertG. It would be excellent if
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The presentation of the FP2 on the Website would advertise a phone with 2 supported OS and 2-3 official community OS (a list and links)
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one could install LineageOS easily from the updater when one receives the phone (like for FPOOS)
In the meantime, I understand that this would be difficult. Can FP advertise on a community developed OS ? What if it is not supported any more in 6 months? Whould it technically be possible to install LineageOS as easily as FPOOS?
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Whould it technically be possible to install LineageOS as easily as FPOOS?
LOS is already easy to install in the sense that you don’t have to unlock your bootloader on FP2 in contrast to other proprietary devices like Motorola, Google, LG, Xiaomi, etc etc etc.
Take a look at https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ and compare how difficult some other devices are. F.e. I recently unlocked bootloader of a Moto G2 and it was tedious with an ugly warning every time the device is booted.
It doesn’t get easier than this. TWRP is a GUI and the commands are quite clear. In theory a script could be written to automate the commands, and he script could be powered by a fancy GUI with a bar. But that’d be a LOS-wide endeavour since the install is virtually the same between devices apart from unlocking the bootloader. Or is anyone aware of huge differences? I only skimmed through some installation instructions.
[quote=“chrisse, post:34, topic:28945”]
What if it is not supported any more in 6 months?
[/quote]Yeah, that’s a good point. CM was the predecessor of LOS and they suddenly got internal drama, disbanded, and transmorphed into LOS.
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I agree. I have installed LineageOS on another device, it was quite simple and it is even simpler with FP.
But you miss the point. I didn’t write “easy”, but “as easily as FPOOS”. It means that you could open your brand new FP, download a file, open it with the updater and… done.
I think that when people ask if LineageOS will be officially supported, there are different levels in the question:
- FP would take care of the updates, build the image etc.
- FP would let the community do the job but they would offer the possibility to install it via the updater (or another way). They would therefore support it in a sense that you wouldn’t fear bricking your phone (@bastoGrande’s point)
Even in the second case, I think that FP should have a disclaimer to not be responsible of any problems caused by LineageOS (and not by the phone), so the real bonus would be the easy installation.
If FP continues to develop FPOOS, I understand why they don’t feel the need to support LineageOS. But do we have numbers of FPOOS users since the official Lineage build? How many left in favour of LOS? I guess that the downloads of the latest FPOOS update could be a good indicator (compared to older updates).
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At the moment there are about 400 LOS users. See
Great post chrisse.
- is already out of the question. See @Douwe’s response.
- might be possible (I don’t know) if it doesn’t create more burden for Fairphone. If you’d like to go 2. then there has to be a way to easily install the OS, and Fairphone needs to ensure that the customer is aware 1. isn’t active (a disclaimer which is being read). If LOS bricks the phone though, people might go to Fairphone. So some kind of automation would need to be very well tested before implemented. If the community can do that, it might be fair game (up to the company).
Now, I am not sure where you want this GUI. You’re saying you want it from something akin to Fairphone Updater, right? Then it wouldn’t need to be ported to Windows/macOS/Linux (otherwise I’d suggest Qt). Then we’d have to take a look at the source code of that program and see if the TWRP stuff can be automated. I don’t think that is trivial.
As for the last part of your post. There won’t be official Android 7 images from Fairphone and a slew of other smartphones due to Google’s authority on that matter. LOS will even (eventually) provide LOS 15 based on Android 8. However Fairphone will continue to backport security and reliability patches to the 2 official firmwares. Once Fairphone discontinues support of those 2 official firmwares, many people will continue to run their unpatched phones but also LOS will gain popularity.
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The LineageOS downloader app could be the GUI @chrisse is talking about. Sure, it is not preinstalled, but I think it offers a click-to-install easy LineageOS installation. However, I think that the FP-LOS builds are not available there yet because they are still considered “nightly”.
@snevas Do you have some more information about the practicability of the LineageOS downloader app?
Yes, if an app could do all the work, it would be fine.
But which app are you talking about exactly? I have only found one “LineageOS downloader” app. Nothing official from Lineage, but an app on the store developped by one man, and with ads (or a paying version).
Quote from the description: "This app is NOT affiliated with “LineageOS " Team.”
Furthermore, it makes possible to update LineageOS, but not to install it from scratch.
Is it another app you were talking about?
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It seems the app is just a practical way to see changelogs and download the zips to later flash them through TWRP. But: only if you are on Lineage already.
(just read @chrisse’s reponse, (s)he is totally right)
Plus most devices only have nightly’s, no stable’s. Just wanted to point that out because I’ve seen a few people were talking about ‘changing to stable’.
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That’s the one. I thought that it was more practical.
Can the Fairphone Updater install LineageOS zips? (E.g. when you click on them in Amaze.)
[quote=“snevas, post:41, topic:28945”]
It seems the app is just a practical way to see changelogs and download the zips to later flash them through TWRP. But: only if you are on Lineage already.
[/quote]Yes, and swapping back to older versions. Once you’re on LineageOS, updating is fairly easy either way. TWRP just does the work for you.
The difficult part about LOS is the installation. Its good enough for us, but a tad too difficult for the average user. That’s a LOS-wide issue though; not specific to the FP2 port. The FP2 port is already easier than devices which need to have bootloader unlocked.
Maybe someone from this community could discuss with people from LOS community if its possible to improve the installation? I mean, a GUI could just download and verify the zips. A GUI can execute the commands to install TWRP. A GUI can have a flag for the pico or micro GApps. Has the LOS team considered a GUI?
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