Comment by spacebuffer
6 days ago
For me as a desktop linux poweruser, I find this potential transition pretty intimidating, I've never flashed a phone with a custom rom let alone switch to a completely different OS, and I am not sure if the phone can even be reset to its original OS, if things go south.
/e/OS at least has a browser based installer[0] for quite some supported phones. I definitely recommend trying it out, installing a custom os on my phone gave me the same feeling when I first ran debian on a laptop struggling under windows (even though the performance gains aren't that apparent in my opinion).
[0]https://e.foundation/installer/
The /e/OS installer is terrible though and often fails, even on their officially supported phones (like Fairphone). The standard recommendation in their forums is nah, just install /e/OS through the command-line.
Also, /e/OS has pretty bad security practices (shipping very old kernels, very old vendor firmware, and missing most AOSP security patches).
Also, be careful to follow the instructions really carefully. For some devices it's really easy to get the phone in a boot loop, where the only resort is to get your vendor to repair it. E.g. Fairphone 6 has downgrade protection and will become a brick if you relocked the phone when the old system's Android SPL is newer than the new system's.
Don't worry if you're not ready, just as on the desktop, there are pioneers ahead of you that will clear the way <3
It's relatively easy. It's basically a command for each step you want to do and it tends to fail gracefully nowadays.
If you can install a linux distro you can flash a custom rom on a well-supported phone.
If it were more mainstream I could see GUI apps to manage all this for people, if they don't already exist. Idk I just use adb.
It's also high risk. I've bricked two phones doing it.
I flash phones almost every other week. And tablets. I have been flashing since Androids came out. But never bricked. But maybe that is why I don't have any problems.
I've been flashing phones for over 2 decades and have never bricked a phone. How did you manage that?
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Potential for a brick varies massively depending on phone model, doesn't it?
it's pretty much impossible to hard brick phone, you can almost always recover it
I'm running custom ROMs for the last 15 years
That describes relatively easy for you, but not for the average person who can’t even be bothered to change the default ringtone.
The challenge I've found when looking for instructions for flashing one of my old phones is the assumption of knowledge some rom builders have, or perhaps an assumption about their audience. This seems like it has the potential to bit someone in the ass because if they're relying on other sources like the lineageOS wiki or forum posts elsewhere for example there's no guarantee it'll stay available, complete, or relevant to their variant over time. It's an added burden for what is a gracious volunteer role, but it's a handicap if they want more people using the fruits of their labor.
I can't be bothered to change my phone's default ringtone and yet I've had very little issue installing LineageOS and GrapheneOS on the various phones I've owned over the years.