Moving from /e/ to iodé, FairPhone3
I upgraded my FairPhone 3 (FP3) from /e/ to iodé. In doing so, I upgraded from Android 10 to Android 11, this is the process I followed.
Installation
I followed two sets of instructions to change ROM, starting with these simple instrucions from iodé and using these more informative from Lineage. I performed the upgrade on my laptop running KDE Neon, so I just had to make sure that Fastboot and ADB were installed, 'sudo apt install adb fastboot' and I was away.
Before beginning the upgrade I'd forgotten to enable OEM Unlocking in the developer settings, after clearing that it ran fairly smoothly with the only new thing is that I had to got to “Apply Update” in recovery to enable ADB sideload. It has been a long while since I've changed rom manually, previously I'd used the /e/ easy-installer which made things blissfully simple.
After installing and booting, my aim was to upgrade to Android 11 which is in beta currently but can be enabled by downloading the beta updater, specifically this apk. Install and update again.
Firing it up
One of the great entries to the OS is the ability to choose what apps are installed on first run. I chose to exclude Magic Earth, as I use Organic Maps, which I find to be slightly better.
It appears the apps are both installable, via F-Droid, and uninstallable in the settings regardless. So if you wish to remove an app you didn't mean to install, you can.
The OS looks like the others, Android 11 loves empty space which is a bit of a gripe but not much can be done there I think.
I found that the iodé app, which is a blocker, works alongside VPNs. So you can use both. It appears one can use ones own blocklists of choice soon, which would be good.
Installing everything again was easy enough, especially as F-Droid comes pre-installed. Aurora Store is installed too, which makes installing any Google Play based apps easy as well.
Speaking of Google, it may be worth enabling accounst discovery in Setings –> Accounts –> Google –> Sign-in & Security so that other apps, like the bundled PEP email client can discover your gmail account more easily.
Possible bugs
Phone-call bug
I've not been able to find-out if this bug is on this ROM or not, as it doesn't appear to be in the LineageOS forum thread
There is a bug with auto-brightness, it's not as reactive and plunges to '0' brightness when light is dimmed at times.
Concluding
The OS appears very similar to LineageOS 18, it feels very similar to the /e/ OS I came from. Largely, I think the underpinnings are the same.
Nothing changes visually. Iodé has a great set of bundled apps, which are all uninstallable at 1st-boot and subsequently from Settings –> Apps.
I'd recommend trying it if you're looking to reduce the amount of information Google et al. take from you. If you do decide to change ROMs, please do spend a long time reading the wiki information, forum threads and, if they have them, bug reports before diving in.
Update
https://write.as/eunach/an-update-to-living-with-iode
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#android #android11 #fairphone #fairphone3