OpenAndroidInstaller

Makes installing alternative Android distributions nice and easy.

The OpenAndroidInstaller project helps Android users to keep their smartphone's operating system up to date with free software and to continue using the device even though the manufacturer no longer offers updates. With a graphical installation software, users are easily guided through the installation process of free Android operating systems like LineageOS.

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Warning: This application is currently in beta state, so use at your own risk! While many people tested the application so far and we heard of no bricked devices, things might still go wrong.

Note: Unlocking the bootloader will erase all data on your device! This also includes your DRM keys, which are stored in the Trim Area partition (also called TA) in case your device is fairly recent and supports DRM L1. Those devices will be downgraded to DRM L3. Devices on DRM L3 by default will not be affected. Before proceeding, ensure the data you would like to retain is backed up to your PC and/or your Google account, or equivalent. Please note that OEM backup solutions like Samsung and Motorola backup may not be accessible from LineageOS once installed. If you wish to backup the TA partition first, you can find tutorials related to your device on the internet.

Linux is currently the best supported platform (tested with Ubuntu 20.04/22.04 LTS). Windows and MacOS are also supported but you might experience more issues. So far there is no support for ARM-based systems.

1. Download the .exe or appropriate executable file for your OS from the releases or get the official flatpak from flathub. You might need to change permissions to run the executable.
   • On Windows also install the Universal USB Drivers and other potentially drivers needed for your device.
2. Download the custom ROM image and the TWRP recovery image for your device and optionally some addons. A source for files can be found on the following websites:
   • some custom ROMs:
     • LineageOS
     • /e/OS
     • LineageOS for microg
     • BlissRoms
     • PixelExperience
   • TWRP Recovery:
     • TWRP recovery
   • Optional Addons:
     • There are different packages of Google Apps available.
       • MindTheGapps
       • NikGApps
     • MicroG
       • The recommended way to install MicroG is to use the zip file provided here: https://github.com/FriendlyNeighborhoodShane/MinMicroG_releases/releases.
     • F-Droid App-Store.
   • or you can just search the web or the xda-developers forum for an appropriate version for your device.
3. Start the desktop app and follow the instructions.

Currently, the we support 57 devices by various vendors and working on adding more soon!

Support for these devices is provided as best effort, but things might still go wrong. Help to improve the tool by reporting any issues you might face.

And more to come!

Currently development is only supported on Ubuntu Linux. MacOS and Windows should also work fine. You might need to install additional USB-drivers on Windows.

1. Clone the main branch of this repository
2. Run make poetry and make install to install poetry to manage python and install the required dependencies like adb, fastboot and heimdall.
3. Run make app to start the desktop app from the source.

All kinds of contributions are welcome. These include:

• Fix and improve texts in configs and in the application.
• Test the tool for a supported device.
• Create a config for a new device.
• Test the application on your computer and/or device.
• Contribute an application build for a new platform.
• Add features and/or improve the code base.
• Report bugs.

More details on how to contribute can be found here. Please have a look before opening an issue or starting to contribute.

If you want to use the tool for a non-supported smartphone, the fastest way is to adapt an existing config file. The file should be named after the official device code of the device. Add the code output by adb shell getprop | grep ro.product.device (when the devices is connected to the computer) as well as the official device code to the supported_device_codes list in the config. You can also get the device code by connecting the device to the computer and run OpenAndroidInstaller to detect the device.

To test your config file with the executable without using the developer setup, place it in the same directory as the executable. There it will be detected by name. After you created a config file and it works fine, you can open a pull request to make the file available to other users. Please also add the device to the supported devices table above.

A config file consists of two parts. The first part are some metadata about the device and the second parts are the steps to unlock the bootloader, boot a recovery and install the ROMs.

Every config file should have metadata with the following fields:

• maintainer: str; Maintainer and author of the config file.
• device_name: str; Name of the device.
• is_ab_device: bool; A boolean to determine if the device is a/b-partitioned or not.
• device_code: str; The official device code.
• supported_device_codes: List[str]; A list of supported device codes for the config. The config will be loaded based on this field.
• twrp-link: [OPTIONAL] str; name of the corresponding twrp page.

In addition to these metadata, every config can have optional requirements. If these are set, the user is asked to check if they are meet.

• android: [OPTIONAL] int|str; Android version to install prior to installing a custom ROM.
• firmware: [OPTIONAL] str; specific firmware version to install before installing a custom ROM.

Every step in the config file corresponds to one view in the application. These steps should contain the following fields:

• type: str; Corresponds to the type of view to generate. There are the following options:
  • text: Just display the text given in content.
  • confirm_button: Display the content, as well as a button to allow the user to go to the next step.
  • call_button: Display the content text and a button that runs a given command. After the command is run, a confirm button is displayed to allow the user to move to the next step.
  • call_button_with_input: Display the content text, an input field and a button that runs a given command. The inputtext, can be used in the command by using the <inputtext> placeholder in the command field. After the command is run, a confirm button is displayed to allow the user to move to the next step.
  • link_button_with_confirm: Display a button that opens a browser with a given link, confirm afterwards. Link is given in link.
• content: str; The content text displayed alongside the action of the step. Used to inform the user about whats going on.
• command: [ONLY for call_button* steps] str; The command to run. One of adb_reboot, adb_reboot_bootloader, adb_reboot_download, adb_sideload, adb_twrp_wipe_and_install, adb_twrp_copy_partitions, fastboot_boot_recovery, fastboot_unlock_with_code, fastboot_unlock, fastboot_oem_unlock, fastboot_get_unlock_data, fastboot_reboot, heimdall_flash_recovery.
• img: [OPTIONAL] Display an image on the left pane of the step view. Images are loaded from openandroidinstaller/assets/imgs/.
• allow_skip: [OPTIONAL] boolean; If a skip button should be displayed to allow skipping this step. Can be useful when the bootloader is already unlocked.
• link: [OPTIONAL] Link to use for the link button if type is link_button_with_confirm.

You can also use the requirements field in the yaml, to specify firmware or android version requirements. The user will then be prompted if these requirements are satisfied.

The executables for the OpenAndroidInstaller are build with pyinstaller. You can create builds for MacOS or Linux with make build-app. For Windows the paths need to be modified. For now, you can have a look here on how it's done.

If you build the application for your platform and want to contribute the build, please reach out to me.

Devices by Samsung, Google and Fairphone make it fairly easy to unlock the bootloader and receive good support in the installer.

Some devices with require manual steps to unlock the bootloader. In general you will need to create an account at a vendor website and receive some code from there. OpenAndroidInstaller will try to guide you as far as possible. These vendors include Sony, Motorola, Xiaomi and OnePlus among others.

Other phone vendors stops allowing to unlock the bootloader all together. There is nothing to be done if you didn't unlock your device in time. These vendors include Huawei and LG among others. Support for these vendors will always be very limited.

• The Android SDK Platform Tools (such as adb and fastboot) are Apache-licensed universal Android utilities
• Heimdall is an MIT-licensed replacement for the leaked ODIN tool to flash Samsung devices.
• libusb-1.0 is a LGPL-2.1-licensed library for USB device access from Linux, macOS, Windows and others.
• copy-partitions-20220613-signed.zip The copy-partitions script was created by LineageOS developer erfanoabdi and filipepferraz and released under LGPL. It is used when the partitions need to be copied before flashing.

• Funded from September 2022 until February 2023 by

Original development by Tobias Sterbak. Copyright (C) 2022-2023.

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.