yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
Thank you [MENTION=5254592]matt.s[/MENTION] for this important update. And now this makes me really angry.

I wanted to support this, because I thought, the idea is a good one. With a Fairphone, we can change at least a bit and every step would be worthy.

But then the release dates were pushed back and back and as far as I know, there were none (zero) developer devices sent to developers to start a development. Also, always this long term interruption of communication with the supporters, developers, interested and customers. The lack of transparency we had... for e.g. the issues with the SoC code licensing or now the change of the SoC to a lower variant. For the last change we only get a notification on 20th Dec (scroll to the bottom) telling us:

What? That's it. Come on, be honest and say what exactly was changed. Also the OP of this thread would not be updated if nobody finds out this "special x-mas news". To me it's like a "we downgraded your SoC for you, merry x-mas". And for all theses issues you finally get a low-mid ranged device for 325,- EUR. Compare that to a Moto G, where you know everything about it, because it's available on the markets. So I'll have to delete some videos with the (now) wrong SoC and check other values, as well.

Sorry for this rant, but even with my faith in Fairphone, I cannot stay in a good mood. I am disappointed.
[Fairphone 1] drcyber:
me too :eek:
[Fairphone 1] boronian:
Regarding the chipset issue see the "official answer" to the issue reported here.

Cheers!
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
Thanks for this update. But somehow I still don't smile.

I am working in a sales department. When there is something wrong and I would say something like

we usually have to ways to solve it.

We must deliver what we promised

We offer a discount but the customer accepts the current condition

What happens here? An official answer saying in short "sorry, but we don't offer compensation, just a refund". If I turn around the meaning it's like "Sorry, but it's your fault, cause you trusted".

Tomorrow I probably get hands on a Fairphone (not prototype, not developer, but consumer device) and maybe I get a chance to run some benchmarks. However, I am still very disappointed.
[Fairphone 1] drcyber:
in the FP-Forum someone postet this pic:

http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2199201/cpuz/Screenshot_2013-12-31-03-27-49.png

what does "Internal Storage" in this case mean? i Thougt there are 16GB internal storage? :-O
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
Y U bring more bad news? :laugh:

No, I think I found the confusing answer.

To me it's nonsense. Sounds a bit like older functionalities, where you can handover (mount) your internal storage to the plugged in computer. I had something close on my HTC Desire with 4 GB internal Memory and around 115 MB were for my apps. Only with moving apps partially to the external SD card, I was able to store much more than only 115 MB of apps.

EDIT: Sorry, too less sleeping leads to bad English.
[Fairphone 1] drcyber:
oh i didnt know this page, for me it looks like we have just 1GB memory to install apps, which means if you want to install more apps you need do use Link2SD or something like this..

:confused:
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
I think you are right. Move to external SD card is the standard way, link2sd is probably better. But since Android 4.0 it changed, at least with my Nexus devices.
[Fairphone 1] drcyber:
everyday just bad news...

i am really thinking about a refund now...
[Fairphone 1] matt.s:
Me too, I will make my decision based on if they can give a plausible answer on how they are planning to port Ubuntu, CM, Sailfish, Firefox OS and the like to the FP. I just opened another thread in the FP forum in order to finally get them to answer this question. If anybody wants to weigh in, here it is: http s://fairphone.zendesk.com/hc/communities/public/questions/200648718-Open-source-support
[Fairphone 1] MrJekyll:
maps api broken?

Hi,

on my fairphone I can't use any apps that need the Android Maps api (e.g. DB Navigator), although the fairphonegapps are installed and the files com.google.android.maps.jar/xml are present in the right place. PlayStore states that those apps are not compatible with my device. Installing them manually as .apk-file also fails. Has anyone noticed the same problem with his/her fairphone? Or does someone have an idea how to solve this problem (someone from the developers team maybe)?

Regards
[Fairphone 1] oissin:
I think the permissions for the jar-file and com.google.android.maps.xml are wrong. in my previous phone the permission for group and world are marked 'r'. The jar file has the same permissions. I changed this, rebooted, removed the update for the play store and now I can install the apps previously marked als not compatible. (Doing this is at own risk)
[Fairphone 1] MrJekyll:
That was it, now it works. Thanks a lot!
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
I made your link clickable ;). Good post over there, already two guys supporting it.

To be precisely:

Kim's last post: 11th December 2013, 05:30 PM

Joe's last post: 25th October 2013, 06:37 PM

Therefore Kim is quiet for 3 weeks, Joe is quiet for about 9,5 weeks. I wouldn't call this support for a developing community.

Thanks, good information, you two. I will try DB Navigator tonight on the Fairphone. I will also try to check the available sd card memory and run benchmarks and I hope I can make some screenshots.
[Fairphone 1] markiter:
Thanks, great that you have solved this issue. Could you provide a step-by-step instruction? What did you change and how?
[Fairphone 1] MrJekyll:
0. (install terminal emulator)

EDIT: as imparted by Nicholas Evans in the Fairphone support forum, BusyBox is not necessary for this as the used programs are provided by Android itself.

1. get superuser rights (Start terminal emulator, type "su" and press enter, grant root priveledges if asked for)

2. remount your system-partition with write access (type "mount -o rw,remount /system" and enter)

3. change the permissions for the following files to rw-r-r:

/etc/permissions/com.google.android.maps.xml

/system/etc/permissions/com.google.android.maps.xml

/system/framework/com.google.android.maps.jar

(to do so, type "chmod 644 $file" and enter, replace $file with the filename and path as written above, do this for all three files)

4. remount system-partition read only (type "mount -o ro,remount /system" and enter)

5. close terminalemulator, delete appdata and updates for Google playstore and reboot. For me that was all.

Please have these instructions rewied by an experienced user/developer before using them, I will/can not guarantee for anything
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
Thank you very much. I will try this when I got my hands on this device next time.

Yesterday and today I was able to play with the Fairphone a bit. First impression was, that it is heavy. In my case I usually have a bigger screened phone with 130 g. I was able to feel the 40 g difference. But it's not a big thing.

What I really disliked, is the issue, that the camera and the speaker grill at the back are kind of popped out. On the backside you have the speaker on the bottom right and the camera on top left. If you want to lay the phone down on a plane surface like a table, it wiggles all the time when you are touching the screen. This is a no go. Looks like no one ever has tested it on a flat surface.

The device feels worthy, not cheap anywhere. Everything was solid, stable... just like I wanted to have it. Everything worked fine, fast, without stutters. Android looks very close to Stock/AOSP, only a few things where change. IMO this is positive. The owner wasn't happy about one thing, he wanted to change the standard home screen. For him screen #2 would be fine, but obviously this is not possible with this launcher or I did not find the right settings for it.

Below a few screenshots, like I promised. This was a German device, so everything is in German. If you cannot translate everything with Google Translate (or others), I can help you, just ask.

Screenshots!!! :)

Beginning with a journey through some system setting screens. Is this a serial number ("Seriennummer") or is it a bug?

Next up some memory screenshots an a switch on/off timer, I think for the automatic on/off scheduler.

Benchmarks

AnTuTu Benchmark 4.1.4, result: 13179

CF-Bench 1.3, result: 12960 (sorry for the volume slider)

Quadrant Standard Edition 2.1.1, result: 4824

System tool and Google Maps API

CPU-Z and an app for public transportation like DB Navigator. I did not find DB Navigator in the Store, but Öffi - Fahrplanauskunft was found on the Fairphone. As this app is similar to DB Navigator, it's not compatible due to recent mentioned problems with the Google Maps API. There is already a detailed solution for the Google Maps API issues by [MENTION=5082028]MrJekyll[/MENTION].
[Fairphone 1] asmaron:
Danke für die Infos Benkxda! :) Du hängst dich echt rein in das Projekt! Vielen, vielen Dank dafür! Ich bewundere dein Engagement. Ich hoffe die Fairphoneleute kriegen die Kurve!

Thanks a lot for this post benkxda! And thanks for your work to the whole community! :)

Regards,

Asmaron

EDIT: @ Benkxda: Can you tell us sth. about the battery drain (maybe one more screenshot? ;)) and the storage issue? Is it true that just 1 GB is reserved for apps or can you simply switch the storage through system settings?
[Fairphone 1] markiter:
Thanks, this worked like a charm, I followed these steps exactly, no problems.

The community is helping FP users. Hopefully FP will help the community in its turn, as promised.
[Fairphone 1] MrJekyll:
Assuming that my phone does not have the same serial nuber as yours, it is a bug since mine shows the same.
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
Danke, ich hoffe auch, dass Fairphone schnell aufwacht.

Thanks, I also hope that Fairphone is waking up quickly.

I like the idea about a fair product, fair treatment of the mine workers, no child workers, health protection and not to forget the companies who assemble the devices. I don't care which company can create fair products, so if there is another company in 2014 who is more open, more honest, more communicative, working together with the community, doing a good community job, I am on their side. If Fairphone apologizes and promises to make a better job from now on, I am still on their side. Again, it's the idea, which counts for me.

Battery usage screenshots are requested, must wait until I get them from the owner. It seems to be true, you get 1 GB for your apps and the other free storage is for music, videos, pictures, documents or other files. Don't ask me why, this should be answered by Fairphone. Nonsense for me. But I am still not 100% sure, maybe a owner can confirm.

Haha, great one. A pre-easter-egg? Well, Maybe they repair it with the next version, which should be Android 4.4.2.

EDIT: Just added "Known Issues" and "Screenshots" to the OP. If anybody finds other issues, let's discuss and maybe find a solution :)

EDIT: I compared the benchmark results to my business device and my old Nexus. An overclocked Galaxy Nexus might be able to compete with the Fairphone for a short time, then comes the temperature throttling. Keep in mind, the S3 LTE and the Galaxy Nexus have Cortex A9 cores, the Fairphone has energy efficient Cortex A7 cores. Also, take a look on the GPU power, it's not that bad. It is good enough for most games.

AnTuTu Benchmark 4.1.4 with Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE (GT-I9305), CM 10.2 (Android 4.3) 4x 1,4 GHz

AnTuTu Benchmark 4.1.4 with Google Galaxy Nexus (GT-I9250), CM 11 (Android 4.4) 2x 1,2 GHz
[Fairphone 1] smartn:
Hi there,

sorry, I'm not very deep into these things below the OS-surface.

I didn't get step 3 correctly, could you please break it down into the 4 different steps it contains?...

If I get it right, I should do as follows:

3.1

type "chmod 644 $file" and enter

3.2

type "chmod 644 /etc/permissions/com.google.android.maps.xml" and enter

3.3

type "chmod 644 /system/etc/permissions/com.google.android.maps.xml" and enter

3.4

type "chmod 644 /system/framework/com.google.android.maps.jar" and enter

But... where in that process do I change the rights to rw-r-r for these files?

...sorry, I'm really not the smartest in these matters.

Thanks a lot for helping me getting my FP going!

smartn
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
Hi smartn.

With chmod you change the rights and the rights are 644. So this number is the important thing. Try it, will work.

EDIT: [MENTION=5480166]asmaron[/MENTION] Screenshots about battery consumption arrived...
[Fairphone 1] haiag:
About the internal storage, there is an "official" statement here:

http s://fairphone.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201154666-How-can-I-see-all-the-different-places-where-information-is-stored-on-my-phone-SD-Card-Internal-Storage-and-Phone-Storage-

and here is the community questioning about this:

http s://fairphone.zendesk.com/hc/communities/public/questions/200667593-Internal-Storage-?locale=en-us

[MENTION=4465234]benkxda[/MENTION] thx for the sharing, so the chipset is rootable, but the bootloader is not reachable?

(Damit meine ich, kann man in den Bootloader starten?)
[Fairphone 1] smartn:
Hi benkxda,

in deed, it's fixed. Thanks a lot!

smartn
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
Oh, thanks for the links. I will add this clarification to the OP. Poor, shame... but why 1 GB? Since Android 4.0 I didn't have any any problems with app installation partitions.

I don't own a Fairphone, so I am not sure. I read something about pressing power and volume down rocker for two seconds to enter recovery/bootloader... anyone can confirm this?

That's good news. Thanks for confirming.

Developers and other members of XDA, I want also mention this support page: Why don’t you use other open source or free software instead of Android?

After reading this, I now have more questions unsolved than just the one in the topic. In fact, the answer confuses me :confused: Make your own thoughts.

BTW: Stefan Kraft, I read your note of thanks in your post at the Fairphone forum. Thank you too for your work over there, I read quite many posts from you. I hope you read it or someone tells you about my response :)
[Fairphone 1] haiag:
What especially do confuse you?

For the Update Cycles, there was an blogpost here:

http ://ww w.fairphone.com/2013/09/20/fairphone-operating-system/#more-3448
[Fairphone 1] matt.s:
FP answered the question, just follow the quoted link above. Unfortunately, my understanding of the technical details isn't deep enough to understand the consequences of this:

Will the kernel sources be sufficient to port CM, Replicant and the like to the Fairphone or is Mediatek's support definitely needed if we want a costum ROM (or even a non-android-based OS)?
[Fairphone 1] drcyber:
A short Review in German:

http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Fairphone-im-Kurztest-2073866.html
[Fairphone 1] Hyst:
Hey everyone,

I followed this thread almost from the beginning. And I am asking myself the same question over and over again since the first "problems" arise (meaning when the FP-Team said that the bootloader sources are not open). Since I am not a phone-software developer, I would ask the question to the xda-community in hope that someone with more experience in porting custom roms might answer it. So here it is:

People are complaining that since the bootloader is not open source, we will be not able to flash any other custom OS to the phone. Is this REALLY true? Because I claim that the source of the bootloader doesn't matter as long as the bootloader is unlocked (easy to unlock). Or is this the same thing?

My thought behind this is that all the other HTC or Samsung phones do not even come rooted. And nothing is open source, YET there are AWESOME developers out there who managed to unlock the bootloader, root the phones and put some custom roms on there. Everything without having the sources.

So why exactly do we need the bootloader source code? Shouldn't it be enough that the phones comes rooted and the bootloader is unlocked? Maybe it would be easier with the sources, but I doubt that it will be impossible.

Maybe I misunderstood something. So please can someone with porting experience jump in and drop some knowledge. I would be happy so see someone from the Fairphone team answering this. But for some reason they do not like to come back here. And as we saw: *communication* is not really their cup of tea. Although since 2014 they are getting better at it ;) At least in their own forum.
[Fairphone 1] haiag:
As far as I know/understand the drivers of the Medithek chip is not open source. So you have to extract this driver from the Original rom, This is hard work and you aren't allowed to publish these things easily...

If the bootloader is locked, it's hard to flash another rom. On my old phone you needed a "Adobe flash" security hole to do this...

If it's open I'm not sure if it's easy to flash other ROMS than the official ones.

What I just found:

https ://twitter.com/Fairphone/status/418748869040566272
[Fairphone 1] Hyst:
Thanks for your answer, and thanks for the link :)

But what exactly does "extract" mean? Do you really extract the source or just some binaries? Meaning would it be enough if FP or mediatek would release the binaries for the drivers?
[Fairphone 1] knipper42:
Blue screen at booting

Hi everyone,

my Fairphone is my first smartphone, so I'm not experienced with it. But I worked with Linux before.

I did the steps writen above, but probably I made a mistake somewhere, because my Fairphone didn't reboot, but I just get a blue screen. Can anybody help me with this? I can get in the factory mode and do some test there. That seems o.k. There is also a point "clear eMMC". I didn't test it so far. Does anybody now what will happen then? Could it solve my problem?

Or is there a way to do a factory reset from the factory mode?

Best regards.
[Fairphone 1] benkxda:
I wonder who these "key people in these communities" could be.

Perfect. Nice review. I did not test the camera which seems to be a bit crappy :(

A lot of people speak German (in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, even plenty people in Holland/Netherland and some in Belgium as I figured out). To the non-German-speaking people, here's the link of this c't article with Google Translation (or choose your prefered translator).

Did you reboot (or switch off and on again) your phone by yourself? It will not reboot automatically. But I have no Fairphone, cannot try anything. This is the point where Fairphone community support should be available for, guess, supporting the community.

After several requests to development and it's a Dutch project I remember one really grand developer, it's [MENTION=631273]Chainfire[/MENTION]. He surely is busy, but maybe he know the right people/developers to help on this project or even can do some hacks? Would be nice if Chainfire could join.
[Fairphone 1] fjxda:
I had a similar problem- tried to apply another google apps package from cyanogenmod before I read this post here and afterwards my phone did not boot anymore.

I wrote to fairphone support - they will resolve the problem with google apps and provide a firmware image within next week.

In the meantime, I also managed to get my phone up again - I found an old development version of the firmware that was applyable as ota-upgrade from recovery by adb sideload, but these files are offline now.

There may also exist another possibility to fix the issue: The google apps package can be installed through recovery similar to an ota-upgrade file (update.zip). If you only changed files that are contained in this package, re-applying the google apps package would fix the issue.

To boot into recovery switch off phone (remove battery and put back in), then hold volume up and power. Use power to show/hide the menu, volume down to move, and volume up to select. Don't hit volume up to go up. It will actually execute the selected action. use volume down and go around, instead of going up...

To get the google apps package on the phone, you will need to use adb sideload, so download the android sdk tools, and go into directory sdk/platform-tools and start ./adb sideload googleapps.zip as root (if you first executed the command ./adb as user you will need to get root, kill the adb daemon that was started as user, and retry as root... or give the user access to your usb device)

I don't know where you can download the googleapps package. There is a file on the phone (/sdcard/Download/fairphonegapps.zip) which seems to contain the url to the package but it does not work to open this url in firefox.

The googleapps.zip will be on the internal sdcard /sdcard/Download/googleapps.zip on any fairphone in the time after downloading the google apps package with the widget but before rebooting - so I saved it from there and I have it now.

You cannot apply a googleapps package from cyanogen because it is missing a file "scatter.txt" which contains probably the partition table of the internal flash memory.

But maybe its better to wait till they publish the official firmware.

---------- Post added at 10:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:20 PM ----------

oh.. and I would NOT dare to execute the "clear eMMC"- better don't use the functionality that comes when you hold volume down + power at all... In the end, it would probably also delete your recovery partition where you can boot into by holding volume up +power.

Then the only possibility would hopefully be to flash a full firmware image. And as the sp_flash tool, that could be used for this, was not released officially by mediatek (even if it can be found on the internet), I am unsure if that would ever be officially supported.

As long as you can boot into recovery, you can upload firmware with adb sideload.
[Fairphone 1] asmaron:
Hey! Welcome! :) What exactly did you enter? Did you exchange the "$file" with the path of the files above?

Which kind of "Tests" can you do there? Please tell us!

As far as I know eMMC = embedded multi-media card, or in this case, the internal memory. So "clearing eMMC" must be kinda hard-reset of your phone. I RECOMMEND NOT TO DO THIS UNTIL ANYBODY ELSE CONFIRM THIS. I can not say, if you delete your whole system (meaning the installed Android-Version) if you choose this option. In the worst case you could brick your phone doing this.

Maybe an developer can confirm this?

Thanks,

Asmaron

@ benkxda: Thanks for the Battery-Screens! :) :good:

EDIT: fjxda and benkxda where faster! ;)
[Fairphone 1] globuli:
Since I always feel that I should be able to use anything I can reach, I had used "clear eMMC". I am not absolutely sure what it did, after starting, I had to set up my phone again, as if it was brand new. BUT it did not revert the changes I made to the permissions of the Maps API files, and I did not loose data on the internal storage. But all information on installed Apps and the like was gone.
[Fairphone 1] fjxda:
ok, good to know. Then it does the same as a "wipe userdata" in recovery, it seems to have deleted the /data partition only, maybe the cache, too but nothing else.
[Fairphone 1] asmaron:
Thats interesting! Thanks for reporting... seems that clearing eMMC in this case is like a reset of your personal data - not touching the system data.

Btw.: The review from Heise is really great. Even the reactions from XDA are mentioned there! :)

Even the self-criticism of FaiLrphone is nice - nice idea: ;)

(Original Picture by Heise)

Edit: fjxda... damn you are to fast for me! ;)
[Fairphone 1] fjxda:
its to test all hardware components - volume buttons, touchscreen, accleration sensor and much more.
[Fairphone 1] asmaron:
And every day another embarrassing mistake:

Oh dear... seems that GLS has even more Problems than lousy conditions of employment... :(

But nevertheless... this sounds like better news (hope it wasn't postet before?):

Hey @ Kim & Joe: What are you doing all the time? Is there no little gap in your calendar to clear some things right here in the forum? :( Or did Bas issued a gagging order on you? Seems like that... embarrassing for an "social" project... :(