Changing my old mobile's operating system

[Abdullah Hamad]

Hello my dear fellow ltt fans,

i know i have asked yall alot of questions on linux and laptops, but i wanted to ask has anyone tried running any other operating system on an old mobile phone that shipped with android, i have my old samsung galaxy a7 (2016) laying around and wanted to play with it, but i found it even more confusing to try new things on mobile than it is on laptop, and ive seen pure os and ubunto touch and jing os but i am afraid of testing before asking as any wrong step would brick the phone, and if yall dont suggest changing the os what other projects have yall tested on old android devices that helped yall?

 

[Sauron]

22 minutes ago, abood90000000 said:

i am afraid of testing before asking as any wrong step would brick the phone

That is always a risk but most guides on rooting will show you how to install a custom recovery tool, which allows you to recover from a botched installation. It's safe enough, but of course I wouldn't recommend it on a phone you absolutely need to be functional.

 

Before you flash a new rom I would suggest playing around with root access, it lets you do a lot of cool things that are normally impossible.

[Nayr438]

14 hours ago, abood90000000 said:

ive seen pure os and ubunto touch and jing os but i am afraid of testing before asking as any wrong step would brick the phone

These are all linux based distros with very limited device support on mobile. Unfortunately your phone is not supported by any of them.

I also wouldn't consider any of these Linux Mobile Distro's daily driver ready, they are more of development playgrounds than anything.

 

Your device is however supported by LineageOS, which is a custom open-source build of Android. I personally recommend it.

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/a7xelte/

 

If you follow the install Guide and OEM Unlocking is greyed out or missing, it will mean you have a locked device and won't be able to proceed unless someone has figured out a way around it, which if available would likely be posted over on the XDA Forums in the section for your device.

 

If you rely on Google Services, such as the Play Store, you will need to either obtain a Google Apps Image, or use MicroG.

 

MicroG is a re-implementation of Google Services, however it's compatibility can be hit and miss. The simplest way to obtain MicroG for LineageOS is to use one of MicroG's custom LineageOS builds, https://download.lineage.microg.org/a7xelte/. I personally use this on my devices.

 

14 hours ago, abood90000000 said:

 as any wrong step would brick the phone

Your far more likely to soft brick a device than end up with a hard brick. In the event of a soft brick, it's just a matter of re-flashing the system image and/or possibly the recovery image.