Homelab, Linux, JS & ABAP (~˘▾˘)~
 

Category: Android

Android

[Android] Android Auto Launcher: Missing Apps

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Recently I bought a new car and the previous owner replaced the standard board computer with a tablet running Android Auto. On my phone, I use the popular VLC player to listen to music and AntennaPod for podcasts. To my surprise, both apps did not appear in the Android Auto Launcher after I connected my phone. After a quick search on Perplexity, I found out that the most likely reason is that the apps weren’t installed via the Google Play Store. That made sense in my case, since both apps were installed via the F-Droid store.

It seems you can’t make just any app of your smartphone available for Android Auto, but at least apps that are generally supported by Android Auto can be made visible via the developer settings of Android Auto. To do this, open the Android Auto settings on your smartphone by searching for Android Auto in your phone’s settings. Scroll all the way down to the Information section.

Tap Version ten times and confirm “Allow development settings”. After that, you can find the developer options in the three-dot menu on the top right.

Here search for unknown sources (“Unbekannte Quellen” in german) and tick the checkbox.

After that, additional apps suddenly appeared in the Android Auto Launcher settings that I could add, including VLC Player and AntennaPod.

Android

[Android] Taschenlampe einschalten durch seitliches Schütteln

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Durch Zufall habe ich letztens herausgefunden, dass man die Taschenlampe des Smartphones durch seitliches Schütteln einschalten kann, sofern man es in den Einstellungen aktiviert hat. Ich muss sagen, ich nutze es quasi täglich und es hat mein Leben verändert 😀

Einstellungen → System → Touch-Gesten & Bewegungen → Moto-Gesten → Hacken (Taschenlampe mit der Hack-Geste ein-/ausschalten)

Android

[LineageOS] Umstellung 5G auf 4G

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Kürzlich hat mein Handyprovider meinen Tarif auf 5G umgestellt. Das führte jedoch dazu, dass ich ständig Verbindungsabbrüche unterwegs hatte, sei es beim normalen Surfen oder auch in Kombination mit GPS und einem Navigationsdienst. Das 5G Netz scheint in Deutschland zumindest im o2/Telefónica Netz noch nicht so weit zu sein, ggf. ist es im Telekom/Vodafone Netz besser.

Die Umstellung von 5G zurück auf 4G klappt unter LineageOS folgendermaßen:

Einstellung → Netzwerk & Internet → SIM-Karten → Wähle deine SIM-Karte aus → Bevorzugter Netzwerktyp → LTE/TD-SCDMA/CDMA/EVDO/GSM/WCDMA

Bei mir war vorher der Wert ganz unten ausgewählt: NR/LTE/TDSCDMA/CDMA/EvDo/GSM/WCDMA

ChatGPT erklärt die Abkürzungen folgendermaßen:

Im 4G Netz läuft zumindest nun wieder alles zuverlässig.

Android

[Android] Installing LineageOS on a Motorola Moto G100 (nio)

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Just installed LineageOS on a used Moto G100. Following are a few notes I made while working through the excellent installation guide.

Two settings must be enabled in the Developer options on your device before you start:

  • Developer options → Enable USB-Debugging
  • Developer options → Enable OEM unlocking

Otherwise, you will encounter the same error as I did when unlocking the bootloader.

adb reboot bootloader
fastboot devices
fastboot oem get_unlock_data
fastboot oem unlock UNIQUE_KEY

After entering the UNIQUE_KEY, select “Unlock Bootloader” on your phone with the volume down button and confirm with the power button.

The next point that confused me for a second was this:

But you just have to use the volume buttons and select recovery on the smartphone screen from the menu you’re in. I just didn’t realize it was a menu at first…

All in all, everything worked without any problems and took maybe 30 minutes in total.

Android

[DerpFest] Xiaomi Pad 5 (nabu)

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I recently bought a used Xiaomi Pad 5 for 139.99€ from homezesting.com. It arrived in perfect condition.
The latest official Android version by Xiaomi is Android 13 with MIUI 14.0.5. This is kinda old, and I directly ran into an issue due to the old webview version in combination with the Home Assistant app (see here).

I therefore looked for a custom ROM and the first ROM I found for this device was DerpFest. I’ve never used it before, but flashing it shouldn’t be too different from other ROMs.
There are not much information on their website, but I found everything needed to know in their related telegram group: https://t.me/c/2284318430/8189

Unlocking the bootloader for Xiaomi devices can be annoying, but turned out, the bootloader of my purchased Pad 5 was already unlocked. Great!
(Update 10.02.2025: I asked the customer support and apparently they already sell all devices unlocked. Good to know!)

To make my life even simpler, I used the Auto-Installer shell script to install DerpFest 15. Unfortunately, it was running into an error, but it was easy to fix. (Seems like there is already a fixed version when downloading from GitHub here).

# make it executable
sudo chmod +x install_derpfest_linux.sh         

# start script
./install_derpfest_linux.sh  
# resulted in the error: /bin/bash^M: bad interpreter

# fix
sudo apt-get install dos2unix
dos2unix install_derpfest_linux.sh   
./install_derpfest_linux.sh

Then the script ran without any issues.

When starting the device the first time, I skipped the Google Login step, so I wasn’t able to use the Play Store. But since not even a web browser is installed by default (which I think is really great to not be bloated from the beginning :-), I had to enable USB-Debugging mode and sideload F-Droid to install basic apps like a file explorer and browser.

adb install F-Droid.apk

The Tablet is running super smooth and so far I could not find any issues! 🙂

Android

[Android] Upgrading LineageOS 20.0 to 21.0 on my Xiaomi Mi 8 (dipper)

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Install the Android Debug Bridge (ADB)

https://wiki.lineageos.org/adb_fastboot_guide.html
https://github.com/M0Rf30/android-udev-rules#installation 

# check if device is found
adb devices
# reboot into sideload modus
adb reboot sideload

Or manually boot into recovery, holding Volume Up + Power when the phone is off. Navigate to Advanced → ADB Sideload.

Update MIUI Firmware

Following the docs, I first had to check the Firmware version. V12.0.3.0.QEAMIXM was required, and I already had it installed.
If you’re on an older version, download the right MIUI Firmware for your device from https://xiaomifirmwareupdater.com/firmware/dipper/.
Flash the new Firmware via TWRP or via ADB sideload.

adb sideload fw_dipper_miui_MI8Global_V12.0.3.0.QEAMIXM_7619340f8c_10.0.zip

Flash latest recovery

Since I follow the LineageOS subreddit, I have already seen posts with problems with the latest update. Check here: https://www.reddit.com/r/LineageOS/comments/1fxlmtq/regular_ota_update_20241005_on_xiaomi_mi8_dipper/
There it is recommended to flash the latest recovery to prevent any issues. Although this is step 1 in the upgrade guide, I skipped updating the recovery the last years, because I was using TWRP instead of the LineageOS recovery. But to be on the safe side, this time I flashed the LineageOS recovery (which meant loosing/removing TWRP). To flash the recovery, you must first boot into fastboot by using adb or Volume Down + Power when the phone is off, like it is described here.

# boot into fastboot
adb -d reboot bootloader
# flash recovery
fastboot flash recovery lineage-21.0-20241208-microG-dipper-recovery.img

Download and flash new LineageOS image

I’m using the LineageOS fork LineageOS for microG. Download it from here: https://download.lineage.microg.org/dipper/ (MI 8 = dipper)
The upgrade steps are the same as for the official rom: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/dipper/upgrade. As I’ve already flashed the latest recovery, I only had to flash the new LineageOS image.

# reboot again into recovery
adb reboot sideload
# flash again new image
adb sideload lineage-21.0-20241208-microG-dipper.zip

Android

[Android] Gadgetbridge

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“Gadgetbridge is a free and open source Android application that allows you to pair and manage various gadgets such as smart watches, bands, headphones, and more without the need for the vendor application. So in short, you can use Gadgetbridge instead of relying on your gadget’s own proprietary app.”

https://gadgetbridge.org