[ale] x-post from xda-developers

[Charles Shapiro]

This ( http://www.droidviews.com/install-tw...mobile-lg-v20/
<http://www.droidviews.com/install-twrp-root-t-mobile-lg-v20/> ) is the
best guide I found for initially rooting and installing TWRP on the
T-Mobile V20. My LG-H918 shipped with an apparently empty recovery
partition -- "adb boot recovery" led to a picture of a sad android and the
words "No Instruction" displayed. From there, the only way to reboot the
phone was to remove and replace the battery. I've no idea how this might
work on a phone without a removable battery. The TWRP binary referenced in
the guide I recommend is not a official TWRP build, but it seems to work
fine for me. Booting to recovery is possible from the bootloader ( power +
volume down) but it will force you to factory reset the phone in order to
get there. Not a problem when you're hacking the phone, but a BIG problem
once you have data on her. "adb reboot recovery" will of course get you
there if you want a nandroid backup once you've got the phone the way you
want.

Using TWRP to install the LineageOS and OpenGAPPs zips is straightforward.
First time boot of LineageOS takes around 20 minutes. This is frightening
-- I was convinced that I had bricked the phone, as the initial bootloader
screen looks like a "charging" display. Post-setup boot time is around a
minute and ten seconds. The bootloader puts up a big scare screen ("Your
Device Software Cannot Be Checked for Corruption") -- I reckon I'll just
live with that, as from what I can gather I cannot re-lock the bootloader
without bricking the phone.

Transferring contacts was pretty painless, even though I don't store
contacts on google. I exported my old contacts to a VCF file from the
contacts manager on my old phone, put them on my external SD card, and then
put them on my new phone's SD card and ran the "Files" app located in the
app drawer. From there a side-swipe will show you the external SD card by
name. Navigate to your VCF file and select to "Open with Contacts", and it
will import all the contacts in the file to your contacts manager.
Make sure to delete that VCF file from your SD card -- it is a giant
security hole.

Android apparently uses the "exfat" file system for SD cards now, which is
probably a descendant of the hideous misshapen FAT file system from MS-DOS
days. Fortunately drivers for it are available for linux -- on Debian,
search for "exfat-fuse" in apt. That also includes a handy-dandy utility
for writing the disk label on your card, so you can use it as "CHSV20"
instead of "918-192AF".

All in all quite a fun battle, but I am no longer running the carrier/OEM
build, so I'm safe from whatever Evil they put in there. Like this (
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/0...atware_scheme/
<https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/17/verizon_named_in_android_bloatware_scheme/>
) or this ( https://www.techworm.net/2014/12/ver...stall-app.html
<https://www.techworm.net/2014/12/verizon-android-phones-shipping-dt-ignite-bloatware-allows-oems-backdoor-install-app.html>
) or this ( http://www.h-online.com/security/new...e-1353225.html
<http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Backdoor-in-HTC-Android-smartphones-Update-1353225.html>
).

-- CHS
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