Introduction
After using iOS for a couple of years, I finally took the plunge and purchased a Pixel 6 Pro in order to test and use [GrapheneOS] (https://grapheneos.org).
The installation process was rather quick once you have the tools and files you need. Overall, it can be done in just a few minutes.
Gathering Tools & Files
Android Tools
First, in order to interact with the device, we will need the Android platform tools. Find the Linux download and save the ZIP folder to your preferred location.
Once we've downloaded the files, we will need to unzip them, enter the
directory, and move the necessary executables to a central location, such as
/usr/bin/
. For this installation, we only need the fastboot
and adb
executables.
GrapheneOS Files
Next, we need the GrapheneOS files for our
device and model. For example, the Pixel 6 Pro is codenamed raven
on the
release page.
Once we have the links, let's download them to our working directory:
-
Validate Integrity
In order to validate the integrity of the downloaded files, we will need the
signify
package and Graphene'sfactory.pub
file.Then we can validate the files and ensure that no data was corrupted or modified before it was saved to our device.
&&
-
Unzip Files
Once the files are verified, we can unzip the Graphene image and enter the directory:
&&
Installation Process
Enable Developer Debugging & OEM Unlock
Before we can actually flash anything to the phone, we will need to enable OEM Unlocking, as well as either USB Debugging or Wireless Debugging, depending on which method we will be using.
To start, enable developer mode by going to Settings
> About
and tapping
Build Number
seven (7) times. You may need to enter your PIN to enable this
mode.
Once developer mode is enabled, go to Settings
> System
> Devloper Options
and enable OEM Unlocking, as well as USB or Wireless Debugging. In my case, I
chose USB Debugging and performed all actions via USB cable.
Once these options are enabled, plug the phone into the computer and execute the following command:
If an unauthorized error occurs, make sure the USB mode on the phone is changed from charging to something like "File Transfer" or "PTP." You can find the USB mode in the notification tray.
Reboot Device
Once we have found the device via adb
, we can either boot into the bootloader
interface by holding the volume down button while the phone reboots or by
executing the following command:
Unlock the Bootloader
The phone will reboot and load the bootloader screen upon startup. At this point, we are ready to start the actual flashing of GrapheneOS onto the device.
NOTE: In my situation, I needed to use sudo
with every fastboot
command,
but not with adb
commands. I am not sure if this is standard or a Fedora
quirk, but I'm documenting my commands verbatim in this post.
First, we start by unlocking the bootloader so that we can load other ROMs:
Flashing Factory Images
Once the phone is unlocked, we can flash it with the flash-all.sh
script found
inside the raven-factory-2022091400
folder we entered earlier:
This process should take a few minutes and will print informational messages as things progress. Avoid doing anything on the phone while this process is operating.
Lock the Bootloader
If everything was successful, the phone should reboot a few times and finally land back on the bootloader screen. At this point, we can re-lock the bootloader to enable full verified boot and protect the device from unwanted flashing or erasure of data.
Once done, the device will be wiped and ready for a fresh set-up!