Galaxy Tab 2 10 (Ten Point One)

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Today's adventure involved updating the OS of a Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Tablet, model GT-P5113

Why? Several reasons. First and foremost is that Samsung chose to stop supporting the above noted device about two years after I bought it. It is an older device, but two years is not a very long time to support a device. I can understand terminating OS updates, but they cut off all program, err, App updates too. Then some apps refused to run anymore because they wanted to update. A bit of a catch 22. Other programs like Firefox were old and did not behave very well and needed to be updated. Another catch 22.

There are several firmware updates for the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 that have been created over the years. After some research it seemed that Lineage OS was going to be the best choice (as of 2019). There were no firmware images available for the latest version (16.x and on the verge of 17.x as of 9.2019) of Android, which is understandable. The latest version was 14.1 (AKA EsspressoWiFi), so that's what I installed.

Installation

The installation instructions were a bit sparse, but mostly accurate: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/espressowifi/install

The biggest issue I encountered centered on what was "Volume Up" and "Volume Down" Button. Access to the Galaxy Tab's basic functions (BIOS equivalent, boot menu, ?) are accessed by pressing the "Volume Up" or "Volume Down" Button in conjunction with the Power Button. When my device is on, "Volume Down" is closest to the Power Button. That changes when accessing the basic functions (IE, "Volume Down" is now furthest away from the Start Button). Very frustrating for many reasons. One, why does the device do that? And two (back to the sparse instruction comment above), the instructions give no explanation on what one should see when pressing the "Volume Up / Down" and Power Button together. Eventually I figured it out with more research. For me it may have been related to the fact I had "screen rotate" disabled. But that's only if making that setting changes a "BIOS" / hardware setting too, as all of the firmware updating is done at a very basic level before the Android OS even starts.

  • "Volume Down" + Power Button = Download function: This means the device waits for a file to be transferred to it.
  • "Volume Up" + Power Button = BIOS "equivalent" menu.

Another glitch involved the Zadig Utility and installing the driver for the device. Each time I disconnected it I had to run the "Replace Driver" function for the command line utility to access the device.

Google Play Store

Google Play Store was another adventure. APKPure.com

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