Some questions for new Lineage installation, like email and GApps
 

Hello. I had a cell phone (the old flip style -- Alcatel One Touch) and a cheap talk and text plan with Public Mobile (now owned by Telus in Canada) and no data. This phone was stolen, so I had to get a new one. New Alcatel phones were way overpriced at $100. And finding a used cell phone proved very difficult. However, I did get get an old smart phone for $50. It was a Samsung Nexus (aka Maguro). Fortunately it was locked to Telus, so that meant I could have a phone that was compatible with Public Mobile. And, it had wifi, so I could use it to access the internet via wifi.

But the Android system on it was old and no longer updated. So, after a huge amount of struggle, I did manage to install Lineage 13, and "Gapps for CM13 ROMS". Seems okay. Smart phones are a new thing for me.

I can't get my email accounts working on it. I've tried setting up the imap and smtp servers correctly for the few email addresses I have, but they still aren't working. If anyone has any tips for how this can be done, I'd appreciate it.

GApps. I tried to install Open GApps on it (http://opengapps.org/), but that failed. So, I went with some other GApps download that the site with the Lineage rom suggested. I'm curious if there are other sources of GApps beyond Google Play. Are there GApps that are specific for Lineage (or CyanogenMod 13)?

What is the deal with some app called YouMail? It keeps bugging me about how I have to register with them to deal with my voice mail. Is there a way to have the phone itself let me know that I have voicemail without relying on this stinking YouMail? If I do sign up with YouMail, will it work when I'm not in a vicinity with wifi (I don't have data)?

Anyway, I'm just getting used to the whole smart phone thing. Any other hints or suggestions on usage, will be appreciated.

it seems you might have installed one app too many...
i'd try to get rid of everything you did after installing lineage 13, and start using f-droid instead.
i have been using K9-Mail forever, and it's really good.
there's firefox, vlc and whatnot.

Thanks ondoho. I'm going to check out f-droid. And I did uninstall YouMail, so that app won't be bothering me any more. The phone does let me know when I've received a voicemail, so that seems to not be a worry. Regarding email, I'm receiving email (at least from one of the accounts, that being yahoo) but I haven't been able to send yet. I'll likely try K9-Mail to see if I have any better luck. And having vlc and firefox would be great. It be would be close to having my Debian desktop in this little Samsung thingy.

This is wildly frustrating. I installed k9-mail, and I set up the yahoo account, and it works! I can both send and receive email. And that's great. Yet, I can't figure out how to set up the other two email accounts that I have. That is wildly frustrating.

This site (see link below) says, "For any additional accounts they can be added by going to the accounts menu, and then tapping the ‘Add account’ option in the overflow menu." I've looked, but there is no such option in the version of K9-Mail that I have. https://k9mail.github.io/documentati...ounts/add.html

Perhaps it's an issue with K9-Mail not getting along with Lineage. So close yet so far.

Edited to add: I just noticed that K-9 adds the following line to my emails, "Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity." Bah, not crazy about that. I have gotten one of the email accounts sort of working with the default email program (it seems to send and receive most of the time -- I'm still unsure of its workability, but I'm getting closer, I feel). I think I'll do away with K-9.

Bet not many people say that these days .... :p. I see toddlers with ipads and phones ... :eek:

Anyway, back to the point. I have an unlocked Nexus 5, which is still maintained by Google at Android 6 - probably more up to date than most people using Android via "packaged" phones. Should be good enough. I haven't put a custom ROM on it for a while, but the last was CM12, before the Lineage kerfuffle. Worked a treat using the google apps.
If/when I get bored I might stick Lineage on it just to see what it looks like.

i find that unlikely.
k9-mail must be one of the most used FOSS android apps out there.
have you tried pressing the '+' that i outlined in pink in the scrot below?


https://www.adventurerider.net/threa...ignature.1593/

fwiw, there's this thing with google apps (or gapps) that you might have already heard of - they strip away your privacy and also require you to be logged into your google account at all times.
it might even interfere with other applications, esp. email? i don't know.
that why i recommended to get rid of all things google, maybe even reinstall lineageos.
just my personal recommendation.

The version I'm using, Lineage 13, looks identical to this photo of CyanogenMod 13: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ome_Screen.png

Thanks. Those are good suggestions to think about.

Regarding email and the plus button, no, I don't think I tried that. If I can't get the other email application working to my satisfaction, I will go back and try K9 again.

Mind you, with the move toward web-based mail by most email providers, it's a challenge getting POP/IMAP email clients working properly regardless of what system is being used, I find. On my Debian system, I set up Thunderbird with three email addresses, those being from Yahoo, GMX, and Zoho. Both the GMX and Zoho work fine, in that I can both send and receive email, but I can only receive email on Thunderbird on Debian with the Yahoo address. So, to send email I need to use a web based browser like Firefox, and access Yahoo mail that way. I previously had been able to send and receive using the Yahoo address on desktop systems like Debian or Ubuntu on either Claws Mail or Thunderbird, but lately I cannot. Now, on my smart phone Lineage system, it seems to be working, but some tests of sending and receiving seemed a bit spotty. I need to test this further. If it continues to be uncertain, I will definitely go back to K9 and see if I can get that working. It did work quite conclusively with the one (Yahoo) account I set up. So, if I can set up the other two and get it working with them as well, that would be great.

Regarding the tie in with Google, yes, I find that irritating. It's just not what I'm used to. The calendar application, for instance, is driving me crazy on Lineage. It keeps asking for a new account to be set up with. So, I give it my Google account, but it rejects this saying it's already in use. It needs a new account? I dunno. That seems to be asking too much.

That calendar app seems to be part of the core apps. I can't delete it. I can only deactivate it. Which is fine. I'll just use another calendar app (though at this point I'd be fine having that calendar app be associated with my Google and/or some other account, since a backup would be useful, but it constantly rejecting that and demanding I set up a new account is driving me berserk).

I believe some apps (or GApps) are core to the system. When I first set up the phone, I installed a file called gapps-600-base-20151112-1-signed.zip. And that was a challenge, since I was unable to download it onto my phone (I had to download it onto my desktop, and then figure out how to share the file to my phone via USB, which, after I figured out how to do it, was very simple, but all the instructions being for Windows (I use Debian) made it seem more complicated). I'm still not sure why the opengapps download did not work, though it likely wouldn't have made a difference.

I think Lineage 13 (and/or CM-13) is pretty similar to Android. I'm not sure if there's something else that's workable and still being maintained that I could try. I don't think Replicant would work. Firefox OS, and Ubuntu Touch, seem to be dead. I'm not sure about SailfishOS. I think it uses Lineage/CM as its base, but replaces the need for GApps. I may look into that. Mind you, like Android, it too is derived from some big business entities, initially in the form of Meego, but whatever. Might be interesting to try it.

i dropped my yahoo account a decade ago because of these issues exactly (and spam).
i wouldn't recommend gmx either.

i use this.

I used to use Toronto Freenet email, but that proved too unreliable after a while (too many recipients considered it junk and blocked it, and it got a truckload of spam). So, I moved to Yahoo, but have been having issues with it over the past year. Thus, I began looking to other email providers, such as gmx and zoho. Is gmx a problem? I'm not very familiar with them.

I've decided against installing Sailfish. The last update for the Maguro (Samsung Nexus) build of it was in 2015. I'd just be wasting my time pissing around with it, I feel.

ondoho, thanks to your tips I did figure out how to add different accounts to K9. Navigating smartphone apps is still a bit of a challenge for me, but once I figured it out it was easy. In testing between the three accounts (gmx, yahoo, zoho), I find that the results are a bit erratic. I'm not completely confident the emails are being sent. I'll keep working on it. It does seem better than the default email application, though. Does K9 have a way to set up different folders within accounts and filter messages? And is there a way to remove the annoying signature it adds to emails?

Offline Calendar looks interesting.

gmx is probably one of those providers that considers toronto freenet as spam.
i've had very similar experiences with both "small" and "big" email providers, and in the end decided that email is something i'm willing to pay for.
https://posteo.de/en


with all respect, this sounds like it has something to do with your providers, not the app used?

i already told you earlier.

Yes, I just noticed that you earlier did provide a link that answers my question. Sorry I didn't investigate the link previously. Thanks for your help. Most appreciated. (the link in question is here, regarding my question of how to remove the annoying default signature from K-9 email client: https://www.adventurerider.net/threa...ignature.1593/)

I also just reinstalled Lineage 13 without GApps. GApps is unnecessary. The phone works fine without it.

Setting up the weather thing took a while. https://www.reddit.com/r/LineageOS/c...penweathermap/ and https://download.lineageos.org/extras

FWIW I just installed TWRP 3.2 and Lineage 14.1 on my (LG) Nexus 5.
Much easier than I remembered in the past - works a treat, and all my photos survived the device wipe. Most impressed. Now, what to do with all those backups I took ... :p

Should be noted my needs are modest - all I need from this device is a phone and camera.