<div dir="ltr"><div>This ( <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.droidviews.com/install-twrp-root-t-mobile-lg-v20/">http://www.droidviews.com/install-tw...mobile-lg-v20/</a>
) 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.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
Make sure to delete that VCF file from your SD card -- it is a giant security hole.<br>
<br>
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". <br>
<br>
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 ( <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/17/verizon_named_in_android_bloatware_scheme/">https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/0...atware_scheme/</a> ) or this ( <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.techworm.net/2014/12/verizon-android-phones-shipping-dt-ignite-bloatware-allows-oems-backdoor-install-app.html">https://www.techworm.net/2014/12/ver...stall-app.html</a> ) or this ( <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Backdoor-in-HTC-Android-smartphones-Update-1353225.html">http://www.h-online.com/security/new...e-1353225.html</a> ).<br><br></div>-- CHS<br></div>