Our most-read article of all-time is my 2020 review of the /e/ OS on a Murena Teracube 2e (also see my review of the Teracube 2e separate from /e/ OS). While I am now using a Pixel 3a XL as my primary phone, I still use my Murena Teracube 2e as a Syncthing node and for a few other things.

Murena phones are devices sold directly by the /e/ Foundation with /e/ OS pre-installed.  I purchased my Teracube 2e from the /e/ foundation.  However, the 2020 model Murena Teracube 2e phones had an update issue which prevented them from being upgraded beyond /e/ OS 1.0 — note that 1.1 came out in May or June and we are currently on version 1.5.  The update issue persists, but fortunately there is a fix which I was able to implement.

The /e/ Foundation posted its guide to the fix here.  It is a decent guide, although I think that it may be a bit intimidating for people who do not already have some familiarity with the Android Debug Bridge (ADB).  I will post a slightly streamlined guide for Linux users (Windows and MacOS users should look up how to install ADB on their systems).

  1. Make sure that ADB is installed on your computer (see guide to installing ADB if you are unsure)
  2. Download 2e Stable from the /e/ OS website. I downloaded it into my home directory, but any location is fine so long as you remember where it is.
  3. Enable developer mode on your Murena Teracube 2e (Settings > About Phone > Scroll to bottom and click the Build Number six times, enter passcode when prompted)
  4. On your phone, go to Settings > System > Developer Options and enable “Android debugging” and “Debugging notify”
  5. Plug Murena Teracube 2e into computer via USB and make sure to accept ADB access when prompted
  6. From terminal on your computer, type adb reboot bootloader
  7. Your phone will reboot into recovery mode.
  8. Use the volume keys on your phone to navigate to “Apply Update” and the “Apply From ADB”
  9. Now on your computer, return to your terminal and type adb sideload <path to upgrade> (note that you can right click and copy the zip file containing the upgrade from most file managers and then paste it into the terminal after adb sideload
  10. Allow the update to complete and then reboot your phone.  In my case, it did not indicate any progress beyond 47% before telling me that the upgrade completed, but I confirmed after rebooting that the update was successful.
Murena Teracube 2e upgraded to version 1.5.

Note that this process is only necessary if you have a Murena Teracube 2e phone that is unable to update past version 1.0.  If your Teracube 2e is already on a higher version, this process is not necessary.  The /e/ Foundation has stated that it is working on a more user-friendly fix, so I hope that people who purchased Murena Teracube 2e phones will be able to update in a more user-friendly way in the future (especially since /e/ OS is marketed as a user-friendly Android fork).  For those who would like to update in the interim, I hope that my streamlined guide to updating over ADB, modified from the official documentation, will be helpful.

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