Usage Notes¶

General-purpose usage notes and tips

Enabling root access¶

To allow root access, open the Developer options in the settings. There, press Root access. In the pop-up menu, select either Apps only, ADB only or Apps and ADB, depending on how you want to restrict root access. See ADB for more information about root access with ADB.

Device Encryption¶

• Do not set the default keyboard (LatinIME) as a non-system app if you use encryption: it will prevent you from entering the password to open the encrypted storage.

Camera app¶

• If the front camera on your device requires a non-free firmware, selecting the front camera will crash the app and you will not be able to use the app unless you delete the data of the app:
  1. In the settings under Personal, select Apps
  2. There will be two apps named Camera. Select the second one that has a camera as icon.
  3. Press Storage
  4. Select Clear Data and confirm the dialog

  You should now be able to use the camera again.

• If the camera app freezes when you take a picture, press the shutter button a second time. This should restart the camera in the background and take the picture.

Barcode scanning¶

The mostly used barcode scanner app ZXing has a slow preview. The privacy-friendly QR Scanner has a faster preview.

Video playback¶

Viewing videos in the gallery or in the browser is not possible. See #1539 for background information.

Only the VLC app is known to be able to play videos on Replicant. Make sure to disable hardware acceleration in the settings to prevent crashes.

VLC is currently disabled in the F-Droid repository because only outdated versions are available. You need to enable the archive repository in the repository settings to be able to install VLC from F-Droid.