Story of Reviving Old Lenovo Phone with Free Software

This tutorial is a simple story of how we revive our old phone from 2014 Lenovo S390 which by now it is kind of “expired” e.g. no longer be able to access the internet anymore and awfully limited of features. We managed to enable this phone for daily work purposes including to browse the web, read ebooks, watch YouTube, playback audio/video, download anything, Telegram messaging, even transfer files with Ubuntu laptop and beyond thanks to free software. 

(Ubuntu laptop to the left showing Nautilus accessing phone filesystem via wifi and a very old Lenovo phone to the right showing full featured Telegram FOSS. Thank you brother Andi owner of Kedai Wali for lending his camera.)

• Not officially supported anymore. 
• No longer be able to browse the internet (unless with tricks).
• Small memory.
• Slow processor.
• Old built-in software.
• Unable to install latest versions of some software.
• Unable to use KDE Connect. Alternatives needed.
• Unable to transfer files via USB cable. Alternatives needed.
• Requires a computer to download some first applications.
• Broken physical power button.
• Difficult to access volume buttons.
• Sometimes requires reboot and shutdown.

——–

Essential programs: 

The
whole of your phone user interface follows your positioning of the
phone by both ways portrait and landscape and you are able to find apps
by text search like in the desktop. The developer says “93% of users that try KISS for a week are still active users after 3 years.” and now we are part of them. [Version: 3.2.1.0]

Because
of the old phone limitations, we can only install F-Droid the Classic version not
the regular one. Apparently, it works and still provides many useful
applications. [Version: 1.2]

This
is our file manager on Android. We have the best experience with it. It
supports both thumbnails and detailed list views, sortings, image/video
previews, writing to SD Card, being small and fast etc. [Version:
0.212]

This is our secondary web browser. We need two browsers or more because if one failed, one might worked. Surfing modern websites, blocking ads, playing audio and video, save as PDF work very well. Important to note that it also works with DNS over HTTPS (DoH) enabled. [Version: 68.12]

End of essential programs.

——–

Beginning of daily life programs:

To transfer files from phone to Ubuntu laptop via wifi, we use this. To do the otherwise, see Primitive FTPd section. This is an alternative to KDE Connect. It can be used as powerful file manager, too. [Version: 3.8]

This is a very fast multitreaded download manager similar to IDM for Android. [Version: 1.6.2]

This is our Baobab (GNOME Disk Usage Analyzer) on Android. We need it to tell us which folders occupy disk capacity the most. This helps us to remove folders to keep free disk space. [Version: 3.8]

This is our PDF reader. We read PDF a lot. To us, this is the smallest, fastest yet comfortable to use PDF reader with bookshelf user interface to show recent books. [Version: 2.7]

This orange logo with three white folders is our alternative file manager. Our main one is Open Explorer. [Version: 4.3.1]

This is our audio player. It plays MP3 recordings just fine with playlist and repeat features. [Version: 6.0.1r63]

When we need to digitally write some poems, some notes, some drafts, we use it. [Version: 1.5.1]

This
is our YouTube application, but better. Usually, we use the regular
version but because of limitations mentioned we can only use the legacy
one instead. All in all, we can still play any video, create any
playlist we want, and download videos as many as we want using Newpipe
Legacy. [Version: 0.20.8]

To transfer files from Ubuntu laptop to phone via wifi, we use this. To do the otherwise, see Amaze File Manager section. This is an alternative to KDE Connect. [Version: 7.0]

We replace built-in Google keyboard with Simple Keyboard and it is very comfortable. [Version: 5.16]

We
use Telegram FOSS daily. We need it for teaching work at our computer
course and it works very well* as well as normal communication with
family and commercial activities such as dealing with payments etc.
[Version: 10.2.6]

*) At the time we
write this article, it supports latest Telegram features already such as
video conferences, recordings, group topics, folders, stories etc.

To play musics and movies. 

[Version: 3.5.2]

Because
the physical buttons are difficult to access, we use this to adjust
volume via top menu by swiping it down and tapping its own [+] or [-]
button. [Version: 1.0]

****

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.