Huh. People are installing WOA on the Lumia 950!

[Joe920]

I had no idea this was a thing. There's clearly rough edges and it's pretty slow, and no cellular support (that's a biggie), but still very cool.

Apologies if this has been posted a million times, I haven't visited in a while! More info and warnings etc here.

 

[TechFreak1]

I had no idea this was a thing. There's clearly rough edges and it's pretty slow, and no cellular support (that's a biggie), but still very cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FzmpOr4HN8

Apologies if this has been posted a million times, I haven't visited in a while! More info and warnings etc here.

You mean to say 950 XL and thanks for posting the video link.

 

[Joe920]

You mean to say 950 XL and thanks for posting the video link.

Fair point. I actually read that people had success on both the 950 and the 950XL.

Here's another video showing dual boot with Win10 Phone, and the experience right after installing (setup process etc). I'm surprised at how well it seems to run. Looks like the video is real time, you can see the seconds ticking away when he opens the system clock.

 

[BajanSaint69]

Yeah this is my plan for my 950xl when I switch to Android later this year.

 

[raycpl]

Does Continuum work on this setup?

 

[Ryujingt3]

This is a great feat, no doubt about that. But the performance must be so slow and sluggish.

 

[Joe920]

This is a great feat, no doubt about that. But the performance must be so slow and sluggish.

Definitely, although it runs better than I personally expected!
@raycpl Not sure about continuum. In principle since it's full Win10 it should support external monitors, but I'm not sure if all drivers are available such that USB-C docks would work.

 

[naddy6969]

Is the wi-fi working yet? The last time I saw this (a few months ago) there was no wi-fi, which means that you really couldn't do anything with it.

It is truly amazing what dedicated enthusiasts can do. For example, there are people connecting SSDs to 1980s Radio Shack TRS-80 computers. Building interface hardware, writing drivers, etc.

10 years ago, I would have been all over this (WOA on 950XL). But these days, I just don't care. I sold mine and moved on.

 

[tgp]

10 years ago, I would have been all over this (WOA on 950XL). But these days, I just don't care. I sold mine and moved on.

I think this is my situation. 10 years ago, and even 3 years ago, I also was all over this stuff. But now I buy something and expect it to work. I do not want to mess around. If it doesn't do the job, I get something else.

In a nutshell, I want my device to be my servant. I do not want to be the servant for my device! :smile:

 

[Ryujingt3]

I'm thinking it's going to be a long, long time before WOA is even remotely close to being usable on a Windows Phone. And even then, it may never fully happen.

 

[Joe920]

Is the wi-fi working yet? The last time I saw this (a few months ago) there was no wi-fi, which means that you really couldn't do anything with it.

I thought I read somewhere that they did get the wifi to work (it didn't in the second video I posted, and they used wired ethernet in the first video). I don't know about external monitors, which would be a game changer. It might be too slow to be anything but a hobby project, but still cool.

I personally own a Galaxy Book2, one of the new WOA tablets, and with a Snapdragon 850 that one runs quite well (similar to Surface Go performance), so on the 950XL it might even be tolerable for basic Word and email. As for tinkering to set this up, I probably won't either, mostly because it requires a lot of trust in the sites where you download the necessary files.


Edit: more detail on the GitHub page of the latest installer. Oddly there's no list of missing features, and no mention of wifi that I could find. Upside, you can inspect the source code of the installer, so if you glance over the 130+ MB worth of source files you can check if it's safe.

Edit: apparently Wifi is working on the 950XL, but not on the 950.

 

[naddy6969]

In a nutshell, I want my device to be my servant. I do not want to be the servant for my device! :smile:

Exactly, and well stated.

I am WAY past the point where this level of tinkering interests me. I just want stuff that works. I no longer want to force square pegs into round holes.

 

[naddy6969]

As for tinkering to set this up, I probably won't either, mostly because it requires a lot of trust in the sites where you download the necessary files.

Upside, you can inspect the source code of the installer, so if you glance over the 130+ MB worth of source files you can check if it's safe.

Yeah, been there done that. MANY years ago, I was fooling around with running Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware. There are loads of websites dedicated to this. Well, at least there used to be. Dunno about today. Depending on your hardware, it could be easy or it could be impossible.

Now, looking back, it was pretty astonishing how I was downloading files from everywhere with total trust. I got it to work on several PCs. But eventually I lost interest and just got a used Mac mini.

 

[BajanSaint69]

You don't do something like this for computing capability, you do it out of curiosity to see if you can get it done.

 

[Joe920]

For those interested in giving this a try, by now the Github page has a very friendly rundown of the steps involved:
https://github.com/WOA-Project/WOA-Deployer-Lumia/blob/master/Readme.md

Note, you're installing code from third parties, so there's an inherent risk that backdoors and password harvesters come along for the ride. It all does seem to be run by true enthusiasts, but it's good to be aware of the risks. If anyone has any info on how (or whether at all) people could do all this safely, please chime in.

Also helpful, an up to date FAQ page: https://www.woaproject.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=6

And finally, a whole forum discussing the project. https://www.woaproject.net/

It even has a dedicated working/not working post.

Enjoy! (and let us know how it goes)