The question is basically in the title: Does the bootloader need to be unlocked (fastboot flashing unlock/fastboot oem unlock) to install the F-Droid Privileged Extension OTA .zip? I wouldn’t have thought so, but I found this bug report today, which includes the following steps:
- Booted phone, installed all updates, and rebooted (also disabled Play Protect harmful app detection)
- Enabled developer options and OEM unlocking
- Powered off phone and booted to fastboot
- Unlocked bootloader (fastboot flashing unlock), then booted
- Copied FDroid.apk to phone and installed from Files
- Opened F-droid and enabled Expert mode; privileged extension option no present
- Powered off phone and booted to fastboot
- Booted to TWRP (fastboot boot /tmp/twrp/twrp-3.3.1-1-sargo.img)
- Pushed org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged.ota_2090.zip (using adb push) to device
- Installed org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged.ota_2090.zip using TWRP Install feature (no errors reported)
- Wiped Dalvik
- Used adb shell to confirm presence of (/system/system seems to be where the system partition is mounted in TWRP):
- /system/system/app/F-Droid/F-Droid.apk
- /system/system/priv-app/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension/F-DroidPrivilegedExtension.apk
- /system/system/etc/permissions/permissions_org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged.xml
- Rebooted
In particular, I don’t understand the purpose of “2. Enabled developer options and OEM unlocking, 3. Powered off phone and booted to fastboot, 4. Unlocked bootloader (fastboot flashing unlock), then booted”.