
LineageOS 16.0 - commoner
https://lineageos.org/Changelog-22/
======
fro0116
I'd personally love to see a ROM that focuses less on customizations and
adding their own "flavor" to Android, and just attempts to track AOSP as
closely as possible while supporting as many devices as possible, so users
whose devices are no longer supported by their manufactures (or who just don't
like the customizations the manufacturers have made to the UX) can continue
enjoying the latest Android improvements in UX & security.

LineageOS is great, and already supports a wide range of devices, but all the
features/changes it has accumulated over bare Android means it necessarily has
a much harder time porting to the latest versions of Android, and supporting
new devices compared a ROM without those customizations.

If a ROM like that already exists, I'd love to hear about it.

~~~
ascii_only
It's called AOSP. Community makes AOSP images for a bunch different devices.
If you are looking for one image that supports multiple devices look for AOSP
treble rom.

~~~
Jaruzel
If you mean the XDA developers AOSP roms, then they are most definitely NOT
pure AOSP - Those guys are incapable of just building a rom from AOSP without
adding their own cruft.

Not to mention that the XDA Developers site is impossible to navigate.

~~~
snazz
Lineage at least feels like a legit project. I can’t feel too sure downloading
random ROMs (with closed-source additions) from XDA considering how shady the
entire thing feels. 'jcs sums it up nicely:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/jcs/status/1069346105069092864](https://mobile.twitter.com/jcs/status/1069346105069092864)

~~~
IshKebab
I think the forum software (phpBB and its clones) must be partly to blame. I
don't think I've ever been to a phpBB-style forum that wasn't like that.

Contrast it with StackOverflow for example.

------
kbenson
So, if I wanted to buy a good middle of the road (or even somewhat cheap)
phone that has good LineageOS support, what would the community (of LineageOS
_or_ HN) recommend?

I looked on /r/LineageOS and found some older posts (a year plus) that claim
to give some insight on this. Those might still be fairly accurate, but the
same conditions that would cause me to need a guide also mean I wouldn't know
if one is still accurate after a year. :/

I would consider putting it on my current phone since it's close to end of
life with the shipped Android (Samsung S6, getting slow), but it only seems to
support 14.1, which just went unsupported earlier this month.

~~~
_bxg1
OnePlus seems to be a favored line for Lineage. You'll notice that the One, a
5(!) year old phone, is still on the initial-adopters list for 16.0. The 3T,
two years old, has 6GB ram and still stands with the latest flagships in terms
of raw power. The whole line is known for being really easy to put ROMs onto
and being a great bang for your buck, and in theory any concerns about Chinese
software would go away given that you're putting a new OS on there.

~~~
jakeogh
I can vouch for the One. Nice device. Lineage runs perfect. Now if I could
only get aftermarket screens that are tempered...

~~~
kyriakos
Unfortunately oneplus only sells accessories for the last and current
generations. Really sucks cause my 3 is still working flawlessly but I can't
find a good screen protector for it.

~~~
_xoo
I still find (good) screen protectors for my OnePlus 2 on amazon. You don't
necessarily need the official ones from OnePlus.

------
Dunedan
What's really a shame is that with each new version of LineageOS a lot of
devices are dropped from being supported. I have some perfectly functioning
devices (including a 2014 flagship device from Samsung), which will very
likely stay stuck on LineageOS 14.1.

~~~
lsh
the new (and cheap) Xiaomi Note 5 Pro (Whyred) was dropped in October last
year after about a year of support. I bought the phone specifically because it
was supported. It sucks, but they depend on volunteers to keep the builds
happening. There are plenty of unofficial builds now happening but nobody
appears to have stepped up for official status.

The phone was originally marketed to India and gets a lot of usage there.

I still think Lineage and this hackable phone are fantastic

~~~
muks
Same device here (whyred). If you want an "original" build, you can still
build an up-to-date Lineage OS with the latest Android security patches from
source from their repo. It is very easy to build it on Fedora or Ubuntu and it
doesn't take more than a few minutes to do updated builds once you do the
first complete build.

Follow the build instructions:
[https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/whyred/build](https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/whyred/build)

An additional thing you may have to do (on Fedora at least) is to export
LANG=C.

You'll also need a vendor tree for whyred from somewhere, like your own phone
or from a public repo such as this:
[https://github.com/Sweeto143/vendor_xiaomi_whyred/tree/oreo](https://github.com/Sweeto143/vendor_xiaomi_whyred/tree/oreo)

(Getting the tree from an existing Lineage OS phone per the build instructions
did not work for me.) Note that the latest version of whyred vendor tree for
Android Oreo is from last year. I suspect this is because Xiaomi has moved on
to Android Pie for whyred.

What all this gets for you is a build with the latest Android security patches
applied (February 5, 2019 as of today).

Good luck. I can report that it builds and works well and it is
straightforward to build it (more so for a programmer).

~~~
lsh
thank you, this is helpful

------
JansjoFromIkea
One thing I've tried to find for a few years but couldn't was a version of
Android that focuses on being offline as much as possible. A stable build that
allows the installation of APKs and can receive calls but has no wifi and (to
the greatest extent possible) is incapable of internet access.

A phone with no wifi and no built in browser would probably suffice, you could
then control which apps you can access by which ones you have installed.
You've things like that Punkt phone that cost $200 when (presumably) an
android mod could achieve the same results.

~~~
slezyr
Just install AFWall+ or NetGuard from F-Droid and set that only whitelisted
apps allowed to connect. I don't see a need to create separate mod for this.

~~~
JansjoFromIkea
I haven't used these, but the problem here being that the user who can set up
a whitelist will (presumably) be just as easily able to edit the whitelist.

Along with that I've had issues in the past with whitelists where I disabled
something where the IP address wound up being a dependency for something else
I was using.

~~~
slezyr
You whitelist apps in those firewalls, not IPs. But I think I saw there some
IP lists also.

------
niftylettuce
Really excited to see this!

My Google-free Android Setup with LineageOS and a Nexus 5X (includes all the
apps/Google-alternatives I use):

[https://niftylettuce.com/posts/google-free-android-
setup/](https://niftylettuce.com/posts/google-free-android-setup/)

~~~
0xADEADBEE
I did the Google-free Android thing (until yesterday in fact!) with MicroG and
while the functionality was fine, the updates never worked properly and I'd
have to format each time and reload everything. I enjoyed CopperheadOS until
that imploded, and updating was seamless so I know it's not impossible to get
right (manual usage of TWRP for an update is one of the funnier jokes of a
modern Android variant I think) but I grew weary and moved to Apple. I don't
care for them particularly, but I'm happy to (hopefully) not have to wade
through Android nonsense every few months and any data I can keep from Google,
I'm all for!

~~~
commoner
Did you use the prebuilt LineageOS for microG?

[https://lineage.microg.org/](https://lineage.microg.org/)

I've personally never had issues with automatic over-the-air updates using
microG's builds, but I haven't tested every supported device.

------
IloveHN84
I would like to see a commercial phone with LineageOS in Europe, that's fairly
cheap. But vendors are pushing now for 2000€ phones none needs because they
can fold

~~~
ptman
I have high hopes for cheaper Nokia (HMD) phones. Like 6.1,
[https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_6_1-8972.php](https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_6_1-8972.php)
. LineageOS doesn't seem to support it yet, but aosp does:
[https://downloads.aospextended.com/PL2](https://downloads.aospextended.com/PL2)

~~~
trissi
Nokia has no bootloader unlocking, except for the Nokia 8 and the have
publicly stated they don't plan to add new devices to the unlock program.

Some older devices are supported through some weird unofficial sites where you
have to send in your IMEI, which is obviously shady...

Also they don't update their kernel sources in a timely manner at all. Which
makes developing custom ROMs WAY harder..

So sadly, Nokia sucks if you wan't custom ROMs, I ditched my Nokia 8 for a
Poco F1 for this reason.

------
jabberthemutt
I put lineageos onto several devices in the past year and they exhibited some
mysterious slowness and reduced battery time. I checked everything I could
imagine, CPU usage, I/O, but nothing was significant enough to explain this. I
love lineageos, what can I do to find out what strains and drains my hardware?

~~~
genpfault
Turn off AudioFX. That was holding wakelocks a bunch on my Moto G4 Play and a
Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 9.7 with LineageOS 14.1.

Used BetterBatteryStats[1] to track it down.

[1]: [https://forum.xda-
developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809](https://forum.xda-
developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809)

------
teekert
I have 15.1 on my OP3 right now, I highly recommend the Google camera, it is
sooo much better than the lineage stock camera. So much so that I will first
investigate if Google camera is already ported to 16 before switching.

Chrome casting my screen never worked sadly so I do feel compelled to
upgrade...

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I use an app called Manual Camera DLSR which has served me very well. Agreed
that the LOS camera app is garbage.

~~~
teekert
The thing with Google Camera is that is starts an optimization process of a
couple of seconds and it lifts the picture quality by a very large degree
(nicer colors, slight hdr affect, without overdoing it), is that also with
Manual Camera DLSR?

------
paulcarroty
Why I switched out LineageOS:

* privacy - LOS still use Google DNS and servers for internet checking, not sure about telemetry

* app shutdown impossible without devtools

* root access needs to flash another zip archive

It's a paradox: I'm Linux user, but don't like Android.

~~~
Iolaum
Out of curiosity, did you switch to something that has those things, and if so
what is it?

~~~
supuun
iphone, maybe?

~~~
Iolaum
Iphones allow flashing zips?

------
kuon
I was using lineage 15 for a while, but when I bought my oneplus 6 I switched
to omnirom because they had support for android 9.

Lineage 16 still doesn't seem to support my oneplus 6, I wonder if they will.

------
p1mrx
What's the deal with their lack of support for the Pixel 2 and 3?

------
captn3m0
How can I get notified once my device is supported?

~~~
commoner
The LineageOS blog has an RSS feed, but they don't post updates on a regular
schedule:

[https://lineageos.org/feed.xml](https://lineageos.org/feed.xml)

A site called LineageOS Changelog tracks device support, but you'll have to
check manually:

[https://www.lineageoslog.com/](https://www.lineageoslog.com/)

You can also find the XDA Developers forum for your device, and follow the
LineageOS thread for updates:

[https://forum.xda-developers.com/](https://forum.xda-developers.com/)

Finally, for real-time updates, you can view the commits to the LineageOS
repositories themselves:

[https://review.lineageos.org](https://review.lineageos.org)

[https://github.com/LineageOS](https://github.com/LineageOS)

~~~
glglwty
I find it hard to believe that an open source project doesn't even have a mail
list

~~~
commoner
There's no mailing list, I'm afraid.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/LineageOS/comments/9ulb17/is_there_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/LineageOS/comments/9ulb17/is_there_a_mailing_list_for_lineageos/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/LineageOS/comments/an1fo9/whats_hol...](https://www.reddit.com/r/LineageOS/comments/an1fo9/whats_holding_back_the_los16_release/efr5rc4/)

The LineageOS subreddit is another news source, as development team members do
comment there.

------
doorbellguy
I've been using v14.1 for about a couple years on a 2013 Samsung. That phone
was paperweight but this OS brought it back to life.

------
Scene_Cast2
Somewhat tangential, but is there a guide to a complete and full list of steps
needed to make a lineage-flashed phone physically secure? As in - stopping
access to data if someone has unlimited physical access and <$1MM in equipment
/ funding.

E.g. do I need to put a lock on recovery? Disable ADB? Disable root? Disable
developer mode? Enable encryption? etc.

~~~
resoluteteeth
The biggest problem is that in general you need to unlock the bootloader to
install custom firmware. On some phones it might be possible to relock the
bootloader after you flash the firmware, but I think most phones won't let you
do this with a custom firmware.

Once the bootloader is unlocked, anyone with physical access to the phone can
reboot the phone into custom software and run arbitrary code, read data etc.

I guess you can still use encryption in case your phone is stolen, but anyone
who temporarily gets access to your phone could backdoor it.

------
voltagex_
I don't understand the device support - what makes the Galaxy S5 eligible for
an upgrade where the S6 is stuck on 14.1?

~~~
commoner
Most devices have different maintainers, and all of them work on device
support at their own pace. At the moment, it looks like the Samsung Galaxy S6
lacks a maintainer:

[https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/zerofltexx/](https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/zerofltexx/)

Maintainers are volunteers, so there's little you can do besides volunteer
yourself if you're able to help.

~~~
_bxg1
It also depends on what devices people have donated for them to test with. If
they don't have an S6 on hand, it's harder to target.

------
dstola
I have been using LineageOS 14 on my now very old original Nexus 5, and its
fantastic, really gave it a new life line after my 6p broke. A little sad that
its not supported for v16.

------
snvzz
Hopefully with no April Fools antifeatures this time around?

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
What antifeatures happened in the past?

~~~
commoner
Last year, LineageOS bundled a prank app that showed a persistent notification
for April Fools' Day, but the timing was off:

[https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/04/05/dont-freak-
lineageo...](https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/04/05/dont-freak-lineageos-
bad-late-april-fools-joke-latest-builds/)

They promised to "do better" this year:

[https://lineageos.org/An-April-Apology/](https://lineageos.org/An-April-
Apology/)

------
lostmsu
Nexus 6 is listed as supported, but the builds page only has 15.1

~~~
michielr
The builds are running (and some are failing) right now.
[https://builds.lineageos.org](https://builds.lineageos.org)

