
Introducing the LineageOS SDK - igneo676
https://lineageos.org/Introducing-the-LineageSDK/
======
mintplant
While we're on the topic, I was surprised to find just how poorly maintained
TWRP—the standard custom recovery distribution for Android—is. Decryption of
encrypted partitions is just broken many devices, for example. Issues pile up
across the respective repositories as designated "maintainers" ignore all
inquiries. Doing the work to fix something yourself requires piecing together
the arcane knowledge of TWRP's build process from multiple tutorial posts on
forums in various states of obsolescence. Then you need to understand from
where whoever did the original work for your device pulled the library
binaries that are inevitably sprinkled across its repository under vague
commit messages and no other documentation. It seems no effort was put into
securing the project's continuity in the long term.

~~~
subway
The entire android rom development ecosystem feels that way to me. Lineage is
a bit of an exception with fairly solid and well documented build system, but
for by and large, XDA feels a lot like the 90s warez/cracking scene. Lots of
really smart people shipping hand crafted blobs on forums.

~~~
Avamander
The documentation or lack of it thereof doesn't help with that. I can't think
of a single google query that got an answer when I was building LOS for my own
device. Another thing that doesn't help is that it takes enormous amount of
times to make a clean build and quite often some final touches to the
installation file have to be made to make them compatible with TWRP etc. My
point is that no volunteer has time to document stuff and because of that no
volunteer has time to document stuff repeat ad infinitum.

~~~
rrix2
I was in a similar position a few months back. Was trying to simply build
Lineage with MicroG and Xposed baked in for personal use and was essentially
shouted out of the LineageOS-dev IRC channel and told to write a backup script
and to flash the ZIP files instead of compiling it. They seemed outright
hostile to fixing this situation, or maybe I was shouted out of the channel by
some randos.

~~~
Avamander
Yeah, LineageOS devs actively disapprove/hate/censor anything MicroG and
Xposed related, don't EVER mention those things if you want any "official"
help. I find it appalling, but too few care about it to backslash so that it
had an effect.

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Kequc
I'd be very interested in seeing a Lineageos that does not include Google's
proprietary and closed source Google Play Services. I understand you can
download Lineageos without Google Play Services however a hundred different
things you wouldn't expect the os depends on will stop working including GPS
and even notifications.

I think it should be an ambition of the project, while remaining open source,
to fill those holes. There are open source workarounds in the wild but they
are not so easy to use. Google works against them with seemingly every update
to android, and Lineageos helps Google by refusing to support signature
spoofing. The mechanism by which use of alternatives is even possible.

Lineageos says that it supports an experience free from Google Play Services
but in practice use of Lineageos without it requires a custom build of the
operating system. Which is too bad, I think that would be a reasonably large
portion of the potential user base.

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

MicroG has been picking up steam. They're doing OTA updates of Lineage +
MicroG now.

~~~
Kequc
Up until now I wasn't aware microG was doing their own builds for Lineageos,
when did that start? I'm quite happy to see that, it'll help a lot of people.
I'd still rather see a world where custom builds aren't necessary.

~~~
9034725985
Not that long ago. I use it on my Nexus 6 (shamu) but I also use yalp to get
apps from the play store.

Here is a relevant discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15617615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15617615)

------
zifnab06
"co-founder"/one of many project leads here. AMA?

~~~
mehrdadn
Any chance you could bring back the ability to have a different encryption and
lock screen password? If not, why won't you? Currently it's impossible to have
a usable device with just secure passwords. Google's silence on this issue for
6 years is really sketchy, and I was shocked when I realized LineageOS removed
this ability from CM as well.
[https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/36945251](https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/36945251)

~~~
mesbahamin
I was wondering about this as well. It looks like the feature was removed in
this commit [1], which was discussed a bit in this Reddit thread [2].

[1]
[https://review.lineageos.org/#/c/167033/](https://review.lineageos.org/#/c/167033/)

[2]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/LineageOS/comments/630f9x/why_were_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/LineageOS/comments/630f9x/why_were_separate_passwords_for/dfqi5me/)

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fulafel
When you look into rooting or bootloader unlocking, one or more steps involve
running some tool that isn't open source, or at least is primarily distributed
as a binary of unspecified providence. You don't really know that the tools
won't inject some unwanted software onto your device.

What would be a good way to promote transparency and trustworthiness of the
alternative rom tooling? Or is there an alternative set that just doesn't jump
out when searching for the tools?

~~~
Sylos
You can root Lineage OS with one of the su downloads from
[https://download.lineageos.org/extras](https://download.lineageos.org/extras)

Afterwards, you can enable root in the Developer Options.

You don't need Chainfire's SuperSU, if that's what you're referring to.

~~~
arrivance
Also, don't use Chainfire's SuperSU in 2018 regardless. It's owned by some
Chinese company that's not very reputable. The current trend is towards
Magisk, an open-source root (and systemless /system) modification framework.

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BoorishBears
So while I’m not against this per se, I’ll leave the obligatory “why this
could be bad” comment.

This is a bit like Google Play Services, once you integrate it you’re no
longer relying on base Android features. While you can engineer around it, it
has the effect of closing off apps that rely heavily on it from the larger
Android ecosystem.

LineageOS is on the fringe though, and this SDK will be open, so I’m not as
worried as I am about GPS.

~~~
ViViDboarder
If Google doesn't accept patches upstream, then you run that same risk with or
without this SDK.

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ucaetano
Might be a good idea to put the trademark disclaimers in the bottom of the
page ("Android is a trademark of Google...") just to preemptively avoid any
trademark issues.

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adamgamble
For a second I thought it was an SDK for temple os and I got excited.

