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LineageOS 19

lineageos.org

61–70 of 260 posts

Re: LineageOS 19

#61

I'm still pissed at Google for locking the bootloader on my Pixel 2. I bought the phone unlocked directly from Google, specifically so that I could install a custom ROM once Google stopped supporting it. But I sent the phone in to repair a broken USB port, and apparently it was Google's policy to send back a phone with a locked bootloader any time you get a repair. I can't even get a response from Google's support ab…

Yeah, I'm in the same boat; so is this guy: https://jacobhall.net/2022/01/29/000177

I google "flashing unlock is not allowed" every few months, but there's nothing new to try.

Re: LineageOS 19

#62

I'm curious how secure LineageOS is. It doesn't seem to have the resources of Apple/Google to respond to vulnerabilities. I haven't even found anything on this topic at their website. Googling "lineageos security response policy" haven't found anything useful, either. How does it compare to flagship Samsungs/Pixels/iPhones? Is it usable in, say, corporate settings that do have some security standards in the vein of "…

LineageOS relies on the open source kernels and pre-existing vendor blobs to run. Qualcom drivers and such won't receive any patches, the best you can hope for is that the driver blobs are extracted by the device maintainer and put into the next build.

As for the Android stack itself, LineageOS follow the upstream Android branches very closely where it can. Most vulnerabilities in that stack will probably be shared among devices, so security issues will probably be fixed within a reasonable amount of time. Google's Android patches should also be present in the nearest weekly updates after public release.

The lack of official driver and kernel patches make the security of LineageOS a little strange. There are definitely some patches that LineageOS can apply, but in the end they rely on the vendor to publish all the necessary patches, and that can take a while.

There's also the fact to consider that out of necessity, the bootloader on the phones is unlocked. Most phones won't allow you to lock it again with your own keys (if you try, you'll often brick the device!) so it's trivial for a malicious actor to flash a new OS full of spyware and key loggers onto the system partition.

Having said that, LineageOS supplies weekly updates to my Oneplus One, even though it's showing its age. Neither Qualcom nor Oneplus will ever release any more patches for this device, so for kernel level security I'm boned. However, I still get the latest and greatest Android 11 framework security patches. This should protect the phone against the huge Bluetooth exploit found a few years back despite it being over eight years old now.

LineageOS is quite transparent about this, even showing that their device is missing patches right inside the settings (https://www.xda-developers.com/lineageos-trust-centralized-i...). I don't think you can expect much more from a project run by volunteers.

My daily driver phone receives "quarterly" security updates (sometimes off by a month or so) so I'd rate LineageOS above Xiaomi in this sense. The LOS Android stack itself should also be on par with or even better than some flagship phones.

Sadly, for the complete picture, Qualcom and other manufacturers determine how secure LineageOS can be. In general, the bootloader lock status and lacking supply of source code are a real pain for open source efforts. Some phones may see a mainline kernel with all of the recent Linux patches as a result of the postmarketOS efforts (https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/The_Mainline_Kernel) but cleaning up vendor code and reverse engineering drivers isn't exactly a fast process.

Re: LineageOS 19

#63

> Our very popular privacy oriented built-in firewall, restricted networking mode, and per app data isolation features were all rewritten to account for AOSP’s new restricted networking mode and BPF. Additionally, data restriction and network isolation features were merged into a single implementation. Combined, this means that one of our largest pain points each bringup should now be easier to forward port in future…

The button for per-app network disabling still exists in current GrapheneOS. Am I missing something?

Re: LineageOS 19

#64

I'm still pissed at Google for locking the bootloader on my Pixel 2. I bought the phone unlocked directly from Google, specifically so that I could install a custom ROM once Google stopped supporting it. But I sent the phone in to repair a broken USB port, and apparently it was Google's policy to send back a phone with a locked bootloader any time you get a repair. I can't even get a response from Google's support ab…

When you run out of uses for your smart phone you can always convert it to a wifi LAN camera using IP Webcam by Pavel Khlebovich and consume the output in VLC. I have been using an old phone for this purpose successfully for years.

In general, I'm pretty aggressive about reselling or giving away old hardware when I no longer use it. But I do appreciate innovative uses like that, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that some previous phone of mine is serving as a LAN camera for someone else :)

Re: LineageOS 19

#65
post #39

Is there a list of supported hardware models in conventional (non-codename) format? I am eager to find a model which isn't going to be expensive/rare (like Google Pixel) nor obsolete (pre-LTE). This is rather hard with the old LineageOS versions HCLs.

All Xiaomi devices are unlockable and all Snapdragon devices should have no problem with custom ROMs. But if you are from US you can have problems with LTE bands maybe.

My Mi9 has no official builds for LineageOS and my days of trusting random forum users for my daily driver ROMs are over. There are many Xiaomi devices that are compatible with LineageOS, but they're exactly not guaranteed to work just because their bootloader unlocks.

Re: LineageOS 19

#66

Unfortunately it seems LineageOS isn't available for most (if not all) common budget/mid-range phones in my country. Does anyone here have experience in porting AOSP/LineageOS to an unsupported device? Any suggested materials and resources? I have the spare time to give it a go on getting it for my Samsung model, but no idea where to start.

You probably already know this, but just in case: you should first check the xda-developers forum if there isn't already an unofficial port available.

Re: LineageOS 19

#67

I'm curious how secure LineageOS is. It doesn't seem to have the resources of Apple/Google to respond to vulnerabilities. I haven't even found anything on this topic at their website. Googling "lineageos security response policy" haven't found anything useful, either. How does it compare to flagship Samsungs/Pixels/iPhones? Is it usable in, say, corporate settings that do have some security standards in the vein of "…

> I'm curious how secure LineageOS is. It doesn't seem to have the resources of Apple/Google to respond to vulnerabilities.

Well, you get weekly updates, and you can see what changes are made. Most of them are security ones, and you're getting them 4/5 times a month vs once per month with stock Android in my previous experience.

For example, here you can see the changekog for the Motorola Moto G7 Plus.

I don't think this can be compatible woth corporate policies, though. As an end user, I'm more than satisfied.

Re: LineageOS 19

#68
post #32

I used to run lineage, but every time there was a major version upgrade I had to reinstall, which was annoying. So I reverted to stock OS. Has that changed? Can it upgrade between major versions now?

I've always done upgrades and they usually worked, but updating across Android versions is quite painful. You need to be wary not to accidentally keep old versions of GApps and any other system modifications installed, and not all system services migrate that easily.

At some point, a transitionary .zip was published to help users upgrade between versions. However, I'm pretty sure their official policy is still that you should do a clean install.

I think upgrading between versions works (as long as you do it in order!) but your system will be a lot more stable if you do a clean install. The same can be said for any major OS upgrade, really, be it Windows 10 to 11 or Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04.

Re: LineageOS 19

#69
post #63

> Our very popular privacy oriented built-in firewall, restricted networking mode, and per app data isolation features were all rewritten to account for AOSP’s new restricted networking mode and BPF. Additionally, data restriction and network isolation features were merged into a single implementation. Combined, this means that one of our largest pain points each bringup should now be easier to forward port in future…

The button for per-app network disabling still exists in current GrapheneOS. Am I missing something?

Is that build based on Android 12 ? If so I might be wrong about no custom ROMS adding that feature back in. Maybe grapheneOS and some other ROMS made their own patches to fix it.

Re: LineageOS 19

#70
This is pretty cool to see! Still really odd that i couldn't just take any ROM and install it on my current phone from a slightly less popular manufacturer: https://www.ulefone.com/

Of course, phones don't work as regular desktop computers do for some reason, though i really enjoy being able to just throw Debian/Ubuntu/Rocky/Alma (or some of the BSDs as well, though support varies) at some pile of x86 consumer hardware and have it vaguely work.

The only exceptions to that have been specific components in laptops: trackpads (disabled in default config back in CentOS/Fedora for some reason), Wi-Fi drivers (needed to be compiled off of GitHub) and fingerprint scanners (no idea, never worked on *nix no matter what i did).

Edit: apparently there is an older version of LineageOS available, though. https://www.getdroidtips.com/lineage-os-17-1-ulefone-armor-x... (just one device, i have a slightly different one)

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