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LineageOS 19

lineageos.org

191–200 of 260 posts

Re: LineageOS 19

#191
post #108

I've got a ten year old Nexus running as well as a modern tablet thanks to cyanogenmod/lineageos. Is there a more valuable free open-source community project like it for anything else in the world? Because it seems incredible to have. Hard to figure a new tablet to buy that will get that same 10 year life, some custom rom development just vanishes over time. Popularity doesn't seem to be a guarantee.

> Nexus

I have a second-hand Nexus 7 (repartitioned flo), probably the same as you, and I'm super happy with it thanks to Lineage OS. LineasOS 19 doesn't seem to be available for it though (yet?).

> Hard to figure a new tablet to buy that will get that same 10 year life, some custom rom development just vanishes over time. Popularity doesn't seem to be a guarantee.

If I would be buying a new tablet today, beside second hand (better for Earth, more guaranties to have a FOSS ROM running on it, and cheaper), I guess that I would go for open hardware like what Pine64 is doing: the community is dynamic, and I would not be surprised to see the device still updated in 10 years.

For phones, I guess that Fairphone is a very good option too: FOSS friendly, easily fixable, and minding about resources.

Re: LineageOS 19

#192
post #183

PSA: LineageOS 17.1 is no longer getting official builds, even though it has some of the recent security updates committed. So if can't upgrade immediately to 18.1, you can do a build yourselves to get the security patches. https://endoflife.date/lineageos

Good tip. My device doesn't have any official build newer than 17.1 so I may need to start building my own images.

16.0 was still getting security patches merged till 19.0 release, so it’s a pretty decent change you can work this way for a while.

I just wish the devs clarified timelines around merges (but not builds) on older branches.

Re: LineageOS 19

#193
post #10

I wish that LineageOS could accept the "signature spoofing" patch that is needed for microg (possibly with a toggle switch that would be "off" by default), so that we could avoid the need for the less-frequently-updated https://lineage.microg.org/ and properly install apps from Play Store without the Google Service Framework (that essentially give root access to Google on your smartphone). (and actually I also wish t…

I believe the reason Lineage doesn't do this (along with things like SafetyNet spoofing/passing) is to stay on the right side of Google et al. This way there's never a threat of a legal shutdown à la Vanced. If Lineage was backed by big foundations/folks with deep pockets that could change. I have no idea why GrapheneOS takes this risk, but am grateful to them nevertheless for the code.

I think GrapheneOS does things completely differently, with actual Google Play Services in a sandbox, and doesn't need signature spoofing.

Re: LineageOS 19

#194
post #82

I just switched to LineageOS 18 w/ MicroG and oh my lord is this stuff still complicated. I'm fairly familiar with this stuff and yet still it took me many hours to set everything up correctly. To be clear, this is not the fault of LineageOS, this is simply the state of the FOSS Android environment and the fact that Google has no interest in supporting this setup whatsoever, to put it mildly. Not only is it complicat…

As far as the rooting-related problems go, there's very little reason to root an Android phone today (unlike, say, 6-8 years ago). Most of the things you used to need root for now have a working API (like VPNs).

Re: LineageOS 19

#195
post #173
post #82

I just switched to LineageOS 18 w/ MicroG and oh my lord is this stuff still complicated. I'm fairly familiar with this stuff and yet still it took me many hours to set everything up correctly. To be clear, this is not the fault of LineageOS, this is simply the state of the FOSS Android environment and the fact that Google has no interest in supporting this setup whatsoever, to put it mildly. Not only is it complicat…

You didn't need to transfer application data, swapping ROM/OS shouldn't touch that.

Doesn't unlocking the boot loader delete everything?

Re: LineageOS 19

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Partly that, but also a lot of/all of Google Services Framework is proprietary Google code. Other implementations reverse-engineer and modify it afaik. Google probably doesn't go after them because they're small, but LOS is the largest such organization and would be an easy target if Google were to sue. And also, even if it's technically legal, it's such lawsuits/slappsuits can entirely bring down an organization as…

Is this your speculation or is that their stated reasoning?

Edit: I'm no longer trusting my memory lol. Apparently security was why LOS didn't integrate it (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31171788). I'm still leaving my original reply below.

The SafetyNet part is something I read from somewhere else, though unfortunately I don't remember if that was LOS or some random developer on reddit/XDA. You can treat most of this as (oft-repeated) speculation by users.

Re: LineageOS 19

#197
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for linking to the site. I just updated it to include the new version. It's called 19.1 in their wiki and I'll just copy that version number for now.

That's a really cool site! Any chance you could add an additional filter for microSD support?

I would also like to see this. I tried my hand at a patch, but not sure if it would work.

https://gitlab.com/onli/sustaphones/-/merge_requests/2

Re: LineageOS 19

#198
post #10

I wish that LineageOS could accept the "signature spoofing" patch that is needed for microg (possibly with a toggle switch that would be "off" by default), so that we could avoid the need for the less-frequently-updated https://lineage.microg.org/ and properly install apps from Play Store without the Google Service Framework (that essentially give root access to Google on your smartphone). (and actually I also wish t…

I believe the reason Lineage doesn't do this (along with things like SafetyNet spoofing/passing) is to stay on the right side of Google et al. This way there's never a threat of a legal shutdown à la Vanced. If Lineage was backed by big foundations/folks with deep pockets that could change. I have no idea why GrapheneOS takes this risk, but am grateful to them nevertheless for the code.

I'd like to edit this comment but unfortunately it's probably too late to edit - it appears I was at least partially mistaken. LOS declined to integrate MicroG because of security concerns from spoofing signatures, as per the Wikipedia article of MicroG (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroG)

Re: LineageOS 19

#199
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for linking to the site. I just updated it to include the new version. It's called 19.1 in their wiki and I'll just copy that version number for now.

That's a really cool site! Any chance you could add an additional filter for microSD support?

Thanks! Sure, if the data is already in the wiki that should be doable. Gonna have a look.

Re: LineageOS 19

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Partly that, but also a lot of/all of Google Services Framework is proprietary Google code. Other implementations reverse-engineer and modify it afaik. Google probably doesn't go after them because they're small, but LOS is the largest such organization and would be an easy target if Google were to sue. And also, even if it's technically legal, it's such lawsuits/slappsuits can entirely bring down an organization as…

microg replicates the API but contains no actual google code, right? Isn't that exactly what google argued was completely legal when they were sued by oracle over replicating the java API?

Yes MicroG is open source, but they probably had to reverse engineer something. However I don't know if that's the main reason, my initial comment was likely (partially?) wrong, here's an update: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31171788
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