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Ask Slashdot: Are Custom Android ROMs Still a Thing?
Thelasko writes: Reading Kashmir Hill's series Goodby Big Five on Gizmodo made me consider switching to a custom Android ROM like LineageOS again. The Gizmodo articles make it seem that most phones are so locked down it is almost impossible to do. My last experience with custom ROMs confirmed that to be true for me. Is anyone having success? Why is LineageOS making builds for 185 devices if no one can use them?
old phones??
"Why is LineageOS making builds for 185 devices if no one can use them" = you have yet to prove that nobody can use them, only that you cannot.
Just because you (the average consumer) can't use it on a phone you got from $carrier, doesn't mean that others can't put it to use.
That's not meant to be an insult, by the way... unlocked phones (that are truly unlocked, not just 'unlocked' to allow a different carrier w/ the same tech) can be loaded with the ROM and taken to town.
PS: If you're gonna talk about it, then be kind and provide a link to LineageOS, mm'kay? :)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I still run legacy OS on a few devices
Locked bootloaders killed the custom Android OS on many different phones.
Android rebuilds are great for privacy, but you end up having to sacrifice security of your data (if, for example, you lose your phone) by leaving the bootloader unlocked.
I ended up having to create my own rebuild -- works great and a bit of work, but the process only works for Pixel and Nexus phones that have build configurations that are part of AOSP.
Details at https://thermal.cnde.iastate.edu/aosp_build_instructions.xhtml
I run it on my One Plus & Samsung tablet. I will not buy a device that doesn't let me root it & run Lineage. It also enables me to run adaway & block trackers and other stupid parts of the android ecosystem which I do not like. I may eventually move to Purism & LibreOS though. Privacy respecting technology is unfortunately not mainstream, but it matters to some of us.
Be Excellent To Each Other
I can't risk voiding my warranty. I tinkered with these things when a smartphone was just a gadget. Now I depend on it.
MANY phones can be fully unlocked and I only buy those that can be. For example I mostly use Motorola phones from carriers that allow unlocking. Motorola makes it relatively easy to get the unlock codes right off their website. A nice T-Mobile Motorola phone is top.
Just don't go Verizon, AT&T, TracPhone, etc. Those bastards don't let you unlock your own hardware even when the hardware manufacturer allows it. Fuck them. I will never pay for service from them for that reason alone.
It's still a thing, but it's less popular now and harder to do. Phones are being locked down harder and harder, with the most common vulnerabilities fixed. Rooting them is becoming a more and more iffy proposition, some models can't be at all as far as anyone knows and most people simply do not want to bother with the risk and the bother.
So yes, it still exists, but the scene is getting smaller and smaller all the time.
Have LineageOS running on a couple older Moto G phones as they're unlocked from the factory.
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
It's not impossible. It just requires doing your research before you buy. There are two things you need to look for.
1. Unlockable Bootloader
This is challenging because many OEMs will require you to go through a bunch of steps intended to make doing so as difficult as possible (beyond what is needed for data security.) There have been instances of OEMs just outright lying when it comes to bootloader unlockability. And of course, even phones that are to be unlockable have that disabled from some carriers. (Verizon, especially. Even Pixel devices can't easily have their bootloaders unlocked when purchased through Verizon.)
2. Community Support
LineageOS and xda-developers are good place to start. Popular flagship phones are more likely to have good community support around them if they're unlockable. Of course, you can always try to build AOSP for your own device, but community support will still be invaluable as most OEMs play pretty fast and loose with releasing their GPL code. (It's often difficult to get a fully working AOSP build with that the OEM gives you.)
Once you've got the code to unlock the bootloader, installing a custom ROM is actually pretty easy. The problem is that several manufacturers have decided that you shouldn't be able to unlock the bootloader or that you need to jump through some hoops before they'll allow you to unlock it. Can you imagine if we were talking about PCs? You can't install an operating system, not even a clean install of the same operating system, unless the manufacturer of the PC allows it? It's ridiculous.
"if no one can use them?"
come on now
such clickbait might get you a job at BuzzFeed for a few weeks, before code camp
I bought the midrange Moto X4 last fall when my Nexus 5X died. Motorola's website allowed me to unlock the bootloader (with the caveat that this voided the warranty). After that, I have installed different variants of Pie roms. I found Lineage 16 to be OK but my on-screen buttons would disappear, especially when I switched users. I now enjoy the PixelExperience Pie rom which gives me a lot of flexibility with settings like dark mode which are coming to regular Android but are not there yet. I also was able to find some great Magisk (rooted) modules, including one that significantly improves the sound of my cheap bluetooth audio headset. I even used root mode to use my microsd card as adoptable storage which is not enabled by Motorola.
So, yes, Android roms are alive and well, despite what some "expert" at Gizmodo says. xda-developers website has a plethora of information.
LineageOS Is lighter, faster, better. Zero bloatware, continuous development.
Need more?
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Many phones can be rooted still.
One of the places to look is the XDA Developers website https://www.xda-developers.com/root/
I got the email a few days ago from Google telling me how Google+ is shutting down (already knew this, of course) so I logged in to my account. Haven't been there in probably 2-3 years. My "communities" are almost all custom Android ROM groups or other Android software. Even a ROM like LiquidSmooth has effectively died. They announced in early '16 that all development had stopped ("devs are too busy or moved on to other things") but some re-start occurred in late '17 but little indication if it went anywhere.
I'm not trying to be American-centric but with Verizon and ATT being the pre-dominant carriers in the US and if I'm not mistaken, locking down their devices, it really hurt custom ROMs for many. I used to have Samsung Galaxy phones and after they locked them down, that was it for me.... If you had any hope of a custom ROM, you had to have the latest and greatest model because support for older ones was pretty much non-existent. I think someone or some group gained bootloader access but it wasn't back-portable nor were they interested in working on it. I remember lots of "bounties" offered too.
Still appears to be activity with TWRP and XPOSED Framework.
I am very happy.
Installed LineageOS - a lot of carrier crap went away and phone is 50% faster now.
Extends life of my phone by another 2 years.
Using a custom rom called "Pixel Experience" based on the stock Android 9 rom for the Pixel phones on my Nexus 6P which no longer gets official updates.
Not only is my Nexus 6P still really fast but there's nothing wrong with the hardware. By having it be unlocked I have gotten way more life out of this phone then I otherwise would have.
I refuse to buy any device that doesn't come with the ability to root.
I undersand this doesn't help with the carrier-locking issue for phones, but the situation is a little different for tablets. I installed LineageOS on a Nexux 7 (2013) that Google abandoned, and I more than appreciate the continuous updates that it receives. LineageOS has greatly extended the lifespan of this perfectly functional device, and running it allows me to use it with the peace of mind from knowning it's at least receiving security patches.
I remember playing with custom ROMs like Cyanogen, years ago, with my Samsung Galaxy phone on Sprint's network. Even back then, it created a lot of headaches for me. Nothing insurmountable, ultimately, but it wreaked havoc with things like Sprint's "visual voicemail" on the phone until some special patch came out to fix it, and there were bugs for a while where the phone would stop ringing on incoming calls.
After that, I swore off the custom ROM hacks, because I needed my cellphone for work as well as for just personal calls and entertainment. It's not worth having some cool new features and custom UI if it means I miss a few important client calls or the phone gets unstable when I'm counting on it.
(I wound up pretty much moving myself to the iPhone as I got more invested in the whole Apple ecosystem, and except for the stupid high cost of the latest XS series phones, I haven't regretted that a bit. If Apple doesn't start offering more bang for the buck by the time I'm ready to upgrade phones again, I *might* switch back to an Android. All depends on what the landscape looks like then, I guess. I'm good for another couple of years, I think.)
But I did have to tinker with the low-cost Androids again, trying to find my teenager a phone to use on a budget. I'm really disappointed in those options. Went with a Motorola E4 as seemingly the best of a bad bunch of cheap ones. At least it has the fingerprint reader on it and more RAM than most. Unfortunately, I couldn't put it on her "SimpleMobile" plan like I wanted to (they use T-Mobile's network), as it was carrier locked to Verizon. People told me, when I bought it, that "That's no big deal! Just pay a few bucks for an unlock code off the Internet and you're good to go!" Well, I'm finding out now that nobody does unlock codes for these anymore. All you get are some shady foreign people who want you to give them TeamViewer access to your Windows PC with the phone attached to it, to unlock it for you for a price. I've paid 3 different people now and not one has actually tried to remote in and do the job. Starting to wonder if it's all just a big scam?
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
I recently picked up a Huawei mate 20 (non pro)
It's ridiculously fast, insane battery life, ok camera and my version does not have an IDIOT curved display. (Bye Samsung!)
But I did just hear they charge to unlock the boot loader, I'm not sure how I feel about that. I tend not to load custom ROMs on as much as I used to, but still seems kinda bad.
Before anyone makes privacy China comments, two things.
1, I don't care, too much.
2, if you're using Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. Your privacy is just as boned just by a different country
Still use Lineage on my Tegra based tablet, works fine.
Would recommend getting a nexus or oneplus phone as I think they're bootloader unlockable from the factory.
Huawei U8150 worked excellent since it was new. Every later phone from Samsung/LG had serious hardware issues if you used 3rd party roms. Stylus, Wifi/BT and Cameras.
The U8150 had blobs for the wifi/bt (Broadcom) and probably similar issues for some of the odd bits and pieces, but the camera (an OVxxxx unit) worked out of box, as did voice, including dialer visibility, and even internet access (2g/3g only).
The last device I tried had the dialer display broken (blank screen with touchscreen off) while calling or recieving calls and internet access almost never properly connects (I've seen it show up with an IP address twice.) NFC is also almost always broken.
Even with these usability issues, I choose to use it because all I really need a phone for is text and recieving calls from others and being able to disable location services, blacklist app features, and ensure my phone's radio is off trump all the other issues. Having a removable battery doesn't hurt things either.
Even with that all said, a truly libre phone will make the world a lot better place. Whether it is Purism or someone else, we desperately need it, and yet nobody seems to be funding it. Truly market economics at their worst.
In some ways we're now entering a golden age for Android roms, with the advent of Project Treble.
All phones shipping with Android 8.0+ are required to support Treble's platform abstraction layer, making life dramatically easier for custom rom bakers, going forward. Older phones benefit too; once their idiosyncratic hardware support is adapted to Treble, they can also expect easier and more stable updates. Generic System Images (GSIs) are now the norm, and will more or less run on any compatible platform.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
In the United States, it's damn hard to find a phone that can be unlocked, *and* can be used with Verizon. Verizon has their own custom phone/frequencies, unfortunately.
If you are on T-Mobile or AT&T, things are better, but it's still hard to find good custom ROMs for most phones that anybody wants.
But...custom ROMs aren't as useful as they used to be. Android has gotten a lot better, privacy-wise, and there are a variety of VPN-based ad-blocker/firewall apps. You can do just about everything you would've previously needed "root" for with something like AdGuard, and the default privacy controls in newer versions of Android.
I don't do the phone thing. I have a phone, it works, I'm happy. And "it works" includes things like SSH + port-forwarding apps to stream live TV from my tvheadend server over the Internet, so it's not like I'm just tapping out texts and nothing else. I have 10 apps just for devices / VPN etc. in work, it's my satnav for all of Europe (CoPilot), etc. etc.
So I have an S5 Mini, because my S4 Mini got gummed up over the years as I updated and because you can't probably tell the official version of Android to JUST FECKING SAVE EVERYTHING ON SD, I got tired of moving apps only for them to be moved back to the tiny internal storage every time they update.
Anyway, the S5 Mini still has the same problems, just slightly less often because the internal storage isn't quite so pathetic. But I stick with them because they have IR-blasters built in that are supported by apps I have, to turn on my kit when I'm in work/at home.
I relegated the S4 to just be a "remote control / TV" at home (handy to watch the TV on the phone in the kitchen while I'm washing up, etc.). One day it went a bit funny and it was clear that it wasn't going to recover and needed reinstallation.
So I picked up LineageOS at that point, and flashed it. And, feck. If the phone isn't twice as fast and slick as it's ever been, without half the bundled apps, just works and does some things even better than the S5 Mini with the "official" OS. It's actually now a BETTER phone than the S5 Mini because of the OS alone.
Sadly, the S5 Mini doesn't have a proper supported LineageOS or that would go too (if it does crash-and-burn, it will definitely get the LineageOS treatment).
Everything past those things doesn't interest me. They all lose ports and functionality, removeable/replaceable parts, cost a bomb and can't be LineageOS'd for the most part. My next phone will have to be a research project, and only if/when the S5 Mini that gets day-to-day use dies and can't be LineageOS'd properly.
I don't understand what happened to the smartphone industry. I just want a modern phone. I will pay extra on the price to get rid of the standard manufacturer apps etc. permanently. I will pay extra for those "legacy" ports that eat up less room that any of the multi-camera, curved-screen, display-notch shite that they put out now.
Likely my next "phone" won't be a phone. It'll be a mini-clamshell tablet/PC. For the price of a smartphone, you can get a full Windows Intel PC, with replaceable batteries, proper keyboard and joystick, somewhat resembling a Nintendo DS. It could run Steam, ffs. The call functionality is relatively minor to me at that point. The 4G/5G will mean a million times more. I'd happily buy a "phone" which doesn't have voice calling, in fact. So long as I can do WhatsApp (i.e. it has a phone number), I'm happy.
Phones overboarded on the useless features where a decent OS install could have doubled their speed and battery life. They focused on all the shite I don't want and removed all the stuff I do. They became huge, fragile and hard to repair. My S4 Mini has been down three flights of stairs to my knowledge. There's barely a scratch on it.
Given a clamshell PC-like device, with 2 or more SIM slots (eSIMs even better if they take off) and a replaceable battery. I'll pay literally TWICE what I'll be prepared to pay for even the top of the line phone (P.S. Obviously I would not pay what *they* want me to pay for a top of the line phone).
Phones turned themselves into multipurpose devices in a race to the bottom, then priced themselves as if there were no other devices in the world capable of doing those things. Meanwhile, I could pick up something that does more, costs less, works better, and would be something that other people probably would be more interested in than "Oh, you have the new phone that everyone else bought"...
I'm looking for a tablet for my father who is hard-of-hearing. He would greatly benefit from Google's new live transcription app. What tablet would you get for between $100 and $200 that comes with a ROM that is or can run a ROM that is stock like what Google shipped Nexus 7 tablet with?
There is compiled ROMs where everything but the closed source hardware libraries are compiled from source.. ( these are what mostly died)
And there are kangs, that just repackage the stock rom with less or more/different stuff.
Even if you go with a compiled rom, it won't work correctly without almost all of the stock rom binaries and libraries included.
So the ideal of a custom rom devoid of backdoors and unknown crud has long been dead. The best you can hope for is being able to replace the apk's and framework of Android and maybe a custom outdated kernel. That's why most developers have moved on. Aosp is a crippled useless mess that has no hope of fully replacing stock ROMs for anyone except those that don't care about the multiple things that will not work on whatever hardware they're using it on.
Heh. Bought a Samsung S4 (AT&T still shows the back cover and that insipid tone when booting) not tied to carrier even though it had their bloatware. Had to use one of those rooting programs to get root. Ran that way for a few years. Recently was going to change to a different ROM from stock as well as a later version of android (6.0). The usual wipe everything and load alternative ROM. Went quickly downhill. First I though I had changed the bootloader, but apparently it was stock because the original doesn't load alternative ROMS, only those signed by Samsung. The wipe lost root, brought back everything including KNOX*, and of course Google's restore isn't smart enough to do anything but a complete restore. That includes apps you've tried and deleted over the years. Lesson? Most likely not ever buying Samsung. And never AT$T. As for Google not much I can do about them, and Apple brings it's own set of problems.
*Even with stock ROM Kies couldn't see the phone.
Custom ROMs are still a thing, lots of us still love them. We just don't bitch and moan in public anymore because of treble.
I remember playing with custom ROMs like Cyanogen, years ago, with my Samsung Galaxy phone on Sprint's network.
Well there's most of your problem right there...
Sprint wrote the laws regarding carrier change and left loopholes they had planned ahead for. They do everything they legally can to lock you into them as a carrier. Of course they do , you say, but no, this goes beyond what other carriers do. And then there is their prepaid divisions which are somehow even worse. The first rule of phone modding should be to get rid of Sprint if you want to do anything with your phone.
If you want to play, you will usually want a T-mobile phone or unlocked phone straight from the manufacturer, both of which you tend to pay a little more for (always research before you buy though, even if on the Lineage list!). AT&T and Verizon is hit or miss and AT&T has even been known to lock the bootloader later with an update (they did this with the S4). You also will want to avoid Samsung, they are difficult and if you mess up they hard brick with no fix. HTC will give you the codes to unlock the bootloader and they have a good recovery system if you mess it up. LG is hit or miss but generally good, though some models are a serious hassle. I haven't worked with Motorola..
It's about privacy. If you're fine with Google knowing everything there is to know about you, then you're right, there's probably no chance. Call me nuts, but I don't want to give Google (or Apple) all of the details of my life.
I don't respond to AC's.
Security, compatibility, personal finances, environment, and basic relevance come into the picture pretty quickly here.
Bloatware removal, fine-grained control, and personal selection of features also appeals to some. (what *DOES* the FaceBook app collect? oh, you disabled it? After the first-run wizard..? Bias showing from somebody never on the platform lol)
Not to mention a "perfectly good device" that is 2 years old, where the OEM and/or Carrier wishes for you to purchase a new one. (i.e. yes, you don't need to purchase a new phone, but you're also not subsidizing a phone either - so, often you can shift to a BYOD plan, which is less pricey)
I live in Canada, FWIW.
Lineage still makes regular builds for phones that are years old now. Breathing new life into that 3-5 year old android phone you have that isn't getting updates from the carrier or OEM any longer. It is quite possible that this list is all older devices that have unlocked or easily unlocked boot loaders. I honestly haven't looked at the list to see how many phones from the last year or two are on the list. It also usually takes about a year or so for 3rd party ROM makers to make a ROM that is stable enough to be used as a daily driver, so you are better off sticking with phones that are 2+ years old if you are going the 3rd party ROM route. LineageOS doesn't distribute ROMs on their official site that are not at least stable enough to be used as a daily driver. If you check a forum like xda-developers.com you'll find many more unofficial ROMs for both officially supported devices and unsupported devices.These ROMs will generally stay in an unofficial state untill they are stable
I myself still rock a Note4 on a current lineage OS build. There is nothing currently on the market that I would want to buy. They all have sealed in batteries, notches, disappearing headphone jacks, non-flat screens that you cant apply a proper glass screen protector to. The processor in a flagship like the Note4 is still plenty fast for today's applications.
I'm using a Nexus 6 on Verizon with the MicroG reroll of LineageOS. Nice phone, not missing Google.
I'm a big fan of unlocked phones myself, and over the years, I've looked at the Lineage project more than once. If you google the official website, you will land on a fancy and modern page with all whistles and bells about the core values and the mission of the organization, and the links to download their software.
I did it again, today, and the outcome is still the same: I I have no idea about how this custom OS looks like, what offers, and what are the limitations (if any).
The About link shows a page with the vocabulary definition of the name of the OS, and a not-so-obvious link to Wikipedia.
I'm sure there are a bunch of smart people out there that are willing and able to send me a link full of screenshots and the features of LineageOS, but the fact that a reasonably tech savvy person can't find any of these from their own website (and not using Google, thank you) is disappointing, to say the least.
I'm thankful for all the volunteers that spend time supporting a large number of phones, etc... but I'm still disappointed.
I've increased the battery life on my Samsung A520W(Canadian model) by a couple hours and obtained features that were simply not present in the stock firmware (Like FM Radio, even with Radio apps it didn't work.. yet it does with a custom firmware... Yay canadian Telecom screwing customers over in order to sell expensive data plans to stream radio over the internet instead of Freely).
Custom firmwares give us that extra customization that stock firmwares simply do not. They also increase the life of older devices by updating them to newer Android versions that are not officially supported by the manufacturer (why would they push an update if they can make you buy their newest phone after all)
Are you seriously gonna use your newly bought Chinese phone with the manufacturer's ROM? First thing is to install some other from xda. I'm sorry if you only buy 500+ dollar phones, good for you.
I used LineageOS on my Nexus 7- until it died. I currently use it on my Galaxy Note 3 - rooted, running Lineage 14.1, and working well on a Verizon MVNO. And, it still has one of the best screens out there. It has allowed me to use phones for years after they were made obsolete by the manufacturer. When the Note 3 dies, I’ll buy some other cheap 2-3 year old phone, throw on Lineage or some other ROM, slap in a prepaid SIM, and move on, spending a fraction of what others pay. (Currently on RedPocket @ $99.00 a year.)
I consider all phones potentially hacked, even stock. I do not do any banking or use any financial apps, like Fidelity, etc. There’s just no way I can audit the ROMs - and, for that matter, any of the apps on the phone. I only do any financial stuff on my desktop at home on a secure WiFi. Maybe, probably, that’s a leap of faith as well.
Of course they are still a thing. I have LineageOS on my Samsung Pro tablets, my Moto G4, my Moto G6, my OPO, and who knows how many other devices I've been through with LOS.
Installing it was trivially easy on all of them.
Just because the submitter looked at "Step 1) Unlock Bootloader" and said "lolwut" doesn't mean custom ROMs aren't a thing not that "nobody can install them."
Don't be stupid.
AndroidPay, Samsung Pay, GooglePay et all... follow the money. Root breaks the money apps. Breaks PokemonGo too. :(
Tweet, tweet, all id10t's out of the gene pool, open swim is over.
My Nexus 5X recently died - just rebooted in the middle of using it and it didn't come back up, just got stuck in a boot loop. My dad had the exact same thing happen to his phone (also a 5X) a couple months back; I went through the usual process to try to fix it and discovered that there's a fix that basically involved an unofficial ROM, along with an effort to try to get fix legitimised by Google by signing the relevant files.
It seems that the 5X is just busted by design as many many users had this problem. I haven't been able to get mine to boot far enough to try the fix (seems it's better as a immunisation method).
I was a bit nervous about putting random software I downloaded from the Internet on at such a low level, although it's all open source and seems to be highly recommended by XDA at least.
But when this sort of customisation is the only way to keep your phone alive when it dies hard after only two years - you'd better believe they're still a thing. Here's to the hacker types that keep our devices alive.
For me, the need to flash custom roms has disappeared. 1. New versions of Android no longer have must-have features. 2. Longer security updates. 3. Less sluggish shells. 4. No replaceable batteries, so phone hardware has a shorter lifespan. That doesn't weigh up to the time and risks. I remember i stopped flashing because custom roms caused lesser quality camera pictures.
I see it as the reverse. It wasn't the effort required to root that drove me away from rooting, but rather the reward for doing so. Back in the day rooting and installing a custom rom was absolutely essential. It was required for basic privacy control, it was required to mitigate horribly slow systems, it was required to unlock new features when vendors refused to roll out updates.
These days. ... I don't see the point.
"Why is LineageOS making builds for 185 devices if no one can use them"
Well, I'm using one of them. Got my phone (Samsung Galaxy S5) second-hand from Amazon and I've never had a problem getting CyanogenMod/LineageOS on to it.
I don't know what kind of godawful telecoms corporation-ruled shithole the story poster is living in where phones are allowed to be locked down like that, but this is not a problem in the civilised world.
You go have to ask what phones can still be unlocked.
Select Motorola phones can be unlocked by the Motorola website. Be careful on which ones you get.
Certain other phones can be unlocked after being rooted, but that might take time to find a 'sploit to pop root.
Some phones you have to flash very certain vulnerable versions to be able to exploit and unlock the bootloader.
Check xda-developers.com for more details
If you really want to say goodbye to the Big Five don't use Lineage, use /e/. (Stupid unsearchable name, I know. Almost as silly as /.:)
The battle for the desktop was lost years ago. Why do you think hardware people have pushed to instead switch to a new netbook, chromebook, or other looks-like-a-laptop-but-isnt device? It's worked too. I work on few laptops anymore. The ones that I do get, come from my upper-middle class customers. The lower income types bring me things they call laptops, but are actually stuff like Samsung Gear books that thier cell carrier subsidized for only $99/mo extra on thier bill. What a deal amirite?
Also, don't forget that we almost did get locked bootloaders. Remember all the fighting about UEFI and TPM? The hardware did eventually get installed into our motherboards anyway, but we didn't let them lock our shit down with it. I do not expect that to continue so enjoy your freedom while it lasts.
most flagship phones have a custom rom, you have to spend time to install it ,,, but once you have root you never want to go back