The bad thing in general is the dependence on Google policy for all AOSP distros. Joining those programs might long term worsen the situation.

IMHO, it could be worth the fight if GrapheneOS could win their (rather legal/lobbying) battle to obtain play integrity certification by following security closely (which is a joke IMHO because EOL phones with not updates for years also get integrity). Google releasing easily diffable security only bytecode sets, seems like a security nightmare for everyone else.

All of those distros suffer from the reliance of Google to release anything, so they in one way or the other they play the game. Particularly Lineage heavily does 'self-censoring' to comply without much benefit IMHO. We really would need e.g. does not even include the keys for providing alternative web views or the ability to switch the location provider. While google has those capabilities, they only support services sending data to their own servers.

I used lineage as my daily driver since the CyanogenMod days and the HTC desire, but switched to a Google Pixel a few month back, because I felt I had lost the play integrity fight and although my great Redmi Note 10 Pro was running other like a charm thanks to lineage and the device maintainers (Daniel and Aryan), I personally could not invest time and cognitive capacity anymore.

More and more device manufacturers are locking down their bootloaders again. I hope someone can break the momentum and finds a way to break the OS duopoly.

Yeah, yesterday I got a pop-up post-update that explained the situation and asked me if I wanted the closed source blobs.

As far as I have heard they have not actually secured partner access for themselves, they just got someone who has access to break their NDA.

I would be happy if any of the big phone makers will starting adopting LineageOS or GrapheneOS as the main operating system for some of their models.

Or just leave the possibility of easy unlock the phone and publish sources.

This!

Looks like LineageOS supports various iterations of the Nvidia Shield device. What I'm wondering is whether this new Catapult launcher is compatible with Android TV that comes with off the shelf Smart TVs. I've grown accustomed to the default screen on my current TV's in-built Google TV (not Android TV, although I'm not totally sure of the difference), but it does enforce at least one additional click to get to the actual functions I, and the family, use it for.

Gonna check out Catapult right now.

Edited to add note: It looks as if the latest Nvidia Shield device requires soldering a USB port onto the mainboard of the device[0]. That probably excludes a decent percentage of people who may otherwise be happy software hacking a device.

[0]: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/sif/install/#usb-port-ins...

Almost all major streaming services will refuse to work on unapproved devices.

There's a build for RPi5, I didn't try it yet but intend to do it soonish.

https://konstakang.com/devices/rpi5/

Security & Privacy: GrapheneOS

Freedom & Features: LineageOS

That is not to say you have no freedom or extra features with Graphene, or no security with Lineage, it’s just what either project has very clearly as main target.

I do miss some features since switching to GrapheneOS (customizable on screen nav, volume rocker for cursor control), but I’m very happy with stuff like sandboxed google play services.

Graphene is probably better on the devices that support both (Pixels), but since hardware support is so (intentionally) limited, it kind of a moot point. Also the Graphene community is kind of obsessed with "security" and does not seem to place much emphasis on freedom/hackability.

A few years ago, Lineage was just a customizable tinkerer friendly AOSP. It served as a base for a lot more Android distros. It was just a smoother Android variant with features like double tap on the notification bar to sleep, better integrated root support, more built in theming options.

Graphene OS was only available for a few Pixel Devices whose source was fully available and mainly focused on security features like improved permissions and more anti tracking features.

To give an example, a company I worked for shipped it's phones with a Lineage OS base with a few patches from Graphene OS to replace default ntp and connectivity check servers.

GOS only works on Google phones

I use LineageOS on all my devices (it's actually my main criteria when buying a phone) to mainly install apps from F-Droid without relying on the Google Play Store.

It has the same familiar look and feel on all devices and by experience is way snappier than the original ROM.

Every version of Lineage has rooted ADB accessible in the developer options. If you want root for apps, you must load Magisk. If root is important to you, this is your OS.

Lineage puts out all the patches that they can, every month, unlike OEMs. If current patches are important to you, this is your OS.

Lineage allows you to run it without any Google closed source code.

These are some serious advantages, depending upon what you are trying to do.

Got a Xperia Z1 in 2013. Sony stopped updating it at some point in 2014-2015, which is stupid, but the hardware was still like new (which is the great thing about Sony phones) so I rooted it and managed to install it. Can't remember if it was already named "LineageOS" or "CyanogenMod" at the time. However, it lasted with me until nov. 2020 when I dropped and the screen cracked, made it to be changed but the replacement was kinda bad so used it as an excuse to get a 1ii.

I did the same with this "new" phone, that is going to be 5 years with me - since also got that only-two-years-of-updates thing, threw LineageOS on it and it's going as new.

So as I said the last time I saw a post about it in here, thanks to LineageOS I can use a phone for way more than they are set out to be forgotten. It's a great project and it's really sad Google are making things harder for them for the sake of "security".

I immediately put Lineage on all my devices. In fact, I only buy Android devices that Lineage supports. It's a uniform, degoogled Android experience that just works.

If your phone is more than a few years old it likely doesn't get updates from the manufacturer anymore. LineageOS will get you to the latest Android with security patches. Same sort of deal as with OpenWRT for a router really, you get all the features and security patches but at the loss of the firmware that the device came with and its propriety enhancements.

I have a Samsung Tablet and Samsung's version for said tablet is a giant mountain of crap, full of bloatware, so I installed LineageOS on it. Also my old phone and my old old phone run LineageOS because I'm just logged in to Google on my {current_phone}.

I haven't used custom roms in ages, but I used Lineage back when it was called Cyanogen. It had this cool thing where you could adjust brightness by swiping the top edge of the screen. (This was back in the day when you could reach that part easily!)

To not have Google built into all alspects of your life too much. Although it still uses some essential Google services, it does take out most unnecessary stuff, which you often can optionally add later in a possibly more secure form, but sometimes can't, which will cause very specific apps using these services not to function, or these features of those apps.

And if Chat Control will be implemented in Google Android, then LineageOS also offers you a way out of that, which is a huge plus of course if you ask me.

I want to use an OS that isn't loaded with spyware, so non-FOSS Android just doesn't fit the bill for me.

My personal take is that most Android devices no longer get updates pretty soon after the release (where pretty soon means 2-3 years). Google promises 7 years of support for their newer devices, but most vendors don't.

LineageOS is, besides the fact hat it is more open for non google stuff, providing Android Updates for older devices. While this does not necessarily provide better security (rooted devices are often not considered as secure), you still get the newer Androids security patches and FEATURES. Furthermore you are more open to do what you want.

However LineageOS does to my knowledge not support bootloader re-locking on most devices, which might be a security risk (see https://grapheneos.org/install/web#locking-the-bootloader).

for some certain models it offers updated android versions (while the company doesn't)

Because aosp is basically useless on your phone - it lacks a ton of apps

If you want to escape Google's monopoly, you can use LineageOS without google apps, as opposed to the malware and spyware-ridden trash that usually comes preinstalled on your phone.

It makes perfect sense to use it if you even remotely care about better performance, battery life and privacy. Google ships it's bloated apps which not only tracks everything and runs on privileged mode but degrades your battery life to a great extent

You might remember them by their old name, Cyanogenmod

You can run LineageOS on the Nintendo Switch if you want: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/nx/variant1/

And it's a decently recent version with more-or-less official Nvidia Tegra drivers, too. For the variety of weird-but-ubiquitous devices that have a bootloader hack, LineageOS is the route to a working smart device that anyone can pick up and use.

With Titanium Backup unmaintained, Neo Backup [1] works pretty well. It has some potential issues with restoring wifi/bluetooth/sms as those were still experimental, last I used it. But sms at least worked. I'd suggest a 2nd backup app of those, just in case.

[1] https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Backup

They're seamless. Any phone that allows you true `root` can do nandroid style backups which work very similar to how iOS does backups.

With reasonable ethical you indeed might want to look into the Fairphones. The Fairphone 6 was reviewed as being a nice improvement over the 5. I'd expect LineageOS to land on that device some time in the future, after all the prior three models are supported. You could wait for that, or settle for the 5.

If you want something cheap and easy instead of the Fairphone, the Motorola moto g 5G (2024) looks good. Supported by LineageOS 23.0 and also on the list of calyx devices, https://calyxos.org/docs/guide/device-support/#modern-device..., with vendor security updates till 2027 (though calyx is on pause, that's me only hoping the device list will still apply afterwards, would be an interesting additional option). Not available in my market though, or just hard to find with that name given the other similarly named motorola phones.

OnePlus 12R is one of the newest phones that is supported, and will get vendor updates until 2028. No headphone jack and no sd card slot though.

Ethical does not describe the OnePlus and Motorola phones. But anything used could be judged as such, since you then at least did not add to the garbage pile of unrepairable devices directly - but they are a bit new for that maybe. On the other hand, vendor security updates don't exist for many of the older devices (especially those from Motorola, they churn out new devices by the dozens and almost immediately abandon them), and the new EU regulations that force vendors to provide security updates only apply to new devices.

Yes, I run Waydroid (LineageOS in a Linux container) in an Ubuntu x86_64 VM on my home PC using their default installation method, plus libhoudini via https://github.com/casualsnek/waydroid_script to be able to run arm64-only apps, and waypipe the UI to my (Linux) phone that is connected to my home LAN via Wireguard.

I used to run Waydroid directly on the phone, but the phone has terrible specs and Waydroid had become frustrating in the last few months, when it updated its LineageOS image to a new Android version. It would frequently crash or pop up an infinite series of "app is not responding" dialog boxes, even though whatever app it was was responding just fine. With my new VM + waypipe setup, Waydroid launches in ~10s instead of ~3 minutes, and everything is reasonably snappy despite now traveling over the network, so I'm happy.

There is a guide on how to set up LineageOS for libvirt (i.e. QEMU) [1], but there exist no prebuilt images at this point in time.

[1] https://wiki.lineageos.org/libvirt-qemu

Waydroid runs Lineage, so it's certainly possible, but I don't know how easy it is on something like QEMU.

That being said buying a phone compatible with Lineage or Graphene (only Pixels for the latter) is well worth it. This will probably become even more important in the future if Google bans sideloading or complies with idiotic laws such client-side scanning of messages in some markets.

^^

If you look at EU and its inaction over Microsoft privacy shenanigans with Win10 and 11. How it spins around Apple and cannot enforce them to fully open their mobile operating system then I sadly have little hopes they can do anything regarding Google and their recent decisions around Play store and 3rd party apps.

I wish something could be done but sadly feels like regular people have to climb mountains to protect themselves while corporations just come in by front door with lucrative deals in order to protect their status-quo

At the risk of sounding knee-jerk libertarian (though there are worse ways to sound), it seems to me that top-down, big bloc regulation is a non-trivial piece of what has gotten into this mess.

The entrenchment via regulatory capture at the baseband level, with enormous state interplay with TSMC and Qualcomm (both economic and regulatory, both publicly known and classified), makes it impossible for a seriously independent actor to enter the market, exception _maybe_ an ubercapitalist like Musk or something.

I'm much more interested to see what happens when we achieve sufficient peace that industrial complexes are no longer the primary pillar of support for chip engineering and fabrication. I suspect that this will unlock the open development, up to the kernel and beyond, that we all hope for.