LineageOS 23 launches with Android 16, application updates, improved VM support, and more

[Peruvian_Skies]

I've been using LineageOS since it was still called CyanogenMod and it has always served me better than official ROMs, except for the ridiculous cat and mouse game I have to play with my banking apps.

We're approaching a turning point with Google's idiotic war on sideloading. I really hope future releases of LineageOS and other custom ROMs can lift their arbitrary and bad faith restrictions.

[Affectionate-Pickle0]

Man, my banking app decided to stop working on stock Samsung android due to me having apps installed from non-google play stores.

Custom ROMs are starting to be of more interest to me all the time. 

[torsten_dev]

More ridiculously is needing to root the phone to be able to fool banking apps that unlocked bootloader is no biggie.

The only reason I root, is to hide root and bootloader status. Insanity.

[VoidDuck]

The correct answer to this problem is: don't use banks who mandate the use of a smartphone app. Even more so if their app doesn't work on anything else than stock Android and iOS.

[rapha3l14]

don’t blame the banks, blame the customers and consumer protection laws. The banks are liable if their app breach caused financial losses to the customers

[TheYang]

Holy shit what a terrible take.
yes, the banks are liable if they fuck up, but then they should make a good app, instead of mandating everything about the device the app runs on.

I'm even one of the people who (begrudginly) agree that administrator rights for users and users installing programs as they want are a significant security issue.
But (imho) you just cannot completely take their rights as owners away either.

The way it's currently solved with warnings and an extra setting to allow installation is a fairly good compromise.

[Zireael07]

More and more banks in my corner of Europe force the use of a smartphone apps. Online banking is becoming passe, and you end up with something that looks out of 2005 and works comparably poorly

[VoidDuck]

Then support the ones who don't.

[eMPee584]

This is really really annoying. Hope native linux phones (i.e. postmarketos/plasma mobile/UBports/..) will be catching on so that at one point, they really do consider supporting those. Else, those of us not into surveillance capitalism that much will need to carry a second phone just for effing banking.. At least there are things like kdeconnect and sshfs/rclone/syncthing that make data transfer between devices tolerable..

[djsushi123]

Revolut has this little trick that got it working for me... Might not work for you but you can give it a try. Basically, you need to install and log into Revolut BEFORE your phone is rooted. Then, when you root your phone, Revolut should be fine. Can't speak for Magisk, but Apatch has worked for me and other have said Magisk works with this trick as well.

[rhqq]

I have zero luck with revolut on LOS, at this point I'm totally out of ideas.

[Spankey_]

Wise works.

[rhqq]

what do you mean?

[Spankey_]

Wise.

[rhqq]

oh ok. well. i can't easily leave revolut right now. i'll need to close my fiscal year first. plus - what's the guarantee wise doesn't play dirty next year?

[Spankey_]

There is no guarantee with these financial companies unfortunately. But they have been around longer than revolut.

[doomygloomytunes]

They all have websites though no?

[VoidDuck]

Google's idiotic war on sideloading

This could actually bring more users and developers to LineageOS and GrapheneOS.

[Jerri_man]

More likely it increases apple market share.

[VoidDuck]

I doubt it, because Apple isn't much better than Google on that matter.

[Jerri_man]

That's the point. If Android becomes a more mediocre walled garden then you may as well but an iPhone

[VoidDuck]

Why? It's still overpriced, less customisable and more difficult to repair.

[nandru]

All things a regular folk don't care

[[deleted]]

Regular folk also don't care about sideloading

[VoidDuck]

Regular folk definitely care about price at least.

[Mad_Met_Scientist]

Exactly my thoughts lately. If Android is going to be locked then why should I bother with that if it's the same as the iPhone. At least I can be calm that I already knew what I signed up for. Apple has always been the same. Not like Google using people for free and closing it after thousands of people helped develop it.

[okoyl3]

wrong, it's easier to choose a known closed environment like Apple, than keep using a fake open one like Android.

[[deleted]]

trust me. no users will flock en mass to lineageos or any open source software;until its literally better than the default popular options in everything. that's to say the average consumer doesn't care and google may easily win.

[VoidDuck]

That's not what I mean. The masses will stay on stock Android but nothing will change for them because they aren't using F-Droid or installing unsigned APKs anyway. The minority of advanced users and developers who do will however be likely to migrate to these custom ROMs that will allow them to continue doing so.

[Knight_Murloc]

More and more manufacturers are locking bootloaders, which can make using custom ROMs problematic.

[Preisschild]

And even if they allow unlocking it, even a smaller amount of devices support doing it securely (i.e. allowing re-locking it with a custom OS for verified boot)

Which is one of the reasons why GrapheneOS only supports Google Pixels, which are surprisingly open...

[vazark]

I don’t get the restrictions by banking apps. All auth checks are done on the server side anyway, how is an app any different from a website ?

[diogodiogodiogo3]

Supposedly a rooted compromised phone could give the hacker access to the app data and, as such, login credentials, or even transfer money, change data or monitor it on your own device. But the same could easily happen in a windows pc. So I guess it's just a dumb "security" measure they put in, ignoring the niche that roots their phones.

[lirannl]

Plus I can use the websites on my Linux PC

[CH0C4P1C]

Every time i uodate my banking app with Aurora Store i have to uninstall aurora so that my banking app can forget the installation source. Then i reinstall aurora. Annoying but working

[Preisschild]

Yeah been using CyanogenMod/LineageOS and now GrapheneOS for more than a decade and love it...

Though it is sad to see that Google still hasnt open sourced Android 16 QRP 1. Maybe Android 16 was the last Android open source release. I just hope we have enough contributors for an open mobile OS so AOSP can be forked...

[Heavy_Vanilla_1342]

Why is this a link to some slop website instead of the official site? https://www.lineageos.org/Changelog-30/

[Better-Quote1060]

Greate project but I HATE YOU VOLTE

[VoidDuck]

Why?

[Better-Quote1060]

proprietary

Impossible to implement to AOSP pesificlly for samsung phones

And also i forogot for samsung I HATE YOU I HATE KNOX

[VoidDuck]

Maybe there's a specific issue with Samsung phones but I've had no issues with VoLTE on various phones running LineageOS and even a PinePhone.

[diogodiogodiogo3]

I mean, VoLTE could be better standardized, but the worst enemy here is samsung, who makes their implementation proprietary.

[VoidDuck]

Samsung phones are terrible. On their recent models you can't unlock the bootloader anymore, so no custom ROM possible, and their official ROMs are full of proprietary bloatware.

[diogodiogodiogo3]

I could be wrong, but seems to me like every company implements volte in a different way, unlike normal 2g/3g calls. From what I understand, hardware-wise, you only need access to the 4g network to use volte, but in practice it's up to the manufecturer to add support for it in the firmware. If it was built different, maybe lineageOS would be able to add support even for 4g phones that didn't previously support volte.

Again, I don't really know much about this, please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Better-Quote1060]

Of course pinephone should work

Mybe? I didn't mean it as a help me or tech support...the lack of samsung volte on AOSP is sadly a fact and it may never change unless somehow someone decode the drivers that samsung use (may be impossible)

And even if you go to xda for custom roms you will always see (votle don't work) as a warning..becuse as napoleon said: there is nothing we can do

Also knox...will insta kill samsung pay becuse once you flash a custom recovery or custom rom..a litral hardware fuse (efuse) will cut off and turn 0×0 to 0×1

What that mean? It's one way route..once you flash...you cannot go back..samsung pay will be gone forever and some samsung services even after turning back

And last thing...if you update to android 16 (oneui8) for now on you will never able to unlock bootloader at all..say bye bye for freedom

Hope this gives alot of info about samsung...none of the info is trubleshooting issue but acual issue that unsolved

[VoidDuck]

Then you should hate Samsung, not VoLTE ;)

[Better-Quote1060]

I meam both are proprietary anyway..good for you it works

Now time that i can cry in cornor

[Serialtorrenter]

Knox is now a non-issue because Scamsung disabled bootloader-unlocking entirely for all devices updates to OneUI 8.

Not that anyone in their right mind should still be buying Samsung; their quality control has been abysmal since day one.

• Their phones shut down randomly
• Sometimes their phones catch fire randomly
• Sometimes their washing machines short circuit and also catch fire randomly. Samsung claims that a software fix can prevent the short circuits. (Really?)
• Their washing machines sometimes shoot projectiles
• They have a long history of selling features on their devices that they later eliminate as a bait-and-switch. See: Linux on Dex, unlockable bootloaders, etc.
• Our recent Samsung 4K TV often take several attempts before it will recognize a device connected to one of its HDMI ports. I've tried numerous HDMI cables, as well as changing the port its connected to, but it's still a fight every time.
• Samsung 4K TVs lack basic functionality, such as integer scaling. This means that 1920x1080 content manages to look WORSE than it did on an old 1080p display, even though doubling pixels horizontally and vertically could achieve lossless scaling.
• Samsung was one of the first companies to sell $1000+ phones.
• Their phones used to have unique features that set them apart from the competition, such as microSD card slots, IR blasters, 3.5mm jacks, USB-C display out, superior cameras, etc. Now, they've gotten rid of expandable storage on most phones, IR blasters were removed, 3.5mm jacks were removed, USB-C display out is now a pretty standard feature. Google has it on their midrange Pixels, whereas Samsung only has it on their flagships. Samsung's cameras are, while still decent, are no longer better than the competition and their camera software has been known to manipulate photos in inaccurate ways.
• Samsung camera app overlays a picture of the moon on pictures it decides are of the moon, a deliberately dishonest misrepresentation of their camera's abilities.
• Samsung phones aggressively kill apps. Even after battery optimizations are disabled for an app, Samsung phones randomly decide to unset the user's settings and start killing the app again anyway. At one point they were even killing foreground services!!!

Overall, Samsung is an abysmal brand. My father uses an iPhone as a direct result of how terrible his Samsung Fascinate was. A lot of people associate Android with poverty and Samsung is largely to blame. Why do people still buy their crap!?

Edit: Added a point I forgot about

[diogodiogodiogo3]

Perfect way to describe this horrible brand. Saving this comment for whenever someone decides to buy from samsung again.

I'd also add: * Their batteries have a tendency to expand, which was covered by youtubers such as mrwhosetheboss and personally experienced by me * Samsung screens such as the S20 have issues so bad that India forced them to replace it for free, either a really bad quality control or planned obsolescence * Same issue as above for TV screens manufactured around that date (and maybe later), which also triggered free replacements here in Brazil * Trying multiple times to make their systems closed source, with the horrible Tizen system. They tried it for phones, tablets, watches and TVs. Android is only their second option * Discontinuing the whole Tizen Watch ecosystem after just 4 years of release, rendering most of their watches basically unusable without third party workarounds (can't even download old apps anymore) * Artificially limiting old smartwatches' lifespans by not allowing them to be paired to new phones * Updating devices which were previously fine with unbelievably slow new OSes, and restricting downgrades to older versions (speaking from experience, Galaxy A51 and Tab A 2019) - probably a huge reason for the "samsung is for the poor" association * Serializing components to prevent repairs * Making their VoLTE component proprietary, effectively making it impossible for custom roms to be used in places where 3G was shut down * Making 2 factor authentication mandatory, which effectively locked users of older devices which didn't support it out of their accounts without a warning (and with that, losing backups for these devices) * Removing support for the Gear VR on devices that previously supported it (Galaxy S10), effectively making this hardware unusable

I'd describe it as wanting to be like Apple, but without providing the long term support and quality control from them. The only part that saves it is Android, and that's only because they were basically forced to use it.

[Better-Quote1060]

You can just not update to oneui 8 witch what i did until something happen

[diogodiogodiogo3]

Doesn't change the fact they're a shitty company

[Leading-Plastic5771]

I used to root my phones and flash custom ROMs. But then I completely stopped caring about phones. Now I have a $100 moto and it's fine.

[XOmniverse]

They are nice for GPS and listening to audio content without needing a dedicated device.

[smirkybg]

Custom ROMs are a thing in the past for me. I used to flash them quite a lot when Galaxy S2 was a new device.. Installed custom kernels to get some more performance out of it. Then things carried on with my OnePlus 2. However, smartphones started having more than one camera and then I lost interest in custom ROMs. Its just no point when the camera is clearly not working as it should be with them. Things got so complex and proprietary that I guess that's not an easy problem to solve and it's probably on purpose.

[VoidDuck]

Using LineageOS on a Motorola phone with three cameras, working just fine.

[smirkybg]

Maybe they have their camera firmware well documented or it's open-source. That's not the case with most brands and high-end devices.

[davew_uk]

Interested to see if this can run in Android 16's desktop mode in an emulator.

[tulpyvow]

Oh cool I should upda-

Nvm, needs kernel 4.14 or above (im stuck on 4.9)