LineageOS 15.1 based on Android 8.1 Oreo Now official

Following the demise of the old popular Rom CyanogenMod at the end of 2016, its successor, LineageOS, came to be it has seen a meteoric rise in popularity over time. The LineageOS project grew to support over 180 smartphones reaching over 1.8 million users thanks to the help of 700+ contributors from different part of the world. Now, the team is ready to move on to its next big milestone: re-basing on Android 8.1 Oreo. After teasing us with some test Rom back in December, the team has announced that LineageOS 15.1 is ready.This news I believe will turn on many LineageOS Lovers

The most widely-installed custom ROM now offers all of the special features that Android 8.0 and Android 8.1 Oreo bring to the table. That means snoozing, picture-in-picture mode, support for the Autofill Framework, notification channels, better background app and service limitations for improved memory performance/battery, smart text selection, and much, much more. Not to mention, there are also all of the features that LineageOS offers on top such as Live Display, Privacy Guard and more.

With the introduction of LineageOS 15.1, the team also has another major announcement. They are officially introducing the Device Support Requirements Charter, a document which outlines all of the requirements that a build of LineageOS and its maintainer must meet in order for a build to be deemed “official.” This is a crucial step forward for the team as it clearly demonstrates the team’s commitment to quality. The document itself isn’t too long, but in general it ensures that an official build of LineageOS 15.1 supports all basic hardware as is possible as well as receives patches against all high profile security vulnerabilities.

Now, on to the actual devices that were announced to support LineageOS 15.1. Currently, the list isn’t that large in the first go-around, but given time more developers are likely to add to this list as they complete the device bring-up and meet the requirements laid out in the Device Support Requirements Charter. Specifically, we’re told that several devices are unable to receive LOS 15.1 due to a lack of support for a working HAL1 camera recorder, but they’re working on it. Also, though LOS 15.1 was announced today, the nightly builds won’t be ready until Monday when their build server starts making them.

List of Devices with Initial Official LineageOS 15.1 Support
Google Nexus 5X –
Google Nexus 6P –
LeEco Le Pro 3 –
OnePlus 3/3T –
OnePlus 5 –
OnePlus 5T –
Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 Wi-Fi (2016) –
Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 9.7 Wi-Fi (2016) –
Xiaomi Mi 5 –
Xiaomi Mi 5s –
Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus –

 

Instruction from LineageOS 15.1 Installation


Before you can install any of these builds, you will need to unlock the bootloader of your Android device and also flash a TWRP custom recovery.

As usual, The official LineageOS builds do not come with superuser binaries pre-installed.  Alternatively, you can install Magisk or SuperSU as well.

As for Google apps, they don’t also come pre-installed on LineageOS 15.1 builds. Open Gapps currently doesn’t offer Android 8.1 Gapps (specifically, the SetupWizard APK is still 8.0), so the team recommends you grab them from MindTheGapps right here.

Finally, before you go flashing any of these builds, it is always recommended that you make a backup of your apps and data. The most recommended way is to use an app such as Titanium Backup or a free alternative like oandbackup. Both apps require root access to function.

Now, to actually install the build, that depends on what you currently have installed.

If you are running an OFFICIAL build of LineageOS 14.1, then you can follow these steps without wiping data.

Download the update either from the links above or through the built-in updater app. If you download it from the updater app, you’ll need to use the “export” option in the menu to save the build to your internal storage.
Download the Gapps package and one of the superuser packages linked above.
Boot into recovery.
Format system partition.
Flash the LineageOS 15.1 build, and then the Gapps and superuser package.
Reboot.
If you are NOT running an official build of LineageOS 14.1 (ie. anything else), then you follow the same set of above instructions except that you must wipe data before flashing.

Hands On + Features
Interested in checking out what LineageOS 15.1 has to offer before installation? Check out Miles’ hands-on video over on our YouTube channel! Also be sure to check out our accompanying article which goes over nearly all of the features that LOS 15.1 has to offer! It even has screenshots for everything and a video to walk you through it!

A Note on Unofficial Builds
Just because your device is not one of the ones listed above doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy LineageOS! Since the project is open source, that means any independent developer can build a custom ROM based off of its source code. However, the quality can wildly vary, so don’t be surprised if you flash an unofficial build and some things break. On the other hand, some unofficial builds are fairly close to being stable and are perfectly acceptable to flash onto your device.

 

Support LineageOS
The developers who work on this do so in their spare time and without pay, so please consider supporting the project in whatever way you can. You can show them support by following them on all of their official social media channels listed or by donating to them

About Steven Perry

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5 Comments:

  1. this rom has one major bug, error 7 while flashing it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. LineageOS finally goes official. This is cool.
    Thanks for sharing

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lineage os, better than it was

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's a nice Rom! Thanks for sharing this info. Now it's now official.

    ReplyDelete

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