There is no dearth of custom ROM choices in the aftermarket development scene, but if there’s one that we could consider to be “the biggest” of them all, then that would be LineageOS. There are so many reasons why the LineageOS project is loved by the community, and it's not just for all the features that the custom ROM offers on top of vanilla AOSP. Thanks to the Device Support Requirements Charter, if you choose to flash an official build of LineageOS on a supported device, you can be rest assured that your device will be running stable software that is also kept up to date against serious security vulnerabilities — often well beyond the end of official manufacturer support. Now, the team is ready to move on to its next big milestone: LineageOS 18.1 is finally here with Android 11 as the base, as Nolen Johnson (npjohnson) announces in the official blogpost.

LineageOS XDA Forums

Why Lineage 18.1 and not 18.0?

As is the norm, with a major version number change comes a big platform update. While rebasing of the LineageOS codebase atop Android 11's source code does justify the "18" part, the subversion change involves something else. Instead of bumping up the minor version number, Google continues the tradition of rolling out big feature updates for new Android versions via "Pixel Feature Drop". Hence, the LineageOS team has decided to jump up on the subversion, going from 18.0 to 18.1.

New features in LineageOS 18.1

LineageOS 18.1 comes with several new features and enhancements:

• Security patches from April 2020 to March 2021 have been merged to LineageOS 15.1 through 18.1.
  • 18.1 builds are currently based on the android-11.0.0_r32 tag, which is the Pixel series unifiedtag.
• Wi-Fi display is available for newer Qualcomm devices, on a device-by-device basis.
• WebView has been updated to Chromium 89.0.4389.105.
• The Recorder app has been vastly improved in more ways than can be counted, go leave yourself a voice-memo so you don't forget that great idea!
  • Screen recording has been moved to a QS tile to match AOSP's behavior.
  • The user interface has been revamped and there's also now a UI for easily viewing, managing, and sharing your voice notes.
  • It's now possible to choose the quality of your audio recordings to save space.
  • It's now possible to pause and resume recordings.
• The FOSS Etar app has been forked, improved, and shipped in place of the stagnant and largelyunmaintained AOSP calendar.
• The Calyx institute's FOSS Seedvault application has been included as a built-in backup solution.
  • To use it, navigate to Settings -> System -> Backup, and "Change backup provider" to Seedvault. You can then click "Seedvault Backup" to configure, schedule, and encrypt backups!
  • Backups created with Seedvault can be uploaded on your Nextcloud instance, an external USB drive or kept on your local storage.
• There is now an option on non-A/B devices to update the recovery image alongside the OS, just as the stock OS would!
  • To use this, either enable the option during the initial device setup, or navigate to Settings -> System -> (Show More) Updater -> Three Dot Menu in the top right -> and check "Update recovery alongside OS".
• The music app, Eleven now has a more up-to-date UI and integrates nicely with all the new androidfeatures for music players such as seeking from the notification.
• All LineageOS apps now have support for dark mode.

Apart from the improvements mentioned above, the following changes have also been incorporated in the LineageOS 18.1 and 17.1 codebase:

• LineageOS recovery now has a new, colorful, and fun UI that is much more accessible.
• The firewall can block all connections now by making apps think that the device is in airplane mode.
• The team has introduced a new expandable volume dialog UI.
• The partial screenshots have had multiple feature additions, and ties in with AOSP's new "instant screenshot" feature.
• Trebuchet now supports icon packs.
• ADB root was reworked to ensure compatibility with other 3rd party root solutions.

Additional changes

Sensitive phone numbers

LineageOS now offers a helpline contact list, which can be accessed at the 3-dot menu in the stock dialer app. All the numbers in the list are considered as "sensitive", which means they are automatically hidden from the call log. The list of country-specific sensitive numbers is available on GitHub, and everyone who wants to help by adding new numbers can submit the changes through Gerrit.

Addon.d-v3

The addon.d module now supports additional system partitions, including /vendor, /product, and /system_ext. This change was done to streamline all backup and restore operations in these partitions.

LineageOS 18.1 – Official builds for supported devices

Now, on to the actual devices that were announced to support LineageOS 18.1. The first batch is already quite large, and given time, more developers are likely to expand the list as they complete the device bring-up and meet the requirements laid out in the Device Support Requirements Charter. Note that not all of the builds may be live at the time this article was first published, so check back to see if a build is available for your device.

Generic Targets

With the introduction of LineageOS 18.1, the team also has another major announcement. Android Virtual Device (AVD), i.e. the default emulator environment provided by Android Studio, is now an officially supported build target. It is also possible to build GSI's in both mobile and Android TV configurations using these targets, although the official download portal isn't going to host any such pre-compiled builds. Nonetheless, this is a crucial step forward for the project as it clearly demonstrates the team’s commitment to popularize the custom ROM bringup exercise.

What if my device is not listed here?

Just because your device isn’t listed here does not mean that you can’t get to enjoy LineageOS 18.1 by now. Because of its open source nature, there are a number of unofficial builds for many devices on our forums, many of which will eventually end up becoming official builds as development progresses. What’s more: most of them are, by now, perfectly stable as daily drivers, with the occasional minor quirk.

If you want to dive right in, check out this index and look for unofficial Android 11-based LineageOS 18.1 builds for your device. If, however, you’re afraid of something going wrong, then it’s wise to wait for official builds to arrive.

How to upgrade to LineageOS 18.1

If you’re not familiar with the process behind installing custom ROMs or, in general, modifying your phone, you’ll first need to unlock the bootloader of your device and install an updated custom recovery, such as LineageOS Recovery or TWRP, before attempting to do anything. Then, once LineageOS 18.1 builds become available for your device, you’ll need to install them through the custom recovery environment. Device-specific instructions may vary, so do check out the corresponding wiki page beforehand.

As for Google apps, they don’t come pre-installed on LineageOS 18.1 builds. The Open Gapps project has yet to offer Android 11 Gapps, so the team recommends you grab the MindTheGapps package instead.

New LineageOS 17.1 devices and retirement of LineageOS 16.0

While maintainers work towards bringing up devices to official LineageOS 18.1, you can still find automated weekly builds for a bunch of devices that are still supported under LineageOS 17.1 based on Android 10. Several devices have received official support for LineageOS 17.1 so far, while smartphones like the Redmi Note 7 regained its official status after being dropped out for a while. If you’re interested in trying the custom ROM on any of these devices, you can now download the recovery flashable package by clicking on “Get the builds here” on their respective Wiki pages (linked below).

With the release of official Android 11-based builds, the LineageOS 16.0 build role is being officially discontinued. In fact, official 16.0 builds based on Android 9 Pie are no longer be published since February 15, 2021. However, the existing 16.0 branches will remain open for contributions like security patches, and developers will still be able to build new, unofficial 16.0 builds. In case you’re no stranger to custom ROM development and you would like to submit one of these devices for official support, you can follow the instructions present over here.

The complete list of devices that are being discontinued during this transition phase can be found below:

Support LineageOS

LineageOS is a community-built project made by several developers who work in their free time and doesn’t depend on a business model of any kind. If you want to support the development team, you can donate to them on PayPal which will help with server costs. You should also follow them on Twitter or on their official subreddit if you want to see the latest news or converse with some of the maintainers. For submitting bug reports, see here. If you want to help the team translate the custom ROM into your language, you can do so by following the instructions here.

Follow LineageOS on Social Media

• Follow on Reddit
• Follow on Twitter

Donate to LineageOS

• Donate to LineageOS via PayPal

Featured image credits: Asher Simons (vazguard)