Lineage OS, a continuation of the CyanogenMod, has recently announced official builds to be offered for more than 80 devices.
CyanogenMod was a highly in demand custom ROM offering builds for several manufacturers’ devices. However, the company, Cyanogen Inc., broke up and withdrew support for the CyanogenMod. The Lineage OS has been formed as a continuation of the CyanogenMod project.
Official Builds Announced
The Lineage OS will now be offering its official builds in case of more than 80 devices, according to the latest blog post on its site. The builds will be offered for devices that are compatible with Marshmallow OS and Nougat OS of Google. This means that the builds are being offered for devices receiving the official builds of CM13 and the CM14.1. The builds will begin by the end of this week. The build will be released each week and it will be signed with private keys to authenticate and control it.
What’s Different?
Lineage OS will be a little different from CyanogenMod, as the former will offer the ability to root as a default feature. In case of those wanting root, the project will offer a flashable zip that can root it, with the user only having to flash it a single time. However, for those who compile the ROM by themselves, they can use the switch for including the root.
Switching ROMs Made Easy
With the new Lineage OS, it is easier to switch the ROM. In earlier cases, a lot of the application data or the settings could be lost while switching the ROM. Lineage OS is planning on offering migration builds on an experimental basis. These will be offered along with the weekly release. The newly released builds offer the ability to be flashed over the CN 13 or the CM 14.1 that is present, so that the user data is preserved in tact. When the data migration builds are running, it is possible to switch to the normal Lineage OS build.
Weekly Build
Lineage OS has offered updates for their status regarding the official builds along with the Android versions and devices that will be supported, plus a lot more. The content may not be much, but the download portal and the install statistics page along with the wiki for the Lineage OS are all live now. The cycle will be on a weekly basis. This is unlike the previous CyanogenMod, where the new builds were released on a daily basis. The Lineage OS will only offer builds from its servers on a weekly basis, for all the supported devices.
Experimental
In addition to the regular weekly build, there will also be an experimental build allowing users to upgrade from CyanogenMod. The migration builds can be very useful, as it is not necessary to setup things all over again. However, some people would prefer to start a custom ROM from scratch.
The use of the word ‘experimental’ in this case has been done so that uses might be aware that the migration of the date might not take place effectively. It is also possible that the user may have to wipe the slate clean in order to install the new Lineage OS.