LineageOS 18.1 Official Release for Pro1

[ivoanjo 33]

30 minutes ago, Rob. S. said:

With LineageOS 17.1 and physical keyboard set to US Intl., I can use Sym + ' and then e to get é. Or Sym + " and then a to get ä. No root here.

Definitely not working for me on 18.1.

[claude0001 1,244]

As much as I enjoy the fact that LineageOS on the Pro1 seems to be alive and well, I am puzzled by the practice of removing previous major releases from the build systems as soon as a new version is made.

In November, LOS 16 stopped receiving upstream updates (in favour of 17.1) just a few months after I had installed and -- quite heavily -- configured it.

Now, 5 months (!) later, 17.1 disappeared from the build targets for the Pro1 at the very moment 18.1 came around the corner.

I understand that a community project may need to save computing ressources on the build farms. Still, people accustomed to "serious" operating systems can only be irritated by this ridiculously short obsolescence half-live.

Maybe I am just old. On (all of) my PCs, I professionally use Debian 8 ('jessie') almost 6 years after its release in 2015: It is still receiving security updates (and will continue to do so until mid-2022) although two major Debian releases have superseded it since ... As I consider my Pro1 a 'real' computer, designed for business tasks, I tend to compare it to such systems.

Of course, a lively community -- keen on bringing in the latest and greatest upstream features -- is nice, as it makes the OS attractive for switchers or those who enjoy living on the bleeding edge. But maybe there are more than just a few people (like myself) who would like to set-up their (Lineage) phones once-and-for-all and then just use (!) them for some time without needing to go through any major (and potentially disruptive) upgrades? Those would certainly profit if old versions were kept building (automatically) for some time. Doesn't need to be 7 years like for Debian, but maybe more than 5 months would be possible? 

Edit: Sorry for the rant. I very much like my LineageOS (16, still), please no one get me wrong.

Edited April 4, 2021 by claude0001

[FlyingAntero 817]

@claude0001

Once you switch to official Lineage OS release you can then upgrade using "dirty flash" without losing data. So you don't need to configure and set up everything again. Of course if you have done serious modifications with root etc. then dirty flash might not be possible.

Also, LOS 18.1 includes SeedVault backup option which is an alternative to Google solution.

• LineageOS adopts SeedVault as its open source backup solution
• https://calyxinstitute.org/projects/seedvault-encrypted-backup-for-android

Edited April 4, 2021 by FlyingAntero

[claude0001 1,244]

2 hours ago, FlyingAntero said:

Of course if you have done serious modifications with root etc. then dirty flash might not be possible.

That is, unfortunately, precisely my situation andd the reason why I am still using the last LOS 16 build ...

[Hook 2,834]

Okay, I know this is a little trivial, but has anyone figured out how to do screenshots in Lineage 18.1? There is a srceen shot button that appears in recents, but that only takes a shot of whatever recent is over it (so, for instance, you can't screenshot launcher since that never appears there).  It doesn't appear on the power menu and I can't find any way to add it.  There is also no quick tile for it. 

Am I missing something (I assume yes)? 😉

[Hook 2,834]

6 minutes ago, Hook said:

Okay, I know this is a little trivial, but has anyone figured out how to do screenshots in Lineage 18.1? There is a srceen shot button that appears in recents, but that only takes a shot of whatever recent is over it (so, for instance, you can't screenshot launcher since that never appears there).  It doesn't appear on the power menu and I can't find any way to add it.  There is also no quick tile for it. 

Am I missing something (I assume yes)? 😉

Never mind.  I found it with help on Discord.  Vol- + Power, quick click on both.  Kind of awkward in landscape. 😏

[__fastcall 97]

Flashed the first 18th version that was listed for download. Backuped everything, but didn't need to.

Flashed the 18th version, flashed MindTheGapps, flashed Magisk, done. Everything works as good as before. Went from 16 to 18.

The phone seems to respond quicker than before, or the animations give the impression that it does. I like the new theme.

[Boxeri 4]

On 4/2/2021 at 5:36 PM, Hook said:

Me either, but since Android Auto works perfectly, I can get everything I need that way.  But, yes, the BT in the car thing is frustrating.  It might make me switch back to deconvergence (using my Moto G8 as phone and Pro1 as PDA) if I ever take a long trip again.

I was really hoping for 18.1 to fix this. This is really super annoying and might make me to switch to other phone since I speak daily 1-2h with clients in my car. The on/off bluetooth trick during the call fixes this bug, but it doing it past 6-12 months is starting to really tire me out

[Rob. S. 1,617]

On 4/2/2021 at 3:32 PM, dreamflasher said:

Just tried a dirty flash from 17.1, but that resulted in a boot loop.

Interestingly enough, just flashing 18.1 over also updated the recovery – strange?

How did you resolve your bootloop?

[Hook 2,834]

Updated to lineage-18.1-20210405-nightly-pro1-signed.zip via adb sideload.  Everything went smoothly.  Still March 2021 security patch.

[EskeRahn 5,350]

Went from,

lineage-17.1-20210329-nightly-pro1-signed.zip on March 5 security patch installed using adb sideload and opengapps pico 20210327
to
lineage-18.1-20210405-nightly-pro1-signed.zip on March 5 security patch installed smoothly using adb sideload and MindTheGapps-11.0.0-arm64-20210328_143848

Note that it went (almost) smooth DESPITE the change from opengapps to mindthegapps 👍

(note there is a new  0405 18.1 build already)

(Edited below)

I have issues selecting anything but US hardware some build in layout for the keyboard though.
So currently the keyboard on 18.1 is pretty useless for the few billions in the world with languages not limited to A-Z... 😲 (some accents available with Alt though, e.g. Alt-n) some languages, French and German seems to works, so limited bugs, affected languages includes Spanish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and likely others.

In Custom keymap selecting "qwertZ" do change from shifted to unshifted, but still qwertY. So the key-layout is not totally frozen to US only

[Rob. S. 1,617]

45 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

In Custom keymap selecting "qwertZ" do change from shifted to unshifted, but still qwertY. So the key-layout is not totally frozen to US only

That would explain @ivoanjo's experience with 18.1. I'll be staying on 17.1 for a bit longer, then, I suppose. 

[ivoanjo 33]

Two more issues I found (still on April 1 version, will upgrade after I post this):

- The keyboard seems to be less responsive. Sometimes it seems to not register a keypress, or more often, register it twice. I've tried both with "fast poll" enabled and disabled. 

- My Samsung Gear 2 Fit Pro fitness band was having a lot of bluetooth connectivity issues, especially with a bluetooth headset connected at the same time. Enabling "Gabeldorsche" in the developer settings seems to fix it (and in general with Gabeldorsche, bluetooth seems to behave better than stock).

[Zamasu 258]

I'm still on LOS 16 because I was too lazy to manually update when it said I couldn't automatically update. Could I go from 16 straight to 18.1? I'd rather not lose data, but it's not critical.

[claude0001 1,244]

13 hours ago, EskeRahn said:

(note there is a new  0405 18.1 build already)

As I wrote above, 17.1 no longer has the Pro1 as build target, so there will be no more (official) updates for it. See https://www.lineageoslog.com/17.1/pro1

12 hours ago, Rob. S. said:

That would explain @ivoanjo's experience with 18.1. I'll be staying on 17.1 for a bit longer, then, I suppose. 

... and that is exactly why the older, stable versions should keep building, at least on monthly basis so they keep receiving the upstream security fixes in AOSP.

Every upgrade that changes APIs or other major parts of an OS is potentially disruptive for the already-installed base. That is why professional distributions keep their "stable" branches alive as long as upstream fixes can be picked-up with reasonable effort.  

Edited April 6, 2021 by claude0001

[Wheeljack 210]

15 hours ago, EskeRahn said:

In Custom keymap selecting "qwertZ" do change from shifted to unshifted, but still qwertY. So the key-layout is not totally frozen to US only

That's weird. I don't experience any problems with my German QWERTZ. I remember I had to set QWERTY to QWERTZ again after updating from LOS 16 to 17 (especially since the keyboard settings were now all moved to language settings). But this time the keyboard settings were preserved for me. Instead I had to reactivate the split desktop function again, since longpress square was set to none.

[EskeRahn 5,350]

1 hour ago, Wheeljack said:

That's weird. ....

How odd, I will try to remove some of the things that might influence such as swiftkey,
I do not personally use qwertZ, nor do the unit I use for Lineage have an unshifted keyboard. so it was just for test I tried to see if I could Germanise it.

[EskeRahn 5,350]

6 hours ago, claude0001 said:

As I wrote above, 17.1 no longer has the Pro1 as build target, so there will be no more (official) updates for it. See https://www.lineageoslog.com/17.1/pro1

My point was that the keyboard is no longer really usable with 18.1 it worked (with a few quirks) with 17.1.
BUT exactly as they no longer support 17.1 I guess we could expect some of the fixes from 17.1 transferred over to 18.1

[Hook 2,834]

On 4/2/2021 at 10:36 AM, Hook said:

Me either, but since Android Auto works perfectly, I can get everything I need that way.  But, yes, the BT in the car thing is frustrating.  It might make me switch back to deconvergence (using my Moto G8 as phone and Pro1 as PDA) if I ever take a long trip again.

Actually, I've gone ahead and deconverged.  I didn't realize Android Auto depended on the BT for phone stuff and it will not send the phone to speakers and microphone in the car no matter what somersaults I do with the Pro1, Lineage, or the car's dashboard software.  It's just a deal breaker. So I will use my Moto G8 Power as a phone and in my car and use the Pro1 for everything else.  It's an arrangement I had already been doing when I couldn't get Verizon working in Lineage on the Pro1, so I'm already used to it and the functional split is very clear and useful.  I am planning to get the Pro1 it's own non-Verizon sim so it can have data away from home without being dependent on the G8 as a hotspot.

So, Verizon works fine on Lineage 18.1, but BT doesn't work with the car. Android Auto works, except where it depends on BT (is fine using the phone's data for maps and such).

 

Edited April 6, 2021 by Hook

[DieBruine 397]

This morning I decided to update (from within the OS) to 0405 so I could test BT for Hook. Bad idea, my phone won't boot (tries and then goes to recovery). I am now sideloading 0504 to slot a after flashing recovery.
10 minutes later it still keeps on showing the LoS animation. Now trying slot b.

I updated from within LoS. And everything went sour.

Sideload 0504 to both slots didn't help. I keep getting corrupt data.
Sideload 0104 to botth slots same shit.

This is !$#(!#$*!)#)(@)(#$**@(#(!). Factory reset it is then...

It's alive!!!

I reflashed the 0104 recovery. Then sideloaded slot a OS and slot b NikGapps. And now it's up.

Edited April 7, 2021 by DieBruine

[EskeRahn 5,350]

20 minutes ago, DieBruine said:

This morning I decided to update (from within the OS) to 0405 so I could test BT for Hook. Bad idea, my phone won't boot (tries and then goes to recovery). I am now sideloading 0504 to slot a after flashing recovery.

Just to be sure, did you rememeber to flash BOTH lineage AND (reflash) any gapps package you are using on the upgrade?

[EskeRahn 5,350]

(edited my post above, Some language-layouts are OK others not)

[Slion 1,200]

Was contemplating trying out LOS. Came here to see what was going on:

• Keyboard issues for international layouts.
• Bluetooth issues.
• Bricked device.
• Vanishing builds from servers.

Mmmh, me think I'm going to stick to stock a while longer 😁
It looks like the LOS team is just pumping out builds with no dev actually caring and using them. I'm assuming @tdmis still MIA, right?

[claude0001 1,244]

3 hours ago, Slion said:

It looks like the LOS team is just pumping out builds with no dev actually caring and using them.

Let me try to rephrase that in a more optimistic way: They are very enthusiastic about porting the latest-and-greatest release to the Pro1. 🙂

The real problem is that, as soon as a new release (here 18.1) is declared "official", the previous one (17.1) stops receiving upstream patches. De-facto, releases are dropped from support at the very moment they have matured ...

Effectively, users have only this choice: 

1.  Either stay on an older, stable, and nicely de-bugged LOS port that does however no longer receive upstream AOSP fixes.    
2.  Or change horses every few months by dirty-flashing to the next major release. This way one has the latest Android security patches at the cost of running an OS that is never feature-stable, plus the hazards related to dirty flashing ...

Yes, this is insane. But seemingly it is LineageOS policy that each device is allowed only one "active" LOS version.

For sure, I am happy to have a local copy of the last build of @tdm's LineageOS 16 ...

Edited April 7, 2021 by claude0001

[_DW_ 628]

59 minutes ago, claude0001 said:

Let me try to rephrase that in a more optimistic way: They are very enthusiastic about porting the latest-and-greatest release to the Pro1. 🙂

The real problem is that, as soon as a new release (here 18.1) is declared "official", the previous one (17.1) stops receiving upstream patches. De-facto, releases are dropped from support at the very moment they have matured ...

Effectively, users have only this choice: 

1.  Either stay on an older, stable, and nicely de-bugged LOS port that does however no longer receive upstream AOSP fixes.    
2.  Or change horses every few months by dirty-flashing to the next major release. This way one has the latest Android security patches at the cost of running an OS that is never feature-stable, plus the hazards related to dirty flashing ...

Yes, this is insane. But seemingly it is LineageOS policy that each device is allowed only one "active" LOS version.

For sure, I am happy to have a local copy of the last build of @tdm's LineageOS 16 ...

Yeah I am also running 16.1 that tdm created.  I'm sticking with that for now don't see a reason to update to the latest one.