LineageOS 18.1 Official Release for Pro1

[Rob. S. 1,660]

On 4/5/2021 at 11:06 PM, EskeRahn said:

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

Does 18.1 (using US or US Intl layout) let you select special characters on the screen on long-press of a character, like à á ä etc. when long-pressing 'a', like 17.1 used to? That never seemed to worked on web pages, but it would be better than nothing.

Did you have to somehow remove OpenGapps or something before flashing MindTheGapps?

 

[daniel.schaaaf 177]

On 4/6/2021 at 10:21 AM, claude0001 said:

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.  

It doesn't stop at "potentially disruptive", Google makes Android safer and more secure with every new version. Unfortunately they also make Android more restrictive for power-users and they gradually "encourage" users to stay away from SD-cards. At the same time, Android 11 doesn't look or feel much different from Android 4. At least not when you are used to tweaking the OS with GravityBox and custom launchers.

I f-ing hate that everything is being developed in a haste. There is no time to settle on anything stable and work out the kinks. There has to be a brand new product on the marked every year. With a shiny new coat of paint ... and still plagued by the same old bugs and issues. Well, this is the way it is ... everyone has to make a huge!!! profit and grow exponentially, otherwise the world would end ...

Edited April 10, 2021 by daniel.schaaaf

[ivoanjo 33]

4 hours ago, Rob. S. said:

Does 18.1 (using US or US Intl layout) let you select special characters on the screen on long-press of a character, like à á ä etc. when long-pressing 'a', like 17.1 used to? That never seemed to worked on web pages, but it would be better than nothing

It does not (at least not for me).

[Hook 3,016]

5 hours ago, dreamflasher said:

If I from now on only do the sideload thing, do I also need to take special care of Magisk?

Or maybe the problem was just buggy 18.1?

Not sure what you mean by "special care," Updating via sideload is:

1. Boot to recovery

2. Adb sideload (name of nightly update zip)

3. Reboot to recovery (this changes the slot to the slot where the new update was installed)

4. adb sideload current Magisk zip (no need to reboot to recovery after this step)

5. adb sideload Gapps package zip.

6. System reboot.

 

I have no idea if steps 4 and 5 are necessary if you are just updating, but they take little time and they can;t hurt, so I do them.  None of this disturbs your user data pr anything you already have set up.

 

This is what I do anyway and have never had a problem.  I also, though, for new major versions, install a new boot image and do a factory reset (clean install), but many people seem to do fine with a dirty install.  I don't like dirty installs of major versions because the first trouble shooting step is to do a clean install.  😄

[claude0001 1,340]

11 hours ago, daniel.schaaaf said:

Google makes Android safer and more secure with every new version. Unfortunately they also make Android more restrictive for power-users and they gradually "encourage" users to stay away from SD-cards.

I could not agree more. What you describe is the reason I am staying on LOS 16. I have plenty of hacks in place, where I cannot predict whether they would still work on LOS 18.1 (or 17.1, for what matters).

• I use several autostart scripts in /data/local/userinit.d/ for setting up stuff on boot automatically. Those scripts are officially unsupported already in LOS 16, but can be made to work using some third-party apps. Will those still work with LOS 18.1?
• Obviously, all of those autorun scripts require root access. Will those early-executed shell scripts work with (third-party) Magisk the same way they work with the (native) AddonSU of LOS 16?
• I run a GNU/Linux (Devuan) in parallel to LineageOS in a chroot. As Devuan relies on the host OS for all kinds of stuff (network, powermanagement, ...) it uses Lineage's SSH-server (which I also start in via userinit.d on boot) to talk do it (e.g. query DNS servers, request wakelocks, ...). Does SSHD work in LOS 18.1 again the way it did on LOS 16, after there had been a few issues on 17.1? 
• I use two partitions on my SD-card: One for normal data storage, and one containing my Devuan Chroot FS. As the data partition is shared with the GNU/Linux system and needs to preserve UNIX access rights, something like FAT is no option as file system, so I went for ext4. No problem for Devuan. But Android Apps could not write to that file system for a long time: Android security stands in the way. After quite some research, I found that, in LOS 16, I can work around this by disabling SELinux and remounting one of the many cryptic Android mount-points of the SD partition with "mask=0":

  #!/system/bin/sh
  #
  # Disable SELinux, it prevents write access to our EXT4-formatted SD-Card
  # partition.
  #
  /vendor/bin/setenforce 0
  #
  # Re-mount data partition of external SD-card read-writable by all apps
  #
  mount -o remount,mask=0 /mnt/runtime/write/24a37a95-5429-4d2f-b98d-27fccea25e17

  Now, who can tell me if this will still work on LOS 18.1? No one here, I guess. Probably not even the devs themselves ...
• For my Devuan system partition, things are even more mysterious. At the beginning of my Chroot-init-script, I mount the Devuan partition like this:

  # Mount the system partition containing Debian
  # It turns out this should be an ext3 fs (not ext4) for things to
  # work smoothly ...
  mount -o bind /mnt/media_rw/88f89540-879a-4309-9776-bf276aaac733 /data/DEBIAN
  #
  # Make it a real root directory
  mount -o remount,exec,dev,suid /data/DEBIAN
  [...]

  Nothing special, eh? Well (as noted in the script) it turns out Devuan starts successfully only if its SD partition is formatted as ext3. ext4 will not work. No idea why, nothing to find on the Internet. I can only guess that, again, Android's handling of the SD card gets in the way with ext4, while an ext3 FS (obviously supported by the kernel, but maybe considered "obsolete" at some higher level of Android) is somehow ignored, allowing the partition to be fully taken over by Devuan.
  Yes, that is a bloody hack! I found it to work, but do not understand it even to the slightest degree. How can I predict it will still work with LOS 18.1? Not at all!

The list is not complete, but I think one can see my point: That people tell me they have been able to dirty-flash the living daylights out of their phones, and that their Android Apps were mostly happy afterwards, does not help me one bit. I spent a lot of time setting up a system on the edge of what LOS 16 can do, using features that may be partly undocumented and that seemingly very few others use (or no one else?). I am completely unsure if any of these solutions would still work if I switched to another major release.

The only way to know would be to try. But as the Pro1 is my only phone and I use it productively, I cannot realistically take that risk. At least not every few months when Lineage decide to abandon yet another major release.

To be productive with my Pro1, I have to rely on my OS to be stable. The Debian meaning of stability that is: Never change a running system. Patch it with security fixes, yes. But never change its behaviour, never break any interfaces!

Sorry for the outburst. Not even 10 months in the Android world and I already start to feel tired of fighting ... 🙂

Edited April 11, 2021 by claude0001

[Rob. S. 1,660]

@claude0001 I guess I have an – if only faint – idea of what you're doing there... And, sure, if that were what I'd need in a phone to be able to use it productively for what I do, I might even try something like it myself. I just wouldn't get my expectations up as to its working in a stable way for a longer period of time. Neither would I rely on such a massively tweaked system as my single phone...

Incidentally, after three to four years in productive use, right now I have to upgrade two Linux servers the OS versions of which stop being maintained. Even though it's a fairly normal thing that happens every few years, I wouldn't attempt it without trying it first on an experimental machine... And if I wouldn't have one, that would be nobody's fault but mine...

[claude0001 1,340]

1 hour ago, Rob. S. said:

I just wouldn't get my expectations up as to its working in a stable way for a longer period of time.

Why not? No OTA update of LineageOS 16 (and I did apply all of them) ever broke that set-up. Why should it?

After all, what I do there is not black magic. I make use of system interfaces that are, explicitly or implicitly, defined to behave in a certain way. As long as the Kernel, Android features, or root management did not change, I could be fairly certain no upstream security fix would break anything.

I had simply expected LOS 16 to continue to receive security patches as long as upstream Android 9 does. That it didn't is disappointing and, yes, unprofessional.

As you confirm, in every computer system, major upgrades are something that needs to be very well planned or tested before taken to production. That's why I (like many) want to go through that process only every few years. Not every few months.

Finally: All of these are honest questions about LOS 18.1. Where if not in this thread could I expect to get answers?

Edited April 11, 2021 by claude0001

[EskeRahn 5,459]

26 minutes ago, claude0001 said:

Finally: All of these are honest questions about LOS 18.1. Where if not in this thread could I expect to get answers?

As I saw it the point was that was that results are really hard to predict on any system, if you go to the 'edges', Most likely it is much easier to simply try it out, and fiddle until it works. So that would certainly need backups, as you might need to reset everything in the process. And even when things DO work, an upgrade may break it, as you walk on untested ice. I'm not saying that people should not tweak, But on the other hand, a robust result can hardly be expected, so the tweaks are likely to need adjustments from version to version. So a heavily tweaked system is not suitable as a stable daily platform, unless you leave it without any updates, once you have stabilized it.

[Hook 3,016]

There must be some way to get the security updates into older releases of Lineage.   My old old Samsung Galaxy Tab S is still on unofficial Lineage 14.1, maintained my Dark Existence on XDA and continues to get current security patches.  This is obviously not Lineage doing this, but it suggests the patches can be obtained and compiled into the OS.

So the question (the answer to which is way beyond my pay grade) is can this be done for Lineage 16?  Is there a source for the security patches or is the  XDA dev extracting them from later versions of Lineage or...

 

For reference:

https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/rom-7-1-2-unofficial-lineageos-14-1-sm-t800.3545080/

https://download.exynos5420.com/LineageOS-14.1-Deathly/chagallwifi/

[claude0001 1,340]

1 hour ago, EskeRahn said:

So a heavily tweaked system is not suitable as a stable daily platform, unless you leave it without any updates

That is not true. As I wrote, I had LOS 16 from the point it became official and applied every update until support was dropped. None of the weekly OTA's broke anything related to the chroot set-up. AOSP security fixes do not change system behaviour on that level.

Major upgrades, on the other hand, do. That's why they are called major, need to be well prepared, and, therefore, should not be necessary very often.

1 hour ago, Hook said:

There must be some way to get the security updates into older releases of Lineage.

Yes, you can still build LineageOS 16 and 17.1 yourself for the Pro1, which should merge-in the upstream fixes automatically. Retrospectively, I should have learned how to do that before setting up everything relying on the official releases ...

Edited April 11, 2021 by claude0001

[Rob. S. 1,660]

4 hours ago, claude0001 said:

Why not?

Because shit happens. Just because it didn't until now, it doesn't mean it won't or couldn't. Also, people make mistakes, which, I guess, includes you, too...

4 hours ago, claude0001 said:

As you confirm, in every computer system, major upgrades are something that needs to be very well planned or tested before taken to production. That's why I (like many) want to go through that process only every few years. Not every few months.

I completely agree, like others already did, too. Still, I'm afraid there's not much we can do to make Lineage change their policies, and getting our knickers in a twist about it doesn't help us, either. As all of this is an open source thing, I suppose it means taking things in our own hands, and finding a maintainer for continued LOS 16 and 17 updates like the one @Hook mentioned for that Samsung phone. Perhaps there are more people here who would like to continue with LOS 16 or 17 for the time being.

4 hours ago, claude0001 said:

All of these are honest questions about LOS 18.1. Where if not in this thread could I expect to get answers?

I never said they weren't or you shouldn't. I was just surprised that you insist on running such a massively tweaked device on which you seem to be relying in your daily work without a second one as a backup or for experimenting and for testing things. I surely wouldn't, regardless of what AOSP security fixes do or don't do.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Rob. S.

[EskeRahn 5,459]

2 hours ago, claude0001 said:

That is not true. As I wrote, I had LOS 16 from the point it became official and applied every update until support was dropped. None of the weekly OTA's broke anything related to the chroot set-up. AOSP security fixes do not change system behaviour on that level.

That the tweaks you are using have nor been affected, does not prove anything, sorry. What the developers might consider a small bugfix, might be just enough to affect a tweak. Obviously the risk is higher on a major update than a minor, and the more broadly used the tweak is, the more likely it is that their tests would have cought that a change had negative side effects

I have seen more than once on Windows 10 that some tweak just stopped working with no warning after a minor update. So not limited to Android/LOS

[claude0001 1,340]

OK, look guys, my post was a reaction to @daniel.schaaaf, who I think is fundamentally right in his criticism of some aspects of today's open-source software culture. I tried to provide some examples how us so-called "power users" are simply more affected by major OS upgrades, and are hence left in the rain if Lineage versions are abandoned at every second stop. 

1 hour ago, Rob. S. said:

Still, I'm afraid there's not much we can do to make Lineage change their policies

True. But neither can we change FxTec ways of public communication, IGG policies, or EOLs of QualComm product lines (to name but a few). Did that stop anyone from whining and complaining here? Now it is my turn. 😉

Self-building would be a solution for me, indeed. The problem is that I would need to learn it now that the only device I have for testing my builds is in productive use. Vicious circle ... 😐

1 hour ago, EskeRahn said:

That the tweaks you are using have nor been affected, does not prove anything, sorry.

Well, then let me tell you this: That stuff I do on my Pro1 is standard in other places of the Internet. Yes, it is known that you have to find your hacks with every new device and every new Android version. But it is also pretty much accepted that the tools and interfaces one uses to play these tricks do not change within one AOSP version. That is essentially as likely as an OTA breaking your Apps. And, even in the unlikely event of such a regression, it is usually a bug that can be fixed (relatively) easily from one side or the other. Please just believe me.

Major releases are of course different in that they are meant to introduce changes. That's why I would like to avoid those as long as I can. I thought official LOS would allow me this, but sadly it doesn't. Hence I'm whinig. Sorry for bothering everyone. 😄

Also, I think your comparison to Windows 10 rather supports my point: as of version 10, Windows is no longer stable (in the sense of feature-stability), but essentially a rolling release. That is why deal-breaking changes are now more likely to (seemingly) come out-of-nowhere than in the old days. This is pretty much what I would like LineageOS not to become ... 😉

[EskeRahn 5,459]

(lineage-18.1-20210412-nightly-pro1-signed.zip on April 5 security patch installed smoothly using adb sideload and MindTheGapps-11.0.0-arm64-20210328_143848 )

(Ctrl+Space still does not rotate between selected layouts, and expicitly selecting one only works for some layouts)

[EskeRahn 5,459]

10 hours ago, claude0001 said:

Well, then let me tell you this: That stuff I do on my Pro1 is standard in other places of the Internet.

That was my point. The more commonly used the tweaks you use are, the less likely they are to be affected by (minor) upgrades. But there still is a risk.

And you certainly got a point on WinX being in "rolling release".

[dreamflasher 120]

Does the Dialer app work for people in LOS 18.1? I am asking because I am now on my second fresh installation, and in both the standard dialer is not working – I can make outgoing calls but it doesn't show the caller interface as soon as I hit the call button. Incoming calls the same, except that I can't pick them up – the overlay is missing.

Overall my impression is that all overlays are missing, I have an alarm clock that brings itself as an overlay in the foreground, but not on LOS 18.1.

Also is anybody using ACC/Acca? The daemon keeps stopping constantly and I can't find a way to make it work for longer than a couple of minutes. Did this work with LOS 17.1? I am considering a downgrade.

 

[marmistrz 93]

19 hours ago, Rob. S. said:

@claude0001 I guess I have an – if only faint – idea of what you're doing there... And, sure, if that were what I'd need in a phone to be able to use it productively for what I do, I might even try something like it myself. I just wouldn't get my expectations up as to its working in a stable way for a longer period of time. Neither would I rely on such a massively tweaked system as my single phone...

Incidentally, after three to four years in productive use, right now I have to upgrade two Linux servers the OS versions of which stop being maintained. Even though it's a fairly normal thing that happens every few years, I wouldn't attempt it without trying it first on an experimental machine... And if I wouldn't have one, that would be nobody's fault but mine...

Normally you could make a twrp backup, upgrade and rollback if things are not as expected... but we still don't have twrp for pro1/lineage, do we? (the last time I checked it was only for sailfish)

 

Edited April 12, 2021 by marmistrz

[order#10248 65]

6 hours ago, marmistrz said:

Normally you could make a twrp backup, upgrade and rollback if things are not as expected... but we still don't have twrp for pro1/lineage, do we? (the last time I checked it was only for sailfish)

There seems to be some TWRP ... see
https://community.fxtec.com/topic/3005-ubuntu-touch-os-for-fxtec-pro1/
...

Preparation:

TWRP for Pro1: Download here https://drive.google.com/open?id=1IgUjxEKV5MU_3cRkNCyGc-YpRkUQ3xHh (Credit to Mccreary)
...

On 4/10/2021 at 5:53 PM, Hook said:

1. Boot to recovery

Thanks for for the steps/listing! I was on LineageOS 16 (Android9) and had to activate USB debugging via
  --> Settings --> About Phone (scroll down to last option) --> Build number (scroll down to last option) and tap on "Build number" multiple times --> until notifcation for "developer options are enabled"
  --> Settings --> System --> Advanced --> Developer Options --> Scroll down to Debugging and swipe on "USB-Debugging"

Than in my Linux PC terminal (after apt install adb-tools) with USB connected Pro1:
  --> adb devices --> Pro1 asks for USB Debugging permissions --> OK
  --> adb reboot recovery --> Pro1 reboots into Recovery

On 4/10/2021 at 5:53 PM, Hook said:

2. Adb sideload (name of nightly update zip)

For that I had to choose "Apply update" and then  "Adb sideload" both on the Pro1
In Linux PC terminal:
  (--> adb devices --> should list the Pro1 in sideload-mode)
  --> adb sideload /path/to/lineage...zip

On 4/10/2021 at 5:53 PM, Hook said:

3. Reboot to recovery

On the Pro1 <-- back and "Advanced" , Option "Reboot to recovery"

Steps 4. and 5. : Sideload is covered under option "Advanced" on the Pro1 (then Option "from ADB").
I installed MindtheGapps...zip linked from the upgrade manual wiki.linageos.org (I took the mirror) and got a signature failure warning during sideload/install  (I tapped on Yes and it went on without any errors).

On 4/10/2021 at 5:53 PM, Hook said:

6. System reboot.

On the Pro1 just tap on <-- at the top of screen to find reboot option ...

My Pro1 booted into LineageOS 18 (Android11)  with all apps and settings kept from the former LOS16!
Hope that writing up the details might help/encourage other users to go through the procedure.

Actually, my only motivation for this upgrade was the expectation to get the QR-Code scanning feature in default camera app. But unfortunately this is not included and a different/separate app has to be used for that. Too bad ...

Cheers, #10248

[Rob. S. 1,660]

1 hour ago, order#10248 said:

There seems to be some TWRP ... see
https://community.fxtec.com/topic/3005-ubuntu-touch-os-for-fxtec-pro1/

Yes, but – if I understood this correctly – as it is missing a device specific key which they would need to get from the manufacturer, something which only is being attempted when a device-specific TWRP is really 'done' and fine to get the 'official' status, it won't decrypt data and therefore is useless for backups, unfortunately.

[Rob. S. 1,660]

1 hour ago, order#10248 said:

Hope that writing up the details might help/encourage other users to go through the procedure.

Yes, indeed! Thank you very much!

I just hope the problem with international characters 18.1 obviously has can somehow be either solved or worked around; until then, I have to stay at 17.1...

[claude0001 1,340]

6 hours ago, order#10248 said:

Actually, my only motivation for this upgrade was the expectation to get the QR-Code scanning feature in default camera app. But unfortunately this is not included and a different/separate app has to be used for that. Too bad ...

I thought I was pretty focused on setting up my phone the way I wanted. But I can only bow to such determination in the quest. 😄

Sorry it did not work out for you. But thanks a lot for sharing your experience with twrp with those who will follow you.

I'll keep using my third-party QR scanning App on Lineage 16 because ... I am a coward. Respect. (I'm not joking!)

Edited April 12, 2021 by claude0001

[EskeRahn 5,459]

A little more on the default keyboard layout:

Alt and Sym seems to work identical as modifiers.
Sym+S gives the 'Beta'.
Sym+E followed by the base letter gives á, ć, é ...etc.
Sym+U followed by the base letter gives ä, ë, ...etc.
Sym+I followed by the base letter gives â, ê, ...etc.
Sym+N followed by the base letter gives ã, ñ, ...etc.
Sym in combination with `(left of Q) gives à, è, ...etc
Sym+C gives ç

So if that is enough for your usage, you are in luck. 🙂

---------------------------

15 hours ago, EskeRahn said:

A little more on the default keyboard layout:

Tried a LOT of the layouts on the list, and the only ones that i found that gives anything different from the default US are
Belgian
French (not canadian)
German

And ONE(!) key in Latvian where the key left of A gives # with or without shift, so seems more like a bug than a mapping....

---------------------------

reported it: https://gitlab.com/LineageOS/issues/android/-/issues/3321

[PokeParadox 62]

I'm currently running 18.1 unofficial. Can I move over to this without wiping my data/apps and having to setup Magisk again?

[eldarion 46]

Have you guys looked at an android security bulletin lately? https://source.android.com/security/bulletin

The appeal to target android devices is incredible for attackers, since there are so many older devices around. I can't wrap my head around the "I'll stick with stock" or "I'll stick with LOS16" messages around here. That seems like insanity for a device that isn't airgapped or even worse if you actually operate a browser on it and access arbitrary web pages.

[claude0001 1,340]

9 hours ago, eldarion said:

That seems like insanity

Most threats can be avoided by installing only trusted (if possible open-source) software on the device. This includes an up-to-date web browser. No one is forced to use the default browser shipping with the OS.

Of course, having AOSP security fixes would be nice, and we would readily apply them if we could have them without the functional regressions related to upgrading to a higher Android version.

Edited April 13, 2021 by claude0001