Comment by le-mark

Every version of Lineage has rooted ADB accessible in the developer options. If you want root for apps, you must load Magisk. If root is important to you, this is your OS.

Lineage puts out all the patches that they can, every month, unlike OEMs. If current patches are important to you, this is your OS.

Lineage allows you to run it without any Google closed source code.

These are some serious advantages, depending upon what you are trying to do.

I use LineageOS on all my devices (it's actually my main criteria when buying a phone) to mainly install apps from F-Droid without relying on the Google Play Store.

It has the same familiar look and feel on all devices and by experience is way snappier than the original ROM.

Got a Xperia Z1 in 2013. Sony stopped updating it at some point in 2014-2015, which is stupid, but the hardware was still like new (which is the great thing about Sony phones) so I rooted it and managed to install it. Can't remember if it was already named "LineageOS" or "CyanogenMod" at the time. However, it lasted with me until nov. 2020 when I dropped and the screen cracked, made it to be changed but the replacement was kinda bad so used it as an excuse to get a 1ii.

I did the same with this "new" phone, that is going to be 5 years with me - since also got that only-two-years-of-updates thing, threw LineageOS on it and it's going as new.

So as I said the last time I saw a post about it in here, thanks to LineageOS I can use a phone for way more than they are set out to be forgotten. It's a great project and it's really sad Google are making things harder for them for the sake of "security".

I immediately put Lineage on all my devices. In fact, I only buy Android devices that Lineage supports. It's a uniform, degoogled Android experience that just works.

If your phone is more than a few years old it likely doesn't get updates from the manufacturer anymore. LineageOS will get you to the latest Android with security patches. Same sort of deal as with OpenWRT for a router really, you get all the features and security patches but at the loss of the firmware that the device came with and its propriety enhancements.

I have a Samsung Tablet and Samsung's version for said tablet is a giant mountain of crap, full of bloatware, so I installed LineageOS on it. Also my old phone and my old old phone run LineageOS because I'm just logged in to Google on my {current_phone}.

I haven't used custom roms in ages, but I used Lineage back when it was called Cyanogen. It had this cool thing where you could adjust brightness by swiping the top edge of the screen. (This was back in the day when you could reach that part easily!)

My personal take is that most Android devices no longer get updates pretty soon after the release (where pretty soon means 2-3 years). Google promises 7 years of support for their newer devices, but most vendors don't.

LineageOS is, besides the fact hat it is more open for non google stuff, providing Android Updates for older devices. While this does not necessarily provide better security (rooted devices are often not considered as secure), you still get the newer Androids security patches and FEATURES. Furthermore you are more open to do what you want.

However LineageOS does to my knowledge not support bootloader re-locking on most devices, which might be a security risk (see https://grapheneos.org/install/web#locking-the-bootloader).

To not have Google built into all alspects of your life too much. Although it still uses some essential Google services, it does take out most unnecessary stuff, which you often can optionally add later in a possibly more secure form, but sometimes can't, which will cause very specific apps using these services not to function, or these features of those apps.

And if Chat Control will be implemented in Google Android, then LineageOS also offers you a way out of that, which is a huge plus of course if you ask me.

I want to use an OS that isn't loaded with spyware, so non-FOSS Android just doesn't fit the bill for me.

for some certain models it offers updated android versions (while the company doesn't)

You might remember them by their old name, Cyanogenmod

Because aosp is basically useless on your phone - it lacks a ton of apps

If you want to escape Google's monopoly, you can use LineageOS without google apps, as opposed to the malware and spyware-ridden trash that usually comes preinstalled on your phone.

It makes perfect sense to use it if you even remotely care about better performance, battery life and privacy. Google ships it's bloated apps which not only tracks everything and runs on privileged mode but degrades your battery life to a great extent

You can run LineageOS on the Nintendo Switch if you want: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/nx/variant1/

And it's a decently recent version with more-or-less official Nvidia Tegra drivers, too. For the variety of weird-but-ubiquitous devices that have a bootloader hack, LineageOS is the route to a working smart device that anyone can pick up and use.