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I mean, LineageOS offer around 9 years of support, depending on device. You could turn your back on the corps and install a ROM made by and for the people. LineageOS and others are mostly there to support phones for many years after the manufacturer quits. Reference: 2011 phone with 2020 software and Google security updates
But in the vast seas of phones, Lineage OS still supports a very small subset. Major players like Google or Samsung are covered but a LOT are skipped.
If one's phone supports Lineage OS, well and good but it's not a fix all
If you have the technical-know-how and the patience, you can install LineageOS on unsupported devices. It might be unstable but, again, if you know what you are doing, you can get around many of the issues.
Most people who use and support custom roms make sure the phone they're buying is supported before hitting the checkout button.
Want to but can't install it. It is too hard.
I'm genuinely curious: what about it is "too hard"?
There are tons of things you have to do succeed to get it to boot Lineage OS or similar. Last time I checked there were no next-next-next installation guide on the phone. It is line trying to install arch linux without the arch installer.
Yes, I really want to use anything else than Android by Google. Lineage OS would offer more updates. But also possible do install other apps as I have heard it means rooting it which always is required to get Lineage OS?
I can install debian server on PC. No problem. But on smartphones you are suppose to do some unlocking of bootloader? Then install some TRWP or something to boot into. There you have some unzip tool that you have to find tree(!) files and install them in the right order and be lucky you picked the exact right one(WHY is it not enough with ONE file and wipe/clean is done automatically?). Then you have to do something about recovery I think. IF you succeed installation(I have never succeeded that far), you have to install g-something to get google play to work so you can install apps and get them in working shape. Then when there is a new Linage OS android version you have to repeat everything AGAIN. This is really madness how much extra work and hard it has to be...
WHY can't it just be in Android by Google to just install an app called installer Lineage OS - click confirm installation and let it do the rest?!
Those "next-next-next" installers are doing exactly what you described under the hood. However, with Android devices, there are so many variants and drivers that a single installer couldn't possibly cover all of them.
The Lineage OS devs make solid guides that are pretty easy to follow though. If your device is supported, there will be a guide for it. Yes, you have to use the command line for some parts. That's hardly the hardest part.
Works fine on PC, where there are an order of magnitude more configurations.
Not really. The vast majority of PCs are what's called "IBM compatible", based on x86 architecture, which is heavily standardized and backwards-compatible (which is why you can still run DOS natively on a brand new Intel or AMD CPU). Even the modern GPUs we have now can function at a basic level with generic drivers, and motherboard-mounted chipsets typically handle things like PCI, storage, and other I/O. Those chipsets also support multiple CPUs, sometimes even multiple generations.
ARM systems are typically manufactured with everything (CPU, GPU, RAM, modem, I/O controllers, etc) on the same die. Drivers for those often aren't updated for very long, and rarely (if ever) released to consumers for third party usage, unlike the majority of IBM-compatible PC drivers typically are.
This hasn't been the case in 20 years now.
This has no bearing on software support at all.
Then why don't you go inform the LineageOS devs that they're obviously doing it wrong.
Somehow it is possible for both Windows and Linux on PC to get an installation guide with next next next installer click guide. You dont get that on Android ever.
Ideally it should be as easy so anyone could install it that want to. Today it is simply too hard. Alternative rooms dont have chance to be mainstream without that.
That's the difference between ARM devices where manufacturers put everything on a single chip, and x86 PCs where everything is standardized.
Not sure why that matter. Google manage to run Android on the ARM device and we know Android is open source so just copy that over to the custom build for Lineage OS.
Also why not make a standard to solve it for all OSes? We have ARMv8 as one standard.
I literally explained why it matters. SoC hardware varies too much, and they aren't standardized like PCs are. It's not as simple as you think. It should be, but in reality it's not.
The "PC" got its start as "IBM-compatible", which is what PCs that we know and love today are still based on. It's a standardized architecture, CPUs are all x86-based, and there are a lot of common drivers (HID devices like mouse & keyboard, generic gfx drivers that can run most GPUs at a basic level, etc).
ARM isn't standardized like PCs are. That's where the disconnect is. There are no "generic" drivers for things like modems, chipsets, graphics, etc. like there are on PCs. And there are literally thousands of ARM phones running all sorts of varying hardware that use proprietary driver from the manufacturer that may or may not ever be updated.
Even if they need special drivers for each device, they have solved it. Lineage OS supports tons of devices. How did they get the drivers? that does not matter. But they got it working or the project would be pretty dead. So the drivers problem is solved, now just make a good next-next-next guide.
Sure, Lineage OS does not support all kind of devices. But I think they can still have a common, user-friendly, installer process even though the drivers are different.
I am guessing that they will make a standard for ARM in the future so it will work like any other PC where they can just plug in any random usb device or similar and it just works.
Oh my god dude.
Look, I get it. But if it was that easy, don't you think the devs would have implemented that already?
Why don't you hop over to their repos and start contributing?
Make sure the cell provider hasn't banned the model. AT&T banned a bunch of perfectly good unlockable international phones and kept the locked local ones not supporting lineage. They still work of course, just can't make calls.
Lineage tends to work mostly on older phones.