Before starting, I booted the Google OS to install the latest firmware and an eSIM. After a few days of enduring Google's naggy software, I was ready to commit to installing something better.

I tried using the Web Installer. It managed to flash some of the partitions and then failed with:

Failed to execute 'claimInterface' on 'USBDevice'

So I used the CLI instructions which were comprehensive. Worth re-reading them a few times to make sure you understand what needs doing. I (foolishly) assumed my fastboot didn't need updating. Tsk!

And then... it just worked!

Well, almost. The device saw the previously installed eSIM, but wouldn't connect to its network. I manually removed it, reloaded it. Still nothing. So I manually chose the network and that seemed to fix it. No idea if that's a problem with the network, the eSIM, or something else.

Bugs

As soon as I booted, my network provider sent me a text. I opened up the default messaging app and saw this error:

This is a known problem but it makes for a crappy user-experience. There's no way to update the app in Graphene - you need to manually install your preferred SMS app.

In similar UX fails, I tried to add the clock widget to my home screen. This is what I saw.

If you peer carefully, you'll see an analogue and digital clock. I hadn't switched to dark mode or anything like that - this is the default experience.

I wanted to see how long I could go before installing Google Play Services. The answer was... five minutes. I tried to log in to my password manager using a WebAuthN token and it wouldn't work. The default Vanadium browser can't handle them. Again, this is a known problem - but it does slightly undermine the attraction of Graphene. I'm privacy conscious and want as little Google in my life as possible. I'm security conscious and want to use MFA everywhere. Pick one.

Partway through the day, I got this internal error:

I was happily browsing the web with no connectivity issues. So I'm not sure what caused that.

It's annoying that Graphene doesn't support LineageOS's bottom-button changes. I have a decade of muscle-memory saying back is on the right. There's no way to change it, so I've swapped to gesture navigation.

The icon size on the stock launcher are far too small. On a massive screen like the 8 Pro they are tiny. So I've installed NeoLauncher which is a lot more customisable.

The only other (non-essential) thing missing is the ability to use Cast to screen share a device. There's a button in the UI, but it does nothing.

Setting up a work-profile required a little bit of a work-around, but seems to have worked. Hurrah for forum threads detailing the various tricks you need.

A software update allowed DisplayPort via USB-C. I plugged the 8 Pro into my USB-C hub, it detected the ethernet, keyboard, mouse, and display - graphics came through fine. Although there's no way to rotate an external screen - so you're stuck with landscape orientation. My HDMI adapters showed as detected via a little icon - but no video came out.

The Graphene camera's interface isn't as good as GCam and it is missing a bunch of options. Installing the stock Pixel camera worked - and there are lots of hacky derivatives.

Other than that, it has been pretty good so far. My banking apps work, call recording works, 5G and Bluetooth works, eSIM and regular SIM works. There have been a few odd things where apps have complained that they can't work and then suddenly sprang to life - but that might just be Android.

The only big thing Graphene is missing is Google Pay / Wallet. It is so convenient using tap to pay - but getting rid of the rest of the incessant Google bloat is worth the sacrifice.

Overall, I'm happy with the decision to nuke the original Google software. I know they say they'll support the device for 7 years - but I literally have no reason to trust them. Maybe I'm being naïve trusting a group of random hackers to produce a more secure OS - but I'd rather that than further entanglement with an organisation which has repeatedly shown contempt for its customers and users.

Several of the people who live in my phone use artistic black and white headshots. They look very cool. But my Android phone shows their image with inverted colours - so they look like pure shite.

Here's what my very real human girlfriend looks like when I ring her to go for brunch:

Come the evening, my phone switches to Dark Mode™ - so this is what she looks like when I ring her for a late-night booty call:

What's causing this? And is it expected behaviour?

I'm running com.android.contacts version 1.7.34 which appears to be the latest version of the AOSP contacts app. It's bundled with LineageOS.

Demo

If you're not lucky enough to be dating Marylin Monroe, here's a demo image for you to try:

Is this expected behaviour?

Based on some quick tests, it appears that the contacts app will invert some monochrome images when it thinks there's "too much" bright white in the image.

Interestingly, the contacts list doesn't invert avatars when in Dark Mode.

And... I don't know if I want this to happen. I guess that most people who use Dark Mode want to avoid blinding bright white light searing into their precious eyeballs. But, presumably, they don't want the photos of their friends inverted into a weird artefact-ridden mess?

So, before I get lost in Google's Kafka-esque bug reporting process - do you think this is expected or desirable behaviour?

I know that, from right to left, it is showing me my battery percentage, WiFi strength, and that I'm using work mode. But what's the weird circle?

ZOOM! ENHANCE!

Well, that's not much help, is it!

Buried in the Android Automotive documentation is some information on how to "Customize Status Bar System Icons". It helpfully says:

Most resources for items displayed in the Status bar are provided in the following directory: /platform/frameworks/base/packages/SystemUI/res/drawable

OK! That gives us something to work on.

Let's pop along to Lineage's GitHub repo to look in that directory. There are 650 icons in there (!) so I downloaded them all (!!).

Of course, Google can't do anything standardised like use SVG. It uses its own magical Android Vector Drawable format. You can individually convert the files to SVG online or in bulk on the command line.

After a bit of flicking through, I found this:

Which is from ic_statusbar_firewall.xml

This is a fairly new icon, introduced in March 2023. It appears in the status bar when an app tries to access the network but "allow network access" is turned off.

I'm reluctantly coming to the conclusion that... yeah, it's fair that they get to decide their own risk tolerance.

Sage of the Internet, and general Sooth Sayer, Cory Doctorow once gave an impassioned speech on "The Coming War on General Computation". I'll let you read the whole thing but, I think, the salient point is that some people want to restrict the maths we're allowed to do on our computers.

I can tell my computer to run any program and - to the best of its ability - it will⁰. This is the joy and promise of Universal Turing Machines.

But some wicked folks want to stop that. Usually it is Hollywood movie studios. Your computer is perfectly capable of playing back 4K streams from Netflix - but it is artificially restricted from doing so unless the computer can prove that it is "secure". Where secure means "artificially prevented from engaging in copyright infringement."

Similarly, you can't grab an Xbox disk and shove it in your PC to play a game. Your computer may be more powerful than an Xbox, but the software has been artificially restricted so that it won't work on a "General Purpose" computer - it will only play on an intentionally scuppered computer. The Xbox isn't a General Purpose computer - you cannot run your own code on it.

Which brings me on to Android Banking Apps. I have a six year old Android phone. In order to keep it secure, I've flashed it with LineageOS 20. But, in improving my day-to-day security, I've critically weakened some of the OS security.

I now have root control of my device. The bootloader is unlocked so I can load any software I want and have complete control of it.

This terrifies banks. And, I think, that's justified.

A modern phone is reasonably secure. It is unlikely¹ to be infected with a virus and, if it is, there are multiple layers of protection to stop miscreants monkeying with your money.

A rooted phone breaches all those protections. It is possible² that a user could install a tool (intentionally or otherwise) which could open the banking app and send all the money to a criminal. Or redirect the login flow to steal your passwords and authentication tokens. Or take screenshots of your balance and send them to blackmailers. Or... you get the idea.

Banks aren't willing to take that risk. Regulators tend to side with consumers in these matters and banks don't want to lose money or get bad press.

So they've taken the entirely sensible decision that their software will only run on machines which can pass a set of security attestations.

It distresses and upsets me that there's a cryptographic chip in my phone which I can't control. I bought and paid for this device. It should obey only my commands. It shouldn't rat me out to third party vendors.

But... I think it is a rational reaction from the banks. I am free to run whatever software I want on my general purpose computer - but they are free to refuse service to anyone who increases their liability.

Everything went smoothly - but there are a few niggles you should be aware of. Some of these are Google's fault - they truly have contempt for their users - and some could be fixed by Lineage if there were sufficient demand.

I've mostly posted this list so that someone from XDA can tell me I'm an idiot and there's an easy fix for all of these issues.

Google Wallet. I knew this was unlikely to work. Even with Magisk's Deny List and the Universal SafetyNet Fix, I couldn't convince GPay to run. The "lack" of security also stopped the Barclaycard App (Error 00006) and one of my doctor's apps. Weirdly I could run all my other banking, credit card, and health apps.

The default webview doesn't support WebAuthN - so I couldn't use my Yubikey to set up BitWarden. I ended up side loading Firefox so that I could get it to work.

Flicking the 5T's side switch to silent doesn't activate "Do Not Disturb".

It is impossible to disable an inserted SIM card. The UI instructs you that the only option is to remove the card. That's a bit annoying (and battery draining).

Google killed native SIP calling. I now need to find a separate app for making and receiving VoIP calls. Weirdly, carrier VoWiFi works just fine.

Call recording works - but it isn't automatic. I have to remember to press a button. Not a show stopper, but a bit annoying.

Lineage doesn't use the latest Noto fonts. I know this because they don't display the Unicode Power Symbol. There are a few default fonts installed, and you can change between them - but there's no way to install your own fonts. Well, there's a command line Magisk module - but requires a reboot each time.

Themes are still a bit hit and miss. All the light themes have poor contrast on some UI elements (white icon on light backgrounds). The dark themes are OK, but then force most apps and websites into dark mode - which isn't always easy to change back.

I find the "jelly" overscroll animation annoying. The only way to disable it is to remove all animations - which makes any transitions really jerky.

Moving the clock to the centre of the shade leaves an gap on the left where it used to be.

No split windows. The launcher doesn't allow for split screen.

The notification panel sometimes goes behind the on screen navigation buttons.

PIN entry requires you to hit the submit button. Older versions of Android would unlock as soon as the correct PIN was typed. But Quick PIN Unlock is unsupported.

The AOSP keyboard refuses to run if any other keyboards are installed. It kept crashing, so I swapped to OpenBoard

Those are all fairly minor complaints. For daily use, Lineage's Android 13 runs just fine - especially considering this phone is 5¼ years old. The team at Lineage continually prove that older devices can be supported, despite the intransigence of most manufacturers.

If you know how to fix any of these problems, let me know in the comments.

Download everything

In order to upgrade, you'll need to download the experimental and the nightly build.

These can be downloaded from https://download.lineageos.org/shamu.

Store them in the root of your SD card

Flash Experimental

If you need to know how to access recovery, you can find the information at http://wiki.lineageos.org/shamu_install.html

First, flash the experimental zip file. Then reboot.

All being well, you'll see the Lineage animation - then you will see your normal phone screen which is covered with an experimental banner. Like this:

This is to remind you not to keep using the experimental build. Wait until the Android update process completes. Then it is time to reboot again!

Flash the nightly

Once rebooted into recovery, you need to flash the nightly build.

This will take a few minutes, then you can reboot again.

All done!

Root

By default, Lineage does not include root / su. This means that you can run apps like Android pay - or anything else which won't run on a rooted device.

You can download and flash a compatible root from https://download.lineageos.org/extras.

Remove root

Once you have done whatever rooty things you need to do - like installing an Android Ad Blocker - you can then flash the remove root package. Once root has been removed, apps which require an unrooted device will work perfectly.

So, there you have it. An easy way to upgrade from Cyanogen to Lineage :-)