The Android community has already bid adieu to Cyanogen Inc. after it closed shop last month. CyanogenMod users who are concerned about the fate of their devices can already heave a collective sigh of relief as LineageOS announced that it is now ready to take over where Cyanogen left off.
LineageOS Is Now Live
In a blog post, the team behind LineageOS stated that devices that support Android Marshmallow and Android Nougat will start getting experimental and nightly builds next weekend. These devices could mean those that have been flashed with the CM13 and CM14 builds.
If you head to their website, you will even find official builds for the Google Nexus 5X and the Nextbit Robin ready for download. If you are itching to get your hands on LineageOS at this point, there are already unofficial builds available online.
Community Support
At this stage the developers seems quite brisk and business-like in their approach. The announcement immediately included all the critical information that provides users how they intend to go forward.
First, there is the reference to the fact that the website and the LineageOS initiative is open source and therefore relies on the community for survival. It promptly provided the link where users can make their contributions.
LineageOS Features
The statement also included what one could probably call as innovations in comparison to the way CyanogenMod has been used. For example, there is the experimental migration builds, which offer the capability to flash your device from CyanogenMod to LineageOS without wiping any user data.
As is usually the case when installing custom ROMs, make sure that you still back your files up in case something goes wrong.
There is also the authentication system that could prove to be significant in the way developers maintain the security of the LineageOS.
"Our official builds will all be signed with a private key for authentication and signature permission control," the team stated. "This will not break, prevent or stop any 'unofficial' builds."
Users will be able to check if their ROMs have been tampered. A dedicated page has been set up for this purpose.
Finally, LineageOS does not support native root functionality. You have to download a separate zip file for this, which can be installed like gapps.
Developers have promised that builds will be released on a weekly basis. It is quite a tall order especially with the fact that they will be supporting more than 80 Android devices.
