Changelog 30 – Sleek Sixteen, Streamlined Suite, Future Flow – LineageOS

23 – Primetime Release

Hey there! Welcome back!

This last year has been a whirlwind to say the least, but we have remained dedicated to bringing
an updated LineageOS based on Android 16 to the masses!

We’ve been hard at work rebasing all of our changes and features since Android 16’s release in June.
Android 16’s first release mainly contained iterative improvements and some UI/UX refinements, but
due to our previous efforts adapting to Google’s UI-centric adjustments in Android 12 through 14,
we were able to rebase onto Android 16’s code-base faster than anticipated. Yes you read that right:
We’re early this year!

Other components have complicated our release and security patching efforts, but we’ll get to that
shortly.

Google’s Patch Cadence, and LineageOS Going Forward

Firstly, what even is an ASB? Or a QPR?

• ASB (Android Security Bulletin) – Google’s monthly roundup of newly fixed security
  vulnerabilities across the Android ecosystem. Distributed as a list of patches and security branch
  updates for older but still supported Android versions, with the current version tagged monthly.
  These updates let projects like ours and OEMs stay aligned with Google’s security baseline.
• QPR (Quarterly Platform Release) – Mid-cycle updates to a given Android version, landing every
  few months. QPRs bring not just security fixes but also bug fixes, performance improvements, and
  feature changes (like Material 3 Expressive in 16 QPR1).

Okay, why are you telling me this?

You’ll notice we are choosing to release LineageOS 23.0, and not 23.1. That’s because it’s based on
Android 16’s initial release (what we’ll call QPR0), even though QPR1 has already rolled out to
Pixels. The catch? Google never pushed QPR1’s source to AOSP. They’ve said it’ll come “in the coming
weeks” (source),
but right now only contracted partners have access. And to answer the immediate question, the
likelihood that any custom ROM will ever be a contracted Google partner is near 0.

On top of that, Google’s handling of ASBs has shifted (source). July was empty for the first time since the
program began, August had a single patch, and September omitted patches for several listed
vulnerabilities, with fixes shared privately to partners under embargo. The result is that AOSP
security updates are no longer released in full on a monthly basis. Instead, only vulnerabilities deemed “high risk” (i.e. actively exploited in the wild)
will be published by Google in the monthly ASBs, and even then, the underlying patches are often not
made public immediately.

On a quarterly cadence, Google now issues larger security bulletins that include patches for
vulnerabilities originally discovered in prior months. These quarterly bulletins coincide with QPRs
(Quarterly Platform Releases), which bundles those security fixes together with feature updates,
but have so far not been pushed to AOSP at the time of release.

This is why you’ve seen the LineageOS 22.2 security patch level remain reflective of August well into September.

In short: this cadence is now the norm, and we need to adapt.

And I heard that Google stopped pushing Pixel source?

Yes, Google has pulled back here too. Pixel kernels are now only offered as history-stripped
tarballs, available privately on request, with no device trees, HALs, or configs. Thanks to
projects like CalyxOS, Pixels will likely remain well supported, but they’re
no longer guaranteed “day one” devices for LineageOS. Pixel devices are now effectively no easier to
support than any other OEM’s devices.

In short, this just makes things harder, not impossible.

How does this affect LineageOS? And me?

It means we adapt. Instead of waiting indefinitely for QPR1’s source, we’re shipping 23.0 now on
“QPR0”, with the publicly available ASB patches applied, and we’ll only attest to a security patch
level once we have access to all of its fixes. When QPR1 (and future QPRs) eventually land in AOSP,
we’ll merge or rebase as appropriate.

This does mean some features (like Material 3 Expressive) aren’t here yet. But it ensures users
get timely builds, the most complete security fixes we can legally access, and a clear path forward
without being stuck in limbo.

This will likely be the expected norm for Android 17 and beyond, so expect more .0 releases in the
future!

TL;DR:

• Google no longer pushes monthly tags and patches to AOSP; and most fixes/security patches are now
  pushed quarterly, if at all.
• Security patch levels may occasionally lag: we only increment them once all patches are public.
• LineageOS 23.0 is based on Android 16 “QPR0” because QPR1’s source isn’t public yet.
  • Because of this some headline features (like Material 3 Expressive) will come later, once
    sources drop.
• Pixel support continues, but with reduced source access, they’re no longer guaranteed, let alone
  on day one.

Legacy Devices

The bad news extends a bit further here, though it’s less surprising than the earlier sections.

Google’s increased reliance on newer
eBPF features has made supporting
devices with older Linux kernels increasingly difficult. Android 16 “QPR0” “requires Linux 5.4 and
above, and at the time of writing, the necessary features have only been properly backported as far
back as 4.14.

Unfortunately, LineageOS 22.2 still supports many devices running 4.4 and 4.9. As of
now, no complete backports of the required features exist for these kernels. The silver lining is
that, unlike the massive device loss we saw moving off LineageOS 18.1, these versions could be
salvaged if someone were to take on the work of adapting the backports. If you do succeed, please
reach out to devrel(at)lineageos.org, we’d be happy to review it!

We’re currently targeting only shipping kernels that have 1:1 eBPF backports to make them feature
equivalent to Linux 5.4 from here on out to avoid compatibility issues.

Back to the Good Stuff!

• Security patches from September 2024 to August 2025 have been merged to LineageOS 20 through 23.0.
• SeedVault and Etar have both been updated to their newest respective upstream version, with
  multiple fixes having been sent back to the relevant upstream repos!
• WebView has been updated to Chromium 140.0.7339.51.
• Contributor demon000 (Cosmin Tanislav) has started work on an awesome set of tools to assist
  maintainers in device bringups from scratch! They’re still in-progress, but are staged to make a
  lot of our efforts significantly easier and more streamlined – so stay tuned! Maybe a rare
  non-yearly blog post? 😉
• Contributor 0xCAFEBABE has extended support for various VirtIO configurations
  (QEMU/crosvm/UTM/libvirt, etc.) targets! Though these aren’t supported officially, there is an
  awesome, comprehensive guide for building and utilizing these targets on
  the Wiki. There is even a newer one allowing you to run
  LineageOS in a UTM virtual machine on an
  Apple Silicon Mac!
• Contributor 0xCAFEBABE has added support for Cuttlefish targets!
• Contributor 0xCAFEBABE has extended support for devices booting Android on the mainline Linux
  kernel! This will allow us to in theory boot LineageOS on almost all devices supported by the
  Linux kernel. It’s in early phases, but very promising, with several successful device ports
  already available on the LineageOS GitHub organization! Check the search term “mainline” on the
  organization’s search bar.
• LineageOS is now nearly Android.mk free! Google
  announced their move from make to
  soong many years ago, pushing developers to migrate from Android.mk to Android.bp, and has
  started blocking Android.mk in many locations of the source tree.
  • While converting these is a seemingly simple task – in practice it involved countless hours of
    converting conditional checks, regression testing, and thousands of individual patches. As of
    this writing, LineageOS introduces less than 10 Android.mk files at a platform level,
    and many of these are in the process of being converted. In short – we’re ready for when Google
    kills support for Android.mk.
  • 0xCAFEBABE also created a build target for converting from
    mk to bp, a WIP feature to
    assist developers in migrating to soong!
• Both the Charging Control, and Fast Charge Control features have received many updates and
  improvements.
• A new set of ringtones and alarms from Plasma Mobile have been included.

Application Updates

LineageOS isn’t just about the OS itself: our suite of core apps continues to evolve as well. This
cycle brings some major improvements:

Aperture (Camera)

Our camera app, Aperture, has been rewritten from the ground up. The rewrite makes the app much
easier to maintain, while also bringing new features:

• Support for JPEG Ultra HDR, RAW, and simultaneous RAW+JPEG capture.
• A redesigned notification island with dynamic colors, and new indicators (JPEG Ultra HDR, RAW,
  battery, thermal throttling).

Keep your system updated (or keep updating the app if you’re using the app standalone), since we
plan to introduce more features and improvements over time (believe it or not, nowadays the only
obstacle is Google’s CameraX library, which has slowed down the development of certain components
which we use in Aperture). We do have some plans
to overcome this though.

Twelve (Music Player)

Our music player, Twelve, didn’t need a full overhaul this year, but it did get some polish and
some new features:

• Added a “Play random songs” button for quicker library playback.
• Updated the Now Playing screen with playback statistics (for the nerds and audiophiles out
  there).
• Added the ability to rescan the local media store, so newly added music shows up without
  needing a reboot.
• Expanded Jellyfin integration, including suggestions, favorites, and better thumbnail
  handling.
• Added MIDI playback support.

New App, Again?

We’re excited to debut Catapult, our brand-new custom launcher for Android TV. Catapult is built
with the same principles we bring to the rest of LineageOS: clean, simple, functional design, with
thoughtful user experience at its core.

Why build a new launcher? For years, Android TV and Google TV users have been stuck with preloaded
launchers that aggressively push advertising and recommendations users can’t control. Catapult
changes that. It strips away the clutter, gives you back your home screen, and lets you decide what
belongs front and center.

With Catapult, you get a fast, intuitive interface that focuses on your apps and your content:
no forced feeds, no “sponsored” rows, just a launcher that works the way you expect.

We’re also planning to add more features in the future, you’ll see them appear as you keep your
device up to date, stay tuned!

Extended QEMU-Based Virtual Machine Support

LineageOS has long been a favorite for developers and tinkerers, and with 23.0 we’ve expanded
support for virtualized environments. Thanks to extended QEMU integration spearheaded by developer
0xCAFEBABE, it’s now easier than ever to run LineageOS in VMs for testing, debugging, or just
exploration. This means developers can spin up consistent environments on their desktops without
needing dedicated hardware, and testers can reproduce tricky issues with greater reliability.
Whether you’re validating patches or just curious to see how LineageOS runs under the hood, the
tooling is smoother and more accessible.

If interested, take a look on the Wiki. You can run
LineageOS via libvirt on Linux/Windows, and on an
Apple Silicon Mac with UTM.

Additionally, LineageOS now supports Cuttlefish
build configurations, which are similar to the emulator family of targets, but has extra
emulated peripherals, so as to act more like a real device! You can view a list of all the differences
here.

Mainline Kernel Support

Another big milestone in 23.0 is our improved support for devices running Linux mainline kernels.

While Android has historically relied on heavily modified vendor kernels, the ecosystem is shifting
toward mainline for long-term stability and maintainability.

With 23.0, developer 0xCAFEBABE has spearheaded an effort to extend compatibility for devices
capable of booting the mainline Linux kernel, and we’ve made it easier for maintainers to bring
their devices closer to upstream with inheritable common trees. The end result? For now, nothing,
but in the future, we will hopefully be able to boot Android on almost any device that is
supported by the mainline Linux kernel.

This effort should help keep devices alive well past the point where their proprietary components
stop working with newer Android releases.

See the following repos if interested! (1,
2,
3,
4)

Careful Commonization

Several of our developers have worked hard on SoC-specific common kernels to base on that can be
merged on a somewhat regular basis to pull in the latest features/security patches to save
maintainers additional effort.

Go check them out and consider basing your device kernels on them!

Supported SoCs right now are:

Moreover, many legacy devices require interpolating libraries that we colloquially refer to as
“shims” – these have long been device and maintainer managed, but this cycle we have decided to
commonize them to make the effort easier on everyone and not duplicate effort!

You can check it out here and
contribute shims that you think other devices may need or add additional components to additional
shims and compatibility layers provided via Gerrit!

Deprecations

Overall, we feel that the 23.0 branch has reached feature and stability parity with 22.2 and is
ready for initial release.

We will allow new LineageOS 21 submissions to be forked to the organization, but we will no longer
allow newly submitted LineageOS 21 devices to ship.

LineageOS 23.0 will launch building for a decent selection of devices, with additional devices to
come as they meet the requirements specified by the
Charter and are
made ready for builds by their maintainer.

Upgrading to LineageOS 23.0

To upgrade, please follow the upgrade guide for your device by clicking on it here and then on “Upgrade to a higher version of LineageOS”.

If you’re coming from an unofficial build, you need to follow the good ole’ install guide for your
device, just like anyone else looking to
install LineageOS for the first time. These can be found at the same place
here by clicking on your device and then on “Installation”.

Please note that if you’re currently on an official build, you DO NOT need to wipe your device,
unless your device’s wiki page specifically dictates otherwise, as is needed for some devices with
massive changes, such as a repartition.

Download portal

While it has been in the making for quite a while and already released two years ago, it’s still
relevant to this blog post.
Our download portal has been redesigned and gained a few
functional improvements:

• Dark mode
• Downloads of additional images (shown for all devices but not used on all of them, read the
  instructions to know which ones you need for your device’s installation!)
• Verifying downloaded files (see here) – if you go with
  any download not obtained from us, you can still verify it was originally signed by us and thus
  untampered with

A reminder: Follow the LineageOS Wiki to the letter! If an image is
listed on the download portal that the wiki doesn’t ask you to use, ignore it! It is likely there
so the maintainer can point power-users at it if needed.

Wiki

The LineageOS Wiki has also been expanded over the years and now
offers, in addition to the known and tested instructions for all supported devices, some
improvements:

• The device overview allows filtering for various attributes you might be interested in a device
  (please note that choosing a device only based on that list still does not guarantee any device
  support beyond the point of when you chose it)
• The device overview now lists variants of a device and other known marketing names in a more
  visible way, also allowing for different device information and instructions per variant to be
  shown
• The installation instructions have been paginated, giving users less chance to skip a section
  involuntarily

In addition to that we’d like to take this time to remind users to follow instructions on their
device’s respective Wiki Page
given the complexity introduced by AOSP changes like System-As-Root, A/B Partition Scheme, Dynamic
Partitions, and most recently Virtual A/B
found on the Pixel 5 and other devices launching with Android 11, the instructions many of you are
used to following from memory are either no longer valid or are missing very critical steps.
As of 16.0, maintainers have been expected to run through the full instructions and verify they
work on their devices. The LineageOS Wiki was recently further extended, and
maintainers were given significantly more options to customize their device’s specific
installation, update, and upgrade instructions.

Developers, Developers, Developers

Or, in this case, maintainers, maintainers, maintainers. We want your device submissions!

If you’re a developer and would like to submit your device for officials, it’s easier than ever.
Just follow the instructions here.

The above also applies to people looking to bring back devices that were at one point official but
are no longer supported – seriously – even if it’s not yet completely compliant, submit it! Maybe
we can help you complete it.

After you submit, within generally a few weeks, but in most cases a week, you’ll receive some
feedback on your device submission; and if it’s up to par, you’ll be invited to our communications
instances and your device will be forked to LineageOS’s official repositories.

Don’t have the knowledge to maintain a device, but want to contribute to the platform? We have lots
of other things you can contribute to.
For instance, our apps suite is always looking for new people to help
improve them, or you can
contribute to the wiki by adding
more useful information & documentation.
Gerrit is always open for submissions! Once
you’ve contributed a few things, send an email to devrel(at)lineageos.org detailing them, and we’ll
get you in the loop.

Also, if you sent a submission that didn’t get a response in the last few months, please follow up,
we’ve swapped providers again!

Generic Targets

We’ve talked about these before, but these are important, so we will cover them again.

Although we’ve had buildable generic targets since 2019, to make LineageOS more accessible to
developers, and really anyone interested in giving LineageOS a try, we’ve documented how to use
them in conjunction with the Android
Emulator/Android Studio!

Additionally, similar targets can now be used to build GSI in mobile, Android TV configurations,
and Android Automotive making LineageOS more accessible than ever to
devices using Google’s
Project Treble.
We won’t be providing official builds for these targets, due to the fact the user experience varies
entirely based on how well the device manufacturer complied with Treble’s requirements, but feel
free to go build them yourself and give it a shot!

Please note that Android 12 (and by proxy all later Android versions) diverged GSI and Emulator
targets. Emulator targets reside in lineage_sdk_$arch, while GSI targets reside in
lineage_gsi_$arch.

Additionally, experimental targets now exist for QEMU-based virtual machine software (libvirt,
UTM, etc). Instructions on building and utilizing these targets can be found on
the Wiki.

Translations

Bilingual? Trilingual? Anything-lingual?

If you think you can help translate LineageOS to a different language, jump over to
our wiki and have a go!
If your language is not supported natively in Android, reach out to us on Crowdin and we’ll take
the necessary
steps to include your language.
For instance, LineageOS is the first Android custom distribution that has complete support
for the Welsh (Cymraeg) language thanks to its community of translators.

Please, contribute to translations only if you are reasonably literate in the target language;
poor translations waste both our time and yours.

Build roster

Added 23 devices

Added 22.2 devices