LineageOS 17.1 is packed with additions such as a partial screenshot functionality, the spiritual successor to the CyanogenMod Theme Engine, Lineage Recovery, and many smaller changes.
New Features on LineageOS 17.1!
- A new partial screenshot UI was implemented that lets you hand-select smaller parts of your screen and edit the screenshots. So, feel free to go give it a “shot”!
- We know many of you have been waiting for news on themes since the CyanogenMod Theme Engine’s deprecation in CyanogenMod 13.0, and those of you in this boat are in for a treat!
- AOSP’s new ThemePicker app was adapted to have the range of accents you’ve become used to with our old implementation, Styles.
- We also opted to enable support for font change, icon shape (both QuickSettings and Launcher), and icon style changes (eg. changing the style of the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth icons).
- Trebuchet has long been able to hide apps from the Launcher and protect them with a passcode/password, but now you can also use your biometric sensor to authenticate as well!
- October, November, December 2019, and January, February, March 2020 security patches have been merged.
- Builds are currently based on the android-10.0.0_r31 tag, which is the Pixel 4/4 XL’s tag.
- Wi-Fi display is available once again.
- Support for on-screen fingerprint sensors (FOD) has been added.
- Support for pop-up and rotating cameras has been added.
- Support for Australian English, Lithuanian, Latvian, Dutch, Romanian, Slovenian, Serbian, and Turkish spell checking has been added to the AOSP keyboard.
- AOSP keyboard available emojis have been updated to Emoji 12.0.
- WebView has been updated to Chromium 80.0.3987.132.
Lineage Recovery
Lineage Recovery is now the defacto install solution for LineageOS. It will be built by default for all official devices. This was done purely to streamline the process and prevent having to coordinate releases. This is not at all to speak ill of other custom recoveries, they’re great! Several of them even contributed to Lineage Recovery in one way or another. Maintainers will, as always, be able to specify an alternative recovery on their device’s Wiki page, so long as they provide full instructions for its usage.
Deprecations
- The Styles API is now deprecated in favor of the aforementioned ThemePicker app.
- There is complete feature parity between the two, with ThemePicker now more fully featured!
- PrivacyGuard has been superseded by AOSP’s new PermissionHub. It is almost equivalent in feature parity and directly conflicted with all attempts to forward-port Privacy Guard.
- As a byproduct of this, our usual provided AddonSU zip to enable root access for the user is no longer feasible.
- You’re still welcome to use 3rd party root solutions, and we even have Lineage representatives in regular contact with heads of 3rd party root solutions to help maintain compatibility.
- Please note that this does not mean that we support said solutions, and if you’d like to report a bug, we still need to know what 3rd party addons you’re using on the ticket, and your problem may stem from said 3rd party addon.
- For developers fretting this – no worries, ADB root is still available at the same old location.
- Expanded Desktop has been dropped in favor of the new AOSP navigation gestures.
- Expanded Desktop API conflicted with AOSP gestures implementation now, and the framework part was hard to port due to the big code refactor in AOSP.
- Furthermore, the original implementation had a lot of issues in the past 2 android versions, for example tapping the power button or double-tapping the screen did not wake up the device when Expanded Desktop was enabled, soft-key buttons did not appear when opening the keyboard and probably more.
On the whole, we feel that the 17.1 branch has reached feature and stability parity with 16.0 and is ready for initial release. With 17.1 being the most recent and most actively developed branch, on April 1st, 2020 it will begin receiving nightly builds and 16.0 will be moved to weekly builds.
LineageOS 17.1 will launch building for a small selection of devices, with additional devices to come as they are marked as both Charter compliant and ready for builds by their maintainer.
Upgrading to LineageOS 17.1
To upgrade, please follow the upgrade guide for your device found here.
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 here.
Please note that if you’re currently on an official build, you DO NOT need to wipe your device.
If you are installing from an unofficial build, you MUST wipe data from recovery before installing.
