The LineageOS development team recently announced the availability of version 19 of their operating system, which includes several improvements such as an integrated privacy-oriented firewall, compatibility with Android car build targets, and documentation, among other things.
For those unfamiliar with LineageOS, it's the successor to CyanogenMod and an open-source operating system for smartphones and tablets. It's based on a stripped-down version of Android and adds features such as root access, notification bar shortcuts, an extended lock screen, and various interface themes. Furthermore, it often includes performance improvements over the manufacturer's software.
Main new features of LineageOS 19
Among the improvements in LineageOS version 19, the integrated privacy-focused firewall stands out. The restricted network mode and application-specific data isolation features have been rewritten to take into account the new restricted network mode and AOSP BPF. Furthermore, the data restriction and network isolation functions have been merged into a single implementation.
In an effort to make LineageOS more accessible to developers or anyone interested in trying it out, the LineageOS team has documented how to use them in conjunction with the Android Emulator/Android Studio . Furthermore, similar targets can now be used to create GSIs on mobile, Android TV, and Android Automotive setups, making LineageOS more accessible for devices using Google's Project Treble.
However, the LineageOS team clarifies that it will not provide official builds for these purposes, due to the fact that the user experience varies entirely depending on how well the device manufacturer has met the Trebles requirements. Please note that Android 12 diverged the goals of GSI and Emulator.
LineageOS now supports Android Automotive build targets. Note that this is Android Automotive, not Android Auto, which relies on mobile devices. Android Automotive is a fully standalone automotive operating system with extensible controls for common in-car devices.
Of the other improvements made in LineageOS 19:
- Security patches from March 2021 to April 2022 merged into LineageOS 16.0 to 19
Builds 19 are currently based on the android-12.1.0_r4 tag, which is the Pixel 6 series tag. - WebView has been updated to Chromium 100.0.4896.127.
The volume panel introduced in Android 12 has been completely redone and replaced with a side-opening expansion panel. - The AOSP Gallery app fork has received a lot of fixes and improvements.
- The Updater app has seen a lot of bug fixes and improvements.
- The Jelly web browser has seen a lot of bug fixes and improvements.
- Various changes and improvements have been made to the FOSS Etar Calendar application which was integrated some time ago.
- A number of bottom-up changes and improvements have been made to the Seedvault backup application.
- The Recorder app has received many bug fixes, improvements, and feature additions.
- Android TV builds now come with an ad-free Android TV launcher, unlike Google's launcher.
- Android TV builds now come with a key manager that supports custom keys on a wide range of Bluetooth and IR remotes.
the adb_root service is no longer bound to the build type property. - The extraction utilities now support extraction of most types of factory images or packaged OTA images, greatly simplifying device loading and block extraction.
- High polling rate support has been added to the SDK, allowing it to be enabled on supported devices.
- The AOSP Clang toolchain is now the default toolchain used to compile kernels.
- Qualcomm's Snapdragon camera has been discontinued and devices that previously used it will now use Camera 2.
- Dark mode is now enabled by default.
Finally, if you are interested in learning more, you can find the details at the following link.