Why has support for a large number of phones been stopped?

[tom1995]

Hello everyone.
Please tell me why support for a large number of phones has been stopped? What is the reason for this?

Regain your privacy! Adopt /e/OS the deGoogled mobile OS and online services

[Didou]

in short words, this is because the discontinued security update from google on older version of Android.

[AnotherElk]

And the technical unability or unfeasability to get the phones in question to run newer Android versions.

Or, in the words of the weekly developments updates you can follow at Topics tagged development-updates …

@Manoj

Why /e/OS stops support for an OS

Google has stopped security patches. LineageOS has also dropping support. For most of the older devices vendors would also have stopped vendor patches.We would not be able to continue support as it would require backporting security patches which will require dedicated resources and is not a viable long term solution. Users are advised to upgrade to newer OS and builds where available.

[tcecyk]

that paragraph explains it generally, but the big removal at Lineage was at 18.1 due to the non-portability of old kernel versions to a version that can do eBPF to make the devices compatible with higher Androids (and then receive at least system patches).

Devices stay in the vendor kernel version that they ship with, very rarely can a maintainer port to a higher one (as in 4.2 to 4.4). Google did some standardization work there but 3.x kernel devices are too old to benefit.

Would the kernel not pose a limitation, you could run old devices on higher Androids much longer.

[piero]

what about exceptions ?
how they did it ? android 13 based version on a 2011 device
Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II - Full phone specifications

@ronnz98

Worth a try?

Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 (i9100) for /e/OS-T 2.3 e-2.3-t-20240923-UNOFFICIAL-i9100.zip Download e-2.3-t-20240923-UNOFFICIAL-i9100.zip (eOSBuildsRonnz98) Please see sources and install instructions including recovery here: https://xdaforums.com/t/rom-unofficial-13-0-0-r11-i9100-lineageos-20-0-alpha.4507443/ Use it at your own risk! Please support the developer(s)!

[ronnz98]

You need to apply patches for eBPF and more to build for older devices. Generally possible but some amount of work needed. Theoretically one can create a branch and apply those patches in github like those guys for LOS-UL are doing.

[freechelmi]

Yes it seems to me the only solution is to force qualcomm and other to realease new kernel sources on the 4.X branch , which won’t happen unless a Big fine threat like EU is raised

[tom1995]

At the moment, everyone who has, for example, phones like Samsung Galaxy S3 (arm) needs to sell them and buy phones with arm64 architecture, which are now left on the list?

[elhdjrmlifq6]

I have kind of the opposite question and searched but could not find anything on the forum;

It seems new devices are slow to be supported. The most recent post regarding new devices was from March 2023. I know we have to wait on Lineage and somewhere I recall seeing that theres about a 1 year delay so we should be getting devices from a year ago but I only see 5 from the last 2 years and there are many more listed by Lineage.

[petefoth]

@elhdjrmlifq6

I know we have to wait on Lineage and somewhere I recall seeing that theres about a 1 year delay so we should be getting devices from a year ago

All of the LineageOS devices are maintained by volunteers. A device will only become officially supported by LineageOS if a developer with the necessary skills is interested and motivated enough to

1. Do the necessary work to implement a LineagOS build and
2. Jump through the various hoops that LineageOS insist on before making support for a device ‘official’, and
3. Commit to continuing to do the future work necessary to support the LIneageOS build.

There is no guarantee that any device will *ever get a LineageOS build

[elhdjrmlifq6]

Good information!
Lineage does list many devices but very few make it over to eos it seems. Do we have any good ideas to improve on this?

[AnotherElk]

@elhdjrmlifq6

Lineage does list many devices but very few make it over to eos it seems.

Number of supported LineageOS devices (i.e. without discontinued devices): 209 currently

Number of supported /e/OS devices (i.e. without legacy devices): 180 currently

@elhdjrmlifq6

Do we have any good ideas to improve on this?

Read or count … situation instantly improves .

[elhdjrmlifq6]

Amazing!
And since we’re talking about getting newer devices and not just total device count, which is of course impressive, when selecting for support of devices from 2021 and up, the number changes to 4/58. To put it another way; lineage supports 58 devices newer than 2021 and eos supports 4.
So much for all that improvement, eh?

[AnotherElk]

@elhdjrmlifq6

when selecting for support of devices from 2021 and up, the number changes to 4/58.

No, it’s 45/58 …

@elhdjrmlifq6

lineage supports 58 devices newer than 2021

58 are released 2021 and newer, not newer than 2021 (that would be 25 released 2022 and newer).

@elhdjrmlifq6

eos supports 4.

2023: 4
2022: 11
2021: 30

Sum: 45

(Selecting multiple “Year released” doesn’t work in the selector, if you used this to count, but that should be pretty obvious from the results.)

[tcecyk]

I’m aware that /e/ lags some versions behind on the generic system image front (GSI), so you can’t really use the GSI until it has version parity to the device-android-release-version.

But - it kind of opens up many more devices than listed to run LineageOS and derivatives, under the caveat that some functions go out the window - Home · phhusson/treble_experimentations Wiki · GitHub (bottom brand-device list and right sidebar page search for device reports)

[piero]

@AnotherElk

2023: 4
2022: 11
2021: 30

Sum: 45

I think difference is due to devices that only support android 14 based custom OS.

/e/OS-U release will come soon !
(unofficial already available)