I had reimaged my old Samsung on LineageOS as it seemed to be the only alternative that supported my model. It was fine until I installed OSMAnd, which couldn’t get a location. Shame on me for not noticing that I would need microG for that. Not feeling comfortable with all the rooting and flashing needed to shoehorn microG into an existing image, I figured I’d try LineageOS for microG.
Having loaded a lot onto this phone already, I wanted to try a dirty flash first, knowing full well it might not work. The first prerequisite is to use an image of LOS/µG that is dated higher than the image in the phone. I had just updated, so I needed to wait for the next one.
The docs say that LineageOS for microG will be updated “a couple of times a month”. But the latest LOS/µG image has remained at 11/2/23. This means I haven’t had an opportunity to try the dirty flash, but it’s also a security warning sign for me—LOS updates weekly like clockwork. Irregular and slower-than-promised updates make me a bit nervous for this aspect of device safety. It’s not just my model either; most of the images are backdated more than two weeks.
https://download.lineage.microg.org/
(Yes, I know my boot loader is unlocked, and no, Calyx and Graphene don’t support me, so I made my choice between physical insecurity and Google insecurity.)
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The guy on this page
https://milaq.net/android-degoogled/
(under chapter “Wifi/cell location”) put together an installation package for location services without microg. I have been using this on “normal” lineageos for a while and while it may not be perfect it’s certainly better than using GPS only.
Incidentally, microg is much better now than when he wrote that.
Still it would need signature spoofing which isn’t currently possible on normal LineageOS AFAIK since haystack and tingle won’t work on newer versions anymore. So if one doesn’t need any GMS-dependent apps and doesn’t want to wait too long for monthly updates on Lineage for microg then milaq’s package looks certainly like a decent option, at least for me.
MicroG installer revived combined with the LSposed signature spoofer module solves this problem, as long as you are willing to root with Magisk.
The docs are outdated. They are currently releasing once a month. There is an issue on their github here to update the documentation
It depends. Seems like it averages about 6 weeks. If you dig around, you can find instructions for building the images yourself. That’s a bit above my skill/desired effort level, but it’s an option if you’re into it.
The automatic build server sometimes hangs, and it can be weeks before someone notices and kicks it. Builds, I think, are alphabetic based on device code name. I’ve gone for 2 months without a push on Taimen.
Rooting and using LSposed can make the process simpler. I use Andy yan’s GSI on my sm-t510.
