🛠️Upgrading Lineageos

updating_lineageos

This hypha documents the process I go through to update LineageOS on my Pixel 3a phone (codename sargo). The device is unlocked, rooted with Magisk, uses F-Droid for package management, and has the TWRP custom recovery.

  1. It is tradition to first try the process with an inadequate USB cable -,-

  2. Follow the lineageOS upgrade or update instructions.

    1. For the final sideload command to work, the mode must be selected from the TWRP Advanced menu

  3. Reinstall TWRP following https://twrp.me/google/googlepixel3a.html

    1. Note: Make sure you have good adb drivers, or adb might work but not fastboot! Most recently, I've only been able to use fastboot boot on Windows with UniversalAdbDriver, even though adb seemed to work fine from Linux for the previous steps.

  4. Boot into system and then reboot into TWRP

    1. We need root for the next step and TWRP provides this. We also get confirmation that the TWRP install went well/

  5. Extract a boot image

    1. enter an adb shell

    2. cd /sdcard/TWRP/

    3. Run the ./Extract script

  6. ReRoot with Magisk

    1. Boot into system

    2. (Make sure the Magisk app is installed)

    3. Use the app's Install menu to patch the boot image, generating a file in Downloads/

    4. Reboot to TWRP

    5. Use adb pull /sdcard/$path_to_file to fetch the patched image

    6. Reboot to bootloader and use fastboot to boot the patched image and make sure it works

      1. TWRP's fastboot does not work for this.

    7. Reboot to bootloader and use fastboot to flash the patched boot image (fastboot flash boot $image)

  7. Install the F-Droid privileged extension

    1. Download the latest OTA: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged.ota/

    2. Reboot into TWRP

    3. adb push the OTA zip (if its not already there)

    4. Install the zip

    5. Reboot into system

Subhyphae