How To Replace CyanogenMod With LineageOS On Your Android Device

CyanogenMod, once the most popular custom ROM for android devices, left its fans mourning when it was discontinued by its developers. The good news is many of these developers had been working on another custom ROM, which is a direct follow up to Cyanogenmod, resulting in the release of LinearOS. Essentially LinearOS is identical to Cyanogenmod, but released under a different name.

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For android users, CyanogenMod used to be the alternative to a near Stock Android Rom experience for a very long time. Not only was it open source but also it had a wide range of apps, a super active development and support community and supported a long list of smartphones. Now that Cyanogenmod is no more, LineageOS has arrived to continue from where CyanogenMod left off. Millions of rooted Android users are now moving over to this open-source project that gives them a flexible and bloat-free stock Android experience.

Switching From Cyanogenmod To LineageOS

With the LineageOS experimental build, it is quite easy to make the switch from CyanogenMod to LineageOS. The use of TWRP recovery will be of help if you want to avoid the occurrence of errors. You can also use similar recovery tools for the purpose.

So, first things first. Go to the TWRP website and download and install the recovery intended for your device. Now perform the following steps:

• Go to the LineageOS website and download the experimental and the latest nightly build of LineageOS that matches your specific device. You can either download them directly to your Android device without extracting them or transfer to your device after downloading to your PC. You should download LineageOS 13 if you have CM13, and LineageOS 14 if you have CM14.
• Once the download is complete, flash the experimental build first followed by the nightly build.
• The next step is to reboot your phone into recovery mode. For this, turn off your phone and then holding the Power and Volume down keys, turn it on again. While you turn it on, select “Recovery.”
• In the recovery menu, select “Backup” and take a backup of your data. Check the boxes for Boot, System, and Data and select the location where you want all your data to be saved. Now select “Swipe to Backup”. These menus may appear different if you are not using TWRP recovery.
• Next, go to the main screen of your recovery tool and select “Install”. Find the directory containing the LineageOS RAR files and choose the one with “experimental” in the name.
• Install the experimental RAR file and then reboot your android device. At this point, an Android home screen with watermarks will be loaded along with a message that says it’s a merger
• Boot your device again to the custom recovery screen of your phone and go to “Install.” Find the RAR file with “nightly” in the title and select it. Install it and reboot again.
• Your android device home screen should now appear without any watermarks which means that you have switched to LineageOS successfully.

Even though LineageOS is the replacement of CyanogenMod, switching from one to the other isn’t as trivial as it might seem. However, for dedicated CyanogenMod users, the move should be done sooner or later if they want to get the same stock ROM experience.