Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro (equuleus)
- Download last nightly build (2023-01-05) (mirror EU).
LineageOS 20.0 - [Recovery file (2023-01-05) (mirror EU)]
- Previous version (nightly) (2022-12-22)
LineageOS 19.1 – [ Android 12.1 (Snow Cone) ] - [Recovery file (2022-12-22)]
- Previous version (nightly) (2022-12-29)
LineageOS 19.1 – [ Android 12.1 (Snow Cone) ] - [Recovery file (2022-12-29)]
- Install LineageOS on equuleus
- Basic requirements
- Unlocking the bootloader
- Installing a custom recovery using fastboot
- Installing LineageOS from recovery
- Update to a newer build of the same LineageOS version on equuleus
- Updating your device
- Using the LineageOS Updater app
- From your PC via the push_update script (Linux/macOS only)
- Sideloading from Recovery
- Upgrade to a higher version of LineageOS
- Build for equuleus
- Introduction
- What you’ll need
- Build LineageOS
- Install the platform-tools
- Install the build packages
- Create the directories
- Install the repo command
- Put the ~/bin directory in your path of execution
- Configure git
- Turn on caching to speed up build
- Initialize the LineageOS source repository
- Download the source code
- Prepare the device-specific code
- Extract proprietary blobs
- Start the build
- Install the build
Install LineageOS on equuleus
Basic requirements
- Read through the instructions at least once before actually following them, so as to avoid any problems due to any missed steps!
- Make sure your computer has
adb
andfastboot
. Setup instructions can be found here. - Enable USB debugging on your device.
- Boot your device with the stock OS at least once and check every functionality.
Make sure that you can send and receive SMS and place and receive calls (also via WiFi and LTE, if available), otherwise it won’t work on LineageOS either! - LineageOS is provided as-is with no warranty. While we attempt to verify everything works you are installing this at your own risk!
Unlocking the bootloader
- Create a Mi account on Xiaomi’s website. Beware that one account is only allowed to unlock one unique device every 30 days.
- Add a phone number to your Mi account.
- Insert a SIM into your phone.
- Enable developer options in
Settings
>About Phone
by repeatedly tappingMIUI Version
. - Link the device to your Mi account in
Settings
>Additional settings
>Developer options
>Mi Unlock status
. - Download the Mi Unlock app (Windows is required to run the app).
- Run the Mi Unlock app and follow the instructions provided by the app. It may tell you that you have to wait up to 30 days. If it does so, please wait the quoted amount of time before continuing to the next step!
- After device and Mi account are successfully verified, the bootloader should be unlocked.
- Since the device resets completely, you will need to re-enable USB debugging to continue.
Installing a custom recovery using fastboot
- Download Lineage Recovery. Simply download the latest recovery file, named something like
lineage-19.1-20221006-recovery-equuleus.img
. - Connect your device to your PC via USB.
- On the computer, open a command prompt (on Windows) or terminal (on Linux or macOS) window, and type:
adb reboot bootloader
You can also boot into fastboot mode via a key combination:
- With the device powered off, hold Volume Down + Power. Keep holding both buttons until the word “FASTBOOT” appears on the screen, then release.
- Once the device is in fastboot mode, verify your PC finds it by typing:
fastboot devices
If you don’t get any output or an error:
- on Windows: make sure the device appears in the device manager without a triangle. Try other drivers until the command above works!
- on Linux or macOS: If you see
no permissions fastboot
try runningfastboot
as root. When the output is empty, check your USB cable and port!
Tip: Some devices have buggy USB support while in bootloader mode, if you seefastboot
hanging with no output when using commands such asfastboot getvar ...
,fastboot boot ...
,fastboot flash ...
you may want to try a different USB port (preferably a USB Type-A 2.0 one) or a USB hub. - Flash recovery onto your device (replace
<recovery_filename>
with the actual filename!):fastboot flash recovery <recovery_filename>.img
- Now reboot into recovery to verify the installation.
Do not reboot into the existing OS, since it will overwrite the recovery you just installed!-
With the device powered off, hold Volume Up + Power. Keep holding both buttons until the “Mi 8” logo appears on the screen, then release.
Note: If you can’t power down the device, try long-pressing the key-combination (if any was used in the instructions above) until the device reboots and follow the instructions above
-
Installing LineageOS from recovery
- Download the LineageOS installation package that you would like to install or build the package yourself.
- (Optionally): If you want to install an application package add-on such as Google Apps (use the
arm64
architecture), please read and follow the instructions on Google Apps page
- (Optionally): If you want to install an application package add-on such as Google Apps (use the
- If you are not in recovery, reboot into recovery:
- With the device powered off, hold Volume Up + Power. Keep holding both buttons until the “Mi 8” logo appears on the screen, then release.
- Now tap Factory Reset, then Format data / factory reset and continue with the formatting process. This will remove encryption and delete all files stored in the internal storage, as well as format your cache partition (if you have one).
- Return to the main menu.
- Sideload the LineageOS
.zip
package:- On the device, select “Apply Update”, then “Apply from ADB” to begin sideload.
- On the host machine, sideload the package using:
adb sideload filename.zip
.Tip: Normally, adb will reportTotal xfer: 1.00x
, but in some cases, even if the process succeeds the output will stop at 47% and reportadb: failed to read command: Success
.
In some cases it will reportadb: failed to read command: No error
oradb: failed to read command: Undefined error: 0
which is also fine.
-
(Optionally): If you want to install any add-ons, repeat the sideload steps above for those packages in sequence.
Note: Add-ons aren’t signed with LineageOS’s official key, and therefore when they are sideloaded, Lineage Recovery will present a screen that saysSignature verification failed
, this is expected, please clickContinue
.Note: If you want the Google Apps add-on on your device, you must follow this step before booting into LineageOS for the first time! - Once you have installed everything successfully, click the back arrow in the top left of the screen, then “Reboot system now”.
The first boot usually takes no longer than 15 minutes, depending on the device.
If it takes longer, you may have missed a step, otherwise feel free to get assistance.
Update to a newer build of the same LineageOS version on equuleus
Updating your device
Using the LineageOS Updater app
- Open Settings, navigate to “System”, then “Updater”.
- Click the Refresh Icon in the top right corner.
- Choose which update you’d like and press “Download”.
- When the download completes, click “Install”. Your device will reboot to recovery and install the update, then reboot to the updated installation.
From your PC via the push_update script (Linux/macOS only)
- Make sure your computer has working
adb
. Setup instructions can be found here. - Enable USB debugging on your device. Additionally, open Settings, then “System”, then “Developer Options”, and then either check “Rooted Debugging” (LineageOS 17.1 or above) or select “Root Access Options”, then “ADB Only”.
- Run
adb root
-
Run
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LineageOS/android_packages_apps_Updater/lineage-19.1/push-update.sh && chmod +x push-update.sh
- Run:
./push-update.sh /path/to/zip
- Open Settings, navigate to “System”, then “Updater”. Then proceed to click “Install” on the newly pushed update to commence installation. Your device will reboot to recovery and install the update, then reboot to the updated installation.
Sideloading from Recovery
- Make sure your computer has working
adb
. Setup instructions can be found here. - Enable USB debugging on your device. Additionally, open Settings, then “System”, then “Developer Options”, and then either check “Rooted Debugging” (LineageOS 17.1 or above) or select “Root Access Options”, then “ADB Only”.
- Run:
adb reboot sideload
-
Run:
adb sideload /path/to/zip
- Click the back arrow in the top left of the screen, then “Reboot system now”.
Upgrade to a higher version of LineageOS (e.g. lineage-15.1 -> lineage-16.0) on equuleus
Manually upgrading LineageOS
The updater app does not support upgrades from one version of LineageOS to another, and will block installation to any update for a different version. Upgrading manually requires similar steps to installing LineageOS for the first time.
- Verify your device is using the latest Lineage Recovery. Simply download the latest recovery file, named something like
lineage-19.1-20221006-recovery-equuleus.img
.
Follow your device’s installation guide to see how you can update your recovery image.Important: These instructions may not work if you choose to use a different recovery! - Download the LineageOS install package that you’d like to install or build the package yourself.
- If you are currently using (or now want to use) an application package add-on such as Google Apps, you have the following options:
- keep using them: Download the appropriate version now (use the
arm64
architecture) - remove them: You can only do so by performing a factory reset, which will also remove all your data.
- start using them: You can only do so by performing a factory reset, which will also remove all your data. Download the appropriate version now (use the
arm64
architecture)
- keep using them: Download the appropriate version now (use the
- Make sure your computer has working
adb
. Setup instructions can be found here. -
Enable USB debugging on your device.
- Run
adb reboot sideload
.Important: The device may reboot to a blank black screen, fear not, this is a known bug on some recoveries, proceed with the instructions. - Run
adb sideload /path/to/zip
(inserting the path to your LineageOS package).Tip: Normally, adb will reportTotal xfer: 1.00x
, but in some cases, even if the process succeeds the output will stop at 47% and reportadb: failed to read command: Success
.
In some cases it will reportadb: failed to read command: No error
oradb: failed to read command: Undefined error: 0
which is also fine. - (Optionally): If you want to install any add-ons, click
Apply Update
, thenApply from ADB
, thenadb sideload /path/to/zip
those packages in sequence.Note: If you previously had any Google Apps add-on package installed on your device, you must install an updated package before the first boot of Android! If you did not have Google Apps installed, you must wipe the Data partition (or perform a factory reset) to install them.Note: Add-ons aren’t signed with LineageOS’s official key, and therefore when they are sideloaded, Lineage Recovery will present a screen that saysSignature verification failed
, this is expected, please clickContinue
. - Once you have installed everything successfully, click the back arrow in the top left of the screen, then “Reboot system now”.
Build for equuleus
Introduction
These instructions will hopefully assist you to start with a stock Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro, unlock the bootloader (if necessary), and then download
the required tools as well as the very latest source code for LineageOS (based on Google’s Android operating system) for your device. Using these, you can build both
a LineageOS installation zip and a LineageOS Recovery image and install them on your device.
It is difficult to say how much experience is necessary to follow these instructions. While this guide is certainly not for the extremely uninitiated,
these steps shouldn’t require a PhD in software development either. Some readers will have no difficulty and breeze through the steps easily.
Others may struggle over the most basic operation. Because people’s experiences, backgrounds, and intuitions differ, it may be a good idea to read through
just to ascertain whether you feel comfortable or are getting over your head.
Remember, you assume all risk of trying this, but you will reap the rewards! It’s pretty satisfying to boot into a fresh operating system you baked at home :).
And once you’re an Android-building ninja, there will be no more need to wait for “nightly” builds from anyone. You will have at your fingertips the skills to
build a full operating system from code and install it to a running device, whenever you want. Where you go from there– maybe you’ll add a feature, fix a bug, add a translation,
or use what you’ve learned to build a new app or port to a new device– or maybe you’ll never build again– it’s all really up to you.
What you’ll need
- A Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro.
- A relatively recent 64-bit computer:
- Linux, macOS, or Windows – these instructions are only tested using Ubuntu LTS, so we recommend going with that.
- A reasonable amount of RAM (16 GB to build up to
lineage-17.1
, 32 GB or more forlineage-18.1
and up). The less RAM you have, the longer the build will take. Enabling ZRAM can be helpful. - A reasonable amount of Storage (200 GB to build up to
lineage-17.1
, 300 GB forlineage-18.1
and up). You might require more free space for enablingccache
or building for multiple devices. Using SSDs results in considerably faster build times than traditional hard drives.
- A decent internet connection and reliable electricity. 🙂
- Some familiarity with basic Android operation and terminology.
It may be useful to know some basic command line concepts such ascd
, which stands for “change directory”, the concept of directory hierarchies, and that in Linux they are separated by/
, etc.
VirtualBox, then install a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu (AOSP vets Ubuntu as well).
Any recent 64-bit version should work great, but the latest Long Term Support (LTS) version is recommended. There are plenty of instructions on setting up VirtualBox to run Ubuntu, so we’ll leave that to you. Though it is worth noting, if you already use either a Linux distro or macOS, you can just proceed.
Let’s begin!
Build LineageOS
skip to Prepare the device-specific code
Install the platform-tools
If you haven’t previously installed adb
and fastboot
, you can download them from Google.
Extract it running:
unzip platform-tools-latest-linux.zip -d ~
Now you have to add adb
and fastboot
to your PATH. Open ~/.profile
and add the following:
# add Android SDK platform tools to path
if [ -d "$HOME/platform-tools" ] ; then
PATH="$HOME/platform-tools:$PATH"
fi
Then, run source ~/.profile
to update your environment.
Install the build packages
Several packages are needed to build LineageOS. You can install these using your distribution’s package manager.
(usually originating from the Internet) on your computer. With Ubuntu, you can use the Ubuntu Software Center. Even better, you may also use the
apt-get install
command directly in the Terminal.
To build LineageOS, you’ll need:
bc bison build-essential ccache curl flex g++-multilib gcc-multilib git gnupg gperf imagemagick
lib32ncurses5-dev lib32readline-dev lib32z1-dev libelf-dev liblz4-tool libncurses5 libncurses5-dev
libsdl1.2-dev libssl-dev libxml2 libxml2-utils lzop pngcrush rsync
schedtool squashfs-tools xsltproc
zip zlib1g-dev
For Ubuntu versions older than 20.04 (focal), install also:
libwxgtk3.0-dev
While for Ubuntu versions older than 16.04 (xenial), install:
libwxgtk2.8-dev
Java
Different versions of LineageOS require different JDK (Java Development Kit) versions.
- LineageOS 18.1+: OpenJDK 11 (included in source download)
- LineageOS 16.0-17.1: OpenJDK 1.9 (included in source download)
- LineageOS 14.1-15.1: OpenJDK 1.8 (install
openjdk-8-jdk
) - LineageOS 11.0-13.0: OpenJDK 1.7 (install
openjdk-7-jdk
)*
* Ubuntu 16.04 and newer do not have OpenJDK 1.7 in the standard package repositories. See the Ask Ubuntu question “How do I install openjdk 7 on Ubuntu 16.04 or higher?”. Note that the suggestion to use PPA openjdk-r is outdated (the PPA has never updated their offering of openjdk-7-jdk, so it lacks security fixes); skip that answer even if it is the most upvoted.
Python
For building LineageOS 17.1 and above, you will need python3
as your system`s default. You can check this by calling python --version
.
If you are building any of the older branches, python2
is required instead.
There are various methods to using it, e.g. symlinking it manually or creating a virtualenv for it.
We recommend the latter:
Generate the virtualenv once using virtualenv --python=python2 ~/.lineage_venv
. Afterwards, activate it in each terminal where you need python2
as default by running ~/.lineage_venv/bin/activate
.
The path ~/.lineage_venv
can be chosen freely, this is just an example!
Create the directories
You’ll need to set up some directories in your build environment.
To create them:
mkdir -p ~/bin
mkdir -p ~/android/lineage
The ~/bin
directory will contain the git-repo tool (commonly named “repo”) and the ~/android/lineage
directory will contain the source code of LineageOS.
Install the repo
command
Enter the following to download the repo
binary and make it executable (runnable):
curl https://storage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo > ~/bin/repo
chmod a+x ~/bin/repo
Put the ~/bin
directory in your path of execution
In recent versions of Ubuntu, ~/bin
should already be in your PATH. You can check this by opening ~/.profile
with a text editor and verifying the following code exists (add it if it is missing):
# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi
Then, run source ~/.profile
to update your environment.
Configure git
Given that repo
requires you to identify yourself to sync Android, run the following commands to configure your git
identity:
git config --global user.email "[email protected]"
git config --global user.name "Your Name"
Turn on caching to speed up build
Make use of ccache
if you want to speed up subsequent builds by running:
export USE_CCACHE=1
export CCACHE_EXEC=/usr/bin/ccache
and adding that line to your ~/.bashrc
file. Then, specify the maximum amount of disk space you want ccache
to use by typing this:
ccache -M 50G
where 50G
corresponds to 50GB of cache. This needs to be run once. Anywhere from 25GB-100GB will result in very noticeably increased build speeds
(for instance, a typical 1hr build time can be reduced to 20min). If you’re only building for one device, 25GB-50GB is fine. If you plan to build
for several devices that do not share the same kernel source, aim for 75GB-100GB. This space will be permanently occupied on your drive, so take this
into consideration.
You can also enable the optional ccache
compression. While this may involve a slight performance slowdown, it increases the number of files that fit in the cache. To enable it, run:
ccache -o compression=true
ccache
size can be lower (aim for approximately 20GB for one device).Initialize the LineageOS source repository
The following branches are officially supported for the Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro:
- lineage-19.1
Enter the following to initialize the repository:
cd ~/android/lineage
repo init -u https://github.com/LineageOS/android.git -b lineage-19.1
Download the source code
To start the download of the source code to your computer, type the following:
repo sync
The LineageOS manifests include a sensible default configuration for repo, which we strongly suggest you use (i.e. don’t add any options to sync).
For reference, our default values are -j 4
and -c
. The -j 4
part implies be four simultaneous threads/connections. If you experience
problems syncing, you can lower this to -j 3
or -j 2
. On the other hand, -c
makes repo to pull in only the current branch instead of all branches that are available on GitHub.
repo sync
command is used to update the latest source code from LineageOS and Google. Remember it, as you may want todo it every few days to keep your code base fresh and up-to-date. But note, if you make any changes, running
repo sync
may wipe them away!Prepare the device-specific code
After the source downloads, ensure you’re in the root of the source code (cd ~/android/lineage
), then type:
source build/envsetup.sh
breakfast equuleus
This will download your device’s device specific configuration and
kernel.
makefiles, jump down to Extract proprietary blobs. The first portion of breakfast should have succeeded, and after completing you can rerun
breakfast
Extract proprietary blobs
This step requires to have a device already running the latest LineageOS, based on the branch you wish to build for. If you don’t have access to such device, refer to Extracting proprietary blobs from installable zip.
Now ensure your Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro is connected to your computer via the USB cable, with ADB and root enabled, and that you are in the
~/android/lineage/device/xiaomi/equuleus
folder. Then run the extract-files.sh
script:
./extract-files.sh
The blobs should be pulled into the ~/android/lineage/vendor/xiaomi
folder. If you see “command not found” errors, adb
may
need to be placed in ~/bin
.
Start the build
Time to start building! Now, type:
croot
brunch equuleus
The build should begin.
Want to learn how to sign your own builds? Take a look at Signing builds.
Install the build
Assuming the build completed without errors (it will be obvious when it finishes), type the following in the terminal window the build ran in:
cd $OUT
There you’ll find all the files that were created. The two files of more interest are:
-
recovery.img
, which is the LineageOS recovery image. -
lineage-19.1-20221006-UNOFFICIAL-equuleus.zip
, which is the LineageOS
installer package.
Success! So… what’s next?
You’ve done it! Welcome to the elite club of self-builders. You’ve built your operating system from scratch, from the ground up. You are the master/mistress of your domain… and
hopefully you’ve learned a bit on the way and had some fun too.
Content of this page is based on informations from github and LineageOS Wiki, under CC BY-SA 3.0 licence.