Right now I have a Nokia 8 and it cannot be rooted because the bootloader cannot be unlocked. Which sucks a lot.

Are there any manufacturers that make Android phones that are easy to root and have good support for LineageOS or something similar?

  • darhma
    4·
    4 years ago

    Rooting a device is not too difficult, but as you said it’s needed to unlock the bootloader: xiaomi allow to unlock the bootloader after you make a MI account and wait some time (generally 2 weeks but may vary), pixel phones and oneplus also allow to unlock the bootloader. Anyway you can search for supported devices in lineageos site: https://download.lineageos.org/ (go to menu to see the supported devices) or you can look at the xda-developers forum to see how to unlock the bootloader of a device: https://forum.xda-developers.com/

    • ​@
      1·
      4 years ago

      xiaomi allow to unlock the bootloader after you make a MI account and wait some time

      Does this happen only in the MIUI version? I have one with Android One and the option has always been available to me.

      • darhma
        2·
        4 years ago

        I don’t know about android one versions but with MIUI it works as described. Enabling the option in android one actually unlock the bootloader? In MIUI you have the option but you also need to create a MI account and use MI unlock tool to actually unlock the bootloader

        • ​@
          1·
          4 years ago

          Enabling the option in android one actually unlock the bootloader?

          It opens a pop-up with a warning about device protection features not going to work if the setting is turned on, and two buttons “cancel” and “enable.” Selecting “enable” just enables it, doesn’t ask for any account.

          Edit: do they ask for a key after or before that screen? If it is after, during the fastboot commands, I can’t risk testing that because if it works without a key it’ll delete all the data I have on the phone (I’ve never done this before on a modern phone, my previous, older phone was easier because the bootloader wasn’t locked).

          • darhma
            1·
            4 years ago

            Ok, i searched in the xda-developers forum how to unlock the bootloader for xiaomi mi a1 (which is an android one device) and it seems that it doesn’t ask for a key to unlock. You need to enable oem unlock in the developer options and then boot in fastboot mode and simply run a command, doing this you will lose all your data (so you need to backup first)

            • ​@
              1·
              4 years ago

              Thanks! I’ll do as I usually do with Android phones and wait until my Android version gets too old for running modern apps or stops receiving security updates, once that happens I’ll unlock the bootloader, replace the OS with an unofficial but more recent version and root it.