Cyanogen started with a grand vision: Create a commercially-supported, vendor-neutral Android-fork that anyone could use to keep their smartphones and tablets up to date. Not two years later, Cyanogen shut down its Android fork, CyanogenMod and its services.
CyanogenMod has long been the most popular custom ROM, covering a wide array of devices from numerous manufacturers.
After months of internal turmoil, Cyanogen finally announced that it will shut down all services and Cyanogen-supported nightly builds on December 31, 2016. The company revealed that the move is a part of the ongoing consolidation of Cyanogen.
True, CM as a brand is dead. But, thanks to open source, the operating system may live on under a new name. Now LineageOS is preparing to offer official builds for over eighty devices. LineageOS will be a continuation of what CyanogenMod was.
The CyanogenMod based official Lineage OS builds will be going live on the official website this weekend in one of the biggest ever launch release for an Android custom ROM. The official Lineage OS builds will be available for both Android 6.0 Marshmallow and Android 7.1.1 Nougat platforms via the official download portal.
Every week there will be a new release candidate build, following the rollout of the official builds.
Unlike Cyanogenod, the official builds of Lineage OS will not include ROOT functionality. However, the users will be able to install root on their device through a separate downloadable zip file.
In addition, the developer team has promised to offer experimental builds for data migration from CyanogenMod to newer Lineage OS ROMs. Prospective users can install the migration build before installing the official Lineage OS ROMs and thereby transfer all their user data from previous CM installation.
