I know that most customizability features that were once exclusive to custom roms are available for use right out of the box these days.
In the case of manufacturers like Samsung, I think,there are still no official builds of lineageOS for the newer phones after the galaxy s10 series.
I’m aware that GSI roms are available. My experience with GSI’s have been kinda bad. Most of the time they lack a lot of features which makes the phone not viable anymore. Then there are also the random UI bugs, which frustrate the hell out of the user.
I miss the old days when there were lots of custom roms, even for budget devices. I used to flash them when my phones were out of warranty. I could use my phone however I saw fit.
Is there no way to bring back these good times ? Or will the whole custom ROM community just shrink to the pixels and a select few devices ?
In many cases, because manufacturers refuse to allow unlocking of bootloaders. In other cases, because manufacturers refuse to share drivers for proprietary hardware.
I think you meant it the other way around - “why custom ROMs have little device support” - right?
because for me it’s clear that companies just want to ship their own spyware and bloatware.
You do have a point. I wish projects like GrapheneOS and CalyxOS supported non pixel devices as well.
I’m not sure that is true, I don’t remember device support being much better in the past. But assuming that is the case, part of the reason might be the fast evolution of devices and Android itself back in the day. Old devices quickly becoming obsolete and new Android versions being desirable made custom ROMs very attractive for a group of people, including myself.
I installed CyanogenMod on my first smartphone because I could get a more recent Android version when it actually made a difference. As Android evolved, an up-to-date install is not as different anymore than a 3 year-old one, not in features and even less in looks. The main motivations I see for custom ROMs nowadays is to improve your privacy and decrease bloatware, but I don’t think most users would bother with going through the process and voiding their warranty to have these things.
I think there are fewer people working on them, more complexity involved in making a good one, and fewer end-users who want to use them.
It’s disappointing that every device needs active effort to support it, unlike PCs where operating systems can be more generic and detect hardware during boot or install. It’s my understanding that newer Android versions have improved the situation some, so we may see things turn around a little.
Unlockable bootloaders, having adb and fastboot support on the phone side, having a processor that has open source code, and not disabling cameras etc when the bootloader is unlocked are all needed to have a viable custom ROM community for a specific device.
Lots of modern phones don’t do some or all of the above. Mediatek powered phones are a no-go, some phones don’t support adb or fastboot (iirc some older LG phones have this issue), Sony would disable the camera if a bootloader was unlocked on some of their older phones.
