Hey all,

im looking to ditch the stock rom and put a rom on that doesn’t have any proprietary stuff on it. i have a Moto G Stylus 5G 2024, and from XDA, it seems that there is not only root, but also GSI roms. do GSI roms still contain google binaries (play store, play services, etc…) or is it similar to a AOSP rom where its just a bare android image with no apps other than the very basic stuff? Sadly i can’t afford getting a pixel atm or another device that can run mobile linux or graphene, so just wanted to see if this was viable.

  • potatoguy@lemmy.eco.brEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    Depends on the GSI rom. Some have microG, some have play services, some have none, some come with debug variables enabled.

    In my understanding, GSI roms (project treble) are like a shell around the main android components, like firmware, so they are generic to every device, but some features might break. Here are some ROMs.

    There are some details, like vndk and vndk lite, A/B partitioning, if the ROM is signed, etc.

    • 1985MustangCobra@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      so i was reading it, and told me i could check my device via a apk. i did that and said “generic image found”. does that mean i can just download the generic rom (it said AB for my device) from their repo and flash it?

      • potatoguy@lemmy.eco.brEnglish
        2·
        1 day ago

        Depends on the version, if it’s android 15, use GSIs with android 15 or higher, with versions equal or higher than the vndk on your device, then it will work.

        One example to the naming is in the Andy Yan’s LineageOS build:

        https://sourceforge.net/projects/andyyan-gsi/files/lineage-21-pre-qpr2-light/

        {arm|a64|arm64}_{a|b}{v|g}{N|S}-{signed|vndklite|personal}
|               |    |    |     |
|               |    |    |     signed: Signed with maintainer's keys
|               |    |    |     vndklite: For VNDKLite devices,
|               |    |    |               or for writeable /system on regular devices
|               |    |    |     personal: With personal mods, for reference
|               |    |    |     (secure): Superuser removed and system props spoofed
|               |    |    |               (not offered here)
|               |    |    |
|               |    |    N: No Superuser
|               |    |    S: With PHH Superuser
|               |    |    (Z): With Dynamic Superuser (not offered here)
|               |    |
|               |    v: Vanilla, i.e. no GAPPS
|               |    g: With regular GAPPS
|               |    o: With Android Go GAPPS
|               |    (f): With MicroG and FLOSS replacements of GAPPS
|               |         (not offered here)
|               |
|               a: "A-only", i.e. system-as-system (deprecated)
|               b: "AB", i.e. system-as-root
|
arm: ARM 32-bit (deprecated)
a64: ARM 32-bit with 64-bit binder
arm64: ARM 64-bit

        With attention to the naming scheme, I think you can grab any that has the features you want. Oh, and microG now has a build that doesn’t need signature spoofing now, seems android doesn’t check the signatures on system apps agains the binary data, so just copying it to microG solved (from what I understood).