Most tutorials for installing recovery and Lineage OS (formerly known as Cyanogenmod) onto the OnePlus One are for Windows. This is how to do it on Ubuntu Linux. The version I’m using for this tutorial is Ubuntu Linux x86-64 17.04.
Installing the required tools on Ubuntu Linux (17.04)
Open a terminal window if using a desktop environment.
First, lets update our repositories to make sure we have the latest software versions available.
sudo apt-get update
Now we’ll install some tools from the Android SDK Platform that we’ll need to access the partitions on our phone.
sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb android-tools-fastboot
Lets check to see if abd is installed and running by executing its version printing function.
adb version
The output should read something such as:
Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.32
Next we’ll need to enable developer options and USB debugging on the OnePlus One. To do this, unplug your phone from USB and go to your Android settings. Scroll to the bottom and find the menu option “About phone” or “About devices”. Tap the build number 7 times. This should unlock the Developer options.
Go to to the main settings list and locate the entry “Developer options”. Tap that entry to enter. Then, locate the “Update Cyanogen recovery” entry and disable it. Next, locate the “USB debugging” entry and enable it.
Now, connect yout phone to USB and check to see if adb can see the device by running
adb devices -l
On the phone, you should be prompted to accept the connection from the computer. Allow this connection on your phone.
The command in adb should now show your device and its unique ID. If you can see this, you are ready for the next section.
Flashing the Bootloader / Recovery
Reboot your device into the bootloader mode with the command
adb reboot bootloader
Now, we will unlock the bootloader and erase the stock firmware.
sudo fastboot oem unlock
The phone will reboot, erase the stock bootloader, and start back up into android. Let it load through the boot process and startup, this may take awhile. In the mean time, you can download more required files.
Download TWRP
Download the latest TWRP image from https://dl.twrp.me/bacon/
Download Lineage OS
Download the lastest version of Lineage OS for bacon: https://download.lineageos.org/bacon
Lineage OS Extras
Download any extras you may need from Lineage OS:
superuser binary (use wisely and with discretion) (for OnePlus One get the arm version): https://download.lineageos.org/extras
OpenGapps (for Google services – YUCK!!): http://opengapps.org/?api=7.1&variant=nano
Note: Personally, I’d recommend against using Gapps if you can avoid it. Once it is flashed onto the device it is extremely hard to remove without completely re-wiping your device. If you need a app/software repository, I’d recommend trying F-Droid (I will show you how to install it at the end of the tutorial) which has a much safer set of applications that typically are more respectful of your personal data and privacy. Google Apps are known to collect and sell massive amount of personal data and telemetry such as location / usage data, and contains many apps that will do the same. Many of the free apps will contain malicious advertisements as well.
In most cases, these files will now be saved in the Downloads folder of your user.
Once your device is done setting up Android again, you can skip through the introduction menus. Then go back into the settings menu and reenable the developer options in the menu, go into the developer options, disable “Update Cyanogen recovery” and enable “Android debugging”. Make sure the phone is still connected and when prompted by your phone, reallow access from your computer via the onscreen prompt.
To avoid confusion with other downloaded files, rename the twrp image file to “recovery.img”.
In terminal change directory into your Downloads folder or where you saved the other files to. We will now upload the new recovery software onto the phone after putting it back into recovery mode.
cd
cd Downloads
adb reboot bootloader
sudo fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot will upload the TWRP image to the recovery partition. Allow it to finish. You know it has finished when it displays “finished. total time: ….”
Now, reboot the device.
sudo fastboot reboot
The phone will boot into android. Once it reaches Android, you can reboot into recovery by holding the power button + volume down buttons. Once the phone starts up, you can releasse the power button and only continue to hold down the volume down button on the device. This should bring you into TWRP.
Welcome to TWRP
Swipe to enable modifications. Do not keep your system partition in read-only. We will be writing to this partition.
Backup Cyanogen OS
First, lets make a backup of the stock Lineage OS that comes with the OnePlus One. I recommend you archive this somewhere on the device or on a hard drive just in case you ever need to restore the phone to stock.
Select the “Backup” menu entry. Select a name I prefer “$date – LineageOS Stock”. Select all the partitions to backup then swipe to start the backup process. It should take a minute then vibrate when its completed. Go back to the main menu.
Wipe the device
I’m not sure if this is necessary as flashing Lineage OS may overwrite the partitions but its safer to be sure and just wipe the partitions. The partitions we will wipe are: Dalvik, System, Data, and Cache. DO NOT wipe Internal Storage as that is what we have just used to store our backup. If you need to wipe the internal storage, make sure you copy the backup and other files over first. In my guide, I have my internal storage already cleaned up of any personal files.
Slide the slider to being the wipe process. It should complete quickly. Go back to the main menu.
Install Lineage OS
Once at the TWRP main menu, copy the main Lineage OS zip file to your internal storage on the device. Also, move any of the Lineage add-ons that you downloaded into this folder too. I have put my linage zip in my Downloads folder for now.
You can keep these in a folder on the device to have as a backup. You may come in handy in the future if you ever need to re-flash the system. so I’d recommend archiving them somewhere.
We will now install LineageOS and our add-ons. Select the “Install” entry in the main menu. Go to the “Downloads” folder. The main “lineage” .zip file that you downloaded and moved. Verify that you have selected the right file. Then swipe to confirm the flash. The phone will begin to unpack and flash the system partition with Lineage OS.
If you did not wipe the Dalivk / ART cache before in the wiping section of this guide, you should do this now.
If you want to apply the superuser / root function to your phone (only do this if you know what this does), you can do so now by going back to the main menu, selecting “Install” and doing the same process we just did except this time select the “addonsu” .zip file. You can follow this process to install “opengapps” as well.
You can now reboot the device from the menus. TWRP will offer to install a TWRP App. You do not need this. It is optional. I’ve unchecked both options and then pressed the “Do Not Install” button. TWRP will offer this almost every time you use the TWRP menu.
Your device will not reboot into Lineage OS. Congratulations you have completed the process! 🙂
Troubleshooting
If you encountered an error, its likely that the files that you downloaded were corrupt or did not download properly. Try downloading them again and retrying.
If you get stuck in a boot loop, try going back to TWRP and flashing an older version of Lineage OS.
Installing F-Droid
NOTE: You will need to have mobile data or a wifi connection to do this. Otherwise you will need to download the F-droid APK from your computer and transfer it via USB to your phone’s internal storage first.
To install the app repository, F-Droid, simply go through the intro Lineage OS menus on first boot. Once you reach the home-screen / desktop. You can open up your phone’s web browser and go to https://f-droid.org/
Then select the Download F-Droid button on their site. Allow the browser to access storage, then select the download option. Your phone will download the APK file.
Once it is downloaded, select it from the phone’s drop down menu / notification slide down menu. You will be prompted that you need to enable unknown sources before you can install this. Click the settings option and you will be taken to your settings menu. Find the “Unknown sources” option and enable it. You will be prompted about the risk in doing this, press OK. Unknown sources should be enabled now.
Press the home key, open your app drawer, and select “Files”. Then select “Downloads”, then Select the FDriod.apk. Press “Install”. Your phone will install F-droid. When its done, press “done”.
Press the home button and open the app drawer again. Open the “settings” app and go to the “Security” section. Locate “Unknown source” and disable this option.
Now, go back to your app drawer and locate F-Droid. It will open. You need to press the refresh button in the top right (looks like a circle arrow) and F-Droid will update its repositories and show the apps you can install.
Enjoy!
Thank you for reading! Hope this helped.
