LineageOS 21 released

The proprietary Google and Samsung (and whoever) versions that ship with your phone have got so good that rooting your phone or running Lineageos doesn't appeal the same way as it used to. And Samsung have very successfully locked out free software alternatives by making their phones' hardware need a proprietary VoLTE which has not been duplicated in FOSS, so if you install Lineageos on your Samsung you now have a much less capable device, not an improved one. Because you can't make calls. Quite important. On my regular, modern phone and tablet I *could* run FOSS but it's no longer viable as a practical measure and anyway Google & Samsung are not totally dumb; they absorb useful features seen elsewhere. Also if I want *all* the cameras on my Samsung to work, I have to run the official firmware else I lose the Macro completely and some functionality of the cameras that are detected.

Having used Samsung and Sony and Motorola for the last few years what I notice is that the proprietary vendors are doing a pretty good job of squeezing out the alternatives. Some years ago Cyanogenmod was seriously good, it had great appeal as it did things better and faster and felt full of user friendly improvements. Now? Yes, you can choose something else. Will you be able to make phone calls in your market? Maybe, but probably not and if so then that will soon change. Will the cameras work as you'd like? No. Will the audio playback work as you'd like? Probably not. It's pretty sad compared to desktop and server Linux where it's booting a proprietary OS which feels limiting and disappointing compared to the excellence of running *insert your preferred linux flavour here*.