Google Pixel Phone

This one I bought used because I really miss the root capabilities but would rather not flash my daily driver (the Google Pixel 2 XL at the moment).

Info

Stolen from Google Pixel Wikipedia page:

Google announced the first generation Pixel smartphones, the Pixel and the Pixel XL, on October 4, 2016 during the #MadeByGoogle event. Google emphasized the camera on the two phones, which ranked as the best smartphone camera on DxOMarkMobile with 90 points until HTC released the U11, which also scored 90 points. This is largely due to software optimizations such as HDR+. The Pixel phones also include unlimited cloud storage for pictures on Google Photos and, for devices purchased directly from Google, an unlockable bootloader.

• Display: 5.0″ AMOLED display with 1080×1920 pixel resolution (Pixel); 5.5″ AMOLED display with 1440×2560 pixel resolution (Pixel XL)
• Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 821
• Storage: 32 GB or 128 GB
• RAM: 4 GB LPDDR4
• Cameras: 12.3 MP rear camera with f/2.0 lens and IR laser-assisted auto focus; 1.55 μm pixel size. 8 MP front camera with f/2.4 lens
• Battery: 2,770 mAh (Pixel); 3,450 mAh (Pixel XL); both are non-removable and have fast charging
• Materials: Aluminum unibody design with hybrid coating; IP53 water and dust resistance
• Colors: Very Silver, Quite Black or Really Blue (Limited Edition)
• Operating system: Android 7.1 Nougat; upgradable to Android 10

Support

• Pixel Phone Support

ROMs

LineageOS via lineageos.org

This appears to be where the official stable versions of ROMs are located.

• Current builds (currently 16.0)
  I'm not going to bother with this one.
  • Version 16.0
    • LineageOS 16.0 ROM Download Page for Pixel Phone (sailfish)
    • Recent Changes
    • Device Info
    • Installation Instructions

LineageOS via www.cyanogenmods.org

Downloading

This seems to be where the unstable / beta / pre-release versions are available. I have NO IDEA why these Android ROM guys use forums and ghetto file hosting sites to host their files, it's ridiculously annoying. You'll have to click around waaaay tooooo muuuuch. Geez. Anyway, maybe my shortcuts will help somewhat...

• LineageOS 17, LineageOS 17.1, and Android 10
  • Version 17.0 (Due to the clusterfuck of links from page to page on the damn forums, I accidentally downloaded 17.0 first, so here are those links:
    • TWRP Download Page for Pixel Phone
      • The TWRP Image
      • MD5SUM hash file (for verifying file integrity)
      • SHA256 hash file (for verifying file integrity)
      • GPG Signature (for verifying file authenticity)
    • LineageOS 17.0 ROM Download Page for Pixel Phone
      • ROM File *
    • GApps for LineageOS 17.0/17.1
  • Version 17.1 (currently the latest)
    • LineageOS 17.1 Download Page (Has all supported phones) - Don't be fooled by the first list of links, scroll down to the green box where is says "The initial LineageOS 17.1 branch is ready and we have the" ...
    • LineageOS 17.1 Download Page for Pixel Phone
      • LineageOS 17.1 ROM Download Page for Pixel Phone - without GApps
        • lineage-17.1-20200108-UNOFFICIAL-sailfish.zip Without GApps *
      • LineageOS 17.1 ROM Download Page for Pixel Phone - with GApps (RECOMMENDED DOWNLOAD)
        • lineage-17.1-withMTG-20200108-UNOFFICIAL-sailfish.zip With GApps
        • Pixel TWRP Download (sailfish) for this Pixel LineageOS 17.1 ROM
    • GApps for LineageOS 17.0/17.1

* This is the URL I ended up downloading from, but you may want to visit the page link for a better mirror

References

• How to install TWRP recovery
• Pixel unlock bootloader guide – required to install TWRP recovery
• How to Root LineageOS 16/17.0/17.1

Installing

• Skip all the setup options shown at first boot, no google, no wifi, nothing
• Enable developer mode on phone
• Enable USB debugging on phone
• Connect via USB to Linux box
• Use adb to list devices:

jeremy@latitude ~ $ adb devices
List of devices attached
FA6C30301328    device

• Connect to the shell and poke around; here I'm just getting the kernel/cpu info and finding the sdcard directory.

jeremy@latitude ~ $ adb shell
sailfish:/ $ uname -a
Linux localhost 3.18.137-g72a7a64494e #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Sep 27 18:40:34 UTC 2019 aarch64
sailfish:/ $ ls -l /sdcard/
total 80
drwxrwx--x 2 root sdcard_rw 4096 2019-09-29 20:29 Alarms
drwxrwx--x 4 root sdcard_rw 4096 2019-09-29 20:29 Android
drwxrwx--x 2 root sdcard_rw 4096 2019-09-29 20:29 DCIM
drwxrwx--x 2 root sdcard_rw 4096 2019-09-29 20:29 Download
drwxrwx--x 2 root sdcard_rw 4096 2019-09-29 20:29 Movies
drwxrwx--x 2 root sdcard_rw 4096 2019-09-29 20:29 Music
drwxrwx--x 2 root sdcard_rw 4096 2019-09-29 20:29 Notifications
drwxrwx--x 2 root sdcard_rw 4096 2019-09-29 20:29 Pictures
drwxrwx--x 2 root sdcard_rw 4096 2019-09-29 20:29 Podcasts
drwxrwx--x 2 root sdcard_rw 4096 2019-09-29 20:29 Ringtones
sailfish:/ $ ^D
jeremy@latitude ~ $

• If you haven't already, download the ROM, Gapps, and TWRP package:

jeremy@latitude Pixel_LineageOS $ ls -l
total 853476
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jeremy jeremy  83260609 2020-02-01 05:33:52 BiTGApps-arm-10.0.0-v0.2_signed.zip
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jeremy jeremy  80584079 2020-02-01 05:34:09 Gapps-Android10.zip
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jeremy jeremy 683704795 2020-02-01 05:33:02 lineage-17.0-20190923-UNOFFICIAL-sailfish.zip
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jeremy jeremy  31744000 2020-02-01 05:30:16 twrp-3.3.0-0-sailfish.img
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jeremy jeremy       566 2020-02-01 05:30:22 twrp-3.3.0-0-sailfish.img.asc
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jeremy jeremy        59 2020-02-01 05:30:28 twrp-3.3.0-0-sailfish.img.md5
-rw-rw-r-- 1 jeremy jeremy        91 2020-02-01 05:30:25 twrp-3.3.0-0-sailfish.img.sha256

• Let's verify that twrp file's GPG signature...
  • First, download their public key:

jeremy@latitude Pixel_LineageOS $ wget 'https://dl.twrp.me/public.asc'
--2020-02-01 05:51:49--  https://dl.twrp.me/public.asc
Resolving dl.twrp.me (dl.twrp.me)... 45.249.91.154
Connecting to dl.twrp.me (dl.twrp.me)|45.249.91.154|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 3075 (3.0K) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘public.asc’

public.asc 100%[=========================>]   3.00K  --.-KB/s    in 0s      

2020-02-01 05:51:49 (146 MB/s) - ‘public.asc’ saved [3075/3075]

• • Import the key:

jeremy@latitude Pixel_LineageOS $ gpg --import public.asc 
gpg: starting migration from earlier GnuPG versions
gpg: porting secret keys from '/home/jeremy/.gnupg/secring.gpg' to gpg-agent
gpg: key 609E4B027E2AA715: secret key imported
gpg: key 4B31AF3001005ED1: secret key imported
gpg: key DAB30EDA2AC5502D: secret key imported
gpg: key 8154B600280143A2: secret key imported
gpg: key 2A169095F4BDC72B: secret key imported
gpg: key B0CA7574E4BC2388: secret key imported
gpg: key CEBB3C0EE23BF0E2: secret key imported
gpg: key 1A2E1085555AFCCD: secret key imported
gpg: migration succeeded
gpg: key 1D8597D7891A43DF: public key "TeamWin <admin@teamw.in>" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1

• • Verify the signature of the twrp file:

jeremy@latitude Pixel_LineageOS $ gpg --verify twrp-3.3.0-0-sailfish.img.asc 
gpg: assuming signed data in 'twrp-3.3.0-0-sailfish.img'
gpg: Signature made Mon 15 Apr 2019 02:35:22 PM EDT
gpg:                using RSA key 95707D42307C9D41D09BF7091D8597D7891A43DF
gpg: Good signature from "TeamWin <admin@teamw.in>" [unknown]
gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
gpg:          There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
Primary key fingerprint: 9570 7D42 307C 9D41 D09B  F709 1D85 97D7 891A 43DF

Hmm, they could do better in putting their public key on a keyserver. Anyway...

• • Verify the MD5 hash:

jeremy@latitude Pixel_LineageOS $ md5sum -c twrp-3.3.0-0-sailfish.img.md5
twrp-3.3.0-0-sailfish.img: OK

• • Verify the SHA256 hash:

jeremy@latitude Pixel_LineageOS $ sha256sum -c twrp-3.3.0-0-sailfish.img.sha256 
twrp-3.3.0-0-sailfish.img: OK

All good. I only wish the ACTUAL ROM (and GApps) were signed. Oh well...