ROM development for phones with Exynos chipsets, like pretty much all recent Samsung flagships (in their international models, of course), has been slowly but steadily growing with time. Bringing up AOSP Android on Samsung devices is way, way harder than Qualcomm-based development because Samsung does not provide public documentation for their chipsets among other reasons, so getting something to work on these devices is pretty much a hit or miss game until everything works well. However, it has been done: both the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S7 have received working AOSP-based ROMs on their Exynos versions, and the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge have even received official LineageOS support. Now it's the turn for the Galaxy S8, Samsung's early 2017 flagship, to receive non-TouchWiz custom ROMs once and for all.

XDA Recognized Developer Fevax, who's also a co-maintainer for the official LineageOS 14.1 on the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, has just released unofficial, alpha-quality LineageOS builds for the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Samsung Galaxy S8+. This is the first AOSP-based ROM available for these devices, so it is quite a feat in itself: even if it does have a couple of fatal bugs here and there, the majority of essentials - like WiFi, Bluetooth, and most sensors - are working, so it's a matter of polishing until it's finally done. These builds are based on Android 7.1.2 Nougat, and we probably won't see Android Oreo unofficially on the S8 for a long while.

Right now, the greatest deal breakers of these alpha quality ROMs are the lack of RIL (cell signal) and camera, so we definitely don't recommend this as a daily driver for anyone. However, if you have a spare device and you're willing to accept a heavy dip in quality, go check out the official XDA threads for the S8 and the S8+ to download it and install it on your device. Keep in mind, though, that this will only work with the Exynos model of the Galaxy S8, as US owners of the Snapdragon-powered versions are out of luck because of the locked bootloader.


Download LineageOS 14.1 for the Galaxy S8 phones!