LineageOS 21 now officially supports the Nintendo Switch
If you ever wanted to run Android 14 on your gaming handheld, the Nintendo Switch is now officially supported by LineageOS 21.
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Why would you want to, though?
It's not like the Switch is a powerhouse; you're better off just buying a Deck and emulating.
A Steam Deck is also double the price and not something that a lot of people might have just lying around.
I just don't get what the purpose is though. You've lost access to the proprietary primary library, which was the original reason to buy a Switch. If you want an emulation console there are cheaper alternatives as well other than the Deck, I was just using it as the de facto standard handheld.
There's no benefit to nuking the OS and replacing it on a Switch. At least with something like a ROG Ally, you can make the argument that flipping over to Linux would make the handheld more performant and energy efficient. That cannot be said about flashing Lineage onto a Switch which functionally makes the system considerably less useful.
The Switch OS is already optimized and designed for the hardware. It's as good as you're going to get, and it's also already Linux. I would much rather suggest cracking it to put custom firmware on the device based on the Switch OS; you would get more use out of the device because it could still play the games and be rigged to emulate the older ones.
It's cool Lineage did this or whatever but it's kind of a pointless and weird flex.
The time it took you to write this would have been better spent reading the article:
Because Android isn’t technically “installed” on the Switch, but rather an external microSD card, you can switch between the default system and Lineage at any time.
Running Lineage is a big deal for those of us who have a switch laying around that no longer have a use for it.
Or, the basic use case - Play emulated games on a neat handheld package with a decent screen on a plane or something, without needing to carry or buy another device.
If you have a Gen 1 Switch laying around, I would advise you to sell it to somebody who wants to make use of the ability to put CFW on it. They are actually still pretty valuable given the fact that all of the models beyond the first generation are guarded against the exploit that even makes this possible.
If you've got a switch gathering dust and have no interest in using it for gaming again (e.g. if you've got a steam deck), it's nice to have the option to convert it to an Android tablet for the multitude of use cases the stock OS doesn't support: streaming, a proper web browser, chat apps, ...
I have a Lite so I couldn't even if I wanted to.
If you have an original gen 1 Switch capable of even doing this (eg, not guarded against Fusée Gelée exploit at the hardware level like all subsequent models) you will probably find a better return selling it to somebody who wants to put CFW on it rather than turning it into a hacky android tablet.
You could still mod using HWFLY/INSTINCT-NX or a Picofly modchip
With the model of the switch I have, modding it like this is only a softmod. Restarting the switch returns it to its normal nintendo switch interface and OS.
Why do this? Its fun, and besides if nintendo doesn't want you playing its old games on new hardware then I'll makr the new hardware play the old games.
If you can only install softmods you will not be able to crack the Switch to install Android on it. If you read the article it goes into detail about how only G1 Switches can actually achieve this because they are not guarded against the Fusée Gelée exploit for Nvidia Tegra processors. It continues to point out how Lites and OLEDs need to have custom soldering done for this to even work.
That’s what the original mod for switch is called, soft mod.
By restarting you either drop into a “launcher” that gives you various options including booting into the original OS or your modded OS.
I set mine up so if it restarts it always goes into the modded OS. Many people have theirs set up to go to the launcher, instead. People usually boot into the original OS if they want to play online.
Correct, however rooting and installing lineageos for...? It will probably not let you play Nintendo games from their cloud. Might be cool as a emulator gamepad, but there's plenty of great options out there for less now.
Of course. You would be banned if you tried to connect to any a Nintendo services while not on the official firmware.
Don't know if it applies here but I saw a video where the native version of Minecraft ran slower than the emulated version... on a Switch!
Taki Udon demonstrates a Switch emulating a Switch running Minecraft with better performance than Minecraft just running on Switch stock firmware.
Yup. That was the one. Quite sad, but possibly the native system throttles to improve battery.
I'm sure Nintendo intentionally throttles the Switch to improve battery life, preserve the integrity of the hardware, and provide a consistent experience. Not to defend their decision at all. I just think it's funny how people tend to react to learning about how much the Switch is artificially held back, as if Nintendo is just being stupid about the potential of their own console. I think it's very likely they did plenty of testing and concluded that the specs they targeted provided the best balance of positive overall user experience with the least amount of complications for developers. And it clearly worked because it's one of the best selling consoles ever with a massive catalogue of titles. The small handful of power users who want a Switch 4K Pro are just destined to buy a Steam Deck anyway. Nintendo doesn't want anything to do with that niche group of gamers lol.
It makes a really really good android tablet in my experience and breaks in half every other android tablet I have used as of recently and I can't get rid of it.
Like sure battery life isn't the best. But the amount of things that you can do with a generic android device is astounding and is well worth the investment and it has more ram than any other tablet in its price category when bought used on eBay. Such that it actually functions really well compared to the shittastic tablets you'd be buying for its price point.
That and you can just run Linux on the Nintendo Switch anyway and have a fully functional computer that mogs any single board computer out there including the raspberry pi. Like having better hardware decoding and actual vulkan and opengl support that isn't gimped due to laziness surrounding drivers that surrounds these computers.
I sold my switch that I stupidly bought when they first came out. People are still buying them and I got more than I expected. Switches with lower firmware numbers are probably worth more money due to jailbreaks and stuff but I didn't research switch mods or anything.
