Realme introduced the Realme 6 back in 2020, marketing it as a 64MP Pro camera and the 90Hz pro display smartphone. While the smartphone impressed many people on paper, Realme UI wasn’t the choice of a lot of people. Moreover, till yesterday Realme smartphones did not have a community of developers porting out custom ROMs for the smartphone, unlike Xiaomi; However, this changes today. This post will guide you on Unlock Bootloader, Flash Recovery, and Install Lineage OS on Realme 6.
Also read, How To Root and Install Pixel Experience ROM on Realme 6 Pro.
Realme 6 Lineage OS 18.1 Features:
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Easy to install-
Installing the ROM is relatively easy, as users need to flash the ROM file and the GApps file. Nothing extra or special is required, making it very good for people who are new to all of this stuff and have no information about the same.
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Clean Experience-
This ROM offers a very clean experience compared to realme UI as we do not get any bloatware, and there are very minimal apps pre-loaded.
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Support for 90Hz-
Realme marketed 90Hz on this phone as a Pro Display feature. Unfortunately, with other ROMs, the support for 90Hz was removed. However, with Lineage OS, users get the support for 90Hz to experience 90Hz on this ROM.
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Support for Magisk-
Compared to other ROMs, LineageOS 18.1 supports Magisk. This means users can root their devices as well. Rooting unlocking some great features and adds further options for customization as well.
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Stable Experience-
As ROMs for this phone are in their early development stage, they are not very stable. Hence they have some major bugs, and users cannot use them as a Daily Driver ROM. But with Lineage OS, users get a very stable experience, and in fact, this is the most stable ROM for this phone.
Pre-Requisites:
- Realme 6 device
- A Laptop/PC for ADB commands
- Original USB cable provided by realme
- Download required tools and files that are mentioned below
- Copy the Pbrp recovery file and vbmeta file to the Platform-tools folder
- Remove the Lockscreen password (If any)
Download Links:
- ADB Drivers
- Platform tools folder
- Realme Unlocking Tool App
- Lineage OS ROM
- NikGApps
- Vbmeta File
- PBRP For Realme 6
How to Install Lineage OS 18.1 on Realme 6:
There is a list of steps one needs to follow before installing LineageOS on their smartphone:
- Unlock Bootloader
- Flash Recovery
- Install LineageOS
1] Unlock Bootloader of Realme 6-
Before unlocking the bootloader, users need to enable Developers Options and enable USB Debugging. For that, they need to follow the steps mentioned below-
1.1] Enable Developers Option-
- Open the Settings page of your Realme 6 smartphone.
- Next, head over to Settings, then About Phone, and Tap on Build Number for 7 times.
- Now, Head over to Developer Options and enable USB Debugging.
1.2] Unlock the Bootloader-
Now, users need to unlock the bootloader of their device. This is a 2-step process, and users will also need a PC/Laptop here. All the steps are mentioned below-
- Download the Unlocking Tool APK and install it by clicking on it
- However, if users are installing an APK file for the first time, they will need to enable Unknown Sources. That can be done by clicking on the pop-up and toggling on the option.
Once they are done with installing the app, they now need to open the app and follow these steps-
- Firstly, users need to click on Start Applying within the app itself.
- Now, they need to check the disclaimer box and click on Submit the Application.
- The Realme servers will now check this application, so this can take some time to complete. Once that’s done, the phone will display a message saying “unlocking is successful”.
- Users now need to tap on the “Start the in-depth test” button, and the device will reboot automatically.
Users will now need to follow some steps on a PC/laptop. As a string needs to displayed on the screen fast boot_unlock_verify ok. So all the steps for the same are mentioned below-
- Download the ADB drivers, and install them as you would usually do.
- Download the platform-tools folder, and extract the file.
- Connect the phone to the PC with the Type-C cable.
- Open the platform-tools folder and then press the Shift key.
- While the key is pressed, right-click and there will be an option for the Powershell window.
- Open the PowerShell windows and type this command-
./fastboot flashing unlock
Note: This command will format your phone’s data.
Now, users can remove the USB Cable from their phone and follow these steps on the phone’s screen-
- Press the Volume UP key to unlock the Bootloader of your phone.
- Press all three buttons of your phone, and release it as soon as the screen turns black. This will reboot the phone into realme UI recovery, from where users can set it up.
- Users can select their language of choice and then press Power Off to power off the phone.
- Now press the Power button, which will boot the phone into realme UI.
Do not worry if nothing happens, and it can take some time. Users are now done with Unlocking the Bootloader, now they need to flash a custom recovery. Which in this case is Pitch Black, so they need to follow the steps mentioned below-
2] Flash Pitch Black Recovery-
Flashing the recovery is also fairly easy as users need to flash the vbmeta file and then flash the recovery itself. Here, users need to note that they would need to flash the recovery every time they want to boot into it. Unless and until they flash a Custom ROM, realme UI will not allow users to boot into a custom recovery. So it is recommended to flash the ROM and GApps file, once they boot into the recovery. To flash it, they need to follow these steps-
- Download the vbmeta and Pitch Black recovery from the link mentioned above in your PC/Laptop
- Rename the Pitch Black recovery file to “pbrp.”
- Enable the developer options, by going into the Settings, About Phone, and tapping on the build number 7 times.
- In the developer options, turn on USB debugging.
- Connect your phone, to a PC/Laptop with a USB Type-C cable.
- Open the platform-tools folder and transfer the vbmeta and the recovery file to the folder.
- On the search box, type “cmd” and hit enter.
- This will open a CMD window, and now users need to type in some commands, mentioned below-
adb devices
- This command will display the device id of your phone. Now click on the “Always allow for this computer” and click Allow.
- Next, enter the following command-
adb reboot bootloader
- The phone will not boot into bootloader mode, and now users need to type this command-
fastboot --disable-verity --disable-verification flash vbmeta vbmeta.img
After this, users need to flash the Pitch black recovery; for that, they need to follow these steps-
- Write the following command in the CMD window.
fastboot flash recovery pbrp.img
- The custom recovery is now flashed, now to boot into the recovery.
- For that, they need to press all three buttons of their phone until the screen goes black.
- After the screen goes black, they need to release the Volume up and Power Button but keep holding the Volume down key.
This will make the phone boot into recovery mode, and from now on, they can flash the Lineage OS ROM. For which they can follow these steps-
3] Flash Lineage OS ROM-
- Wipe the Cache, Dalvik, and Data off the phone.
- For that, in the Pitch Black recovery, users need to locate the Wipe section.
- From there, they need to go to Advanced Wipe and then select “Dalvik/ART Cache”, “Data”, and “Cache”.
- After that, they need to Swipe it, which will wipe all of the selected stuff.
- Next, to install the ROM and GApps, users need to head over to the install section.
- Now they need to locate the folder where they downloaded the ROM and the GApps file.
- For that, they need to select “Data,” scroll down and select a folder named “media.”
- Now click on the “0” folder, and find the file which they downloaded.
- Select the ROM and swipe to install.
- After installing the ROM file, users now need to select the GApps file and swipe to install it as well.
- Now users need to go in the wipe section of the recovery and go to “Format Data.”
- There, they will need to type yes and click the ok button which will format all the data.
Now users can finally boot into the system by pressing the power button and selecting the system. Users will be greeted with their new Lineage OS.
That said, are you enjoying LineageOS? Do let us know by dropping a comment down below.
