Building LineageOS 14.1 for Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 (n5110)

A guide to configuring a Docker build environment, syncing repositories, and compiling a custom ROM for the n5110

March 6, 2026

Building LineageOS 14.1 for Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 (n5110)

I have an old Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 Wi-Fi (n5110) tablet lying around unused at home, so I decided to use it as a 'toy' for a project.
Galaxy Note 8.0 (n5110)

I found remnants of an official build guide for the n5110 from LineageOS, the most famous AOSP-based custom ROM project, so I decided to try building it myself by referring to that.

Reference: [LineageOS Official Build Guide (n5100)]

Prerequisites

Before starting the build, you need to install the necessary system requirements and tools.

OS: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS or higher recommended
RAM: Minimum 16GB (32GB recommended)
Disk Space: At least 200GB of free space

Install Build Packages

To build Android, many dependency packages must be installed beforehand.
However, in my experience, builds often fail due to tangled dependencies depending on the version of Ubuntu, Python, or various libraries being used.

Therefore, it's much more convenient to create a dedicated Docker image for the build, completely isolating and controlling the build environment from the host.

I'll configure the Dockerfile for the build in the environment setup section later in the build process.

Initialize the LineageOS Source Repository

Create a working directory and initialize the LineageOS source and n5110 device tree.


Initialize repo
sh

Download the Source Code

Now, download the source code using the repo sync command.
The source code is very large, so it may take a long time depending on your network status.


Sync source code
sh

Prepare Device Specific Code

You need to prepare the kernel and vendor binaries for the n5110 device.


Extract proprietary blobs
sh

However, perhaps because official support for the device ended long ago, I encountered an issue where the relevant code could not be correctly retrieved from the official LineageOS repository.


breakfast fail
sh

After searching GitHub a bit more, I fortunately found an external repository (TheMuppets) that continuously backs up and supports vendor files for various old devices, including the n5110.
To use this external repository, you need to add a manifest file in .repo/local_manifests to download the code and then manually link the paths.


.repo/local_manifests/vendor_samsung.xml
xml

After modifying the manifest, I performed repo sync again, connected the necessary directories with symlinks, and retried breakfast.


Setting path using symlink after code sync
sh

This time, an error occurs stating that files related to kona-common are missing.
Fortunately, the kona-common directory was also included in the synchronized proprietary_vendor_samsung source, so I should be able to continue the build after adding another symbolic link.


Retry after adding symlink
sh

Next, an error occurred stating that n5100-related files were missing.
Similarly, the n5100 entry exists within the backed-up proprietary_vendor_samsung folder, so I'll create a symbolic link and try breakfast again.


Retry after adding symlink
sh

Finally, the breakfast n5110 command completed successfully without any major issues.
Now, let's start building the bootable ROM image in earnest.

Start the Build

As mentioned earlier, let's create a Docker image to perform the build consistently and without environment contamination.

I've configured the Dockerfile as follows, including all essential build tools and packages listed in the official LineageOS documentation.


DockerFile
docker

Now, create the image via docker build and enter the container environment by volume-mounting the working directory where the Android source code is synchronized.

Inside the container, set up the shell environment variables and then start the actual ROM build using the brunch command.


Build with docker
sh

Once the entire build process completes without errors, you can verify that the lineage-*.zip file for direct flashing and the recovery.img (recovery image) file have been successfully created in the out/target/product/n5110/ directory.


Build result
sh

4. Next Steps

In this post, I've set up the environment and successfully completed the build of a LineageOS 14.1 custom ROM for the idle n5110 device.
However, I haven't yet tested if the generated image works correctly on the actual tablet.

In the next post, I'll flash the ROM file and recovery image I built using a Custom Recovery (e.g., TWRP) and check if it boots without any issues.

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