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Depends on the GSI rom. Some have microG, some have play services, some have none, some come with debug variables enabled.
In my understanding, GSI roms (project treble) are like a shell around the main android components, like firmware, so they are generic to every device, but some features might break. Here are some ROMs.
There are some details, like vndk and vndk lite, A/B partitioning, if the ROM is signed, etc.
so i was reading it, and told me i could check my device via a apk. i did that and said "generic image found". does that mean i can just download the generic rom (it said AB for my device) from their repo and flash it?
Depends on the version, if it's android 15, use GSIs with android 15 or higher, with versions equal or higher than the vndk on your device, then it will work.
One example to the naming is in the Andy Yan's LineageOS build:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/andyyan-gsi/files/lineage-21-pre-qpr2-light/
{arm|a64|arm64}_{a|b}{v|g}{N|S}-{signed|vndklite|personal}
| | | | |
| | | | signed: Signed with maintainer's keys
| | | | vndklite: For VNDKLite devices,
| | | | or for writeable /system on regular devices
| | | | personal: With personal mods, for reference
| | | | (secure): Superuser removed and system props spoofed
| | | | (not offered here)
| | | |
| | | N: No Superuser
| | | S: With PHH Superuser
| | | (Z): With Dynamic Superuser (not offered here)
| | |
| | v: Vanilla, i.e. no GAPPS
| | g: With regular GAPPS
| | o: With Android Go GAPPS
| | (f): With MicroG and FLOSS replacements of GAPPS
| | (not offered here)
| |
| a: "A-only", i.e. system-as-system (deprecated)
| b: "AB", i.e. system-as-root
|
arm: ARM 32-bit (deprecated)
a64: ARM 32-bit with 64-bit binder
arm64: ARM 64-bit
With attention to the naming scheme, I think you can grab any that has the features you want. Oh, and microG now has a build that doesn't need signature spoofing now, seems android doesn't check the signatures on system apps agains the binary data, so just copying it to microG solved (from what I understood).
sorry for my ignorance with this, so this https://github.com/TrebleDroid/treble_experimentations/releases/tag/ci-20250415 will work on my device as per what their app told me?
I wouldn't use the pure phh GSI rom, it's very barebones and comes with all debug options enabled.
Maybe this LineageOS miggt be better: https://github.com/MisterZtr/LineageOS_gsi/releases/tag/v2025.10.10
Or an Android 16 LineageOS (from the same repository), or other ones in this range. I have a suspicion that all these new ones are A/B compatible.
got it. will test it out and report back. time to dich google again.
so i ended up using DSU loader to run linage OS, and it seems to be working great, however, to my understanding, im not really installing the ROM, more so running it. is this how its supposed to work now?
I didn't download the image, but if it came in a .img, you can flash with fastboot, if it came in a .zip, you can flash with a recovery like twrp, what format it came in?
img
Try using fastboot, you can flash the ROM directly to the system partition. There are some tutorials on how to do that.
im getting there. i got the image flashed, but only have 4G which is ok, but i cant install APKS becuase of some security flag, so im reinstalling everything and trying again
do GSI roms still contain google binaries (play store, play services, etc...) or is it similar to a AOSP rom where its just a bare android image
Yes. That's to say they can be either depending on how the ROM was built. All of the GSI ROM builders I've worked with usually have multiple releases of the same build with different configurations: root, no root, with Google services (often MicroG), without Google services, combinations of both, etc.
To my understanding, GSI ROMs are basically just the "userland" portion of a full ROM. Basically they use the stock/existing kernel, drivers, etc but replace the rest of the system that runs on top of it. If memory serves, they're possible due to Project Treble. Sadly, they still require an unlocked bootloader to install, so they're not a total fix-all.
They're also very generic generic images (hence the "G" in the term). They're not optimized for any specific device and can be hit-or-miss feature wise depending on the device. If you're already reading about a specific device on XDA forums, then you'll probably be able to see what works and what doesn't.
TL;DR: Running a GSI ROM is like upgrading to a newer Linux distro but without upgrading the kernel.
ah i see ok. yeah i don't want microG. thanks
It stands for 'Generic System Image', I've used one before and it was mostly bare and service-less, but that has been a minute. One thing I'd note is that it was a pain in the ass and there were extra steps and requirements that if I had bothered to read I wouldn't have messed with and just gone with AOSP.
yeah sadly there is no AOSP roms for my device or offical or unoffical linage OS. all the ROMS ive seen are all GSI roms and there's very few to pick from.
Not sure of the intricacies of your hardware, this one does look like a pain in the ass, but there appears to be a LineageOS development build for at least one variant of a Moto G Stylus 5G on xda-developers.
that's an older model.