[ASUS ZenFone 8] Mario545:
The goal of this thread is to provide a comprehensive list of resources for LineageOS for ASUS Zenfone 8, since I didn't find this at a central place yet. (at least those things that are not yet covered in the official documentation / wiki)

Please DO NOT ask questions in this thread,

instead ask them in the forum or in one of the LineageOS threads. But feel free to use this thread to share an interesting HowTo or insight that might be relevant for other users. I may also add more resources here in the future.

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Missing features compared to stock ROM​

Battery Charge Limit​

Limiting the battery charge is not an Android feature, it is provided by ASUS. Therefore, it will not be available in LineageOS. You can find a workaround in this thread. Root required.

Low brightness DC dimming​

Like other OLED phones, the ASUS Zenfone 8 suffers from PWM flickering in lower brightness. The ASUS Zenfone 8 has an option to enable DC dimming to mitigate PWM flickering in low brightness. Stupidly, however, it is an option, implemented by ASUS, not available in Android itself or any custom ROM. A workaround was mentioned in this thread.

Set display refresh rate​

In custom ROMs like LineageOS, you can only change the refresh rate with an adb command: See this answer. The change is permanent until you change it again with the same adb command.

Good camera app​

The default camera app on Android is only mediocre. Use Wichaya GCam Port instead. It also provides configs for Zenfone 8. To use it, you either need Google apps / microG or install Gcam-Services-Provider.

You may notice that the video function has a tinge of green. This can be solved by disabling video stabilization. Other users have reported to get better results with Shamim's GCam Port, some use multiple ports for different conditions. --> Discussion thread.

Some users reported that with the most recent Wichaya GCam Port (v1.6), they get almost as good results as with stock camera. A config file with improved 2x zoom can be found here. (requires LOS>=19)

Google apps​

By default, LineageOS provides no Google Apps. You can either install the original Google Apps as described in the LOS wiki, or use MicroG + a bunch of replacement apps (K-9 mail, OsmAnd) instead.

MicroG is a free open source reimplementation of the Google services, but see the limitations here. For MicroG, you need to use the MicroG fork of LineageOS which allows signature spoofing. It comes pre-installed with MicroG and F-Droid. MicroG website + Download: https://lineage.microg.org/ Installation works the same as LineageOS, however, due to a bug in the MicroG build pipeline, the image might be missing some firmware files. This is relevant if you want to upgrade your phone to a newer version. See the appendix for details on this.

Extra features​

Root access​

Root access is required for some of the workarounds listed above. But it also gives you access to some extra apps, like AFWall+.

Currently, Magisk is the way to go. It has some install instructions. If you strictly follow their instructions, you will need to patch the boot image file. And yes, the ASUS Zenfone 8 has a vbmeta partition. Both files you need, boot.img and vbmeta.img, are not directly visible to you, to get them, see Extract image files from payload.bin in the appendix.

However, a few users have reported that you can also install Magisk via. the recovery image, see here. In principle, this is a much easier way, but not officially endorsed by the Magisk authors.

Appendix​

Extract image files from payload.bin​

Some of the steps here require to extract images files (.img) from the customROM. In LineageOS, however, you will notice that no image files are present in the .zip file:

What you need to do is to extract those images from the payload.bin. This can be done with the payload-extractor, in both Windows or Linux. For Windows you need to install a recent python and from there you can install the required protobuf using pip.

Upgrading to a newer version of LineageOS for MicroG​

Unfortunately, due to a bug in the MicroG build pipeline, the "LineageOS for MicroG" build might be missing some firmware files required to successfully upgrade to a newer major version. (e.g. LOS18.1 to 19) If you are still on stock ROM, the best option is to install a stock Android matching the Android version of LineageOS first. (e.g. Android 12 for LOS19)

If you already installed an older version of LineageOS (for MicroG), you can get the missing firmware images from the original LineageOS (w/o MicroG) build and then flash it on your phone right after you upgrade to the newest LineageOS for MicroG.

To do this, extract the payload.bin of both LineageOS original and LineageOS for MicroG. Now compare what image files are missing, similar to this thread. Next, for each of the images, flash them to both "_a" and "_b" partition, like this:

fastboot flash <image_name>_a <image_name>.img
fastboot flash <image_name>_b <image_name>.img

Besides that, just follow the regular LineageOS upgrade instructions.

! Important, do it in this order: Sideload 19.1 build, reboot to fastbootd to flash all firmware partitions to both slots, then reboot.