Reddit – Dive into anything

Hi there,

Apologies if this is not the right sub to ask this question, but I have an old phone that I wanted to make some use of, the default install is unfortunately bloated with garbage, and I want to get rid of all of it so I can this phone as my secure “at home” phone with my banking stuff, 2FA codes, crypto wallets, that sort of thing.

The problem is obviously the OS is complete bloatware so I wouldn’t trust it with a toothpick let alone my 2FA codes or banking app. I want to install LineageOS on it, which is “mostly” compatible if I build it myself, but the problem is I still need to unlock the OEM to be able to do so.

The “OEM unlock” option under developer options is not there, I have tried the unlocking app provided by Asus, this gives error “Unknown error. This may be a network connection issue. please wait and try again later”. Tried Fastboot oem unlock and fastboot flashing unlock which gives “FAILED (remote: unknown command)”.

I even tried the obscure method of changing the splashscreen, but whenever I tried to flash the splashscreen, it says partition flashing is not allowed. Assuming it’s because it’s only compatible with ZE550ML, not the ZE550KL.

I am out of ideas. How can I unlock OEM so I can install LineageOS or any other privacy respecting OS?