LONGPOST

Hello! Yes! I am back!

During all this time i was offline at Reddit and been gaining experience, now i have really much knowledge to give you!

Chapter 1: Choosing custom ROM

There are many Roms that the beginner could be confused, there are many groups and i would try to get popular and good (in my opinion) ROMs there:

Group 1: Features

Lightweight:

Lineage – stable ROM with huge community and least, but useful changes to it.

Paranoid Android – the rom that has everything following Android guidelines, and this means safetynet enabled so you could do banking payments and the other stuff (on most devices).

Customizable:

Resurrection remix – stuck on Android 10 because team cannot move on features to next version, it is MOST customizable ROM based on Lineage.

Crdroid – something like resurrection remix, but it has less customizations and moving on to next versions, which is good.

Spark OS – not that popular ROM, but it is really customizable and moves to next versions, has something exclusive like monet which was introduced in android 12!

Beginner friendly:

Pixel experience – if you need no struggle and you need everything to be set up, then choose this ROM, it is really good.

DotOS – ah, this rom gives me a pure shape how AOSP should look like, it has many features that mimic android 12 and somewhat Oxygen OS/ColorOS and has it’s own things included.

Group 2: Base system difference

AOSP:

This is how basic android looks, nothing interesting, ROMs i listed up there are based on AOSP, but it also has it’s own subcategory, which are CAF ROMs, CAF ROMs are different in speed and overall behave smoother on Qualcomm Processors, look out for them for your device!

OEM:

ColorOS – Cool ROM from OPPO with less bloat compared to MIUI, least Xiaomi devices have it.

OxygenOS – Almost like color OS, but has more feel of AOSP.

MIUI – ported to many devices and has many bloatware, you can install some modded ROM that would have no bloatware/more features

Linux distros (DANGEROUS):

There is only one global distro for most of devices, which is postmarketOS, it has most bugs, but it has really lightweight linux in it’s core and can run desktop apps, wouldn’t recommend to install if your device has many bugs listed.

Chapter 2: Mi unlock “how do i unlock?” “Why do i get errors?” And other questions people get.

If you would want to install a ROM on Xiaomi, then you should unlock your bootloader, without unlocked bootloader you couldn’t get any custom ROM to flash.

I am not responsible for thermonuclear war if you would flash something wrong, really, this tutorial is not exact and only based off my experience. Your data would be cleaned out!!!

AND DO NOT TRY TO BYPASS WAITING TIME, MAY LEAD TO A BRICK.

Requirements: phone with MI account + simcard linked to mi account.

First, Download miunlock tool on your computer (wouldn’t publish a link because i am aware that this would count as subreddit spam again.)

Next step you should enable developer settings through about phone→tap build number/MIUI version many times.

In the developer options enable usb debugging and OEM unlock, then head over to mi unlock, press link device, if it doesn’t go successful, then scroll to error list.

Now reboot in fastboot by turning off phone and holding vol- and power, you should see cute mitu bunny in… Hat with red star, fixing android… -_- (poco devices have sitting android only, no mitu mascot bunny)

After that plug in the phone and open miunlock tool. And sign in with your account, now you press unlock and… Ehh… “Wait X hours and try again”?

Why this happened?:

Xiaomi has a story of unfair resellers which sold phones with malware (do not mistake with bloatware) and to make it fair, you should prove that you’re not a reseller, just wait this amount of hours that program requested without resetting the phone and unlock again.

If you unlocked immediately, then your mi account is stated that it unlocked phones previously (you already were waiting a timer)

Successful and has a lock icon? Great! Not? Then follow errors and solutions.

Phone errors:

“Phone is already unlocked, why?”
This happens if the reseller installed global MIUI on Chinese phone, he unlocked bootloader.

Error 10008
You should try using VPN, maybe it would work.

Error 86006
Rarely happens on stable version of MIUI, try to install developer firmware

Error 20091
Issue in the phone by itself, it cannot be linked to your mi account. Go to service center and request to downgrade the phone.

Verification error / connect to the network and try again (when connected)
Turn off “phone searching” in mi account and try unlocking again

Error -1
Try to sign out of mi account, reboot and sign back in.

Pc errors:

Constantly in Fastboot: “press any key to shutdown” / cannot request parameter
Most often, the problem is the unfriendliness of the USB ports. Slow, “abandoned” usb is the best option. Or look for another computer, or try a USB hub, it’s better.
Ryzen CPUs in PCs get issues with fastboot, so you should seek for fix for this problem.

手机使用未达到指定时间，无法解锁
If you get this error in chinese, then try other versions of miunlock.

Chapter 3: flashing any custom recovery (HARDEST STEP OUT OF ALL)

So we are at the recovery step!

This is the most dangerous and device model dependant step, because some devices require this and some require that, these moments will be marked

So, firstly download adb/fastboot tools from ANDROID DEVELOPERS WEBSITE, NOT OTHERS.

After it is done, then extract your archive in one folder, and the recovery that is for your device.

Again: not responsible for thermonuclear bomb being dropped on you if you bricked a phone with wrong recovery. In most cases it would say that there is not enough space to flash it.

So! To flash a recovery, you should type cmd instead of folder path where fastboot is in the explorer window. The cmd window would show up.

Now this step is dependant on device:

Flash vbmeta that you should download and install with “fastboot flash vbmeta vbmeta.img”

Next steps are for all devices:

Flash recovery with “fastboot flash recovery recovery_file_name.img”

Recovery_file_name is your name of recovery that you downloaded

Now you boot in recovery by holding vol+ and power on fastboot screen till phone reboots and shows TWRP logo, if it boots in system, then recovery would be replaced and you would need to reboot back in fastboot and repeat steps in “flash recovery with…”

If you have successfully booted in TWRP, then congratulations! You’ve nailed the hardest part!

Chapter 4: flashing ROM (depends from device to device)

So, time to wipe storage and flash a ROM!

Most of these steps that we follow, we should remember and call it clean flash mandatory.

1. Wipe partitions (DEVICE DEPENDANT)
2. Flash firmware (DEVICE DEPENDANT)
3. Format data
4. Reboot in recovery
5. Install ROM zip
6. Install other zips if needed like Gapps (google apps) which depend on ROM, decryption zips also depend.
7. When rebooting, do not accept to install twrp app.

And now, dramatic moment… REBOOT!

Bootloop on ROM logo? Format data!
Phone stuck on phone logo? It cannot boot in ROM, flash something different.

So, i wasted 1 day on writing this guide, but it was something special for me to do after gaining knowledge and seeing how my past guides were not as exact as they seemed previously.

And maybe if you were reading, your phone would probably boot at this moment, if booted, then congratulations! You nailed custom romming. Happy new adventures with your fast and customizable phone!