It has been years since I have installed a custom rom on my device.
Today, I successfully installed Lineage OS on my Xiaomi phone. The rom is no longer maintained by Lineage, so I had difficulty finding the ROM file since the team removed it from their website. I searched through some websites and I was able to finally find the .zip file. I also had difficulty in unlocking the bootloader because the Xiaomi unlocking tool would not send the OTP to my device. But I was able to fix the problem by using an updated version of the tool.
Flashing the rom was super easy. The instructions on Lineage OS website is really good and helpful. I had also watched a video on the process. Initially, I was hesitant to install the rom as the volume buttons don’t really work properly. With the help of ADB and a ball-pen to push the volume buttons, everything went well.
The main intention behind installing Lineage OS was to get rid of Xiaomi apps and spyware off my phone. But I still have gapps(nano) on my phone. Yes, I know about microg and magisk! The process of installing it seems really complex. Also, Aurora Droid no longer works, since google rate limited the anonymous accounts.
I like only use three closed source and non free apps. The rest are from F-droid.
TLDR: I installed Lineageos on my phone with gapps. The installation process went surprisingly well. I did not expect flashing the rom to be this easy.
Installing Lineage OS (or most custom ROMs) isn’t hard. It’s getting the phone to the state to accept custom ROMs that might be tricky.
I think Xiaomi’s process is actually quite painless, once you get the boot unlocker working. I remember they make people wait to get the unlock going, did that happen to you?
I personally preferred the Twrp custom recovery route for loading ROMs, it makes it pretty quick and easy. Also good if you like trying out ROMs!
Lots of phones don’t have a working TWRP ported for them, unfortunately.
I guess I’ve been lucky then! TWRP is really nice if your phone has it.
If you thought that was easy, wait 'til you see some ROMs like GrapheneOS have web based installers https://grapheneos.org/install/web
For Aurora, you can search for the app on your browser then on the play store webpage, your browser should give an option to open it in the Aurora app
If the option is not there: Settings > Apps > Aurora Store > Open by default > Open Supported Links, then tick play.google.com and market.android.com
Magisk is not hard to install either, especially if you’re using LineageOS (since the Lineage bootloader is readily available). Look up a guide sometime, if you managed to flash a.ROM you should have no problems with it.
Once Magisk is installed in the bootloader you just need to run the companion Magisk app for settings, and Fox’s Module Manager to find and update Magisk modules. It’s basically a sort of specialized app store that deals in Magisk modules only.
In fact you may want to have a look at Fox’s before you install Magisk, see if you find any interesting module. There’s some really cool stuff available.
I do not recommend using Fox Manager. Their repos are outdated. Better search for modules directly on github or just type “module-name-here releases” in your search engine and there is a 99% chance that you will get the latest version.
Edit: Some modules can be updated directly in magisk app.
