The whole point of unlocking the bootloader on a Xiaomi phone is to replace the shit Xiaomi ROM with something better, at which point you don’t care about updates for the Xiaomi one anymore.
Also considering the huge barriers they put to try and dissuade people from unlocking the bootloader on their phones - the “have the phone register itself in our system and then wait 168h (1 week) before you can unlock the bootloader” is especially entertaining - I don’t think there are that many people out there unlocking the bootloader on their Xiaomi phone just for fun.
At least it seems like you can still do a backup, re-lock the bootloader, apply for an upgrade, then unlock the bootloader again and restore the backup - right?
How do you figure? The actual article states that only Chinese users with a certain post rating on their forums will be eligible to apply for an unlock of their phones.
Users outside of China will not be able to unlock at all.
What? My point is that I wonder if there are hardware and bootloader level back doors that survive flashing a new ROM or if you can be truly clean flashing a trusted AOSP one.
because I really don’t understand this argument here.
Android is still FOSS. you can grab the source code, modify it and use it, if you really want.
even so, since Xiaomi provides you tools and codes to unlock the phone and install any other compatible system on it.
oh, no more updates then for MIUI? the heavily modified version of Android that Xiaomi is making and providing services for it? and then, the whole FOSSness is breaking for you if they say no more updates for their version if you open the loader? who would have thought.
why would you do that, in the first place? I guess to install other roms. so you probably don’t like MIUI anyway.
or you want to modify MIUI? you know that 90% of hacks just don’t fucking work with MIUI’s framework, right? that it’s breaking and shit. and then, if that happens, who would you call? well, not the ghostbusters but go to MIUI support snd blame them for your shitty modifications.
tell me, please, how Android is not FOSS anymore, I really wanna know what keeps you up at nights.
true, but you aren’t obligated to use any of that. the FOSSness of the OS itself doesn’t change.
lots of apps aren’t even FOSS on Android. FOSS ones usually have versions that aren’t dependent on Google Services, or you can patch them not to use them, with various results, that’s true.
If so much of the core Android experience is proprietary-dependent, can you really say Android itself is FOSS? Might as well call the non-proprietary, open-source parts something else… Like… Android Open Source Project (AOSP)?
AOSP can stand on its own foot on a device, you don’t need any peoprietary stuff to get it up and running (except maybe vendor specific things, like drivers, if the given device needs those). Maybe it’s my fault, but I would call that Android. (maybe it’s like Chrome vs Chromium, VSCode vs Codium etc…)
It’s another story people got used to the package Google provides, but in my understanding, it’s completely optional. You aren’t bound to the services they provide on a clean Android.
As a distinction AOSP vs Android is as important as Chromium vs Chrome. It is much more than semantics, it is literally the difference between an open-source project vs not.
Fact is if you present the de-Googled AOSP to regular users, they’d think it’s a broken experience without all the Google apps and services that people come to expect - Maps, Mail, Calendar etc. Drivers and device specifics firmware are also a big part of the foundational Android user experience. So to call Android = AOSP = open source is a mass simplification and definitely hand-waving away the reality of how each system operates and the whole point of open source projects.
So to call Android = AOSP = open source is a mass simplification and definitely hand-waving away the reality of how each system operates and the whole point of open source project
I absolutely don’t aggree with this part, especially the second half, but I see where you coming from and your reasoning.
Separate terms to tell different things apart, I’m not sure what’s there to disagree about. It’s literally in the name, Android Open Source Project lol.
I mean, why would I ever unlock the bootloader if I’m going to keep the stock OS? People don’t just unlock the bootloader and leave it there sitting doing nothing 😂
I have never met a person that just rooted their phone without slapping a custom ROM on it. The initial motive for rooting is normally to install a custom ROM, but that makes sense I guess
Edit: yup, I’m wrong about needing root to install a custom ROM. My apologies, my last rooted device was the galaxy note 3 back in 2013/2014. My memory is very rusty.
“The initial motive for rooting is normally to install a custom rom”.
Nope.
Rooting has nothing whatsoever to do with installing a custom rom.
Root is a function within a rom - it’s the equivalent of granting admin access in Windows (root means you have write access to the root directory). Most ROMs that you can install aren’t rooted themselves. That’s how little root is related to rom.
What is common between rooting and a custom rom is the requirement for an unlocked bootloader.
I’ve rooted almost every phone I’ve owned (since 2009), and all but the last 2 never had a custom rom available. Most phones don’t have a custom rom available - it’s a rare phone that does have a custom rom available.
Check out rom developers, like Lineage, to see how many devices get custom rom support.
I have never met a person that just rooted their phone without slapping a custom ROM on it.
Now you have
The initial motive for rooting is normally to install a custom ROM
I think there are some misunderstandings.
Root is not needed to flash a custom ROM. That does not (usually) happen from a running system, but through fastboot or the recovery, and those don’t ask for root permission, only an unlocked bootloader.
Well depends on why you’re unlocking the bootloader. Some people just want root but not necessarily a custom ROM. Though for some phones a custom ROM may be more appealing than others.
Is there a way to lock the bootloader and keep a ROM different from the one the device shipped with? Or do I need to relock and reunlock every time I need to update the custom ROM, with all the data loss this implies?
Is there a way to lock the bootloader and keep a ROM different from the one the device shipped with?
That might depend on the device. I used to tinker and switch a lot, but haven’t in years. I do however have GrapheneOS (which is not a ROM, but “a privacy and security focused mobile OS with Android app compatibility developed as a non-profit open source project”) on my Pixel and it gets regular updates. Most times weekly/every-other-week, but at worst monthly with the monthly security patches, often before Google releases them…all with the bootloader locked, per GrapheneOS’ recommendation.
I say all that to say…not 100% sure outside of my personal and recent experience with GrapheneOS on Pixels, and I haven’t had enough coffee yet to do research into phones I don’t have.
Magisk, Revanced using root to simply replace stock YouTube app without having to deal with MicroG, tuning kernel to achieve Moah powa babeh, better battery, etc.
Don’t people usually flash a custom rom when they unlock their bootloader? Somehow if you are still on the stock rom can’t you just flash the update since you have already unlocked the bootloader?
The only spyware you should be concerned about is that from your own country. That’s the country that can actually do things against you with the information. What are you worried about “China” doing with your chats or metadata on which apps are open?
It’s worse than that. All this China big brother talk is just a variant of xenophobia. It’s a talking point they’ve been trained to slam their foreign “enemies” about without ever thinking about it at all of what the actual harm they’re concerned about would look like.
Overlooking the title, the real news to me in this article is the rapidly increasing difficulty of getting permission from that vendor to unlock your bootloader in the first place.
I wish flashing custom ROMs was like flashing custom firmware to routers. With most routers you can return it back to stock and no one will know the difference.
Not enforceable in Europe. The OEM would have to explicitly prove that the bootloader unlock is what caused the issue that brought about the warranty claim.
I just know that unlocking a pixel voids the warranty
And how do you “just know” that? Any sources? Everything I’ve read and even done with my Pixel says otherwise, though I do return to stock and relock before returning.
It’s so weird that Google’s phone has been the most accessible for unlocking your phone. Oneplus used to be good too, but then they became bad in that area too and now custom rom scene seems dead for newer Oneplus phones.
On that note, Xiaomi also used to be good. In fact, xiaomi’s initial popularity is for the ease of unlocking and rooting. Once it gain popularity, it started to lock down, much like the path OnePlus is on.
they were godsends back in the OnePlus 6/7 days because their phones and custom OS was meant to be more root friendly than the rest. it was what sold me and a buddy of mine on them in the first place
sadly, it’s gone south now but it was fun back when it happened
Yeah, I’ve been waiting since a week to unlock my bootloader. I still have to wait 4 more days to be able to unlock. Once it’s done I’m going to Lineage OS.
Xiaomi phones have a good hardware to price ratio. I’ve got a headphone jack, dual SIM, and a dedicated memory card slot.
I got my Redmi Note 11 one and a half years ago. The waiting time for their shitty tool to unlock the bootloader after a week wasn’t the biggest obstacle for me. What really pisses me off is that they violated their obligations to upload the kernel sources and therefore significantly delayed custom ROM development. While being a cheap and popular device, it hasn’t received Lineage OS support and probably never will. That ship has sailed because Xiaomi just doesn’t give a fuck about what their end of the deal is if they want to use a decent FOSS based OS on their phones instead of spending huge amounts of money and time to build their own ecosystem.
It does seems that they just made it nearly impossible to unlock the phone for the Chinese version of their phone: You need to be ‘level 5’ in their shitty forum. And from what I gathered this involves posting hundred or thousand of messages with a lot of likes.
I don’t think it will take long before they pull the same kind of bullshit for the global version of the phone unless there is a general outcry.
Xiaomi historically had a problem with resellers installing malware in custom ROM on their phones, so they started putting up more and more obstacles to unlocking the bootloader over time, while still providing an avenue for legitimate customers to unlock.
I don’t know what spurred the current action though.
Great. Had 2 Xiaomi phones now, as I love the hardware and ability to quite easily unlock in order to install Xiaomi.eu and Magisk. If this is no longer possible, my next phone won’t be Xiaomi.
Let’s hope. I’ve lived my OnePlus3 (specially with GCam), but they became more expensive. I go for the flagship every 3 years, so I need a great phone, unlockable and hit costing so much.
I did exactly the same thing in 2018 with my MiMix 2 & still love using it. Maybe a OnePlus, Pixel or Motorola would be my next one? I can’t think of any others that you can still easily unlock.
Add comment