Hello,

I've been using LineageOS (former CM) or its various forks pretty much since Android 2.x. It is still fine for my needs, but I wanted to try something different. My second-hand Pixel 9a just arrived, so it opens up some possibilities (even better than my former Poco F1, I think); AFAIK the general choices are (please let me know, if I omitted something important):

• LineageOS
• CalyxOS
• /e/
• GrapheneOS
• iodeOS

My expectations / usage is:

• Almost no social media usage (unless you count Steam Chat)
• Almost no gaming (outside of things like ScummVM), 0 gaming online
• Desire to use 0 Google services/apps (I only watch/listen to YT through NewPipe, and download apps from Aurora)
• No mandatory sync / call to some 3rd party services
• Interest in using FOSS software wherever possible, though obviously need to obtain others as well; interest in side-loading in the future when Google is planning to cripple the ability to do so
• Interest in safety, privacy and all that, although not to paranoid level
• 0 interest in built-in themes, wallpapers. apps, and especially forks of already existing apps (I can find my own apps for photos, notes, and whatnot, I don't want excessive amount some ROM-provided extras, that I then will need to remove); the only exception could be something low-level, and obvious to have (eg. it would be nice to have Aurora, microG, F-droid out of the box)
• microG and some general open-source replacements pre-configured (tried to install them manually once, they didn't work for whatever reason); one of the pain points of pure LineageOS was the fact that if I had eg. app that had optional map usage, I would see just white space where the map should be; I wonder if it is possible to replace it on system-level somehow (just installing some FOSS map app from F-droid didn't help me with that); I also had issues with notifications for some apps, if I understand correctly microG should fix that (?)
• possibility to still use root (Magisk) and OrangeFox/TWRP Recovery; that said, I use former only for AdAway and AFWall+, and the latter for backups (so if there are alternatives, I could give it up)
• some form of passing safety check (or whatever it's called), that blocks some apps from working; some complain about lack of Play Services, others about root etc. (thankfully my banking app works fine, but eg. carrier app doesn't)
• would be nice to have constant updates (eg. in case of LoS you can update as you go, but then major version required me to flash manually, often with full wipe)

So with that being said: I can always go back to LineageOS, but I keep it as reserve. CalyxOS is defunct atm (I think?), /e/ is out of the question (don't care for their focus on look and using unknown 3rd party API for their app store is straight up red flag to me).

Unless I'm missing something, that leaves GrapheneOS and iodeOS. First one I am unfamiliar with, not sure if it isn't too complicated for every day usage (I don't have time to study the whole doc, I'm not THAT interested in this stuff anymore); also, it seems to have this reputation of being for paranoid people and/or shady usages (which I'm not sure is justified tbh). On the other hand there is iodeOS, which seems to be what I'm looking for, but strangely gets very little press (despite of it being open sourced years ago), even their source code barely has any stars; I'm also not sure how much changes / actual development there is in it over vanilla LoS (I mean is it just some re-skin of LoS with couple apps on the top, or something more).

Any suggestions? Maybe some red flags about any of those ROMs? Or maybe there is something else that I'm missing?

i was just trying to unlock the bootloader of my Redmi 9A using my phone with the app called termux (yeah, i know how to unlock the bootloader of some devices using termux) and my Redmi 9A hard bricked during the process.

Does anyone have a link for the official stock rom for Redmi 9A? It's the indian version called "Redmi 9A sport", running Android 11, Miui 12.5.9.