[Xiaomi Poco F3 / Xiaomi Mi 11X / Redmi K40] DarthJabba9:
1. There have been a spate of Android 13/14 ROMs for Alioth, that use "vendor_boot-as-recovery" ("vendor_boot") instead of the standard "boot-as-recovery" (these represent just two out of four possible permutations of device/ROM). A number of Android 13 custom ROMs fall into this category.

2. A "vendor_boot" ROM has its recovery resources in the "vendor_boot" partition, instead of the standard "boot" partition.

3. A "vendor_boot" ROM

requires a different kind of recovery

- one that is installed into the vendor_boot partition.

If you flash a standard recovery to a vendor_boot ROM, you can get a bricked device

, which will be

very tricky

to fix. So it is important to know whether you have a standard ROM, or whether it is a "vendor_boot" ROM. If you are not sure which kind of ROM it is (especially for new releases) you should ask your ROM's maintainer -

before

flashing it.

4. The requirement of a vendor_boot recovery for vendor_boot ROMs is the main difference between vendor_boot ROMs and the standard ROMs. Also, you cannot boot a vendor_boot recovery image by running "fastboot boot ..." on it (I have since discovered that, at least on one vendor_boot ROM, you can still "fastboot boot" a standard recovery image - but decryption fails).

5. For practical purposes, everything else in the ROMs looks the same to the end user.

6. OrangeFox Recovery Project has released a vendor_boot variant for Alioth [https://xdaforums.com/t/recovery-12...ry-project-r11-1.4472617/page-4#post-88415935].

6A. Those who are interested are also welcome to try out the new Unified OrangeFox Beta, which aims to support both standard and vendor_boot ROMs in one unified release. We would be interested to hear your experiences with using the unified variant on a vendor_boot ROM. The unified beta is confirmed to work well with all ROMs,

except Paranoid Uvite

- you need the full vendor_boot release for that ROM.

7. I have started this thread to start to compile a list of the Alioth ROMs that use vendor_boot-as-recovery. I also aim to provide other information that is relevant to vendor_boot-as-recovery for Alioth (things may be very different on other devices).

8. The list starts with the vendor_boot ROMs that I am personally aware of. The list will be updated as and when I am aware of more vendor_boot ROMs. Hopefully, the information on this page will be useful to someone.

9. Please note that the list below

is for information only

. By creating this list, I am

not

endorsing (or otherwise) any ROM that appears there. It is for you to investigate and make up your own mind about any of them. And note that some ROMs have moved away from vendor_boot, for some releases subsequent to the ones listed below.

10. Some ROMs seem to accept both vendor_boot and standard recoveries. You need to do some detailed investigations before doing anything. Also,

please see the "LATEST NOTES" section

at the end of this post.

Vendor_Boot Android 13 ROMs for Alioth

1.

Paranoid Android Topaz

(20230125/20230426 releases): [https://xdaforums.com/t/paranoid-android-topaz-beta-1-poco-f3-mi-11x-redmi-k40.4546683/]

2.

Paranoid Android Topaz Stable 3

(20230723 official release): [https://xdaforums.com/t/rom-officia...-f3-redmi-k40-mi-11x-alioth-aliothin.4608643/]

3.

tequilaOS

(20230412 release): [https://tequilaos.pl/download/alioth]

4.

Project Zephyrus CLO

(20230412/20230504 releases): [https://sourceforge.net/projects/projectzephyrus-clo/files/alioth/]

5.

StatiXOS

(20230207/20230423 releases): [https://xdaforums.com/t/rom-official-13-statixos-v6-1-alioth-aliothin.4549639/] (these specific releases can only be installed via fastboot). Note: the 20230505 release is

NOT

vendor_boot.

6.

PalyrimOS v1.5

: [https://sourceforge.net/projects/palyrimos/files/13/alioth/]

7.

Project404 Community edition v6.1

: [https://sourceforge.net/projects/gengkapak/files/ROM/alioth/Project-404/13/]

8.

Project Elixir (3.7/3.8/3.9)

: [https://xdaforums.com/t/rom-13-0-alioth-project-elixir-official-aosp.4579015/]

9.

BananaDroid

(20230416/20230502/20230514 releases): [https://xdaforums.com/t/rom-13-0-alioth-bananadroid-official.4579643/]

10.

AlphaDroid (20230428/20230519/20230609 releases)

: [https://sourceforge.net/projects/alphadroid-project/files/alioth/]

11.

SparkOS (13.6 - 20230531)

: [https://sourceforge.net/projects/sparkosofficial/files/alioth/]

12.

Pixel Experience Plus (20230715-0054-OFFICIAL)

: [https://get.pixelexperience.org/alioth]

13.

Evolution X (230901.001.b1-10140737)

: [https://sourceforge.net/projects/evolution-x/files/alioth/13/] (this ROM is some sort of hybrid, but it is best treated as vendor_boot).

* If there is any ROM that should not be on this list, please let me know why you think it should not be on the list.

* If there is a ROM that should be on the list, which is not currently there, please provide the name and version number of the ROM, and a public download link.

LATEST NOTES

1. Many ROMs have now moved from vendor_boot to the standard recovery-as-boot;

2. The latest releases of OrangeFox recovery (from R11.1.5 Stable onwards) now have unified features, and so can handle properly most vendor_boot ROMs (

except

Paranoid Uvite, which still requires the vendor_boot variant of OrangeFox).