[Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC Questions & Answers] osbo9991:
Hey everyone,

I am planning on installing crdroid on my POCO X3 NFC. This is the first time I am installing a custom rom on any phone, so naturally I have a few questions before I begin. I have tried my best to do my research beforehand, but I still have some questions about the process, and the installation instructions in the rom thread are not enough for a novice like myself (see https://xdaforums.com/t/rom-android-13-0-surya-crdroid-v9-10-official-13-10.4198947/ for thread), no offense to the developer(s) behind crdroid of course. Below, I have posted questions that I couldn't find an answer to. Apologies in advance for the huge thread.

1. My plan is that I will use the rom's thread to get an idea on the order of operations, and then use youtube videos from munchy as reference for each step. However, I have seen that some people will do things in a different order than specified in my rom's XDA thread. For example, in this random tutorial (not munchy):

the rom is flashed, then booted into, then we boot back into the custom recovery and flash a gapps package. But in the xda thread, it seems to suggest that you should flash gapps before even rebooting to system. I guess what I am asking is what things must be installed at particular times/rely on things being flashed previously?

2. Bootloader unlocking. I am following this tuturial from munchy:

and when he gets to the part about xiaomi cloud, I found that xiaomi changed the interface a little bit. On his device, it has two toggles (Sync and Find Device); on mine, there are several sync app data toggles as well as Backups and Find Device options, and some of them do not activate properly (messages and call history). How many of these do I actually need to do a bootloader unlock, especially if I never used any of those stock miui apps?

3. Gapps. Crdroid recommends nikgapps, so I went to the release page on sourceforge. I clicked download latest version, and the config file it came with was a little random and did not match any distributions on their website. I later discovered that there is a releases folder, but my confusion does not end there. The config file bundled with each release doesn't make sense to me. I downloaded nikgapps core from the releases/nikgapps-T folder, and the config seemed to have every single app install instead of just the core apps. I tried downloading nikgapps basic next, and the config file was identical. Where am I supposed to go to find the correct releases?

4. [ANSWERED] KernelSU. If I use it, will I need magisk at all? All I want is for every app to work regardless of bootloader, root status, etc. Also, how am I intended to install it on crdroid? Do I just follow the instructions here: https://kernelsu.org/guide/installation.html under "install with custom recovery"? Or is it just baked into crdroid's stock kernel on compile time (ie I would simply need to install the kernelsu app for it to work)? Is there a specific time that I should flash kernelsu if I need to install it with TWRP, such as before booting to system?

5. Factory Reset+Format Data. From this tutorial:

, we go to wipe=>format data=> type yes. Isn't formatting the data partition essentially a more through factory reset? Is there a reason that the rom thread said "factory reset + format data" instead of simply "format data"? Is there a factory reset option somewhere in TWRP?

6. Disable Force Encryption. Should I use it? I probably won't be installing new custom roms all the time, but I will want to be able to access other partitions such as the /data partition to access and backup old android game saves. If I do not flash DFE, will I be able to access, modify, or copy files in the /data partition? For other partitions? Finally, is it necessary to flash DFE to use backup tools like nandroid backup, swift backup, etc? Or do I just need KernelSU/root access to do that?