[Samsung Galaxy S7 (Exynos) ROMs, Kernels, Recoveri] Seanthedroid:
Yeah, at this point the people who were complaining about the lack of updates (and cleaned from the thread) really don't make sense anymore. Of course he's doing this in his spare time for optional donations, and he had to replace the screen on a phone that apparently isn't even his main phone anymore. There are people with problems that seem to be related to very specific car models and carriers, but for most, googling those issues suggests that plenty of people with stock phones have the same problem too. It's never going to be as stable and well-supported by the hardware as a stock ROM, but everything works and it's a daily driver at this point. All of the LineageOS features are here, and anything extra, that people want but Ivan shouldn't and can't include due to the resulting fork in the LineageOS source that would reduce maintainability, can mostly be had via root apps or Magisk modules. It's a heck of a lot more stable than plenty of stock firmware I've seen from second-tier brands like Moto, LG, and Nokia.

I'm worried about monthly security updates too, but the reality is, a phone with an unlocked bootloader and custom recovery leaves your data vulnerable to anyone with the slightest knowhow anyway, moreso than an unpatched vulnerability can leave any stock phone. Anyone flashing LineageOS accepts that risk, regardless of what patch level they're on, and I for one run Adaway and YouTube Vanced (which is the only currently working solution to block YouTube ads) to mitigate it. If another major vulnerability in the messaging or phone app gets found and goes unpatched in this beta, that can be mitigated by using an alternative app that isn't installed as system. Magisk module solutions exist or will come to exist for most real blockbuster vulnerabilities, such as Stagefright or Blueborne. Although I know Ivan discourages the use of Magisk because it's unsupported, potentially makes piracy easier, and subverts a developer's security efforts (what's the point of doing anything at all to verify the user when someone can just copy/paste the app data with the session token to other devices?), which even though I like to use Magisk anyway, I can see his point.

Maybe he's starting work on Android 10, or maybe he's just taking a well-earned break, but the differences between 9 and 10 don't seem to be ones that should affect much under the hood. IIRC, Going from 8.1 to 9 was such a headache for everyone, not just Ivan, because all of the AI stuff and new API restrictions had to be worked around for everything to work the same, and hardware-dependent features like adaptive brightness and battery management saw major changes. Drivers from Oreo had to be reverse-engineered into a working state independently, with very little source provided that would actually compile, then updated from scratch to support new features they weren't designed for. Even some devices that had Treble saw issues with unofficial ROMs go on for longer than any Android version since Lollipop. Although I haven't looked into it extensively, Android 10's changes seem to mostly lie in the desktop environment, app UIs, and Google Play Services. Nothing you wouldn't be able to update on a Linux distro without ever touching /lib/modules/linux-x.xx/kernel/drivers. Hopefully this will be easier for him.