Development of 10 (LOS 17.1) has reached maturity and stability enough, and thanks to having
@Linux4 on our side and his work / dedication, to push into Lineage's "official" status. While the 11 (LOS 18.1) builds are not yet "official" yet, and in some ways still a big WIP.
You might notice plenty of other devices
never end up with an "official" build of LOS / certain versions. Sometimes it's even just a matter of if the dev just doesn't want to bother submitting an application to Lineage to bring it to official status. Or maybe certain hardware components aren't working and / or never feasibly will outside of stock (Samsung is famous for keeping some of their device drivers / kernels completely closed-source. Also I ditched Samsung phones after Galaxy S5 because they locked down the Snapdragon variants so hard, even on previously unlockable carrier variants like T-Mobile - while many regions particularly outside of USA had Exynos variants with unlockable BL and such).
Anyway, I did have a question for ya
@Linux4: I just flashed the 01/13/2021 update over installed 01/06/2021 system using Lineage Updater. This went as smoothly as anyone can ask for, except that I noticed I lost root after booting back up, and I had to flash Magisk again afterwards (can just flash the zip in Lineage Recovery, no big deal). Apparently Lineage Updater/Recovery must have ignored or missed the Magisk addon.d script? Gapps (OpenGapps "Stock") persisted though, and no Google apps / services seem wonky at all. I can only assume the Magisk addon.d script was there before OTA, but of course I can't know for sure after the fact. I checked just now and see it, so I'll keep my eyes on it when next OTA comes around. (I have 50-lineage.sh, 70-gapps.sh, and 99-magisk.sh - all looks as it should be)
On another note - just use Lineage Recovery for now, people! Unfortunately I learned my lesson last week, when I tried to flash the OTA with TWRP and ended up in bootloop, due to ignoring warnings about FBE. Flashing back to 12/30/2020 didn't work either, whether with TWRP or Lineage Recovery, so I had to factory wipe. Oops.
Edit: one more question: does Lineage Recovery also get updated when flashing the new system update / OTA? Or would we need to do that manually via odin / sdk tools / terminal? And (if not automatically updated) when would we know when it's actually necessary / when we should actually bother? Sorry, I'm actually new to Lineage Recovery myself... Thanks L!